From funny writer Jason Roeder comes his debut book, Oh the Humanity: A Gentle Guide to Social Interaction for the Feeble Young Introvert. Roeder is a humor writer, which means he is unemployed. He writes a column for Writer's Digest called "Roeder Report" and has been published in such so-so publications as Salon, The New Yorker, and McSweeney's.

Here's a preview of what you'll encounter in Oh the Humanity.

One valuable section, "Obliterating Yourself With Alcohol-Responsibly," lends advice on how to use the "confidence tonic" to improve upon your usual stammering and awkward self. Another, "Humor: Harnessing Your Inner Wayans Brother," teaches you how to make jokes that don't suck. And, in "Can I Be Too Curious?" Roeder offers such sage advice as: "1. Avoid asking strangers where they like to be nibbled. 2. Avoid asking them to confirm their gender. 3. Avoid asking them to confirm your gender."

Jewcy: Humor writing is vacuous. Do you think so?

Jason Roeder: Spoken like someone who's never read a single word of a "You Might Be a Redneck" desk calendar.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of publishers who will take a chance on a humor book that doesn't seem to have loud novelty value. The humor sections of most bookstores are clogged with books that are really more like extended greeting cards. If you've ever opened a Shoebox Greeting and thought, "Man, I wish that dismal punch line pertaining to how decrepit I am at age 40 could go on for a hundred more pages," I have some fantastic news for you, my friend.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't exactly written Crime and Punishment myself, but I don't think a humor book has to be literary fake vomit, either.

J: What's the funniest thing you've ever written?

JR: Honestly, I'd say my master's project from journalism school. It was slapdash and superficial and awful. It might have been 20 pages. My advisor said that it wasn't even journalism. I said, "Thank God."

My favorite intentionally funny piece is probably my first: "I Enjoy Taunting Insomniacs." Insomnia used to be a problem for me, a huge one. A few years ago, I was into my third day without sleep. I had either begun to hallucinate, or Technicolor amoebas had moved into my apartment. I sat down and typed out 500 words of verbal abuse from the perspective of someone who just enjoyed a full eight hours and decided to brag about it. It's the only piece I've ever written that provoked more than one email with "You Dick" typed into the subject field.

J: As your book tells us, it turns out that empathy helps in making friends. Here's what you have to say about it: "Sometimes we can draw on our life experiences to empathize with someone. For example, a friend of mine recently described how frustrating it was trying to get through to his uncle with Alzheimer's. Although no one in my family has that terrible disease, I remember an unproductive conversation I had with an L.L. Bean customer-service representative who insisted there were no hunter-green chamois pajamas in stock. On another occasion, I was unable to get a waitress's attention immediately. So, although I couldn't relate to the specifics of my friend's situation, I knew his emotional struggle all too well."

JR: We all have more in common with each other than we think, shared emotional, if not factual, histories. When a homeless person raises his Styrofoam cup, I know the only change he really wants is my two cents' worth! So, I tell him how down-and-out I was when my DSL wasn't operational for seven straight hours before it suddenly just started working again for some reason. The way he hurls garbage at me says, "I'm not so alone, after all."

J: The New Yorker published your writing in a Shouts & Murmurs column last fall. That must've been a shitty day in the life of Jason Roeder.

JR: Oh, certainly. You get the acceptance email, and you spend the rest of the day with a trembling shotgun against your chin, wondering if you're man enough to do what has to be done. Actually, a clip in The New Yorker is a good thing, though any time I hear someone say that the stuff in Shouts just isn't that funny or should be funnier, I realize that I'm now probably part of the complaint. And when critics point out how infrequently women appear in Shouts & Murmurs, I recognize that I contribute to the imbalance. The reason I say that is because I have a penis.

J: You recently moved from Boston to New York. Which is better?

JR: First of all, I have no allegiance to the Yankees or Red Sox. I think I'll side with whichever team switches to football first.

It's hard to choose a favorite because I've only been in New York a couple of months. I'm still contending with the transition and feel like a tourist in many ways. I was on a date a couple of weeks ago, and the woman chided me for not detesting "sanitized" Times Square quite as much as I'm apparently supposed to. I guess I see her point. It took me more than an hour to get a hand job at M&M's World.

J: In regards to gay marriage you write, "What could be more transgressive than wanting to participate, as billions of others have, in one of civilization's most ancient institutions?"

JR: Well, I hope in my lifetime that gay marriage will cease to be a social issue, and I think the longer it exists, the tougher it will be to argue that the institution of marriage is being contaminated by it. Then again, the most recent census reported that 74.3 percent of Americans are credulous dildos, so who can say?

I remember how there'd be some important gay-marriage-related vote at the statehouse in Boston, and you'd see a photo of a righteous busybody evidently not needed in the workforce holding up a sign that read something like, "God Made Adam And Eve, Not Adam And Steve." I would've loved to have held up my own sign that said, "God Didn't Make Adam And Eve, Either, Bitch." Why not bring up evolution while you've got a fundamentalist's attention?

J: What's up next after "Oh the Humanity" tops the Times' Bestseller list?

JR: The second stage of the Apocalypse, I would imagine. And possibly a novel.

J: Besides world peace, what's your hope for the future?

JR: I'm not ready for world peace, not until Cyprus apologizes to me. You know what you did, Cyprus.

HITLER FANCIED JEW TUNES

THE NEWS:

Hitler had a secret music collection of Russian and Jewish artists. [Guardian Unlimited]

THE CHATTER:

German magazine Der Spiegel reported hundreds of gramophone records were discovered in the attic of a former Soviet intelligence officer, Lev Besymenski. Professor Wolfgang Wippermann, a historian at the Berlin University of the Arts, said, “I'm not surprised that he would, secretly of course, listen to those composers. Hitler loved classical music and he could best relax with his music.” [ABC News]

The Forward’s Bintel bloggers ask if Hitler dug Jewish music. [The Jewish Daily Forward]

REMEMBERING A JEWISH-BORN CATHOLIC CARDINAL

THE NEWS:

Jean-Marie Lustiger, a Jewish-born convert to Catholicism who became a top Vatican figure, died this week. [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

As he lay in a Paris hospice, Cardinal Lustiger reached out to his longtime friend Rabbi Israel Singer.

The Jewish-born Catholic official, who served for decades as a conduit between the Vatican and the Jewish community, called Singer, a former senior official of the World Jewish Congress and a major player in the effort to build Catholic-Jewish ties. Singer flew to Paris and the two met several times before Lustiger succumbed to cancer on Sunday. He was 80.

"He was completely conscious and aware," said Singer, who called Lustiger by his Hebrew name. "Some of the conversations were 25 years old. They were very moving."

THE CHATTER:

Speaking of Jews pining for communion, Jewcy writer Aaron Hamburger explores his own love affair with Catholicism. [Jewcy]

If a Jew can become a top Vatican figure, then why can’t Bugs Bunny be Jewish? David Kaufmann, of the Forward, asks this pivotal question. [The Jewish Daily Forward]

JEWS MUST ACT LIKE LEO AND AL GORE

THE NEWS:

Rabbi Steve Gutow, the executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, writes in a JTA op-ed that energy conservation and reducing greenhouse emissions are an obligation Jews have to the world. Gutgow writes, “The Jewish community is right to make Israel's safety and thwarting Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons top priorities, but energy independence and global warming are equally important in the long run and deserving of the same level of attention.” [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

THE CHATTER:

Jews should not only be concerned with passing on a healthy planet to their children and grandchildren but also the potential impacts of global warming on the nation of Israel: “A national assessment conducted by the Israeli government in 2000 raised the specter of Mediterranean Sea level increases in the narrow coastal strip where 60 percent of Israel’s population lives, changes in rainfall patterns that could disrupt agricultural production and major drops in water supplies.” [The Jewish Week]

Could the fight against global warming finally stop the Darfur genocide, which has been called the world’s first “climate-change conflict”? [Canadian Coalition]

Or, in the wonderful spirit of bigotry and lunacy, we could all just listen to CNN cable TV and syndicated radio host Glenn Beck. [Grist]

Beck said Gore using "same tactic" in fight against global warming as Hitler did against Jews. [Media Matters]

Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government.

You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N.'s enemy: global warming.

BAT MITZVAH GIRL DOES THE UNTHINKABLE

THE NEWS:

Samantha Resnick donated $100,000 worth of Bat Mitzvah money to the Jewish National Fund to build a new playground in Sapir Park in the Arava Valley of Israel. [The Jerusalem Post]

THE CHATTER:

JBloggers say she’s a Bat Mitzvah girl who gets it. [Israel Forum]

Google’s gone screwy: “crazy russian extreme street climbing video” was one of the links that showed up when I searched “Samantha Resnick.” Check it out. Warning: it’s cool but will almost certainly give you a headache. [Google Video]

ALSO IN JEWISH NEWS:

In a groundbreaking move to recognize the experiences of transgender Jews, the Reform movement has published several prayers for sanctifying the sex-change process. [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

Isaac Larian, an Iranian Jewish immigrant, set out in 2000 to create an alternative to Barbie. Seven years later, his line of Bratz dolls is a billion-dollar industry with a new motion picture in theaters. [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

• L.A. mayor pleads to citizens to use less water. [The Los Angeles Times]
• America needs another 9/11? [Philadelphia Daily News]
• The Olsen twins and Brad Pitt in Gawker's gossip roundup. [Gawker]
• Two years after they left former Israeli settlements in Gaza, still looking for a permanent home. [The Jerusalem Post]
• Rev. Billy Graham has good things to say about Hillary Clinton: "There is a warm side to her - and a spiritual one." [New York Daily News]

• Matt Damon and George Clooney support Barack Obama's campaign. [AHN]
• Drudge Report: Catholic priest in Colorado charged for jogging naked. [The Denver Post]
• Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons' decision not to enlist in the military, saying they're showing their support for the country by "helping me get elected." [The Huffington Post]
• Granted new power to spy inside the U.S., the Bush administration may be doing more than eavesdropping on phone calls--it could be watching suspects' every move. [Salon]
• The good, the bad, and the ugly: celebrity tattoos. [TMZ]