Priestly thoughts

I note with dismay that our public schools are teaching science without any reference to phlogiston theory or Ptolemy's geocentric model of the universe. Since when is okay to use government dollars to support just one side in an ongoing debate? Surely there's room in our public institutions for free and lively discussion between many viewpoints. And Flat-Earthers pay taxes the same as everybody else. Also, since churches get government support in the form of protected tax status, shouldn't they be required to teach the controversy by including Origin of Species side-by-side with the Bible in their Sunday school classes?

Slightly Punchy on Boxing Day

Reinsdyrsteik. That's Norwegian for reindeer steak. And, yeah, it looks exactly like a dopey misspelling of a dopey mispronunciation of the English. Which supports my theory about Norwegian, and also Swedish (actually, the word “Swedish” simply means “poor and badly dressed” in Norwegian), which is that it's just ordinary English pronounced with a thick Muppet-style accent. I've tested this theory by speaking like that to native Scandinavians, and they have pretended not to understand me, which I think proves my point. But how about them reindeer: They bring you Christmas gifts, and then you can eat them. Sure beats FedEx.

Never Enough

Give a dog enough to eat and a nice cleansing walk and he'll go right to sleep until he's hungry again. Do the same for a man and he'll start looking around for something to do next. Because he's no good at doing nothing. Because he gets antsy. Because humans never feel quite right. Forget your big brain and opposable thumb; it's dissatisfaction that's made our species what it is. It's our primary survival trait. Take it away and we're local and rare as bonobos. Striving to overcome your nature in order to attain Zen detachment only proves the point.

Hey Baby

Hi there! Breathing okay? Good. We'll just clean you up a little and you'll be good to go. That soft spot in the middle of your skull should firm up real quick, so don't worry about that. And, let's see, what else can we tell you on your way out? First, nobody knows what's going on. Anybody who says they do is stupid or lying. Take care of your teeth. Wear comfortable shoes. Be careful about the first few things you do, because that's what you're going to be doing over and over again for the rest of your life.

Regretfully yours

If you had only known. Midget Racing is noisy and unpleasant and the drivers are ordinary sized people. It turns out sweetbreads are neither sweet, nor are they bread. You're pretty sure you would have remembered if somebody had mentioned the word pancreas. Is that the sort of thing a person is expected to know? How could you have forgotten how much you dislike playing Monopoly? If you'd only read the fine print. If you'd only listened in class. If you'd only known she'd grow up to be a morbidly obese Shoney's waitress, you might not have named her Hyacinth.

Even Educated Fleas

We've all seen those bumper stickers that explain the appropriately puntastic ways in which members of a specific demographic clade “do it.” They are remarkably unfunny, and also if you then pass the vehicle to which they adhere, the driver is usually revealed to be someone with whom you could not remotely imagine doing “it” even if said human was dipped in nectar and rolled in cocaine. Assuming, of course, that “it” means what I think it means. This is all a clumsy setup for two great bumper sticker ideas: “Prostitutes do it for money,” and “Literalists eschew coy euphemisms.”

Fallback

Daylight Saving Time was the invention of one G.V. Hudson, an English-born New Zealand entomologist and postal clerk whose collection of insects, the largest in New Zealand, is housed in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and who was furthermore a member of the 1907 Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition, a voyage which led to the rescue of the survivors of the shipwreck of the Dundonald, who had initially subsisted on the raw flesh of the mollymawk, a medium-sized albatross with a distinctive salt gland above the nasal passage that excretes a saline solution from the nose. Wikipedia, baby.