Reason

REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice.

2009 Update: Muteness. The lucidity of one listening to a friend's folly.

Recompense

RECOMPENSE, n. Ingratitude.

2009 Update: Reward, typically inadequate for virtues such as humility and altruism or theft when demanded for goods and services.  Unsatisfaction.

The Reformation of Wolfshausen

Teil Dreizehn

To hear Java Jazz, who has a new post up, by the way, tell this story, ask Gretchen to share.

To read this week's part, go to the road and wait for a Samaritan.

This week in The Prattler, The Conservatism of Barack Obama.

Opposition

OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it.

The King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science of government, appointed one hundred of his fattest subjects as members of a parliament to make laws for the collection of revenue. Forty of these he named the Party of Opposition and had his Prime Minister carefully instruct them in their duty of opposing every royal measure. Nevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously. Greatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition that if they did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with their heads. The entire forty promptly disemboweled themselves.

"What shall we do now?" the King asked. "Liberal institutions cannot be maintained without a party of Opposition."

"Splendor of the universe," replied the Prime Minister, "it is true these dogs of darkness have no longer their credentials, but all is not lost. Leave the matter to this worm of the dust."

So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty's Opposition embalmed and stuffed with straw, put back into the seats of power and nailed there. Forty votes were recorded against every bill and the nation prospered. But one day a bill imposing a tax on warts was defeated — the members of the Government party had not been nailed to their seats! This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put to death, the parliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery, and government of the people, by the people, for the people perished from Ghargaroo.

2009 Update: In politics, the counter-idiocy.

Oleaginous

OLEAGINOUS, adj. Oily, smooth, sleek.

Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as "unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous." And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam. For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.

2009 Update: Having the properties of oil, in particular repulsiveness and indispensibility. Electable.

Two Monks at the granary

Once upon a time, the two monks, Abba Abercrombie and Abba Nelson met in front of a granary belonging to a monastery.  Abba Nelson asked his elder "If this granary is full of food and the hungry wait outside the walls, has this monastery not failed in its calling?"

Abba Abercrombie wisely answered, "Not at all, brother.  The people would not stay in the granary nor the grain remain outside the wall."

REDISTRIBUTION, n. The art of making sausage in live casing.

Out-of-doors

OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

I climbed to the top of a mountain one day
To see the sun setting in glory,
And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,
Of a perfectly splendid story.

'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode
Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;
Then the man would carry him miles on the road
Till Neddy was pretty well rested.

The moon rising solemnly over the crest
Of the hills to the east of my station
Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west
Like a visible new creation.

And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)
Of an idle young woman who tarried
About a church-door for a look at the bride,
Although 'twas herself that was married.

To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand
Ideas — with thought and emotion.
I pity the dunces who don't understand
The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.
—Stromboli Smith

2009 Update: A region much explored in college lectures, slide presentations and blog entries. The great out there.

Settling into my chair in a restaurant

Al Gore approached me, earnest though not gaunt

He begged me consider my footprint long

And listen as gravely as he ran on.

"The great outdoors calls you, answer briefly

With sacrifice and appetite chiefly!"

"Where shall I find this suffering sweet thing?"

I asked as he asked the waiter to bring

The fried scallops platter, and a bottle

Of wine, "Seek the fermented to coddle,

The polluted to cleanse, the gassy too

The environment needs me, and I you."

"Where is this environment?" I asked him.

"Outdoors!" He answered, gravy on his chin.

-Calzone Collins.

Orthography

ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every asylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to be conceded hereafter.

A spelling reformer indicted
For fudge was before the court cicted.
The judge said: "Enough —
His candle we'll snough,
And his sepulchre shall not be whicted."

2009 Update: The art of writing in service to spelling, rather than satire.

The Reformation of Wolfshausen

Teil Zwölf

To hear Minka and I read, gather around the sausage merchant.

To read this week's part, go to market with Herr Braun.

This week in The Prattler, Seeking Scandal.

Sham

SHAM, n. The professions of politicians, the science of doctors, the knowledge of reviewers, the religion of sensational preachers, and in a word, the world.

All the world's a sham.  Wasp's Sage.

2009 Update: The disapproval provoked by a scandal.