AfricaBlog

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life...

Anyone who has watched the Monty Python classic, Life of Brian, will immediately recognize the title of this post. Near the end of the movie, when Brian is on the cross and being crucified, one of the characters starts singing an impossibly happy song reminding the hapless Brian to "always look on the bright side of life."

Well, this story put me in mind of that hilarious bit of gallows humor.

It may be a dim silver lining to a particularly dark cloud, but one apparent result of the AIDS pandemic in Swaziland is that fewer people in the country are smoking.

”When people learn they are HIV-positive, they are counseled to live a healthy lifestyle to prolong their lives. The shock that they may die prematurely of AIDS is just the type of trauma that gets people to stop smoking,” John Kunene, Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, told IPS.

Or, as the Python troupe might sing:

If life seems jolly rotten,
There's something you've forgotten,
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps,
Don't be silly chumps.
Just purse your lips and whistle.
That's the thing.
And...

Always look on the bright side of life.

Of course, I felt guilty about whistling the song in my head...

Read the rest.

Posted by zombyboy at March 29, 2004 11:53 AM