In any case, the posts are in line with Tex's complaint about jokes being "all hostility and no punchline." There's some bad jokes out there, and some great ones too.
Religious Humor
Tex's comments in the post below reminded me of an old post on religious jokes, from way back in 2007. There was a follow-up post in 2009, in both of which I retold one of Jerry Clower's jokes. It's better when he tells it.
Nicholas De Santo, Right-Wing Italian Comedian
Discovered this fellow in the comments over at the Sage of Knoxville's place. Mostly not vulgar and there's no profanity, but it may be hazardous if there are left-wing passersby. In my work environment, it would be NSFW.
A Bit of Byzantine Chant at the Coronation
King Charles's father, Prince Philip, was raised in the Greek Orthodox church. He was received into the Church of England in 1947, the month before he wed Princess Elizabeth, according to Wikipedia.
My guess is that that family background was behind the Byzantine chant at the coronation today, but maybe it was just an ecumenical gesture.
Psalm 71 in the Orthodox reckoning is 72 for everyone else, I believe. The Orthodox join what everyone else has as Psalm 9 and 10 together into Psalm 9, so the count gets off by one after that.
This Psalm is fitting for a coronation:
Marking Lightfoot's Passing
Not something I listen to regularly, but I've always found the "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" haunting.
An Amazing Cover and a Fitting Tribute
Sabaton, a band that has quickly become a favorite, has covered Motorhead's (a band that has ALWAYS been a favorite), song "1916," an anthem to the fallen of WWI. 1916 was the title track of Motorhead's album of the same name released in January 1991. Sabaton has done an a amazing job covering the song and the video is very powerful. It is a fitting tribute to Motorhead's front man Lemmy and, more importantly, our fallen dead.
A Bit of Stan Rogers
We've had this next one before, but it was a long time ago, and since it's probably my favorite from Stan, let's have it again.
In the Navy
On the newest Navy recruiting tactic:
The US Navy has embraced the Bud Light approach to selling itself — enlisting an active-duty drag queen to boost recruitment in the face of serious personnel shortfalls.It’s hard to say which is more surprising — that the Navy would do such a thing, or that it has a drag queen on active duty in the first place.
Oh, it’s definitely not the latter.
Scenes from Willie Nelson's 90th Birthday Concert
One of the last of the Outlaws celebrated his birthday last week.
May Day
I hope you find the Cathedral of May to be glorious. Memento mori, and enjoy your time here.
UPDATE: Conan’s Maypole.
Embedding Rumble Videos
Here's a quick how-to for embedding Rumble videos in Blogger. Most of this will be below the fold.
Before we get started, it's vital to ignore the video icon in the Blogger interface throughout this entire process. It will persistently refuse to help you with this task, so you should snub it like a stuck-up ex who broke your heart and stole the cash in your sock drawer on the way out.
Rumble Test #2
To see if the HTML Blogger option embeds from Rumble.
The Blogger facility within the HTML option still limits me to YouTube or my computer. Following, though, is the standard HTML URL underlie of a video title rather than the URL itself.
2023 SLS Chicago: Women’s & Men’s Final
The HTML option, though, is too cumbersome to use to suit me.
Eric Hines
Edudopia
It's school board election season here in my little county. Since my shackles were struck off at the beginning of this year, I've dipped only the occasional toe in local politics. I told myself I deserved a break from meetings, at any rate, and even skipped a candidates' forum that a year ago I'd have felt obligated to attend.
Still, with the election date approaching in a week, I broke down and watched a 2-hour video of a candidates forum. Yikes. School board elections draw some pudding-headed candidates, don't they? Luckily the choice this year was a little better defined than last year, when it was hard to distinguish among the candidates at all. One incumbent seems like a reasonably solid guy, while his challenger couldn't even manage to field the basic "Are you willing to assure us you'll have no truck at all with any CRT or gender-affirming nonsense?" The challenger went down the usual rabbit trail about law school curricula and affecting not to understand what the questioner was concerned about.
The two guys I plan to vote for (out of 5 candidates for two board slots) both came right out and said CRT and gender-affirmation had no place in the schools. One deftly avoided arguing about what CRT technically means and whether it's technically taught in public schools by simply saying people should be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. The other said it was pure garbage that he had no patience with. Both clearly were focused on academic excellence and were capable of formulating reasonably clear sentences. Best I can expect!
The challenger with the depressing CRT answer also assured us solemnly that the science has established that childish brains are biologically unsuited to learning to read before the age of 6 or 7. It follows, therefore, that we should spend more money on early childhood development, which should consist entirely of play. All I hear when someone talks that way is "Increase our budget, because it's not our fault that the effort is futile and the money is wasted." Not that I want to browbeat very young children into learning to read if they happen not to be ready, but then why are we spending education tax revenues on their playcare? It's the same reaction I have when people explain to me that it's not a school's fault when revenues per student are doubled but no one's learning improves. Granted that it may not be the school's fault what's going on in the kids' home lives, but the fact remains that we're throwing money away on techniques that even their loyal proponents don't think are working. It's as if the point of the school were to be a playground, not so much for the kids, as for the people pursuing hobbies in childhood development studies.
I wrote up the 2-hour discussion to the limit of my ability to decipher what they were trying to say, and to the limit of my patience ("I've had my patience tested, and it was 'negative'!"). This morning the "I don't know what CRT is" candidate complained in a comment to my post that I'd misunderstood certain parts of her fragmentary answers. No doubt; I responded that it was good that she'd read my summary and had carte blanche to add to or correct my rendition right there in the comments section. She explained solemnly how people often doubt her views on the appropriate age to learn to read, basing their erroneous opinions on their own experience instead of on the science. No need for me to respond; that's a campaign ad for her opponent, as I see it. I was probably a little brusque in my summary of what I took to be her views, but I actually left out the worst part, fearing I was not understanding her words and not wanting to embarrass her. I could have sworn that, when asked her views on the proper role of parents, she answered that parents were important, because if they didn't produce the kids, the schools would have no one to work with. She managed to get out the statement that parents were "partners," and I left it at that.
Were schools run by nimcompoops when I was a kid, and I just didn't have the opportunity to see it? I could swear that most of my teachers and administrators had more on the ball. Of course I have no idea what was going on at the school board meetings, which probably would have curled my toes. At least they didn't try to make me wait until I was 7 years old to learn to read, for pity's sake, not that it would have mattered. My family taught me to read before I ever walked into a schoolroom, without inflicting any evident cognitive damage. Perhaps today that would be grounds for a CPS intervention, or penalties for practicing education without a license and a union card.
Rumble Test
What can I do to post a randomly selected Rumble video?
Here's the URL, copied from the address field of my browser: https://rumble.com/v2klc9a-2023-sls-chicago-womens-final-and-mens-final.html But that's not the video itself, only a path to it.
Here's the blogger's video embed effort: oops--can't do it. The blogger facility only allows "Upload from computer" or from YouTube in particular.
Maybe the problem isn't unique to Rumble. Maybe it's that Alphabet allows embeds only from Alphabet's wholly owned video facility or from personal equipment.
Eric Hines
Irish Comics Go Through Russian Immigration Interview
Well, I've never known a Russian (or citizen of any former Soviet block state) to pour such a tiny amount of vodka into a glass, but other than that it seems legit.
The Fruit of Philosophy
Today I happened through Highlands, a resort town with a spice shop I like to visit occasionally. It's long been a playground of the wealthy, but also a regular stop for bikers because it lies on some good motorcycle roads through good motorcycle country: the Cullasaja Gorge, twisty mountain roads through national forest, or down into Georgia or South Carolina. I'm always amused by the obvious tension the wealthy feel at the presence of the bikers, who are never especially rowdy or likely to cause trouble: they're just passing through on a ride they're enjoying. It's not a place they'd stop long to hang out.
I have the right kind of education to pass among the wealthy, if I wanted to do so enough to dress and act the part. I was trying to decide why I don't want to, not only not for the occasion but not in general. I think it's normal to aspire to rise in social class, or to maintain the highest one you could aspire to join.
When I was young I spent the last two years of high school at a private school because the public school told my parents they couldn't challenge me, and my parents took that seriously enough to find a school that could. It was my first exposure to many things, including both wealth and serious education. I took to the latter, pursuing it as far as it goes. I turned out not to be interested in the former. I met some very nice wealthy people, at least one of whom took an interest in me and wanted to encourage me to go into something lucrative like stocks or finance. He even bought me a subscription to the Wall Street Journal so I would begin to learn about the language and thinking of that world. I had forgotten about that until just now.
In the end, I appreciate the education far more than is common, but the class that can afford the time to become educated not so much. I enjoy erudite discussions with fellows, but the wealthy never join volunteer fire departments. What I find there is not people who have read Kant, Aristotle, or even Plato; I can't have the same sort of conversations with them. They are, however, the ones who are living the Aristotelian virtues.
This reminds me of what Marcus Aurelius said: "Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one."
Ultimately that is the fruit of the tree of philosophy, and frankly one rarely finds it among philosophers -- or, at least, among those highly educated in philosophy. One finds curiosity, kindness, insight, alert minds and often a sharp sense of humor. I like them; I enjoy them. Nevertheless, I spend my time among the people who have never read those books and among whom I never mention them because I wouldn't want them to feel alienated from my company. They are the ones who work a full day, even a twelve-hour shift, and then get up in the middle of the night or go off and spend a day of their weekend because an alert goes out that someone is in need -- and they do it for free, just because it is the right thing to do.
They could have learned that from Aristotle, but they did not. Somehow they learned it from the parts of the culture that no longer remember having even been informed by him and the other great thinkers and traditions of the West, but which retain the lessons truly. Those who have spent more time with the books have only rarely achieved Marcus Aurelius' distinction.
Philosophy has many fields beyond ethics, beyond moral philosophy in general. Still and all, somehow that chiefest lesson is one that rarely conveys into the practice that Aristotle rightly identifies as the real nature of virtue.
Arkansas Gospel
Dad29 sends a memorial to a lady with a voice.
She was old all my life; 76 when I was born, 87 when I first met her. When she spoke, it sounded like a swarm of bees hovering over a thick patch of clover.... Though raspy and thin, worn threadbare by the friction of so many passing years, her voice had a strength and beauty to it that was otherworldly. It was the sound of a century’s worth of Arkansas Delta breathed out all at once into the wind. The sound of revival meetings in clapboard churches; the sound of haltering lyrics strewn with the roses over a wooden box draped with a flag. It was the sound of feed store gossip around live-bait wells; the sound of pink tomatoes kissed by salt and summertime.
It was a voice that liked to sing.
About once a year she would get particularly blessed during a Sunday service. She would ask the pastor if it would be alright if she could “sing a special.” And these were always special times. A man in the congregation, often my grandfather, would lead her up to the platform and I would begin playing the introduction to the song she always chose, “I’ll Meet You in the Morning By the Bright Riverside.” Before she was finished, everyone that wasn’t on their feet shouting were on their faces weeping.
The piece is moving and sweet. Here is the song, sadly not sung by the lady herself.
Jenny and the Mexicats
In the spirit of trying out new things, I thought some music to chill on a beach with would be good.
FPC Win IL Injunction
In the opinion, United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois Judge Stephen P. McGlynn ruled that PICA’s ban on commonly owned semi automatic firearms, and the magazines they utilize, likely violate the Second Amendment and should therefore be enjoined.
It’s good to see this injunction, because the law in question is intended to violate the Second.
Lying Requires Knowledge and Intent
I understand the frustration of the writer, but I don't think their opponents are all liars -- not strictly.
Only one criminal out of six uses a firearm in the commission of a violent crime. Criminals use firearms about a quarter million times each year and they violate our “gun-control” laws millions more times. That means that gun control is and has been a failure.In contrast, we defend ourselves with a firearm about 2.8 million times every year. Mass murderers take about 600 lives a year. We protected hundreds of thousands of our children with armed school volunteers every school day. If you haven’t heard it before then I’m telling you now…armed self-defense is far more common than the criminal use of a firearm.Politicians who push for more gun control say their laws will disarm criminals. In fact, their 23,000 gun-control regulations — already on the books — disarm far more honest citizens than they do criminals. Mass murderers deliberately attack us in gun-free zones where we are disarmed by law.
Emphasis added. The thing is, I think that almost no one who advocates for gun control actually knows those numbers, nor even just the orders of magnitude. I think they mostly really believe that "common sense" conveys that fewer guns will mean fewer gun crimes, and that the solution is just so obvious that there's no need for further inquiry. I have never succeeded in interesting any of them in the actual numbers, and when I've quoted them I've only encountered stark disbelief that the numbers could be real.
Another one they absolutely don't believe is that accidental gun deaths involving children are vanishingly small -- some years a single digit figure in a nation of hundreds of millions of people with hundreds of millions of guns. Mostly the statistics you'll see in the press blur this by including everyone under 18 in the category of "children," and blurring how many shootings were really accidents versus how many were gang-involved. If you really get down to brass tacks on actual children and actual accidents, though, it's a very small number. Every one is a tragedy, of course; it's important not to forget that fact, even as we recognize that it's statistical noise.
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