Insectivora

INSECTIVORA, n.

"See," cries the chorus of admiring preachers,
"How Providence provides for all His creatures!"
"His care," the gnat said, "even the insects follows:
For us He has provided wrens and swallows."
—Sempen Railey

2009 Update: A former order in a previous taxonomy which included hedgehogs and shrews. The order was abandoned when its members were found to have too little kinship with one another, and too much in common with zöologists' relations.

Imposition

IMPOSITION, n. The act of blessing or consecrating by the laying on of hands — a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but performed with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves.

"Lo! by the laying on of hands,"
Say parson, priest and dervise,
"We consecrate your cash and lands
To ecclesiastical service.
No doubt you'll swear till all is blue
At such an imposition. Do."
—Pollo Doncas

2009 Update: The explanation accompanying a request.

Addressing America's Schoolchildren, A Primer

A is for atheist, leave room for doubt.

B is for baloney, leave one symbolic slice out.

C is for the clover in which we were born,

And D is for doom to failure and scorn.

E is for erudition, whatever that means,

And F is the letter that gets us to genes.

G is for genetics, where our future's endowed.

H is for the humility we're not allowed.

I is for importers, like gangsters but coarser

and J is for Judas, scripture's outsourcer.

K is for Kapital, suppressing the people

While L's for liquidity up to the steeple.

M is for mumbling when you say to work hard

N is for no as in no union card.

O is for Obama, daughter of Kenya

And P is for President, or sometimes pretender.

Q is for quicksand, composing our discourse

R is for what? Recession, of course!

S is for Socrates, who corrupted the youth

T is for television which restored them to couth

U is for unamerican, like socialism and tea

And V is for cross-cultural validity

W was the president for our golden age

X marked the spot where we all turned the page

Y is for Yokel, and Z is for snoring

The best you can do is to keep it all boring.

Schoolchild, n. The perpetual hostage. A Sabine-American, stolen in a blare of bugles and ransomed for a grunt.

Immortality

IMMORTALITY, n.

A toy which people cry for,
And on their knees apply for,
Dispute, contend and lie for,
And if allowed
Would be right proud
Eternally to die for.
—G.J.

2009 Update: An endless longevity, the pursuit of which inspired the champions to whose memory our songs, statues and schoolbooks are dedicated. The endurance for which the brazen are bronzed.

Ichor

ICHOR, n. A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of blood.

Fair Venus, speared by diomed,
Restrained the raging chief and said:
"Behold, rash mortal, whom you've bled-
Your soul's stained white with ichorshed!"

Mary Doke

2009 Update: A humor for which humanity's bilious disposition and melancholy nature have rendered us too dry a host, leaving only he who waxed most prideful ichorous.

The Reformation of Wolfshausen

Teil Fünf-und-Dreizig

To hear Mütti read, click on the little red squirrel.

To read this week's episode, click on the stag.

The story so far is here.

Multitude

MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration. "In a multitude of consellors there is wisdom," saith the proverb. If many men of equal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must be that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere — as well say that a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it. A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey him; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish.

2009 Update: The many, of whom most are mainly martyrs and merely imagined. In most cases, one leader and a horde of grief.

Finishing the bread and fish

On the shore of Galilee

The Five thousand dared another wish

From him who gave his life for me.

St. James asked the holy seed

"Can you please this multitude?"

I could, indeed, The LORD agreed

But then they'd be but a few.

-Kierkegaard

Manes

MANES, n. The immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans. They were in a state of dull discomfort until the bodies from which they had exhaled were buried and burned; and they seem not to have been particularly happy afterward.

2009 Update: The least tame portion of horse and human or the great domesticity of a lion.

Une Nocturne Bananoise

A gorilla, feeling tired and bored,

Nestled in and laxly snored

To dreams about a younger, wilder jungle.

He dreamt of days before his birth

When apes recalled a hero's worth

Chimps were chimps and each monkey had an uncle.

He dreamt a wild and simple time

When, as intended, 'twere no crime

To jump and claw and chase and bite and pillage.

The babies acted reverently

Toward mighty males, such as he,

And each new tree could be tomorrow's village.

Oh, glory! How the she-beasts knew

To move and stretch and preen and do

What must be done to keep a king like him for keeping.

But the gorilla was brusquely awakened,

The dream of glory cruelly taken,

When a boy outside yelled "look, mama! He's sleeping!"

The jungle of gorillish dreams,

Comes from stories, so it seems,

Told of adventures, warfare, famine and disasters

By exhibits to their own sweet brood

Of days gone by beyond the zoo

Where humans teach their children they are masters.

-Alejandro Zaius

BOY, n. A transitional stage between primate and slave.

Magdalene

MAGDALENE, n. An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found out. This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Mary of Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by St. Luke. It has also the official sanction of the governments of Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly sentimental. With their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for Bethlehem, the English may justly boast themselves the greatest of revisers.

2009 Update: The dubious woman whom two thousand years of Christianity has struggled and failed to keep from our LORD and neighbor.