The Lumbering, Tumbling Giant

The townsfolk in Michigan know one giant well.

Every step that he took, he stumbled and fell.

Each time that he fell the ground rumbled and shook,

And women clutched babies each step that he took.

The towns didn't prosper but nor did they fail,

For the giant moved slowly, like the laziest snail.

So the folk watched the sky and built shelters and such.

"Sure, it's bad when he walks, but he doesn't move much."

Then one day, he fell and did not rise again.

The townsfolk all feared for their lumbering friend.

Burying him would take all the folk had

But alive, as a monument, he wasn't half bad.

GENERAL MOTORS, n. A holding company for disbursements.

Possible

POSSIBLE, adj.  Everything, to him who has patience-and money.

2008 Update:  Not before the California legislature.

Pantaloons

PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called "trousers" by the enlightened and "pants" by the unworthy.

2008 Update: A sheath for the sensible side of a human, inhibiting flight and so requiring negotiation.

The Mayoralty of Macedon

Episode VII

Listen with the new mayor.

Or read a map of the heavens with Orion

Tomb

TOMB, n. The House of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent invested with a certain sanctity, but when they have been long tenanted it is considered no sin to break them open and rifle them, the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, explaining that a tomb may be innocently "glened" as soon as its occupant is done "smellynge," the soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now generally accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity has been greatly dignified.

2008 Update: A musty palace for the freshly innocent and recently wise.

Theosophy

THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good — that is perfection; and the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had no cat.

2008 Update: A society founded to form the nucleus of a universal family joined by wisdom, consciousness and perfectibility rather than the folly, chance and corruption from which all other things derive kinship.

November 5th in America

Congratulations to those who made history last night

Sympathies to who failed at the ballot.

But one victory drawn troublingly clear, sharp and bright,

Goes to meddlesome bother, whatever you call it.

The left won Virginia, the right California,

And the lesson if you're willing to listen:

Is your countryfolk quiver to correct, rule and scorn you

And another's gold's all that seems to glisten.

The reason we follow constitutional law

And defend it with all of our labor,

Is that most would deplore a long nose in the craw

While busy sniffing after their neighbor.

MAJORITY RULE, n. The method of government that honors each citizen above his fellow.

Sorry to be a buzz kill, grinning leftists, but this kills me. To paraphrase my LORD and Savior, among others, unless you'd have your own beliefs and behavior submitted to your neighbors' approval, don't vote on theirs. 

A final atypical editorial comment: Thank you to John McCain, the best Republican I've voted for and maybe the last.

Take

TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.

2008 Update: To lend a debt.

To my American friends: Please amuse your poll-workers today.  In this and only this lies the virtue of democracy.

Tail

TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in aworld of its own. Excepting in its foetal state, Man is without a tail, a privation of which he attests an hereditary and uneasy consciousness by the coat-skirt of the male and the train of the female, and by a marked tendency to ornament that part of his attire where the tail should be, and indubitably once was. This tendency is most observable in the female of the species, in whom the ancestral sense is strong and persistent. The tailed men described by Lord Monboddo are now generally regarded as a product of an imagination unusually susceptible to influences generated in the golden age of our pithecan past.

2008 Update: The speech apparatus opposite the tongue to which credibility is allocated. Woe becomes the species with tongue and no tail for such are never to be believed at all. 

The Mayoralty of Macedon

Episode VI

Come listen by the ancient plumbing

Or hop up and read.

Two other things: First, Rabbit Rabbit!

And you might have noticed some, uh, contained enthusiasm here. I think Waking Ambrose will continue until after TLP's and Terry's birthday for one more Rabbit Rabbit and then go blank for the rest of December.