The anger burns within

It was nice to see that yesterday's post got a varied response, and tonight I'm not being facetious. LDT gave us some existential angst, while "anon" revealed some great antagonism to the whole religion thing. Do I agree with his assertions? Perhaps.
Who are the clergy exactly who are telling us to suffer? As far as I know, the Rebbe never advocated it. Hiskafia maybe, but that's a different ballgame. Besides, nowadays Hiskafia is taking care of yourself, i.e. three meals a day, exercising thrice a week, and getting your daily dose of TRS. But suffering? Like having to listen to Al Franken talk for more than twenty minutes? No religion would ever mandate that. At least not any religion that I would care to belong to.
The basic question is, how should a person live their lives? With a fatalistic notion that no matter what they do it's predestined to fail, or thinking sunny, happy, ecologically friendly thoughts? And is happiness necessarily part of the equation?

Enough about humanity. As I may or may not have mentioned earlier, life is continuing apace, which means that it's time for a resuming of Yeshiva life, and more excitingly, for a great big thunderstorm that is currently rocking Cottage Grove like nobody's business. Our Fearless and Faithful Leader was blamed for a couple of pretty funny yet very sick jokes, and of course I'll be happy to share 'em with you. Here goes:
It's the first day of school, and the teacher asks the kid in the first row what her name is. The kid answers that her name is "Butterfly". The teacher asks what kind of name is that? The kid answers that right after they were born a butterfly landed on her forehead, so her parents named her after it. The teacher remarks in turn, and moves along to the next kid. He says that his name is "Canary." The teacher, obviously not a quick learner, asks what kind of name is that for a human being? The kid answers that a canary landed on his head and began to sing beautifully as he was being born, so his parents named him after it. The next kid's turn comes, and he says slowly, "Ma nime is Piano."

The next joke is just as sick. Don't worry. A brother and sister run down X-Mas morning to see their gifts under the tree. The girl exclaims, "Ha, I got 100 presents and you only got 2!" The boy retorts, "Ha, you've got leukemia!"

I told you that was a sick joke. Anyway, Our Fearless and Faithful Leader didn't actually say those. But someone did.