Homicide

HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another — the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.

2009 Update: Inverted nostalgia. Philosophy from the seed.

Heat

HEAT, n.

Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode
Of motion, but I know now how he's proving
His point; but this I know — hot words bestowed
With skill will set the human fist a-moving,
And where it stops the stars burn free and wild.
Crede expertum — I have seen them, child.
—Gorton Swope

2009 Update: The condition poets will call inspiring, construction crews perspiring, joggers respirational, surfers recreational, the sleepy soporific, and the chef prolific; as measured by a thermometer.

The Snail's Secret Secondary Source

A weasel, down a forest trail,

Trotted past a lonesome snail,

"Whither thou?" the weasel asked

"To Rome, Modesto or Damascus?"

"I keep an atlas in my shell,"

The snail replied after a spell

"And every place I roam and wander,

Is annotated 'just up yonder.'"

"And does it tell, by signs or words,

The whereabouts of nesting birds?"

"No, let me make the caption clear

Each page announces 'leaves be here'."

"What waste of good cartography

To omit the sites that interest me!"

"My map of foliage, I find fine,

And copied once upon a vine."

The weasel darted on ahead,

To see where the forest trail led

While the snail, of his terrain assured,

Sauntered right up to a waiting bird.

ROADMAP, n. The landscape of the lost.

Hypocrite

HYPOCRITE, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.

2009 Update: A man alleging hypocrisy.

Horrid

HORRID, adj. In English hideous, frightful, appalling. In Young-womanese, mildly objectionable.

There was a pretty girl.

In the terror and the whirl
Of the tempest of her passion she was torrid!
But when moderately moved
By what she disapproved
She said, with gentle censure, it was horrid.

2009 Update: Punishable by exclamation.

The Reformation of Wolfshausen

Teil Ein-Und Vierzig

To hear Minka read, scratch Dietmärchen on the ears (click at right.)

To read this week's episode, sit down by Dürer's saint.

The story so far is here. Quick note on format, episodes will now begin with one of Luther's theses. For educational purposes.

Free-Will

FREE-WILL, n.

A chip, in floating down a stream,

Indulged a gratifying dream:

"All things on earth but only I

Are bound by stern necessity-

"Are moved this way or that, their course

Determined by some outer force.

"The helpless boughs upon the trees

Confess the suasion of the breeze.

"The stone where it was placed remains

Till loosened by the frost or rains.

"The animals go here and there

As circumstances may declare.

"The influence they cannot see

Is clearly visible to me.

"Yet all belive they're governed still

By nothing but their solemn will.

"Deluded fools! I-I alone

Obey no forces but my own.

"Without or sail or oar, I glide

At pleasure to the ocean's tide.

"No pow'r shall stay me till I lave

My body in the salt sea wave.

Just then an eddy's gentle strength

By hardly half a finger's length,

His chipship drew aside. Said he;

"'Tis far indeed to reach the sea."

Now more and more, behold him swerve

Along the eddy's outer curve.

He says: "My joy in swimming's o'er

I'm half inclined to go ashore."

As still he sweeps his arc,

He adds: "The day is growing dark,

"But still there's time to reach, no doubt,

The point for which I first set out."

The circle was completed quite.

"Right here," he said. "I'll pass the night."

Nor ever once that chip suspected

That ought but he his course deflected.

Free-will, O mortals, is a dream:

Ye all are ships upon a stream.

2009 Update: The iron shackling each to his or her own failures, felonies and follies.

Fear

FEAR, n. A sense of the total depravity of the immediate future.

He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch-
Who'd rather pass than call.
Earl of Montrose

2009 Update: Panic at the mundane or its variations.

The Tragedy of The Commons Explained

An open meadow, green and thick

Makes every shepherd wild

To gather his whole wooly flock

And graze the free land mild.

But where one herdsman tarries

The land will soon be full

Of other shepherds gathered

To deplore the price of wool.

And soon they bring their flocks and kin

To reap each blade, leaf, root and feather

And gather up to drink rum

And to predict the weather.

And once the lea has been stripped bare

And no-one's left for thanking,

The flock is left to starve or

Follow graziers into banking.

The tragedy's a common one,

Cultivated from these roots:

Too many open ovine mouths

Near surplus farmers' boots.

-Anatole Idyll

COMMONS, n. A pastoral resource held collectively in trust by the parents of malthusian libertarians.

Fidelity

FIDELITY, n. A virtue particular to those who are about to be betrayed.

2009 Update: A portable promise of permanence. The peanut butter on the trap's trigger.