Some Thoughts – Domestic And Foreign

All teachings are mere references.
The true experience is living your own life.
Then, even the holiest of words are only words.
Deng Ming-Dao

To determine the true rulers of any society, you must ask this question; “Who am I not allowed to criticize?”

‘All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician [to keep the hoi-polloi in order], and ridiculous to the philosopher.’

“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon was not an Atheist. He was Catholic and realized how he could use religion to rule the masses.

“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived.”
Isaac Asimov

If prayer actually worked, we’d see two things:
1 – Ambulances would take patients to churches
2 – Christians would have longer life spans than the rest of the population

Most people are not looking for provable truths. Truth is often accompanied by terrible pain, and almost no-one is looking for painful truths. What people need are beautiful, comforting stories that make them feel as if their lives have some meaning. This is where religion comes from.

My favorite part of the Bible is where God gives everyone free will, and then drowns everybody in a flood for not acting the way He wanted.

CREATIONISM
The idea that we are not related to apes, no matter how many genes we share, but are in fact, descended from dirt.

Religion has at every age kept the human mind in darkness and held it in ignorance of its true relations, of its real duties, and its true interests. It is but in removing its clouds and phantoms that we may find the source of truth, reason, morality, and the actual motives which inspire virtue—Jean Messlier 1704

How many religious people does it take to change a light bulb?
None! They just sit in the dark and demand that you believe that the light is still on.

The cold, hard truth is worth so much more than a comforting lie.

“In religions and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions are, in almost every case, gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who themselves have not examined the questions at issue, but have taken them second-hand from other examiners, whose opinions about them are not worth a brass farthing.”
Mark Twain

When you have to ignore mountains of evidence to hold a belief; when your words are those of others to preserve your faith; when you refuse to use logic, to protect your fantasy, your willful ignorance does not make you a unique individual. It doesn’t afford you special consideration.

Actually, it means that you are just plain wrong. It means that you have nothing to add to intelligent conversation. Believers show all the hallmarks of long-term abuse, unable to distinguish threats, fear and degradation, from kindness, love and self-worth.

Atheism says absolutely nothing about the issues of Northern Ireland, Shia/Sunni wars, genocide in Rwanda, questions of religious freedom, stem cell research, or gay marriage.  Atheism is not a belief, it’s not a set of values, it’s not a political movement, it’s not even a platform.  It merely is the understanding that all the religions seem made up.  And since we have no way to figure out if any of them are real, we must deal with life on our own.  We must use our brains.  So let’s quit being dicks to each other, roll up our sleeves, and figure these things out.  And keep making fun of religions.

***

 

’19 A To Z Challenge – P

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Down here at Honest Archon’s Amusement Academy, we’re overstocked with humor. We have a

PLETHORA

of jokes. We have to clear this place to the bare walls.   Today only, for the first fifty people who read this blog-post, we are giving away, absolutely free, 1 refurbished Blonde joke, and 2 brand-new Knock-Knock jokes. Here’s a partial catalog of our jokes. Come get ‘em while they’re hot.

***

There’s a fine line between a numerator, and a denominator.
Only a fraction of people will get that joke.
I’m divided on it.

***

Friend; I heard a great joke the other day, but I don’t know whether I told you.
Me; Is it really funny?
Friend; Yes.
Me; Then you haven’t

***

When I was young, people told me that if I drank 5 glasses of milk, I’d grow up strong and be able to move walls.
Now that I’m older, I can drink 10 pints of beer, and the walls move all by themselves

***

I’ve reached that age where my brain goes from, “You probably shouldn’t say that.” to, “What the Hell, let’s see what happens.”

***

Yes, I walked away mid-conversation. You were boring me to death, and my survival instinct kicked in.

***

There is no “We” in fries!

***

I wanted to be some hot chick’s sugar daddy, but I can only afford to be an artificial sweetener daddy.

***

Be the reason someone smiles today.
Or the reason they drink.
Whatever works.

***

When someone says, “Expect the unexpected” slap them and say, “You didn’t expect that, did you?”

***

AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY ONE-LINE

My wife is still hot….
….It just comes in flashes now

November 1^st….
….National Eat Your Kids’ Halloween Candy after they’ve gone to bed day

It’s all fun and games….
….till Santa checks the naughty list

The first step is admitting you’re a problem

I used to suffer from soap addiction….
….but I’m clean now

Butterflies….
….are not what they used to be

For every action….
….there’s an over-reaction

Where there’s a will….
….there’s a won’t

What do you call a belt made of watches?….
….A waist of time

She only made whiskey….
….but I loved her still

Electricians have to strip….
….to make ends meet.

In search of fresh vegetable puns….
….Lettuce know

My internet was down yesterday so I chatted with my wife for a change….
….I was surprised to learn that she didn’t work for Woolworths anymore.

A proverb walks into a bar, and then leaves almost immediately….
….The bartender mutters, “It goes without saying.”

A probability walks into a bar….
….and the bartender wonders, “What are the chances?”

A déjà-vu walks into a bar and sits down….
….The guy beside her says, “Haven’t I seen you somewhere?”

What do I have up my sleeve for the letter Q?? Stop back later to find out. 😀

 

WOW #51

How to be serious, without getting serious.
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

I have always liked humor and comedy for their own sakes. They raise spirits, lower blood pressure, dissipate anger and depression, and produce feel-good endorphins. I have lived with and among jokes, almost my entire life. I have found that the best way to deal with serious matters, is often to joke about them. “Your Grandpa died? I am so sorry! Let’s have a drunken wake, and make fun of Death.”

These are only a few of the reasons why you lovely readers find my blog-posts sprinkled with a liberal dusting of

Frivolity

triviality, abandon, levity, foolishness.

From the French word frivolité, dating back to 1790–1800. See frivolous, -ity

None of the four words above exactly define frivolity. It’s more like, add them up and divide by four. I don’t like to apply the word triviality, because very little of what I joke about is trivial.

Until recently, you could practice frivolity with gay abandon, but too many Bible Thumpers have lost their sense of humor (and reality, and acceptance, and forgiveness) over anything that is gay.

Levity isn’t bad. We don’t need to get too heavy, when we’re trying to be lighthearted. If any of my readers regard my joking as foolishness, that’s precisely the audience that I’m targeting. I often feel that the foolishness is on the other side.

If you are reading this, it means that my Muse, Erato, has failed to inspire me to compose a 100-word Flash Fiction. That means that there is a 50% chance that I will be publishing another Comedy post on Monday. Why don’t you stop back and find out? 😀

Smitty’s Loose Change #11

Mad Men

Marketers/advertisers are experts at using images and words which make you believe that their products have qualities and abilities that they really don’t. Becel is a well-known brand of margarine. An Ontario food chain has named their house brand, Celeb, an inspired, but possibly illegal, turn of phrase.

They originally packed and sold it in yellow and white containers, virtually indistinguishable from the Becel, but when I went to download a photo, all I can find is the Blue, President’s Choice packaging. I suspect a restraining order.

Already the owner of a Keurig coffee-maker, the wife was convinced to buy a Nespresso coffee-maker. The model name is Vertuo. I believe that the name is supposed to make you think of ‘virtue’ – goodness, righteousness, excellence, admirable quality – for the machine, and perhaps ‘virtuous’ for the buyer – possessing the above qualities.

It also suggests ‘virtuoso’ – a person who has special knowledge or skill in a field. It even piggybacks on the Save The Planet/Eco movement, ‘vert/verde’ – meaning green. When I looked up the translation meaning of this Spanish word, I found that it means ‘spill.’ They’ve called their coffee-making machine a spill. 😆

IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS

These are two excerpts from local marriage counselors who deal with Mennonites. They are greatly concerned with that ‘Go forth and multiply’ thing. These young folks were having trouble.

Now, talking to anyone, especially shy, withdrawn Mennonites, about the mechanics of sex, can be daunting. The first counselor finally elicited a detailed account. The young husband achieved an erection, and inserted it into his wife…. and left it there, until it went flaccid.

The counselor suggested that he withdraw it, and re-insert it, forcefully, rapidly, a number of times. At their next monthly counseling session, both of them offered profuse thanks.

Suspecting sterility, the second counselor went directly to having the husband go to a clinic to provide a semen sample. He came out of the washroom with the sample vial full of a yellow liquid. 😳 He had been urinating inside his wife, thinking that that was how to impregnate her.

***

Our writing is never finished, only temporarily abandoned. We write, because one life is not enough for us.

***

Mighty Carlin Has Struck Out

I recently won another argument with George Carlin. It wasn’t hard. He’s been dead for a couple of years. He liked to riff on English usage, and the Catholic Church. The two topics came together when he wanted to talk about priests taking a vow of celibacy. “No they don’t!” he insisted, “Celibacy only means that you’re not married. They take a vow of chastity.”

No they don’t!! I don’t know how the ex-Catholic thought that the Church had got it wrong all these years. They don’t care if a priest screws everything in the parish, including the goat. That’s all covered by the Ten Commandments, and can be fixed with a quick confession. The Hierarchy is only concerned that there are no legal heirs left behind who might have a claim on any estate, which they feel belongs to them. Archon – 2
Carlin – 0

 

One-Liners Rub off On You

I got a new dry-erase board at work….
….It’s remarkable

People who can’t distinguish between etymology and entomology….
….bug me in ways that I cannot put into words

I could tell you about my addiction to reading books….
….but that’s another story

If you boil a funny-bone….
….you get a laughing-stock
….This is humerus.

I didn’t think that my orthopedic shoes would work….
….but I stand corrected

Why did the coffee file a police report?….
….It got mugged

A toothpick saw a hedgehog….
….”Oh, wow, a bus.” it said.

How do you teach schoolchildren about God?….
….Gather them all in a classroom, and then don’t show up.

I swallowed a laxative with Holy water….
….I’m going to start a religious movement

I nearly bought a hill today….
….but it was too steep

Some people think my puns are juvenile….
….but I like to think of them as full groan

I once had a job prospecting for gold….
….but it didn’t pan out

I got a job in a guillotine factory….
….I’ll be heading there soon

I had amnesia once….
…or twice???

They told me that I was gullible….
….and I believed them

You shouldn’t try to write with a broken pencil….
….It’s pointless

I was addicted to the Hokey-Pokey….
….but I turned myself around

Never argue with a fool….
….they will lower you to their level, and beat you with experience

How do you seduce a fat woman?….
….piece of cake

I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way….
….so I stole a bike, and asked for forgiveness

Practice makes perfect….
….but nobody’s perfect, so why practice?

The floor was so dusty….
…. that it seemed to be suffering from sweep deprivation.

Flash Fiction #206

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

WE STAND ON GUARD

Okay, gentlemen – and ladies, Mardi Gras is still a couple of months away, so this will be our first, get-to-know New Orleans tour. We will be focussing on safety – ways that people can hurt themselves.

Are there potholes where someone might trip and fall in front of a float? Is there a loose power pole, or low-hanging wires? Are there steep brick steps leading to the street, from a bar that’s overstocked with liquor? Is there a tree that some drunken moron might climb to view the parade?

Stay sharp! It will be a busy week for us Guardian angels.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Adoption III

We just accepted three refugees into our home.

After parents, Mama Garden Gnome, and Papa Garden Gnome, were killed in a freak riding-mower accident, my son generously offered to take in their orphaned sons.

Poor Larry is still horrified at the sight, and is covering his eyes. Shemp hears their screams, and covers his ears, while Moe thinks that he might throw up from the gore, and is covering his mouth.

Please note that these boys are genuine, Purebred Garden Gnomes ©, not to be confused with those grape-flavored, animated impersonators, The Smurfs. Smurfs are aptly named. As an adjective ‘smurf’ means illegal/trouble-making/untrustworthy. As a verb, it means con/scam/bamboozle.

As a noun, a smurf is a money-launderer, particularly one who breaks down large amounts of illicit money, into smaller, un-noticed amounts. The next time you see Papa Smurf – that shiny thing on his vest isn’t a gold button, it’s a Bitcoin pin – deceitful little investment broker. 🙄  Our new foster-sons wouldn’t do anything like that. They are honest and upstanding – in the flower garden.

Smurfs are Smurfs in every country except Germany. In Germany, they are called ‘Strumpfs,’ which means ‘stockings.’ I found that out one day, as I was pursuing The Last of The Mohicans. The pioneer explorers of the dense northern New York forests were known as leather-stockings – lederstrumpfs, in German. They used animal hide – usually deer skin – to make tough coverings for their legs, to protect from rattlesnakes, broken branches, brambles, briars, and poison ivy and sumac. There’s none of that in our gardens.

(There are some Stooge sets that are so garish, even the son won’t buy them.)

’19 A To Z Challenge – O

This blog-post will be short and sweet, just like its inspiration

OLIVIA

Olivia, Olivia, have you seen Olivia,
Olivia, the tattooed lady?

Oh, wait! That should be Groucho Marx singing about Lydia, The Tattooed Lady, (Click if you’d like to hear it.) full of racy, risqué, double entendres. The song was first sung in 1939, and it’s easy to include extra little references. When Americans got off their lazy, isolationist asses, and got into WW II, Groucho included the verse, “When she stands, the world gets littler. When she sits, she sits down on Hitler.

I can’t figure out how to make any portion of this post about me, so I’ll just include a link to the one where I debated getting a tattoo myself, for any of you who didn’t see it – and are desperately bored. At least Groucho is dead, and can’t compose a derogatory song about a Grumpy Old Tattooed Dude.

Olivia, as a name, means “Peace.” It comes from ‘olive’, both the tree and the fruit, which comes from the Italian, olea, which is the oil that middle-eastern people learned early to squeeze out. Christians like to claim that the phrase ‘Extend an olive branch,’ which is an offer of peace, comes from the Bible story of the dove returning to Noah with an olive leaf, or twig. But Greeks and Egyptians were using the olive branch 500/700 years B.C.

Olivia was not a common name for centuries. William Shakespeare is often credited with inventing it, but it existed at least 300 years before he included it for a character in Twelfth Night. He only made it a little more well-known and popular. Even a century ago, it was the 2285^th most (least) common girls name.

All that changed in 1986, when Disney Studio released the animated movie, The Mouse Detective, with a cute little female mouse named Olivia Flaversham, and impressionable young mothers began naming their daughters Olivia. More recently, the Disney Channel compounded the interest by offering an animated series named Elena of Avalor. It’s an historic magic story-line, with a young female named Olivia, as assistant to a wizard. As a result, in 2018, the name Olivia was the 3^rd most common girls’ name in The United States, and the 2^nd most popular in Australia.

I luvya Olivia. Please come back in a couple of days, for some more useless trivia. 😀

Flash Fiction #205

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

I’VE GOT A GREAT MEMORY: IT’S JUST REALLY SHORT

Now what was I going downstairs for?? I’d better go back up to the kitchen to find out.

Why am I in the kitchen? I was supposed to be going downstairs for…. something….

Senior citizens’ memories are not necessarily faulty, often just overfull – recollection upon recollection – experience after experience.

Science fiction offers us a future when we might upload our consciousness to a computer. Might be a good idea. Occasionally run a de-frag – do a sort and delete. I don’t need to remember that Bobby peed himself in First Grade. Where is that cake mix we bought the other day?

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

High Drama – Low Comedy

Okay! Move along, move along! Nothin’ to see here. Just another Canadian political rant.

I got another Op-Ed letter published. I shouldn’t phrase it like that. I get almost all my submitted letters published. With print newspapers dying, and readers going to social media, the papers are grateful for any Op-Ed letters. It used to be a contest, and the local paper published 4 -6 letters every day. Now, there’s only 2 letters per issue, and often none.

Still…. I had this to say about our pretty, young (and pretty young) Prime Minister.

Many people, probably Liberal party supporters, want to excuse Justin Trudeau’s Blackface incident, saying that he did not mean to insult anyone. This is true, because Trudeau is far too narcissistic to care about insulting other races.

If it were an isolated incident, performed by an adolescent, it might be understandable, but it’s only one in a string of bad social choices – a blackface, two brownfaces, and his Mr. Dressup tour of India.

At 29, well beyond adolescence, he attended a black-tie society dinner. 500 guests, 249 men dressed in tuxedos, and Ali Baba Justin showed up – poorly.

We don’t need a drama student, or teacher. We need a mature statesman to lead the country, not an entitled rich kid, leading a high school musical!

This is our Prime Minister, Canada. Ain’tcha glad??! This makes Trump look good. Remember this on our upcoming Election Day.