Showing posts with label Procrastination week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Procrastination week. Show all posts

Friday, March 05, 2010

Procrastination Week



THE ABSURD TIMES





ILLUSTRATION:  The Senator from Kentucky.

    He was a pitcher which means he had to be stubborn (unless he actually believed the catcher, and he didn't) and creative, at least as far as baseball players go.  Any professional pitcher is capable of shutting out all considerations, thoughts, and images to focus on a rectangle about 12 inches to 18 inches wide and about 24 inches high (depends on the umpire) exactly 60 feet and 6 inches away.  A good pitcher will perhaps hear crowd noise, insults, bench jockeys, etc. on the way to the mound but, once he looks first at how the batter stands and then at the catcher's signals, he focuses entirely on that rectangle, or a 2 inch by 2 inch section of it. 
    This is why Jim Bunning was able to ignore to plight of hundreds of thousands of the unemployed, the imprecations of his own party, even animal turds thrown at him, and continue to hold up the bill for so many days with no concern for anything else.

*****

    NATIONAL PROCRASTINATION WEEK started on Monday, so we thought we'd finally get around to mention it.  We might celebrate it next week.  consider joining us.

****


THE MOTHER OF ALL FATWAHS


We at the Absurd Times have learned of a Fatwah issued by a cleric in London that has been quoted over and over again by people is the Government in Israel.  Essentially, it says that anyone who is a suicide bomber is going to Hell.

Well, we have asked around to find out what credentials someone needs to issue a Fatwah.  We haven't gotten a straight answer from anyone.

We, therefore, hereby issue our own Fatwah, the Fatwah to end all Fatwahs (and this includes Papal Bulls and Pentacostal, Babtist, Jewish, Torah, Eastern, and Whatevers).

We do not issue this without full and proper research, all the way back to Homer.  We chose as our authority a figure well-known to religious scholars, the 18th Century Demoniac, Lawrence Sterne.

In fact, we plagarized most of it and made only a few emendations.

This will be pronounced of he who makes any further religious pronouncement:





'By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and
of the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and

of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions,

powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy patriarchs,

prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy

innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing

the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy

virgins, and of all the saints together, with the holy and elect

of God,--May he' (Xxxxx) 'be damn'd' (for tying these knots)--'We

excommunicate, and anathematize him, and from the thresholds of the

holy church of God Almighty we sequester him, that he may be tormented,

disposed, and delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who

say unto the Lord God, Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways. And

as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out for

evermore, unless it shall repent him' (Xxxxx, of the knots which he

has tied) 'and make satisfaction' (for them) 'Amen.

 

'May the Father who created man, curse him.--May the Son who suffered

for us curse him.--May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in baptism,

curse him' (Xxxxx)--'May the holy cross which Christ, for our

salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him.

 

'May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him.--May

St. Michael, the advocate of holy souls, curse him.--May all the angels

and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies,

curse him.'

 

'May St. John, the Praecursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter

and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ's apostles, together

curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who

by their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and

wonderful company of martyrs and confessors who by their holy works are

found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him' (Xxxxx.)

 

'May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honour of Christ

have despised the things of the world, damn him--May all the saints,

who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be

beloved of God, damn him--May the heavens and earth, and all the holy

things remaining therein, damn him,' (Xxxxx) 'or her,' (or whoever

else had a hand in tying these knots.)

 

'May he (Xxxxx) be damn'd wherever he be--whether in the house or the

stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, or

in the wood, or in the water, or in the church.--May he be cursed in

living, in dying.' (Here my uncle Toby, taking the advantage of a minim

in the second bar of his tune, kept whistling one continued note to the

end of the sentence.-- 'May he be cursed in eating and

drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in

slumbering, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working,

in resting, in pissing, in shitting, and in blood-letting!

 

'May he' (Xxxxx) 'be cursed in all the faculties of his body!

 

'May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly!--May he be cursed in the hair

of his head!--May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex,' 
'in his temples, in his forehead, in
his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his

nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his throat, in

his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his fingers!

 

'May he be damn'd in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and

purtenance, down to the very stomach!

 

'May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin,' (God in heaven

forbid! 'in his thighs, in his genitals,'
'and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and
feet, and toe-nails!

 

'May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of the members,

from the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no

soundness in him!

 

'May the son of the living God, with all the glory of his

Majesty'

 

--By the golden beard of Jupiter--and of Juno (if her majesty wore one)

and by the beards of the rest of your heathen worships, which by the bye

was no small number, since what with the beards of your celestial gods,

and gods aerial and aquatick--to say nothing of the beards of town-gods

and country-gods, or of the celestial goddesses your wives, or of the

infernal goddesses your whores and concubines (that is in case they wore

them)--all which beards, as Varro tells me, upon his word and honour,

when mustered up together, made no less than thirty thousand effective

beards upon the Pagan establishment;--every beard of which claimed the

rights and privileges of being stroken and sworn by--by all these beards

together then--I vow and protest, that of the two bad cassocks I am

worth in the world, I would have given the better of them, as freely as

ever Cid Hamet offered

 

--'curse him!',--'and may heaven, with all the

powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him'

(Xxxxx) 'unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it,--so

be it. Amen.'