Confederacy

Episode 13 of The Meditations of Diogenes The Cynic. Thanks to this week's reader.

To hear the story, reason with them.

This week, The Prattler is on vacation due to back-ache and excessive cussing. It should return next week.









To read the story, reason with him.

Calamity

CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

2007 Update: Any result favored by probability, predicted by history, consistent with common sense but contradictory to the pride of the wagerer or idle spectator.

Chorus

CHORUS, n. In opera, a band of howling dervishes who terrify the audience while the singers are taking breath.

2007 Update: The congregational keepers of the mysteries, arbiters of conflict and independent mission review board. A choir of consultants.

Two Generations of Limerick

If you wonder how children can be so
Gossipy, fashion-forward, in the know.
Consider they might
Be more lucky than bright
In who sends them IMs in utero.

When one stops to consider the aging,
Who made peace in a world with wars raging
The miracle, I guess,
Isn't doing with less
But doing at all without paging.

GENERATIONAL, adj. Ambirrelevant.

Club

Club, n. An association of men for purposes of drunkenness, gluttony, unholy hilarity, murder, sacriledge and the slandering of mothers, wives and sisters.

For this definition I am indebted to several estimable ladies who have the best means of information, their husbands being members of several clubs.

2007 Update: A gathering of the uncollected, meeting to exclude the absent.

Circus

CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.

2007 Update: A workplace with a calliope.

Fraternity

Episode 12 of The Meditations of Diogenes The Cynic. Thanks to this week's readers.

To hear the story, shake a palm.





This week, in The Prattler, "Subpoesy."









To read the story, squeeze a date.

Symbol

SYMBOL, n. Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" — things which having no longer any utility continue to exist because we have inherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. They were once real urns holding the ashes of the dead. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.

2007 Update: A representation in line and angle for a nimbus of truth and moon. A draft against future foresight. A jester's halo, a fool's compass, a point for those who have no other and to the satirical lexicography, a trap.

Syllogism

SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent. (See LOGIC.)

2007 Update: The shortest member of too long a lecture. An atom of babble.

Parabully

Somewhere in the Gospel, or else an epistle
We are called to lament and then told to bristle
At abominable acts not done in His name
Or, at least, not in ours, which seems just the same

A cabal in the shadows frustrates his will-
That my home should shine from on top of a hill.
Let the warning go forth from steeple to steeple
That my enemies doth confound His people.

They uphold the sinners who daily abuse,
In language I'd rather that they didn't use,
My authority to call, here on this Earth,
For referendum discounting my neighbor's worth.

I once was blind but now I have found
That my rights in landscape have been trampled down
When the branches on his accursed oak tree,
Cross the fence that divides our property.

And darker yet, his cat his sin compounds,
By stalking the branches that shade my own grounds
And with bearing I find to be infernal
Takes all my squirrels to rewards eternal.

But these aren't the worst diaboliculations
In my neighborhood causing our holy frustrations.
His wife has spread the worst of godless lies.
I was not at home and those weren't my eyes!

And so, for their trespass, theft and sedition,
Brothers, in His name, send them to perdition.
To let any sin in our midst lessens us all,
For do we not worship the God of the small?

GLORY, n. The grandeur awaiting the petty.