Category Archives: words

The Devil’s Dictionary: then and now: abasement

Every now and then, it is good to revisit a classic, or even a curiosity from the past. The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce was originally published in newspaper installments from 1881 until 1906. You might be surprised how current many of the entries are.

For example, here is a definition for the word abasement. The first definition is Bierce’s. The second one is mine. From time to time, just as it was originally published, we will come back to The Devil’s Dictionary, for a look at it then and how it applies today.

Abasement, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth or power. Particularly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer.

Recent chart showing what a CEO makes versus the average worker makes in several developed nations throughout the world:

Pay ratio

Comparison of pay rate ratio in U.S. and other countries

Abasement, n. Where we are all going to be living as the wealthy 10 percent in the U.S. accumulate even more wealth beyond the 2/3 percent of the net wealth they already have, and the rest of us have to go live in a basement somewhere.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/05/us-inequality-infographic_n_845042.html#s261411&title=Wage_Inequality

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

2 Comments

Filed under Ambrose Bierce, demons, satire, sign of the times, words, writing

The misunderstood PPE gargles

The misunderstood PPE gargles
Are related to the ancient fargles.
They live in a land
Of neither rock nor sand,
But they fit over eyes like sparkles.

These oddly named PPE gargles
Can only be worn by gargoyles.
When they sit on the edge
Of a building or ledge
The gargles give their eyes stargles.

These stargles come out in the night
When there is no moon or no light.
And only the gargoyles can see
With their gargles PPE
All the wonders and terrible frights.

Fargles were gargles of a time
When the gargoyles lived in the brine.
And all they could see
Without the fargles that be
Was the salt, the sea, and the grime.

Gargoyle with his PPE gargles

Gargoyle with his PPE gargles

Now armed with their PPE gargles
Gargoyles with stare at their stargles
They will sit on their ledge
Whole worlds in their heads.
And nary burp, nor chirp, nor hargle.

1 Comment

Filed under abreviation, absurdity, animals, Cartoon, fargles, fun, gargles, gargoyle, Halloween, holiday, humor, imagination, poem, poetry, PPE, Random Access Thoughts, Random thought, story poem, word play, words, writing

Starting with the obvious

Why men shouldn't write advice columns

Some things need no commentary, but I have one below anyway.

Editor’s comment: Some say this is an example of why men should not write advice columns. I say it’s an example of missing the obvious. First, the advice guy should have told the writer to check to make sure there was enough gas in the car’s tank. An empty gas tank and a car will stall easily. Geez, some people never want to start with obvious.

Leave a comment

Filed under absurdity, advice, advice column, age, car, fun, humor, men, obvious, wit, words, writing

A shot across the bow of humor

Following the tragic death of the Human Cannonball at the Kent Show, a spokesman said, “We’ll struggle to get another man of the same caliber.”

Leave a comment

Filed under fun, humor, wit, word play, words

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to abbreviate

From the local newspaper, two TV listings that caught my eye:

(COOK) Extra Virgin Gabriele and Debi get chickens from fresh eggs.

[Is this an example of the philosophical conundrum: which came first, the chicken or the (fresh) egg?]

(HGTV) Donna Decorates Dallas A teen wants a rich, Texas hunting lodge-style in his room.

[I guess it wasn’t enough that Debbie did Dallas already, now it has to be decorated in a rich, Texas hunting lodge style. And for a teen, no less.]

Leave a comment

Filed under abbreviations, absurdity, humor, Random Access Thoughts, Random thought, TV listings, word play, words

Apropos of nothing at all

Oh, if my client weren’t thin,

I might try again

To give ol’ Ozzie a wondrous spin.

But as it stands now,

I’d have to be more than a cow

To udderly grasp the glass teat, oh how?

And if I chocked the chicken

It might take a lickin’

And come round a pickin’

a row

with the cow

or a sow

somehow.

Leave a comment

Filed under absurdity, animals, cow, humor, Ozzie, poem, poetry, Random Access Thoughts, Random thought, word play, words

There once was a man with waders

There once was a man with waders
Who thought he might find him some gators
down at his creek,
where the trash did seep
left often by unkind invaders.

Man in waders

Man trying on waders, getting ready for First Creek Greenway Cleanup, Saturday, September 24th, 9 AM to noon,

It was Saturday, September 24th
when the man and his friends set a course.
from nine until noon
and not a moment too soon
to put an end to this trashy discourse.

So come to First Creek and discover
“treasures” left by some unkind others:
shopping carts and flat tires,
pay phones, couches, and wires
and stuff that the creek tries to smother.

Bring tools and gloves for your hands;
pick up trash for as long as you can.
Once done, we will eat
Magpies cupcakes, Three Rivers treats
and be glad we helped the creek and the land.

Magpies cupcakes

Magpies cupcakes and Three Rivers Market treats will be served up after the cleanup.

Leave a comment

Filed under cleanup, creek, First Creek, fun, Greenway, humor, limerick, Magpies, Old North Knoxville, poem, poetry, story poem, Three Rivers Market, trash, waders, water, word play, words, writing

The idiopathic blathering idiot

The blathering idiot went to the dermatologist. Once the examination was over and the doctor had looked at his knuckle pads and his tinea versicolor, the dermatologist pronounced him a case of idiopathic medicine.

At first the blathering idiot felt insulted. While not the brightest bulb in the box or the sharpest saw on the rack, he did not consider himself an idiot, and he told the doctor so.

The doctor smiled, and then said, idiopathic means “modern medicine does not know the cause of either of your conditions.”

He then explained that for the knuckle pads, “we usually do nothing, unless they start causing you pain.”

For the tinea versicolor, a naturally occurring fungus that is in everybody’s skin, “it just runs a little wild in some people,” he gave the blathering idiot a prescription, then said of having two idiopathic conditions, “It just means you’re special.”

That made the blathering idiot feel better.

He then went to his local pharmacy to turn in his prescription. As he turned in the script, he saw a sign glued beneath the lip of the counter that read: “Select narcotics in time-delay safe.”

When the pharmacy technician took his prescription, the blathering idiot asked, “Which ones can I select?”

“Which what?” the tech asked.

“Which narcotics?” the blathering idiot said.

She looked at his prescription. “Your script doesn’t say anything about a narcotic.”

“But I can select one, right?”

She frowned. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not supposed to get any.”

Select Narcotics in Time Delay Safe

Select Narcotics in Time Delay Safe

“But it says I should select narcotics from the time delay safe.”

“It does not.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Where?”

He pointed at the sign. “Here!”

“It does not—”

“Yes, it does.” Clearly this young woman had not heard that he, the blathering idiot, was special. “Come out here and see.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what? Read?”

She glared at him. “I can’t come out there. It’s against the rules. I am the only person on duty back here right now and the rules say I can’t leave my station.”

“All I want is what the sign says I should select.”

“I think you should go to another pharmacy,” she said and offered him back the script. To be sure he understood, she pressed an intercom button and asked for “special assistance” in the pharmacy.

Insulted when a guard appeared, the blathering idiot snatched the script and marched out the door and to the next nearest pharmacy. As he walked up to the pharmacy counter, he again found the words: “Select narcotics in time delay safe” and hoped he would have better luck here.

1 Comment

Filed under absurdity, blathering idiot, dermatologist, doctor, fiction, humor, idiopathic, puns, Random Access Thoughts, Random thought, tall tales, word play, words, writing

Check out the new ban at your local library

Expressing concern over the rising number of non-reports, County of K Mayor TB recently issued an executive order banning all sex offenders from public libraries.

Plans are underway to compare a list of registered sex offenders to the libraries 150,000 active cardholders, who would then be notified to stay away from the libraries. When asked about those offenders who don’t have library cards, or who may be homeless and can’t get a card because they don’t have an address, the mayor had no immediate response.

“I just don’t want them anywhere around our kids,” TB said. “The ultimate decision is how we pursue it.”

When asked where these offenders could go, TB said the local bookstores. They already handle banned books. Why not banned people, too?

A manager at a local bookstore, who asked not to be identified, responded that this was “another example of an unfunded government mandate.”

A library worker, when asked how she would identify a sex offended, said she didn’t know how she would identify a sex offender. “It’s not like they come up and self-identify.”

Under a new state law sex offenders can be banned from libraries and such identification could lead to jail time, which would simply lead to more overcrowding, which the County of K already has a problem with. Still, the County of K Mayor felt he needed to get out in front of this issue and issued the first such executive order for any of the major library systems of the state. As a Republican, you can never have enough moral government, he was heard to say. And it usually doesn’t cost much.

County of K sheriff of nodding ham, J Triple said, “I applaud the state of Tennessee for putting tougher regulations on these dirt bags who prey on our children.”

When asked about enforcement, J Triple said with cooler weather coming on, he plans to provide free sweaters to those sex offenders, many of whom may be homeless. The sweaters would have the scarlet letters “D-B” stitched into them in a way that his deputies, using infra-red night scopes on their rifles, will be able to easily see on the chests of the offenders. All the deputy will have to do, Triple J said, is point his rifle at the library entrance and he (or she) will spot the registered sex offender. An arrest would then ensue.

When asked what happens once the sweaters start getting swapped, worn by the wrong person, or even show up on Salvation Army Thrift Store shelves, Triple J grunted that he would let the courts sort that out. Innocent dirt bags were not his concern.

In a somewhat related issue, on the same day as Mayor TB announced his ban, County of K Commissioner AE (Always Embroiled in controversy to her close friends), announced that she had a benign tumor removed from her parathyroid gland. Though the symptoms of the tumor were fatigue, pain, fluctuating blood pressure, and insomnia – not untypical symptoms for any County of K Commissioner these days, she was glad the cause of her distress had been found and treated. Recovery time could take two or three months. When asked about the recent ban of sex offenders from libraries, AE reportedly muttered, she could only hope there was a similar tumor at the top of country government.

Leave a comment

Filed under absurdity, announcement, books, fun, GOP, government, humor, hypocracy, law enforcement, offenders, Republicans, satire, sex, words, writing

Self-mutating

Sel-protrait of sorts

Captured on pixels and only on pixels. Don't try this at home, unless you want to be silly.

Who says you need a professional photography to get a good portrait photo? suitable for framing, for use on resumes, or to simply impress a date on your dating web site page or personal blog. And for the mere price of three easy installments of $39.95 each, I will teach you the same tricks and tips that I know.

2 Comments

Filed under absurdity, humor, photo, self portrait, words, writer, writing