Monday, April 15, 2024
Pathways
Monday, April 1, 2024
Failed Products
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Friday, January 12, 2024
Spare No Expense
Sunday, October 1, 2023
Downfall of Our Forebearers
Cicero Denounces Cataline --Cesare Maccari, 1889 |
Saturday, June 24, 2023
Prince Harry in a Can
- "Todger sheaths" (blue-colored would be best sellers)
- Snake in a can joke-- Harry still recounts with relish the way he was able to pull stunts on others. He could roll out his own snake popping out of the can practical joke line.
- Dried bananas-- the prince reports bananas are a favorite food. Bananas have also figured into some of the couples' internet and royal outing stories...
- Dried mushrooms-- the big surprise would be that they are actually culinary mushrooms and NOT psychedelic mushrooms!
- Ginger Snaps or Ginger Chews (a real thing)
- Removable hip flask of hooch (see, also, below for tequila-specific suggestions). These small tins were, after all, first designed as pocket tins.
- Photo trading cards of the heroic Sussexes saving the world!
- Empty can would make a great cell phone carrier: it might block hacking! He could market this as a 2-in-1 purchase!
- Toilet paper for Arctic & Antarctic adventures
- Tequila minis-- best choice, a joint venture featuring Casamigos Tequila, co-founded by erstwhile acquaintance George Clooney and once shilled by cousin-in-law Jack Brooksbank. He might even get a deal to chug it on camera with Stephen Colbert. [It seems "recovery" from substance abuse means different things to different people, although the recovery community is quite clear about what it means to them.]
- Dried, 'smoked' roast chicken. Apparently roast chicken is another favorite dish of the prince's. [I wonder if the chickens in the Montecito coop realize this; it could make them pretty nervous if they do.] There are several ways that the chicken could be smoked...
- C**k cushion for extreme cold weather adventures. Who knows-- maybe they could even be sold in the small can? I don't really want to know that much detail. [That was a common sentiment of many readers along about January 2023.]
- There's a product sold called "Candle in a Can." Considering painful connections between "Candle" and either of Princess Diana's sons, we will pass on this and wish both men peace in this regard.
- "Air from [Name Place]" is something that is actually sold. Perhaps the California prince could sell "Air from Montecito." (Maybe Montecito is far enough out to avoid the serious smog of L.A.? No one would want "Air from Los Angeles.") There are plenty of "hot air" jokes to Spare here.
- Sterno-type Stove in a Can. Besides melting some snow to rehydrate that dried chicken in a can on your Arctic adventures, you could warm up your freezing todger a bit.
- Empty can would make a great toupee carrier. Or maybe sell "Toupee in a Can." You never know when that time might come for this prince or any man. This would be a great-crossover into cold weather adventure supplies: keeping the bald pate warm on outdoors adventures. This is another 2-in-1 marketing angle.
- In fact, launching a whole line of outdoors adventuring supplies 'in a can' could work. You, too, can go camping (or glamping) with Prince Harry, even if you can't afford to do so in Botswana.
- The empty can of either size could be used as an old-fashioned "hair receiver": save your falling hair for 'future use' in a custom toupee (if you don't purchase a pre-made toupee in the can). Still another 2-in-1 marketing plus.
- Either size could be offered in the "Dior Suit Coronation Version."
- Sadly, no "dry humor" in either can, despite the other dried goods possibilities. Harry's humor doesn't trend in that direction, not even with the help of a renowned ghost writer. Harry's is more the "in your face", unsophisticated type, often practical jokes at others' expense, if Spare is at all accurate.
More Ducal Branding
Friday, July 1, 2022
Patriot of Another Country
July, of course, celebrates American Independence Day. Demonstrations of patriotism will abound. If you wish to see old July 4th related posts on this blog, please choose the "Fourth of July", "patriotism", or "politics" links on the left sidebar (on the desktop version).
- That which is imposing here on earth has always something of the quality of the fallen angel who is beautiful but without peace, great in his conceptions and exertions but without success, proud and lonely.
- Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
- A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.
Saturday, June 25, 2022
What the Heck?
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
More Choices
Monday, November 1, 2021
Poison Ivy
Touch my skin and make me hive-y.
Blotchy skin and splotchy face:
Itchy, itchy every place!
Should have looked a little closer,
Maybe purchased from a grocer;
Should have brought a field guide:
Now I've got that stuff inside!
Thought I knew the out-of-doors---
Wandered over hills and moors---
Now I think I'll stay at home:
'Til tomorrow---then I'll roam.
---C. Marie Byars, 1986
Friday, October 1, 2021
Birds' Nests
"Temptations, of course, cannot be avoided. But because we cannot keep birds from flying over our heads, there is no need that we should let them build a nest in our hair." -- Martin Luther's Large Catechism, "Explanation of the Sixth Petition" ("Lead us not into temptation.")
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
Unity
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
Exceptional?
What's the point in arguing about the term "American exceptionalism?" We're a nation of imperfect people, founded on some amazing ideas of a democratic republic, enshrined in our Constitution. We've done some very noteworthy things; we've done some things that were stupid and even cruel. Accepting all these facets doesn't make us [1] less American, nor [2] less willing to accept or work on problematic parts of our past. Can we unify on this, too? --Marie Byars
Sunday, January 3, 2021
Try a New Tool
It's well past time for the "sides" [mostly referring to the culture wars] to think they can use the political system as a sledgehammer to "smash" their opponents into oblivion.
No one's going anywhere, folks. You're wasting a lot of energy, a lot of political capital, and a lot of your ability to try persuasion, instead. --Marie Byars
Sunday, August 2, 2020
The Second Coming
*Widening gyre: cycles or circular motions; Yeats was referring to his belief in cycles of history. He felt that an orderly one that came with the birth of Christ was about to give way to chaos. [This writer, looking at history, would not agree it had been all that orderly since Christ's birth.] The times just after First World War, with the concurrent 'flu pandemic, brought a lot of "apocalyptic" thinking about. The devastation of those two events was enormous.
**"The center cannot hold" is taken by some political scientists or laymen to suggest that a third, centrist party cannot take off in places like the United States. The touchstone for the metaphor may actually be military: The center of a battle line being broken through. It may also be Yeats' sense that society's ties to religion or other traditional cultures or worldviews are being torn apart. In this sense, it would be things that "center people" rather than a Centrist view.
However, in our current tribalistic political times, it's sad thing that a Center once created by compromise cannot be heard. It's not totally gone (though it seems more and more people are taking sides, and the rude voices try to drown the Center from both sides), but it doesn't have voice in our current society. Note, also, Yeats saying the worse are "full of passionate intensity."
(I would argue that our "First past the post" election system, the winner takes all idea, is a big part of the problem. With ranked choice voting, more people risk voting for others in multi-party systems, not feeling they're going to "throw the vote" to the candidate they really DON'T like. They put that person 2nd, and if their preferred candidate is taken out of competition, their #2 vote still counts for something. And it can go beyond #2, as far down as ranking is deemed feasible.)
***Spiritus Mundi: spirit of the world; the collective spirit of humankind. According to Yeats, it is a mystical concept, ''a universal memory and a 'muse' of sorts that provides inspiration to the poet or write."
****Apparently the AntiChrist, trying to mock and mimic Christ with its birth in a figurative Bethlehem. Interesting, how is it slouching before birth? Is this an accidental oversight? Or is this a description of something so horrific it forces whatever its maternal creation is to slouch off in an evil journey before birth that mocks the holy one of Mary (pregnant with Jesus) and Joseph? [Thoughts of Voldemort in Harry Potter, before he gets his body back. come to mind. Also, a shadowy Tash overtaking Narnia in the last of the Chronicles of Narnia.]
Saturday, June 27, 2020
Changes Prompted by 1918 Flu Pandemic
The 1918 global flu pandemic, coming in the wake of WWI, was a travesty. So many people were shaken by it, and by their responses (sometimes more selfish than they would have thought of themselves), as well as their survivors' guilt, that first-hand accounts of the flu largely disappeared.
However, the whole tragedy prompted some positive changes that stay with us. Here is a slide show accounting of some of those changes:
Daily Mail: 10 Major Changes Resulting from the 1918 Flu Pandemic
I was really surprised this event was given so much credit for countering "eugenics." Eugenics was the study of how to arrange human reproduction to increase the passing down of "desirable" inherited characteristics. That meant so-called less desirable people were forcibly sterilized (including in the U.S.) There were attempts to promote abortion more heavily among the poor. The 1918 pandemic helped people realize that the conditions of poverty, not personal "defects", allowed diseases to spread more rapidly among the poor.
Francis Galton, an Englishman, was largely responsible for first developing this line of thinking. In the U.S., Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, came to believe in eugenics. (It's not true, however, that she did it for racially motivated reasons. In "The Eugenic Vale of Birth Control Propaganda" (1921), she wrote that "the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective." Eugenics was finally dealt its death blow after the Nazi's abhorrent use of it.
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Wisdom from a Spiritual Source
The work of William Cowper (pronounced "Cowper"; 1731-1800) is featured on both my blogs this month. For more information, see the Christian Nature Poetry blog.
Below are some timeless quotes from Cowper. Source material provided when possible.
"Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour." --"The Timepiece", 1785; lines 606-607
"I am monarch of all I survey..." --Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Seldirk, 1782; line 1
"But still remember, if you mean to please, To press your point with modesty and ease." --William Cowper, John William Cunningham; “The works of William Cowper: Poems : with an essay on the genius and poetry of Cowper”, p.158 (1835)
"Absence of proof is not proof of absence."
"Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse, too." --“The Task: A Poem. In Six Books”, p.89 (1810)
"God made the country, and man made the town." --"The Sofa" line 749 (1785)
"Misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case." --“The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems. Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence”, p.446
“If the world like it not, so much the worse for them.” --Letters
"A little sunshine is generally the prelude to a storm."
"A life of ease is a difficult pursuit." -- “Poems”, p.290 (1815)
"No one was ever scolded out of their sins."
"When nations perish in their sins, 'tis in the Church the leprosy begins." --“Poems of William Cowper, Esq”, p.57 (1824)
"The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have past away."
"Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God." -- "The Winter Walk At Noon”
"England, with all thy faults, I love thee still..." --“The Life and Works of William Cowper: His life and letters by William Hayley" (1835)
"No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach."
Ye therefore who love mercy, teach your sons to love it, too. --“The Poetical Works of William Cowper”, p.143 (1854)
"A fool must be right now and then, by chance." --"Conversation" line 96 (1782)
“Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much. Wisdom is humble that he knows not more.”
“Satan trembles, when he sees the weakest Saint upon his knees.” --“Olney Hymn 29: Exhortation To Prayer”
"Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will." --"The Winter Walk At Noon”
"A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his Creator."
"We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works die too." “The Works of William Cowper: Comprising His Poems, Correspondence, and Translations. With a Life of the Author”, p.83 (1835).
Cowper: Seasonal Poem, Christian Nature Poetry Blog
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Short Rhyme
Never ignore
Someone's cri de coeur.* ---Marie Byars
*"Cry of the heart"
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Equal Balance
"I am a democrat [believer in democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government… The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows...
"I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill, or clothes which are good because we are no longer innocent… Legal and economic equality are absolutely necessary remedies for the Fall, and protection against cruelty...
But medicine is not good... When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget, but as an ideal, we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked. The man who cannot conceive a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other - the man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow - is a prosaic barbarian. "But it would be wicked folly to restore these old inequalities on the legal or external plane. Their proper place is elsewhere...It is there, of course, in our life as Christians -- there, as laymen, we can obey – all the more because the priest has no authority over us on the political level. It is there in our relation to parents and teachers – all the more because it is now a willed and wholly spiritual reverence. It should be there also in marriage. We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they." --C.S. Lewis, "Equality"; The Spectator, 1943
C.S. Lewis on Equality and Our Core Misconception About Democracy
"Equality"; The Spectator, vol. CLXXI (27 August 1943), p. 192