Jetfibs and Julpartels

From the Bad Guesses Department:
British-tv host Eamonn Holmes: "What travels at three-hundred million miles a second?"
Contestant: "A cheetah."

From the We Prefer the Wild Ones Department:
"Do a Civilized Tourist: Create the Civilized Tourist Spot" (from a public sign in China)

From the Very Helpful Customer-Service Department:
"It will either be done before 5:00 tonight or after 5:00 tonight" (service rep at Verizon to customer Michael McHugh)

Collar and Chain

The current issue of "Time" magazine features Pope Benedict XVI and the clergy-pedophile scandal as its front cover and main story. By now I've read about 200 documents, articles, and books on the scandal. Of that number and of the many television reports I've watched, I've read and seen many instances in which bishops and B-16 himself have apologized for the criminal deeds of those priests and some nuns---not apologies for any bishops by name, mind you, who mishandled those priests---just apologies on behalf of the priests. And yet I've read or seen only TWO apologies directly from the many criminal PRIESTS themselves. Something's wrong with this picture.

An Angst a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Yes, even downtown Seine has its blocks of trendy, avant-garde, yuppy, green---or whatever the word for them is these days---stores and cafes. In fact, as I was pushing my cart in one of those particular supermarkets, I couldn't believe the signs on the segments of the fruit and veggie stands: "The Grapes of Wrath," "The Oranges of Indecision," "The Kumquats of Longing," "The Melons of Lost Dreams."

The Owl Toys with My Mind

The little woman and I saw the new Woody Allen movie at the theater last night. I can't decide if the film was bad in a good way, good in a good way, good in a bad way, or bad in a bad way.

Sound Mind in a Sound Body

I wonder if, before being clamped into the arm irons and leg irons on the torture rack, prisoners in the middle ages first did their recommended stretching exercises.

Eat Your Greens

I think that salad is nothing more than a salad-dressing delivery system.

Illusion Be Damned

As I've said, being in Seine is a weird experience. For example, when I slowly drove past the town cemetery last week, I saw a funeral burial in session. I knew the ceremony was for Samantha, the assistant for one of the town's magicians. Samantha had died unexpectedly. She was the young woman who allowed herself to be sawed in half by the magician on stage in their act. Anyway, I noticed as I was passing by that not one coffin but two short ones side by side were being lowered into the ground.

Share and Share Alike

You know, if you go with a bag (a real bag or sack---not your wife) to the zoo early when it opens and right after the workers have made their rounds feeding the animals and birds in their cages, and you scoop up the spilled seed, etc from the sides of the cages when no one is looking, you'd be surprised how you can feed your family for the next three or four days on that.

Americans Disdain History

At Walmart's yesterday I bought a pair of socks for $19.51. So I said to the cashier who was checking me, "Hey, '1951'--that's the year Harry Truman fired General MacArthur."

The cashier looked at me with a blank stare, so I had to explain to her all about Truman and MacArthur and the Korean War. Because I was in the express line with only the socks to pay, I had to give her the "Reader's Digest" condensed version about what I was talking, but she certainly didn't seem interested. Then, before I could even finish my commentary, the customers in line behind me became upset and began muttering, so I had to cut it even shorter.

Anyway, I'm not allowed in the express line at Walmart's anymore.

Going Green but Seeing Red

I guess everyone has verbal phrases which irks him or her. One phrase which has bugged me for years is "under the weather." So he's absent from work because "he's under the weather." What the hell does that mean? He's ill---period.

Now comes "leaving your carbon footprint." I swear by the Greek gods, the next person who talks to me about my "carbon footprint" is gonna get my carbon footprint plastered right across his face.

Try Real Hard To Remember the Alamo!

So the cowboys and cowgirls on the Texas State Board of Education now order changes in Texas schoolchildren's textbooks, changes which are motivated by the conservative political view to the point that the modifications will be semi-historical or even anti-historical. Jeez, what a wacky, weird state with its hurricanes and humidity, its Willie Nelson characters and crazed cowboys, its polluted oil towns and dust prairies, its roaming steer and moaning football fanatics and barking Bible thumpers, its giant barbeque and chili stands, etc.

I hope that my children, grandchildren, and I never have to live in that cactus haven. You can't tell me that Texas cowboys and Board members, when they're branding their cattle, don't sort of "accidentally" brand each other every once in a while. It must be their way in that state of letting off stress.

The Mind Is a Funny Thing

I couldn't believe it. This morning I went to Dover for my weekly session with my shrink, Dr. Fraud-Gilbride.

"Doctor Tom isn't here today," his receptionist told me as I entered the office. "But he has a substitute who will see you."

As I say, I couldn't believe it. During the entire session, while I was lying on my back on the couch and talking to the young sub shrink, she was silently TEXTING her friends!

Yes, she was a bleached blond. Now I believe it.

More Than Hair Loss

Neighbor Emory and I went together to Frank's Barber Shop in town. I like punny names for hair salons---e.g., Hairport; A Cut Above---and for other kinds of stores, but when it comes to my own hair, I want an old-fashionedly named and run barber shop for men. Anyway, while Emory was sitting in his barber chair, a guy walked into the shop.

"Hey, don't I know you?" Emory asked the guy.

"I don't know," the man replied. "My name's Warren Kost. What's yours?"

"Emory Wheeler," Emory answered.

"Doesn't ring a bell," the guy said.

"Maybe we went to different schools together," Emory added.

And so it went. That's the last time I'm taking Emory to town.

On Break

Don't read this blog. It has nothing to say.

Glad We Don't Use Metric

"Yardley" is the name of the college student who was murdered last week by her girlfriend-beating boyfriend, a pampered star athlete at the same college. My concern here is not the killing but the name. Young Americans no longer show much concern, ministers and rabbis tell us, about the Christian or Jewish background of the names for their new babies. The young parents are more concerned with trend, cutsie, or social prestige. Hence "Yardley." It won't be long, I'm sure, before this leads to Inchley or Footley (perhaps for babies of short parents) or Mileley (for babies of tall parents) (wait, hasn't "Mileley" already been introduced via singer Mileley Cyrus?). And, before long, we'll see Ounceley or Poundly (for small babies) or Tonley (for heavy ones). Then on to Wideley, Tallley, Highley, and so forth.

Definition of "Paradox": Two Doctors

"Whispers in the Loggia"---sounds sexy, doesn't it? "Whispers" is actually a blog on Catholic Church activities, considered by surveys to be the best such blog in the nation. It reports on events and scuttlebutt in the Church, and often correctly predicts ecclesiastical appointments and documents which are tightly guarded as secrets by the hierarchical authorities. "Whispers" is written by Rocco Palmo, a former journalist and a layman, not a theologian nor a priest, who lives in Philadelphia.

Now comes word that the Aquinas Institute of Theology in Saint Louis will grant Palmo an honorary doctorate in theology for his journalistic blog. A Ph.D. for writing a gossip-and-facts blog, of all things---and Palmo is only 27 years old!

I'm gonna talk to my crazy neighbor, old Emory. Together we'll submit my own "Old Gargoyle" blog and Emory's hand-drawn, wacky cartoons of Holy Ghost, his old parrot, to Aquinas Institute for its consideration. Heck, we stand a good chance of each getting an honorary degree out of this. Just think: "Doctor Gargoyle" and "Doctor Emory"---sound ritzy. Wish us luck.

The Little Gem

I don't know why I'm feeling religious lately---I've never been a religious person. Anyway, I forgot to remind you on April 11 that that day was the commemoration day of Saint Gemma, a young woman who died in the early 1900s in Italy. What I find remarkable about Gemma is her stunning beauty. I kid you not; google "Saint Gemma" to see photographs of her on her website. As I've said before, I have a crush on a dead saint of a century ago. I think God will punish me. Last year on April 11, when I mentioned my Gemma crush to others, the only fine-food Italian restaurant in town, the one I really enjoyed, suddenly and unexpectedly went out of business.

Where Does Little John Fit into This?

The new movie, "Robin Hood," appears this month in theaters starring Russell Crowe as Robin, Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian, and Matthew Macfadgen as the Sheriff of Nottingham. It's a big-budget romance adventure, and I'll see it, because I'm a sucker for Robin Hood movies and King Arthur movies. But I don't know if it'll outdo the romance of the smaller, underappreciated 1970s film, "Robin and Marian."

In "Robin and Marian," Sean Connery plays an aging Robin who comes out of retirement to fight the Sheriff (Robert Shaw) and to reclaim his old-flame Marian (Audrey Hepburn). Two kinds of romanticism in two different scenes kind of summarize the power of this movie. In one, Connery and Shaw descend their horses, and prepare to engage each other in one-on-one sword combat. Facing each other, they draw their swords, but suddenly each one drops to one knee, and jabbing his sword into the ground in the manner of a Christian cross, says a prayer before fighting his opponent. In the other scene, the final one, a wounded and dying Connery has Hepburn at his bedside. He orders Hepburn to bring him his fabled bow and arrow. Then with his last bit of breath and strength, Robin Hood draws and shoots his arrow through the nearby open window, telling Marian to bury him wherever the arrow lands.

Many critics think, as I do, that the 1960s and '70s were the modern golden age of both movies and rock music. Or maybe those critics and I are now just cranky old goats.

Scared Cows and Sacred Cows

I see some evangelical preachers and their congregations saying that the Hurricane Katrina disaster and now the Gulf oil-spill disaster are God's ordained punishment for the wickedness and lack of religious faith in New Orleans with its French Quarter lifestyle, voodoo, gambling, etc (read: Catholicism). Yet those same preachers, when they or their relatives fall to some serious disease or accident, don't blame that condition on God's punishment or on evil spirits. Well, some do---in the sense that now and then some of them do nothing but pray over their ill relatives instead of also seeking medical help. Then some of them allow these ill persons---even children---to die, followed by praying over their house-kept bodies for what they believe will be the bodies' imminent resurrection.

Persuasive stuff. Hell, I'm beginning to believe that my mad-cow disease is God's punishment for what I did to those two bovines in the field when I was a teenager. (Please, don't ask me for details.) Maybe God is Hindu.

You Can't Fool Mother Nature

It's spring, and the little woman is going crazy outside weeding and planting her garden. Now she's bugging me to drive her to this and that garden-and-flowers show or demonstration.

I think that if there was a big gardening conference, and you took the podium to give a speech in favor of fast-motioning gardening, I bet you'd be booed right off the stage. They're just not ready for that.

Oh, Christ, Not Him!

I read that a woman in Massachusetts has been cited by police for hitting a pedestrian. The walker's real name is Lord Jesus Christ. I don't want to see Christ forgive the driver---I want to see him sue the woman in court. That should be much more intellectually challenging (church vs. state; omniscience vs. accident; etc.) and much more fun to watch.

Go Stand in the Corner by Yourself

Speaking of New Orleans: I love blues and sad music. Last week I finally saw the recent movie, "The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans," starring Nicholas Cage and set in the Big Easy. In the final scene of the film, a stirring, slow, blues song plays in the background but for only ten or twenty seconds. But, man, it's just about the saddest, soul-gripping song I've ever heard: titled "Mother Died." Turns out it's by the New Orleans blues-jazz group, Washboard Chaz, of whom I hadn't previously heard. Try to hear it.

A problem arises: If I enter heaven when I myself die, what am I going to do when the choirs of angels and souls will be singing and hearing joyful, praiseful music for all eternity, but I'll be wanting to hear and sing only terribly sad music for all eternity?

Cyclic History

Playoffs, playoffs, nothing but playoffs on tv these days! What do we have---two-hundred teams in the N.B.A. playoffs through June, JUNE? All sports leagues might as well do what "The Onion" recommends: Let all teams which feel like their deserve to be in the annual playoffs be in the playoffs.