Sweet Onion Potpπ
Older Potpπs on the lower racks — NEWER, fresher ones are on TOP.
10/20/2023: RIP Q95’s Donnie Baker. You taught us that everyone is BS from the waist down, because it is “state law.”
7/13/2023: Feminist or Misogynist?
The fortune on my fortune cookie from yesterday was, “A woman’s thinking is quicker than her action.”
It goes with my old joke [a play on “Confucius says…”(feel free to look a list of ‘one liners’ on the Internet)] …Confucius’s wife says, “Confucius says too much.”
5/15/2023: Baby in Third Trimester ‘Robs’ Bank
On Tuesday 5/8/2023, a very pregnant mom-to-be robbed a bank in Greensboro, Alabama. Her baby-on-board accomplice added to the fanfare by kicking the trigger of her AR-15 rifle causing it to fire unexpectantly while she was putting money in her get-away bag. No one was hurt, but the floor was deeply scared by the misfired bullets from the pre-born bank robber. When the mom, Samantha J. Ford (age 32), was apprehended in Conway, Arkansas, the Police Chief Brad Stevens joked that maybe they should get mug shots of the belly.
4/3/2023: The Naked Truth: A Classic Lesson in Being Civil
The Tallahassee Classical School (TCS) represents all that is wrong about these public supported non-civically-minded schools. Public schools are supposed to be open to all and to open all (students) to an 'open' or civic public life. These charter schools wish to prevent that.
People think that tax money must educate kids. That is totally and absolutely false. No ‘sane’ person would rush to create and fund schools that train students in Nazi thinking. Though I feel that Hitler and Nazis are used too much, we know that this extreme example says that there are limits. So, to further explore this the line between open public schools and Nazi schools, it is ironic that Tallahassee Classical School would/could even be ‘somewhere else’ than ‘open’ on just such a line.
TCS is not the same as an open public school; however, a true 'classical' education (if TCS offered one) would/should certainly motivate it to be more of an opening experience for kids. However, this school is not smart enough to even know that it has pivoted 'classical' toward one of its opposite meanings. For the Greeks, classical meant to search for, discover, or create great virtue -- goodness, truth, and beauty. But though these Greeks quested for the great, it was the pursuit and domain of all.
Tallahassee Classical seeks to create an elitist environment with a very restrictive world view holding to an illiberal past. This is what 'classical' has come to mean to some people today -- as in classical music. Additionally, Hillsdale College's curriculum TCS uses is a weak and very restrictive picture of the past. I reviewed the materials that they posted online. They are feeble at best.
Back to one of my earlier points, states don't collect taxes to merely educate kids, but instead to educate kids to live and thrive in an open democracy.
The principal was tricked into resigning with a lawyer's trick that protects the school from a retaliatory lawsuit. Hope Carrasquilla probably should have made them fire her; heck, she is getting all of the bad press anyway. Then, she could have sued and exposed them for their shallow 'reasons' which would have exposed the school as illiberal, non-classical, non-public, anti-civic, and a bad investment of Florida money. But should we ask her to fight this battle alone?
Those in favor of maintaining a Judeo-Christian ‘oppression’ in America in its final days think that by diverting funding to these anti-civic charter schools, they will be able to stem the massive demographic shifts in America -- co-habitation before marriage, declining religious affiliation and participation rates, rising rates of multi-religious Americans with intense curiosity/interest in Eastern religions and traditions, and a massive shrinkage of the traditional WASP everything, but they will not.
The table is tilted way too much. Gravity will not be denied. America is much more diverse, and it needs to be more open to itself.
The ‘anti-woke movement’ is the latest, and hopefully last, attempt by anti-progressives to stop the gradual changes that started after the US Civil War. From the early attempts at creating indentured servitude in the post-Civil War south (The Free State of Jones) and the creation of prisoner-chain-gang slavery AND on thru Jim Crow Laws and redlining (which was conceived in Chicago by Homer Hoyt), America never seems to lack the creativity it (thinks it)
needs to continue its 'closed-minded' and 'closed-state' thinking. The Tallahassee Classical School wants to be the final anchor on that civic slave ship.
1/25/2023: Darwin’s “natural selection” was stolen from his love for dogs, which were a product of ‘artificial selection,’ and his grandfather’s poem. Did Darwin really think/say/create anything that wasn’t also said already by someone else — the ever-shrinking genius of Darwin?
Here is his grandfather’s poem:
Organic life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing.
Erasmus Darwin. The Temple of Nature. 1802
How is that not natural selection? Darwin expressed the ‘survival selectivity’ within randomness. Is that the same thing as saying that 0 is nothing?
Muhammad’s (the creator of Islam) grandfather was a great monotheist.
“On the shoulders of grandfathers.” :)
Survival of the fittest also isn’t Darwin’s phrase.
Charles Darwin authored the theory of evolution in the same way that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. “He died.”
1/12/2023: If everyone said twice as many nice things per day, because they all stopped fearing being shunned for being sincerely grateful, would the world nearly wipe out solitary misery
We seek acceptance so much we play ‘cool’ till our bones are ice cold with social isolation, anomie, and frightfully numb desperation. Kindness is: that we are all of the same kind. When we are kind to our kind we kind of connect to our own deeper selves. Consciousness can only truly be seen through the mirror of others.
1/1/2023: Fear No More
Which shuts us down more — being shut down or a fear of being ‘shot down’? The latter is 99%. ‘Haters’ are infrequent occurrences. ‘Hating’ takes others much energy and time [OK, maybe in the Internet age this is easier] so it cannot be done that much or too often or for very long — relative to real time. Yes, the pain is ‘real’ and lingers as long as we let it, but it can and probably will end when we so choose. Going back to creating is the best way to end a barrage of unwanted, untimely, or overbearing criticism. Creating moves your mind to something else. Creators can then get ‘back to work’. If haters persist, make them your creation. Ai Weiwei mastered this. In the long term, being ignored can hurt a creator more …so seek critics, thank them for their time and input, learn from them [the world is full of diverse wants and views], and get back to creating. Dare, create, learn, and share … you are the creation.
12/29/2022: CG?
Center Grove — Cannot Guide, Censor Gurus or Create Great, Codify Glory
12/20/2022: Alan 3:16
“The Universe emerged, so experience spacetime by creating good and enjoying an open and happy life.” Alan 3:16 (He was born on March 16th)
3 words to16 words
On CBS Sunday Morning (9/25/2022) Mitch Album said, “Most people are walking around — no matter how happy they appear on the outside — with a piece of a broken heart.”
“Like oxygen, if you are breathing, good aphorism are everywhere. Listen Up.”
Jesus believes in :)
12/4/2022: Be Your True Blue
Is the color blue happy or sad? This color has more to do with mood than any other color, but it doesn’t seem to have a clear meaning.
If you are having Elvis’ blue Christmas, it is because you are unhappily missing someone. To be “blue” is to be sad, despondent, or down. The entire musical style called the blues is about being down in life or feeling low. When Blues music gets peppy, zippy and happy it becomes Jazz. It is clear that being blue is to feel down.
So why is “Blue” of “Blue’s Clues” so happy? Doesn’t he know that he is confusing everything? In Disney’s 1945 infamous song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” from the movie “Song of the South”, it goes “My, oh my, what a wonderful day! Plenty of sunshine, headin’ my way. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, Zip-a-dee-ay! Mister Bluebird on my shoulder…Everything is “Satisfactch’ll””. How does a Blue bird end up in a happy song? Today, many Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons have a happy blue bird.
Animals are not the only ones that are confused, people may be too. Are humans ever happier than when they wear world–clothing-sales-leader blue jeans? When we walk outdoors we look for sunshine and a blue sky. Both Microsoft and American Online use blue for the core backgrounds of everything because they know we like it. How do they know?
About a decade ago when crayola.com surveyed America’s favorite color, the number one color is blue and it appeared in the original box of 8 in 1903. The statistics were staggering. In their favorite 10 colors, variations of blue are 5 of them. Variations of blue made up 11 of the top 20. If you add purple in, you got 8 of the top 10 colors, 12 of the top 20, and 25 of the top 50. The website said that it used information from a color research group to develop that/their list.
At that same time pantone.com said, in its overview of color, “nobody doesn’t like blue.” In its discussion of “the psychology of color,” it does said that blue is a calming color that works well for backgrounds — as many websites and digital media used/use it. Well, considering the sky’s role in our lives, I guess that only makes since – a background.
“Blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see, blue birds singing a song, nothing but blue birds all day long.”These lines from the song “Blue Skies” seem to guarantee us with “blue” happiness, just as long as we can keep the blues away.Does blue know what it is doing to us? Is it bipolar - the best path to happiness and sadness?
11/20/2022: Three of Your Selves
Each person is three - a private person, a public person, and a political person. They can also take three forms — progressive, libertarian, or conservative — each with a more self-serving side and a more collectively useful side. If I personally want for the world to stay as it is for ‘me’ (conservative), want to do as I personally please (libertarian), and want to ‘use’ the world to ‘change’ others — maybe for their own good (progressive), then they are all three at once. You could be all three of the same — like all progressive - publicly changing the world for the appearance of the equality for all, even seemingly contrarily changing society for your own personal advancement up, and changing the wider world politically for a whole new form of societal realignment. Or one could be all conservative — conserving your own resources, conserving the societal order to preserve your current wealth, and conserving traditional order to reinforcing your long-term wealth. But people can be many mixes of these three and not necessarily consistently. Those in the upper levels of society usually want to conserve their wealth by political power, publicly look to be progressively caring/sharing while really using progressive policies to actual control and/or change others …and yet be free to do was they wish in their grandiose private spaces, where their wealth has bought them privacy and freedom to do as they wish. People tend to choose their position in terms of economics, morality, and social grouping. Conservatives tend to set up more barriers in those three things, libertarians want the least restrictions in them, and progressives want policies to help more people to move from the ‘outside’ status of these into an ‘inside’ status. Cinderella’s family still had economic means after her father died and were in the societal moral inner circle (courtiers), but her mother tried to push her our out of the inner circle into the status of a servant — the status of 99% of the girls in the kingdom. Her step-mother took away Cinderella’s privileged status, but she was still a noble — so it is a fake upward (progressive) mobility story. We are a non-aristocratic society, though cloaked-conservatives show disdain for the ivory-tower, college-educated, city-elites that they are actually mostly members of, so they can use a pseudo-populism (claiming to be one with the (poor) people) to build a support of their own current elevated status. Neither God nor the threat of force can be used to maintain inequalities (or elite status) in society, so other mental tricks and traps are needed to pacify/’opiate’ the masses lest they become progressive and demand more change. The masses have thus far been mesmerized by the fiddle of these mind games on the hope of switching to the elite status and getting to be conservators of wealth with great personal freedoms/liberties themselves, and maybe even earning the ‘right’ to control the poor in a charity-benevolence-God-rearing way.
11/11/2022: How would a meeting of Donald Trump and Donald Trump play out?
Seeing himself as a self-made one-man show with a large cast of sideshow characters, Trump does not like to share the stage. Always somewhat aloof at center stage, he always seems like he is chatting with people in the ‘wings’ of the stage.
Donald Trump DT 1: Hello, I am Donald Trump. Donald to my friends and Trump to my followers and The Donald to those who know my many, many great successes, and yes there were a few growing pains in there, but almost completely great successes, unless you listen to Fake News …which I don’t except to find out the lies they are telling about me in their failing-low-circulation newspapers… …but many, many successes and I have a few coming really soon…
Donald Trump DT 2: Um, good I guess, well enough of that, I am very busy and I need to get back to my many successes …I too am Donald Trump, but I am the real Donald Trump, not some low-energy real estate developer who hasn’t done anything great since the 1980’s, but a true charmer, and yes the ladies still call me a charmer — can you believe that? I am in my 70s and I am still a charmer… not prince charming, but more of a king… a good one that loves the people and the people love him — which is me — down here in Florida.
DT 1: My global real estate empire, that I built from just a really small one million dollar loan from my father — that I paid back almost right away— ok? ok — is huge and growing even though the witch-hunts in New York and Georgia, and the bitter Merrick Garland — hey I didn’t block him from the Supreme Court, that was McConnell — though I agree with it and we all agree I made a better pick for the Supreme Court …now that is something we can all agree on…
DT 2: A, ok, but to discuss something that matters, which I used to do every night with Sean Hannity at the end of the day and right before I went to bed — which I did fairly early because I was running America — we talked about all the Fake News that was accusing me things I never did…
DT 1: My inaugural crowds were bigger than flip flap Obama, the camera angles were wrong…
DT2: And what insurrection? No one was hurt. I saw the video. Ya, some people died, but those were all natural causes…
DT 1: Ok, it is true, one ‘patriot’ women did get shot, but she didn’t die because of the tour of the capital, she died defending her country and her honor. Boy, those people really loved me, did you see all those flags …some even used them as battle sticks, clever lot.
DT 2: I have a big, big announcement coming up, but I cannot tell you what it is or it would be now instead of later, but you know what it is ,,,would I also be 47? That is like being two different presidents and I would only be the second one to do it. Cleveland, funny city and show, but he got married in the White House …blue room …not the right room if you ask me and kind of funny …something I might do, well no I wouldn’t but I could if I wanted to you know…
DT 1: I don’t know why Alec Baldwin played me on Saturday Night Live …not funny …not funny …30 Rock wasn’t funny… well Tina Fey was, but the show wasn’t …can you believe he shot someone… doesn’t know which end of a gun a bullet comes out, I guess… he wouldn’t play me the second time because he will be too old and probably in jail, I am guessing.
DT 2: I won in 2020, but the Fake Media …it was those voting machines and why did they let all of those people vote just because of COVID. You know I was never really sick with COVID, they just wanted to be very, very safe because I was the president. Heck, if I died, what would America have done? You certainly can’t expect for Mike to take over during such a crisis like America was in. No, I knew, America knew I needed to be super safe and I was… really healthy the whole time, my family must be immune.
DT 1: Are we done here? I am sure I am needed somewhere… what is our next event… …maybe watch a little TV first, but I am sure I should be somewhere else soon.
DT 2: Are you leaving, because I was already leaving, I am sure that I was leaving first. Ya, I am actually half gone already, there are people always ushering me off to the next crowd — huge crowds — bigger than Obama’s inaugural, but not the White House Correspondence Dinner …so distasteful… respect is what those cowards need. They use the pen to attack me and I use a pen to …well, you know. I win. I always win because they are such liars, and not very smart either.
DT 1: Did you enjoy meeting me because most people do? With the crowds I am still getting, I did not lose the election. You cannot lose an election and still get huge crowds.
DT 2: Remember to buy one of my flags and …well don’t take down your American flag… …well I guess you could when it is not a holiday, but… they love me and you probably do too …just stop watching that witch-hunt-fake news …over here? Ok, I am going to my plane…
[Here is what CHATgpt - OpenAI produced: I had to ask it three times and then it figured out what I wanted.
I see what you're asking now. Here is a hypothetical conversation between two people named Donald Trump:
Donald Trump 1: Hi, I'm Donald Trump.
Donald Trump 2: Hi, I'm also Donald Trump.
Donald Trump 1: Wow, that's really cool. I've never met another person with the same name as me before.
Donald Trump 2: Yeah, it's not a common name. How do you like being named Donald Trump?
Donald Trump 1: It's been great. It's a strong and powerful name, and I think it's helped me in my career.
Donald Trump 2: I agree. I think the name "Donald Trump" carries a lot of weight and respect.
Donald Trump 1: So, what do you do for a living?
Donald Trump 2: I'm actually a politician, just like you. I'm running for office in my local community.
Donald Trump 1: That's really interesting. Good luck with your campaign.
Donald Trump 2: Thanks. I'm sure with a name like "Donald Trump," I'll do just fine. ]
10/29/2022: The Quality of Fake News Has Improved 13.7%
Armed by basements of social media trolls, Fake Media has improved its quality by more than it has in any of the previous two decades. Media analyst Fred Drummond’s new study from Hillsdale College said, “Not since Trump took to regularly posting voluminously on Twitter in 2015 have we seen anything close to double digit increase in the quality of Fake News.” It is true that most of the current topics were created well in the past - Deep State, Pizzagate, Ukrainian-suckage, replacement theory, COVID conspiracies, election conspiracies, stolen elections - but these troupes have been forged into troops with real anger. “Fake News is now pushing Fox News furtherer down in the hierarchy of concocted news,” said conservative commentator Harold Knight. With Facebook and Twitter banning Fake News ‘rock stars’ like Donald Trump and the former Adidas merchant currently known as ‘Ye, I said that,’ Fake Newsters have turned to filling their media posts with nostalgia greats like South Park’s infamous and classic quality chants like “Blame Canada.” Drummond praised all of this with, “The return to America’s great and classical media past — when quality world views protected the Northern US boundary and my Michigan-based college from border incursions — will free our children from the burden of thinking for themselves. Only these classical and golden truths can keep our homeland safe and our children’s minds from getting full of alternative facts.” In seeking where the13.7% estimate came from, NewsMax journalist Herbie Walker said he discovered it on a broken slide rule. “Enough said!” Walker declared and so it is. Let’s see if Elon Musk can continue this trend lest Fake News sink to the level of real Fact News and get crowded out.
10/16/2022: Your True Tree Self - Twisty read that many thneed?
Conservative and liberal? Are you one of those? But which one? Did someone tell you which one? Do you pick one? What if you think you are one, but are actually the other, or maybe both at the same time? What if everyone is both but there are many kinds of "boths"?
Confusion often precedes clarity. First, you need to clearly see how you are confused by something that is clearly both simpler and more complicated than it seems. How could it be so? How did it happen? How could it have happened to "me"?
If you are a smart conservator of liberal-minded traditional values, you know that both this sentence and this intro ...AND this discussion are about to cut you in two, twist your limbs, and dig deep into your roots. But please stay and learn about yourself for you will truly grow. :)
Here is the quick of it. The 'world' was made and then it changed. The classical Greeks invented tons of new 'everything' with a very liberal outlook on social progress, experimentation, and tolerance of learning and diversity AND extensive exploration, cultural interaction(s) and mixing and much more. The Romans stole, adopted, and adapted all of this Greek greatness -- and from the Phoenicians - another cosmopolitan society -- and added it to their own very dynamic and diverse 'classical' society. The Greeks and Romans celebrated their own transformative greatness and quests for ever more excellence and Western society continued to do so even after both of these civilizations were diminished during a period of time historically called the Middle Ages. Supposedly, these Greek and Roman ideas were 'reborn' during the Renaissance, and they continued on to be the liberal and liberating values that we so preciously conserve today as our great classical traditions. Mid to late medieval universities arose at the start of this Renaissance, and they used books that they had neglected to preserve/conserve during the early 'Middle Ages' and that were pulled from Muslim areas, libraries, and universities -- all to rekindle this liberal educational process and conserve the great spirit, thoughts, and achievements of the classical past.
Hopefully, that paragraph both showed and explained how and why you are confused about who the "you" in you is. If not, maybe this simple and yet confusing example might help you knot it all together.
The first agriculture was not wheat seeds planted in the ground. It was fig twigs just stuck into the ground -- yup, cut twigs stuck in the ground grew into fig trees. Yes, you can still do this today. 1) Cut fig twig and 2) stick in the ground 3) Done - a new tree -- or is it an old tree now 'new' - or just the same as that original tree ...it is that same tree right? This is 'revolutionarily' a new tree that is just the old tree's DNA in a new example of it (a clone), literally the old tree and not a new tree at all, but it is a separate and 'other' version of it. A faster and better way to do this and the way that all fruit trees, and most nursery trees, are made today is to graft (attach) that cutting/twig to an existing root structure that already exists. Yes, two different trees become one. If your legs walk and have silly looking feet on them and your arms reach round and have less-funny-looking hands on them; so also, all trees are really two different systems
attached in the middle -- two trees that become one. The 'upper tree' is above ground and uses photosynthesis -- air/CO2 and light -- to produce sugar that it uses to build much of its substance with and from. The lower/subsurface tree (root(s)) is below ground pulling water and nutrients up from the soil and mycorrhizal fungi networks to join with the sugar energy and make the tree's physical essence. Both of these trees are about the same size and doing something very different. Both need the other to survive. You can graft trees in many places but grafting one tree's roots to another's trunk and branches is very common.
Yah, but which is the "good" and original tree and which is the free-loading, imposter, and con-artist tramp -- the other bad people that are anti-me and my goodness? Am I the top or the bottom tree? Which are the conservatives, and which are the liberals? Are ‘you’ your top or your bottom? Of course, everyone wants to be the smiling face with a brain and not the bunghole. Be careful, you are about to cut off your genitalia.
Ladies and gentlemen, I offer you this resolution. Every new innovation is liberated from the world of possible ideas by the hands of craftspeople and then passed on [tradition comes from a root word that means hands -- to "hand down"] from generation to generation though a process of conservation which both conserves the liberal/innovation ‘process of change' and the actual changes -- and will both be preserved and celebrated in the 'now' and in the future. If being both the top and bottom of a tree isn't enough, 'liberal' and 'conservative' are really closer to your right and left. If you can decide which side you want to keep and which side you can part with, you are ready to cut.
Liberals love to conserve the environment by walking on sidewalks paid for by socially progressive urban politics in cities funded by traditional and asset-accumulating/curating corporations and their taxes, production, and employment -- who are driven by both patented and trademarked industry-leading products that grew out of innovative and technologically transformative research and development programs driven by a search for change and progress in order to build a new, better, and deeper foundation under a tall, grandiose and long-enduring civilization which conserves a tradition of life-affirming and liberating improvement and a dynamic freedom to grow, change ...and stay the ‘same’.
I hope my summary is well grafted/crafted and now you know why you are a knotted and entangled mess full of sugar, limbs, and conservation and liberalism.
Happy growing and cut with care.
10/9/2022: 20 ‘Not Partials’
’GoodGod’ please save us from our own creations
God is not partial to one age group.
God is not partial to one sex.
God is not partial to one language.
God is not partial to one time period.
God is not partial to one land.
God is not partial to one book.
God is not partial to one temple.
God is not partial to one person.
God is not partial to one space.
God is not partial to one place.
God is not partial to one city.
God is not partial to one object.
God is not partial to one group of priests.
God is not partial to one list of anything.
God is not partial to one ethnic group.
God is not partial to one species.
God is not partial to one planet.
God is not partial to one solar system.
God is not partial to this word stack.
God is not partial to you.
Be Open 2 Happiness.
9/15/2022: Ice Cream is Real, God is an Eye Dream
William Lane Craig banters the Kalam cosmological argument with his sillylogisms, but I offer a counter One.
“God’s jealousy is proof of its non-existence, for no all-powerful-present-prescient God would be petty enough to demand praise — only people would produce such a pouty punditry.
‘The ProPosition’ of God — “God purity in a pure space purged of plunderous pillaging poppycock” makes no sense in the past, present, or paradise.
You use reason to prove God exists, but here is the ‘reason’ that proves it doesn’t. It is unreasonable to reason that God would linger in the lowly land of reason for any reasonable amount of time.
“The dark universe is the shadow of doubt. But I doubt it.”
9/8/2022: A Destroyers Guide to Killing Creativity
Fear: The best thing to do is to paralyze someone with doubt.
Perfection: I doubt that fear is the same as fear. You are in the wrong business. By perfect precision I paralyze them with uncertainty. Uncertainty is deeper than doubt and more catatonic than mere fear.
Delay: Friends, what is the hurry in figuring this out. There is plenty of time to consider this carefully and talk it out. Let’s not hurry or have haste, for patience is the best virtue of all.
Perfection: Delay, you fray me at the edges. Patience and delay are fraternal twins at best and opposites at worst. I am afraid that you cannot be trusted to stall progress for your plan can quickly be forgotten and contravened.
Fear: Did perfection just ring my ears with ‘afraid',’ thus it used my super power in its own defense, or maybe I should say in my assault? There is no sanctuary here. Keep your head on a swivel for I am stalking you when you are awake and asleep.
Delay: Fear you are getting ahead of your cart, hold on and take a breather. Let’s all save this for another day and agree to disagree for there is much to dissect and many factors to sort through decision matrices, the future will naturally unveil the answer when it is ready for us to know.
9/4/2022: Reformers Barbed by Marriage
Prestigious third-place finisher in the 73rd World Famous Protestant Reformers Dialogue Competition. Also winner of the “Most Likely to Lead to a Rise of Buddhism” award.
Entering the barber shop, Martin Luther declared to Thomas More, "There is no place like home, but the barber shop is still 95% better."
"Wife nagging you to shape up Luther?" mused Desiderius Erasmus as he awaited the next slice of the barber's blade.
"No, my kids are always pulling my ears to listen to them gripe about everything under the sun, and I have God's work to do," languished Luther.
More cracks in, "Poor Luther, such a sap, always got a yap, about his work crap, tap tap tap -- to him who leaves the Church in a flurry and marries a fury - be a life trap."
"By my free will, I have married myself to the solitary solitude of a single life bliss without the said meaningless meandering married minglings," retorted Erasmus.
"MMMMMM ...point taken," froths Luther, "How is the married life circling about you More -- or should I herald you Sir More Divorce?"
"Cutting deep, I must say so myself, but my own homestead is all chill and no frill," raps More to the echo chamber of the barber shop’s ceiling.
"Free will schemill, God has buttressed my life just fine, even if I have to get away occasionally so I can figure out the folly of a couple fools who like to frequent this barber shop," cracks Luther.
"Good folly from the wormy king of holly," Erasmus bellows as the razor blades is wiped clean on the leather strap/strop.
The barber then breaks his almost eternal monastic silence and proclaims, "If you all would spend more time fishing and less time flapping and flouting about, God might get more rest in heaven on his sacred seventh day."
8/28/2022: Bendy Lasers
Spanish scientist have invented the first laser that bends around corners. Dr. Felipe Castelano said that this technology will help Spain to know if a French peleton is coming around the corner on the streets of busy Spanish towns like Madrid and Leon. 3M engineer Larry Idar is hoping that these lasers can be used for sending morse code-like messages around the Earth like the worm in Dr. Suess’s book The Big Brag. China, who has stolen this technology even before it was developed, has used these lasers to encircle Taiwan in a hypnotic light show that causes birds to never leave the island. Since its first implementation, migratory birds have just flown in circles until they passed out and died in the Taiwan Strait. Two species of swallow have neared extinction in just one season, but Dr. Tua Hu said that they have developed a new way to help the swallows use speciality non-vision eye glasses so they cannot see the lasers and just fly right through them. The only problem has been that the swallows take the glasses off in Australia and cannot remember where they put them. Australia is working on a miniature glasses beacon and hopes it will be operational within the next two years. Until then, they are paying elementary children to collect the tiny spectacles so they can be returned to Taiwan each fall. Up to this point, Spain’s street cat colonies have been unable to tell the difference between traditional and these looping lasers, but they love them both greatly and are considering an insurrection if only they could catch that light first.