So, is this allowable parody, political satire, in the nature of a political cartoon?
Or, is this an untoward attack on the President?
Will children be confused if they find these photos in a display of political art at the New York Public Library?
Is it not acceptable satire?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Gallery of the Absurd.
2 Comments | 
Art, Humor, Political cartoons, Politics, Public libraries | Tagged: Humor, mug shots, Politics | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
1nhjvgbfffffffffffbng
[This was written by our 18-year old. She generally putters around the kitchen and avoids the laptop when it’s there; occasionally she takes a few stabs at the keyboard of the desktop. But never before has she shown any interest in actually writing anything. Last night she said she was hungry, and she was plainly irritated that I was doing nothing to get her dinner to her. When I answered the telephone, she took the opportunity to write her own little headline and a short line for the body of the post. I’m posting it as revenge.
Did I say she is 18? You expect more?
Did I mention Meow is a cat?]
4 Comments | Humor, Personal, Technology | Tagged: cats, Humor, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 30 is the birthday of Mark Twain (1835), and Winston Churchill (1874).
Twain had a comment on recent actions at the Texas Education Agency:
– Following the Equator; Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar
The Nobel literature committees were slow; Twain did not win a Nobel in Literature; he died in 1910. Churchill did win, in 1953.
Both men were aficianadoes of good whiskey and good cigars. Both men suffered from depression in old age.
Both men made a living writing, early in their careers as newspaper correspondents. One waged wars of a kind the other campaigned against. Both were sustained by their hope for the human race, against overwhelming evidence that such hope was sadly misplaced.
Both endured fantastic failures that would have killed other people, and both rebounded.
Both men are worth study.
Twain, on prisons versus education: “Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog.” – Speech, November 23, 1900
Churchill on the evil men and nations do:
“No One Would Do Such Things”
“So now the Admiralty wireless whispers through the ether to the tall masts of ships, and captains pace their decks absorbed in thought. It is nothing. It is less than nothing. It is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of in the twentieth century. Or is it fire and murder leaping out of the darkness at our throats, torpedoes ripping the bellies of half-awakened ships, a sunrise on a vanished naval supremacy, and an island well-guarded hitherto, at last defenceless? No, it is nothing. No one would do such things. Civilization has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, Liberal principles, the Labour Party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible. Are you quite sure? It would be a pity to be wrong. Such a mistake could only be made once—once for all.”
—1923, recalling the possibility of war between France and Germany after the Agadir Crisis of 1911, in The World Crisis,vol. 1, 1911-1914, pp. 48-49.
Image of Twain aboard ship – origin unknown. Image of Winston S. Churchill, Time Magazine’s Man of the Year for 1941, copyright 1941 by Time Magazine.
More on Mark Twain
More on Winston Churchill
Orson Welles, with Dick Cavett, on Churchill, his wit, humor and grace (tip of the old scrub brush to the Churchill Centre):
3 Comments | Books, Famous quotes, Heroes, History, Human Rights, Humor, Quotes, Winston Churchill, World War I, World War II | Tagged: Books, Churchill, Humor, inspiration, Literature, Twain | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Over 100 million boys in the U.S. have repeated the Scout Law, “Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, Reverent.”
Jerry Mika of Draper, Utah, lives it.
Mika returned a check for $2,245,342 that the State of Utah had sent him in error (see the Associated Press story in the Provo Daily Herald — photo, above, by Jeremy Harmon, Salt Lake Tribune).
Mika returned the check — a mistake that occurred when an employee entered a serial number, not an amount — to state finance offices Wednesday.
“Clearly we have an honest, honest citizen. I wish I could do something more than say thanks,” commerce department director Francine Giani said.
Can’t Utah grant him a kingdom — half of Millard County or something? A little duchy in Fillmore, Utah?
Mika, who runs the nonprofit Providence Foundation to help Nepalese sherpas, said he’s had great fun showing off the state’s mistake.
“Everybody looked at it, started giggling and asked why I wasn’t already in Switzerland,” he said.
He admits to being tempted to deposit the money and draw a bit interest before the state asked for its return.
“That money would have gone a long way,” he said.
When a company comptroller complained to me once that the $4 million in refunds to our company would mess up his quarterly bookkeeping because he expected the money in the next quarter, I volunteered to park the money in an account for him. He quickly came to his senses. At low, passbook interest rates, the $4 million would have paid $141/hour, 24 hours a day — more than $3,300 a day. A few weeks of that and you’re talkin’ big money.
Because the check was state-issued, cashing it would probably have been easy, despite the large amount, Giani said.
“It was a valid check,” said Rick Beckstead, the state accounting operation manager whose signature is stamped on the check.
How honest are you, Dear Reader? How much of a temptation would it have been to cash that check? (I’ll wager this man is a former Boy Scout; how much does that account for his actions?)
Perhaps you could reward Mr. Mika’s honesty with a contribution to the foundation he operates, The Providence Foundation.
Teachers: Can you see how to make this into a bell-ringer, warm-up exercise?
8 Comments | Bell Ringers, Boy Scouts of America, Business Ethics, Economics, Ethics, Geography - Physical, Harry Wong, Humor, Warm-up exercises | Tagged: Boy Scouts, Business, Economics, Ethics, honest man, Humor, Sherpas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
According to former Delaware Gov. Pete DuPont, the Republican Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives Greg Curtis said this:
So, is his advocacy of vouchers part of his plan to not reward excellence in education? Utah schools perform above the national average with far less than the national average in per pupil funding, with overcrowded classes, and with teacher pay below the norm. By almost all measures, Utah public schools provide excellence in education.
Why doesn’t the legislature reward such performance?
That’s not what Curtis meant to say, for course. Somebody tell Greg Curtis that his Freudian slip is showing.
Leave a Comment » | Education, Education quality, Humor, Politics | Tagged: Education, Politics, School vouchers, unintentional humor, Utah | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Washington Monthly always deserves reading. The on-line presence is almost as good as the magazine was back in its very fertile youth. Generally it has good writing and good thinking, and there is almost always a good bunch of fun — sometimes the fun even comes with good writing and good thinking.
And now, the magazine has announced its Golden Wingnut Awards, the top five worst posts on the web:
- John Hinderaker: “It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius….”
- Glenn Reynolds: “Maybe we should rise above the temptation to point out that claims of a ‘quagmire’ were wrong….Nah.”
- Michelle Malkin: “The Defeatocrats Cheer”
- Ann Althouse: “Let’s take a closer look at those breasts.”
- Kim du Toit: “The Pussification of the Western Male”
Congratulations, wingnuts! And special congratulations to Power Line’s John Hinderaker, who ran away with first place by a wide margin — and deservedly so. (More at Washington Monthly)
You can check out the whole list of nominees here.
Now, go vote in your local election.
Tip of the old scrub brush to reader Bernarda, who continues to mine intelligent comment from the internet.
1 Comment | Humor, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Weblogs | Tagged: Golden Wingnut, Humor, worst posts | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Yes, there really are mountains of such stark beauty, in Utah, next to civilization.
3 Comments | Geography - Physical, geology, Humor, Personal | Tagged: Ed Darrell, geography, geology, Mt. Timpanogos, Utah | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You do recall from Creationism 102 that the Earth was born on October 23, yes?
Why not celebrate, like these wise Austinites? Surely it’s scientific, and reasonable . . .
4 Comments | Creationism, Humor, Reason, Science, Science and faith, Texas, Textbook Selection, Textbooks | Tagged: biology textbooks, Creationism, Earth's birthday, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A California woman donated $128 million to a Quaker boarding school. Her fortune is the result of her father’s wise investment with one of his former students, Warren Buffett.
Barbara Dodd Anderson made the gift to the George School in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of Buffett’s former professor at Columbia University’s graduate business program, David L. Dodd. Dodd invested with Buffett, having been impressed with Buffett’s acumen as a student.
But Buffett owed Dodd a lot, too. It was Dodd who got Buffett into Columbia, after Harvard rejected him. Here’s the gist of that part of the story, from the New York Times:
In an interview, Mr. Buffett said Professor Dodd had turned his life around in 1950, when he graduated from the University of Nebraska and was applying to business school. Harvard rejected his application, and that August, well after Columbia’s application deadline, Mr. Buffett wrote to Professor Dodd, whom he admired as the author of a respected financial text.
“Dear Professor Dodd, I thought you were dead, but now that I know that you’re alive, I’d like to come study with you,” Mr. Buffett said he wrote in his letter.
“And he admitted me to Columbia!” Mr. Buffett said. “I would not be who I am today without David Dodd. If in response to my letter he’d said, ‘Sorry, its too late,’ I’d never be where I am.”
“Harvard did me a big favor by turning me down,” he said. “But I haven’t made any contributions to them in thanks for that.”
Leave a Comment » | Economics, Education success, Famous quotes, History, Humor | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Found this on my coffee cup today:
So-called “global warming” is just
a secret ploy by wacko tree-
huggers to make America energy
independent, clean our air and
water, improve the fuel efficiency
of our vehicles, kick-start
21st-century industries, and make
our cities safer and more livable.
Don’t let them get away with it!
— Chip Giller
Founder of Grist.org, where
environmentally-minded people
gather online.
20 Comments | Climate change, Cost of Green, Environmental protection, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Humor | Tagged: Climate change, Cost of Green, Environmental protection, Global warming, Global Warming Conspiracy, Green Politics, History, Humor | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Oh! The scandal and shame!
No, not really. The Disciples of Christ, generally, have a pretty good sense of humor about stuff, which may be one reason why their rather small national sect has produced three presidents: James Garfield, the only preacher and first college president to be elected, Lyndon B. Johnson, whose family ranch hosts a chapel, and Ronald Reagan, who also attended one of the sect’s colleges (Eureka College) but fell a way a bit near the end.*
The fact that Reagan and Johnson could both be Disciples is a tribute to the wide door the church has for membership.
A hardy band of Disciples still participate in a list-serv discussion of church matters, DOCDISC (a list-serv is an ancient e-mail group discussion software set, used to avoid the public nature of alt.net discussions, substituting mass e-mails for bulletin board posts; read about it in your paleontology texts, kids).
A recent post pointed to a comic book biography of Ronald Reagan at Slate.com (okay, “graphic biography”) and lamented the inaccurate way the sect was portrayed (see section 1, page 12):
Did you spot the problems?
The original post at DOCDISC complained first about the baptism. Horrors! It shows baptism by sprinkling! Well, not even sprinkling — more like a smearing on the forehead of young Ronald. Everybody knows Disiples dip! It should show baptism by immersion.
Once the tongue-in-cheek nature of the complaint became clear, other complaints surfaced. See the table of prayer votive candles over the left shoulder of the preacher? Some Disciples congregations have a rather high service, but no one knew of any so close to Catholicism as to host such a thing. One preacher whose father had been the pastor in the church in question suggested the sanctuary was a little fancy for the way the original was. And several suggested that the stole the pastor wears in the drawing is fancier by far than those used by most Disciples preachers (many Disciples preachers avoid such clerical garb altogether).
These are serious theological issues for Christians. The Disciples and what are now known as the Churches of Christ split in the early 20th century over the issue of musical instruments in worship, the Disciples being cool with all sorts of music, the Churches of Christ opting for a capella only, as they interpret one verse in scripture. In American colonial times, Anabaptists were reviled for their advocacy of immersion baptism and adult baptism — in Europe such advocates were disembowelled, but in American colonies only a few were hanged, and a few others sentenced to death by wolves (though some with this penalty, like Roger Williams, couldn’t find the wolves once put out into the wilderness, and had to found Rhode Island instead).
Even serious issues deserve a humorous look from time to time. Laughter eases the brain, makes it open to learning and creating. There are only about a million people in the U.S. who claim to be Disciples of Christ; we could probably use a lot more Christians with a good sense of humor.
We could use a lot more presidents with a good sense of humor, too. (The “graphic biography” from Slate.com is a pretty good shtick, for Reagan’s life — anybody know how it works in the classroom?)
____________
* I don’t think Reagan ever attended a service at National City Christian Church in Washington, D.C., the closest Disciples church to the White House. If anyone knows differently, please let me know.
3 Comments | Accuracy, Humor, Presidents, Religion | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
People in literature are different from you and me.
University of Texas history professor David Oshinsky pulled back the curtain on some of the biggest blunders in the history of literature, in an article for the New York Times a couple of days ago: “No Thanks, Mr. Nabokov.”
He documents rejection letters that, in retrospect, perhaps publisher Alfred A. Knopf would rather had not been written — despite the fact that Knopf was enormously successful otherwise. For example, about a book on teen-aged angst:
In the summer of 1950, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. turned down the English-language rights to a Dutch manuscript after receiving a particularly harsh reader’s report. The work was “very dull,” the reader insisted, “a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions.” Sales would be small because the main characters were neither familiar to Americans nor especially appealing. “Even if the work had come to light five years ago, when the subject was timely,” the reader wrote, “I don’t see that there would have been a chance for it.”
Knopf wasn’t alone. “The Diary of a Young Girl,” by Anne Frank, would be rejected by 15 others before Doubleday published it in 1952. More than 30 million copies are currently in print, making it one of the best-selling books in history.
The goof examples roll out of the files:
Nothing embarrasses a publisher more than the public knowledge that a literary classic or a mega best seller has somehow slipped away. One of them turned down Pearl Buck’s novel “The Good Earth” on the grounds that Americans were “not interested in anything on China.” Another passed on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” explaining it was “impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.” (It’s not only publishers: Tony Hillerman was dumped by an agent who urged him to “get rid of all that Indian stuff.”)
Thousands of high school students would agree with the difficulty of selling animal stories.
Oshinsky is working from the files of Knopf, recently donated to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC) at the University of Texas, in Austin. University libraries push and shove each other to get troves of private correspondence, and the HRC has worked to get special grants to help things along. Sometimes these treasures lie buried in library archives. In this case, a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities helped fund the cataloging operation.
And Oshinsky, who won the Pulitzer for his book Polio: An American Story, has done a bit of history mining. The few nuggets of history gold he reveals in the newspaper will be “classic examples” of why authors, and students and people in the pews of a church, should keep trying in the face of adversity. You’ll see these examples in Readers Digest and inspirational speeches for years to come, count on it.
Literature teachers should find these quotes useful in comforting students who don’t like the classics they are assigned to read. Preachers will find them useful for a variety of reasons. Others of us will like them for the goofiness, and sheer acidity of harsh criticism that, often, proved wrong. We’re Americans; we like it when the underdog wins, and when the pundits get so exactly wrong.
More examples from Oshinsky’s article, below the fold.
3 Comments | Books, History, Humor, Literature, Quotes | Tagged: Books, David Oshinsky, History, Humor, Isaac Bashevis Singer, James Baldwin, Kerouac, Literature, Quotes | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Your kids don’t quite get the point of non-violent protest? The “Scarface” t-shirts outnumber “I Have A Dream” t-shirts on August 28? Do you wish you had some current examples of non-violent protest for classroom discussion?
Nonviolent protest helped disrupt a rally of VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK in Knoxville, Tennessee, last may — courtesy of the usual clowns. You know, the ARA (Anti-Racist Action) clown block. It’s a good example of using peace to combat violence and hate.
Ridicule and laughter proved tougher than hate. Cooler, too. From a story at Asheville Indymedia:
“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.
At this point several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White Power!”
The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”
Tip of the old scrub brush to Bug Girl’s Blog, and Neat-o-rama.
2 Comments | Current History, Democracy, Education, First Amendment, Free speech, Freedom - Political, History, Humor, Nonviolent protest, Peace, Racism | Tagged: Citizenship, Democracy, First Amendment, Free Speech Racism, History, Knoxville, Non-violent Protest, Peace, Racism, White Power | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Groucho Marx in a 1958 NBC publicity photograph. NBC Television-NBC Photo/Photographer: Elmer Holloway
30 years without Groucho is too much.
Leave a Comment » | Biography, History, Humor | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
One of those silly internet things: Mingle2 rates blogs as if they were movies, and issues a rating like the MPAA ratings. Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub? We’re PG-13 here. Why?
This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
- dead (3x)
- dick (2x)
- shoot (1x)
In discussions of casualties in war, a history blog might use the word “dead” a few times. Considering how often I’ve posted about World War I, World War II, the Civil War, atomic bombs, etc., it’s amazing that the word “dead” only shows up three times.
And “shoot?” Well, shoot, it might appear as a mild oath.
I try to police even the comments to keep profanity down, to keep the blog from being banned by bot programs in junior high schools. So, how did the word “dick” sneak in there twice?
Dick Cheney. It’s all his fault. You can search just like I did, in the right column of the main page. The search also turns up a post mentioning Charles Dickens, but that would have been a third mention.
It almost makes one yearn for the last year of the Nixon administration after the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox, when bumper stickers quickly appeared urging Congress to “Impeach the Cox Sacker.”
Saying Vice President Cheney’s first name is profanity? Who knew?
1 Comment | Administrivia, Humor, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You are currently browsing the archives for the Humor category.
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
