If They'd Have Had Facebook....

                                                                       

This is all visual humor, from an earlier time of Facebook.  People used digital art to create these spoofs of Facebook commentary. Such graphics date to around the "aughts" or "twenty teens." This site has been curating various social media humor, as we rapidly pass into yet new social medial horizons.  (Please pardon what you find objectional. I think it's pretty funny.)

[Time Doesn't Always Heal]

They say that 'time assuages,'-- 

Time never did assuage; 

An actual suffering strengthens, 

As sinews do, with age. 

Time is a test of trouble, 

But not a remedy. 

If such it prove, it prove too 

There was no malady. ---Emily Dickinson

    This poem is attempting to convey that grief doesn't always go away.  If the grief disappears entirely, it suggests that, perhaps, the love was never really real.  My background and education give me some expertise in interpreting such poetry and poetic thoughts. 

This Blog: Emily Dickinson "Experience"

This Blog: Emily Dickinson "Remorse"

Just for Today

"Oh, Lord, let me never forget how replaceable I am to the world, Nor how irreplaceable I am to you. Amen." ---Marie Byars 

The blogger as a 4 year-old

    This is a quote that came to me around 1991.  I embroidered it on a counted-cross stitch decoration for my husband , which he still has.  (That is not a craft I do anymore.)  

    The idea comes from such things as Philippians 2, urging us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought.  It reflects Jesus washing his disciples' feet, though He was Lord of heaven and earth.  My other blog delves more deeply into Christianity.  Please look into that if you are interested.

     With either blog, you can search a particular word or concept by going to the upper left corner where the blue ribbon is and the magnifyng "search" glass. 

More (*Groan*) e-Mail Puns

Here are the top 10 winners in the International Pun Contest:

1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The Stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.  🛫
2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, 'Dam!'
3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly, it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it, too. 

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The other says, 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication. 🦷
6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. But why they asked, as they moved off. 'Because,' he said, 'I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.' ♘♜♝♛♜♗♕♚
7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named Ahmal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband
that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, 'They're identical twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal.'
8. A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town
thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to 'persuade' them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.
9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
10. And, finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

I think there is value to collecting some of the old e-mail circulars, since this is a fading phenomenon. A lot of the wit in these circulars is not being brought into social media.

How's That?

"How come we believe both the truisms 'The Devil 👿 is in the details ✍' & 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness'??? I mean, doesn't cleanliness involve paying attention to details?"  -- original witticism from Marie Byars     

  This type of humor, if the reader grants that it is humor, relies on paradoxical phrasing. Some paradoxical humor can be neatly confined to the classic one-liner.  That was a little difficult with these concepts. 

Happy Spring!

Padding along the eastern side of the lake in the still of the morning, we soon saw a few sheldrakes, which the Indian [guide Joseph Polis] calle Shecorways...we also saw and heard loons, Medawisla, which he said was a sign of wind. ---"Allegash & East Branch"; Henry David Thoreau

Like many highschoolers, I was assigned Walden to read. While I gravitated towards that classic quite a bit at that time in my life, as it suited my temperament, outlook, and interests, after buying an anthology of Thoreau's work, I discovered I liked several other works better than Walden. 

Educated Puns (*Groan*)

I think there is value to collecting and curating some of the old e-mail circulars, since this is a fading phenomenon. A lot of the wit in these circulars is not being brought into social media.

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
He acquired his size from too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.
5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
9. Two silk worms had a race. 
They ended up in a tie.
10. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall.
The police are looking into it.
11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
(From an e-mail circular)

The Quality of Mercy

Sometimes we sit at the intersection of having heartily forgiven someone but not being able to celebrate them --C. Marie Byars, original quote, 2026

The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.

---William Shakespeare; 1600
(Portia’s speech in Act IV, Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice)

The so-called "Chandos Portrait", once owned by the Duke of Chandros.
Painted by John Taylor, c. 1610.
National Portrait Gallery, London.

     Portia in this play has disguised herself as a judge to save her husband's friend.  Her husband, Bassanio, had gotten money that his friend, Antonio, had borrowed from Shylock so that Bassanio would have the finances to woo and marry Portia.  Shylock has a strong hatred of Antonio, due to the insults Antonio has hurled at him.  Anti-Semitism appears to be a part of Antonio's rudeness.  Antonio agreed to give Shylock a "pound of flesh" (the source of that expression) if he did not repay the loan on time.

    Antonio is unable to pay the loan, due to a shipwreck.  Shylock goes to court to demand his pound of flesh.  This would, of course, kill Antonio. Portia, disguised as the judge, attempts to appeal to Shylock's mercy in the above speech. Shylock does not budge. So, Portia tells Shylock that he can exact his pound of flesh but that he must not take any blood.  If any blood is taken, the agreement is voided.  Shylock drops his claim and ends up more humiliated than ever.