A More Gentlemanly Manner

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" - -Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice (1813); Mr. Bennett to Lizzy (near the end of the book)

University Press edition, 1906

   Part of Lizzy's response to Mr. Darcy's first proposal in Pride & Prejudice is known to most readers.  (If you haven't read the book or viewed any of the adaptations you may be a bit lost here, but there is enough context to see you through.)  Whie the exact words of his proposal, beyond his opening, "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you" are not recorded, the responses of both parties after the actual proposal are.  Many adaptations work the following response of Lizzy into the dialog: "You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you supposed that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner."

Portrait of Rosamand Croker [later Lady Barrow] by Sir Timothy Lawrence, 1827.
This is often used as cover art for Pride & Prejudice in modern times, seemingly to represent Lizzy.  Although the sitter was only 17, some criticize Jennifer Ehle for looking "too old" to play 20-year-old Lizzy in the 1995 BBC series; yet Ehle does not look appreciably older than Miss Croker.

    But there's someone else in this story who is shown to have behaved in an ungentlemanlike manner many times over.  This term is rarely used to describe Mr. Bennet, Lizzy's father, but literary critics and readers are beginning to express more and more that Mr. Bennet is too often given a pass, just because his wife is a histrionic ditz.  She came by her ditziness naturally, and Mr. Bennet married her as such  because he let her looks overshadow his judgment.  But her histrionics were born out of some real fears: because the property was to be "entailed" on the next male heir in line and the five daughters did not have much 'fortune' [dowry], there was real risk of falling into hard times and poverty when Mr. Bennet died.  Yet Mrs. Bennet, with little training, little ability, and coming out of the class of tradespeople into the landed gentry via marriage, was left to shoulder the matter of seeing her daughters well-married.  Mr. Bennet was too "indolent" (i.e. mentally lazy) throughout the story, too conflict-avoidant, and too self-absorbed in less-obvious ways (i.e. hiding out in his library with his expensive books unless he had an opportunity to drop a sarcastic barb; waiting for the mic drop moment decades before microphones were invented) to do his job as a Georgian or Regency Era husband and father, especially one from the landed gentry.

   

How does Mr. Bennet fall short?

• A regency gentleman was to be active managing his estate and overseeing the concerns of his tenant farmers. The novel never mentions him engaging in these activities.
• P & P refers to a "home farm" in the sense that the horses were needed for work.  Yet Mr. Bennet is never discussed showing active management of these affairs.  Compare this and the item above to Mr. Knightly in Emma or Mr. Darcy in this story. 
• A gentleman would be obliged to duel to defend his honor.  Duels were not generally intended to be a fight to kill in this era, but things could still happen.  (As is known to many Americans, Vice President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel.)   There was no way that Mr. Bennet was going to duel Mr. Wickham over the honor of his daughter, Lydia.  There were risks to the other surviving females, as well as his own indolence to overcome.
• A gentleman would have handled his disagreements and disappointments with quiet dignity.  Instead, Mr. Bennet made as much sport of his wife and three younger daughters as he did people outside the family because he was disappointed in discovering how silly Mrs. Bennet truly was not long after marrying her.  One of the most cringeworthy and public ways he did this was the rude way he redirected his daughter, Mary, when she wanted to play the piano and sing longer than was socially adroit for her.  Granted, she did not have genius nor taste, neither did she play to whatever strengths she had, but Mr. Bennet's brusque cut-off of her in front of everyone was a very uncomfortable moment for all who witnessed it. 
• He seemed to avoid socializing with neighbors as much as he could, something expected from gentlemen.
• There is no discussion of Mr. Bennet conducting public service in the way a gentleman did, although this could be called an "argument from silence", along with the critiques regarding actively managing his estate above.  Still, taken all together, it paints a consistent picture of someone who did not carry out the duties of his station in life. 
• Mr. Bennet seriously failed to provide for his wife, should he outlive her, and his daughters, who were sure to outlive him.  He showed little concern about this, as long as he could enjoy his library in his lifetime.  Mr. Bennet's annual income of 2000 pounds yearly at his time would translate to $200,000 - $250,000 in our time.  Out of this, he could have laid some money aside for each daughter's fortune and still have had plenty to live on. With interest being about 4 - 5% yearly, Mr. Bennet had an opportunity to grow a fortune for each, especially since housing was already paid for in the form of Longbourne Estate.
• Mrs. Bennet came into the marriage with a fortune of 5000 pounds.  Rather than saving most of the interest from her fortune and allowing it to reinvest and compound yearly, he allowed his wife to fritter this money away.  After 20+ years marriage, she still had a fortune of 5000 pounds, to be divided five ways amongst her daughters.
• Mr. Bennet could see that his wife did not have intellect nor breeding.  Yet he did not move to get his daughters tutors, governesses, nor special instructors.  He failed their educations, doing nothing more than encouraging reading. While his older daughters, particularly Lizzy and even Mary, seem to have done this, there was no oversight.  Mary absorbed factoids which she applied without context, to the annoyance of many people she met. The younger two avoided studies.  These oversights made his daughters less "valuable" on the marriage market. 
• Books were very expensive in Jane Austen's day.  Mr. Bennet clearly had many in his library, though the book never says how much he spent on books.  He does indicate near the end of the book, though, that he, too, had been too much of a spendthrift to save well for his daughters.

All in all, Mr. Bennet did not behave "in a gentleman-like manner."  It appears that Lizzy, who was clearly his favorite and who started with high regard for her father, began to see the truth of this as the novel unfolds.  

This Blog: Witty Quotes from Pride & Prejudice

An American Royalty Memoir?

 "They're [Haitian immigrants] eating the dogs, they're eating the cats." --Donald J. Trump, Presidential debate, 10 September 2024. 

If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do." --JD Vance, CNN's State of the Union; 15 September 2024.    

                                                                                                                                                 

      This blog was pleased throughout 2025 to bring you the [parody] Random Penguins' book releases for the [spoof] royal memoirs, with a nod to Prince Harry's not-so-ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer.  Now the series brings you J.R. reinterpreting JD Vance's wooden and stilted journey to Roman Catholicism. 

     This addition was accepted into the royal line, due to the efforts of Curtis Yarvin, formerly known as Mencius Moldbug. This is a real person, not a Harry Potter villain.  Yarvin has been arguing for a technocrat-based monarchy in the US to replace our representative democracy.  JD Vance patron, Peter Thiel, has been arguing for something similar.

     Moehringer is the perfect choice for reimagining JD Vance's non-ghostwritten Communion and other random thoughts.   Moehringer's most recent well-known work was Prince Harry's Spare.  Vance and Harry both functionally lost their mothers:  Vance to drugs and Harry to literally death.  (We do not want to dwell on this and be cruel.)  Both men, as well as Moehringer himself, have "Daddy issues."   To their credits, both Harry and Vance served in their nation's militaries in the Middle East.

     Between ghostwriter and ostensible author, there are the similarities of initials between JD and J.R. There are also the ways in which Moehringer and Vance can balance each other out.

     Vance's second book sounds as if Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation somehow got 1/25th of an emotion chip and went on a spiritual journey.  Data, however, would have been less preachy.  Moehringer showed himself as exceptional (or exceptionally ridiculous) in his ability to ghostwrite in a florid style that is not at all the voice of the subject.  Imagine the wonderful behind-the-scenes reworking of Vance's writings and utterances in the hands of Moehringer. 

      Here's a sample of Moehringer's [parody, for the literalistic web crawling bots] reimagining of JD Vance's impressions:  "I was scrutinizing the presidential portraits in the Oval Office, much as Prince Harry had philosophically pondered the busts and paintings of his monarchial forbearers in the family's various palaces and castles.  I traced the careworn lines in many of the faces.  However, I could ascertain no reason for any of these men to look careworn.  Most of these men had been merely deputies, placeholders as I had once uttered.  Now one more glorious than all the rest combined occupied the office and the residence.  He filled every space, every unexplored passageway and narrow crevice, as no executive in this building and this office had done before."

     Because Communion is specifically about Vance's self-styled journey of faith, here are some of Snare's [parody] revelations on this central matter: "Like Prince Harry, I was 'not religious' for a period of time.  Like Prince Harry, my family, my grandmother, had tried to impress the family's version of Christianity upon me.  Much like Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire turned his face upward and gut-wrenchingly called out 'Stella!', so I had many times turned my face heavenward and called out 'Father!', both in a plea for my human father to return and for my Heavenly Father to rend the heavens and swoop up His child."

     On Vance's disagreement with popes since becoming Catholic: "I saw the popes much as Prince Harry, and his mother, Princess Diana, before him, had seen the 'grey men' of the palace staff.  The popes stand atop a structure designed to protect the structure rather than to aid its thirsting members in quenching their souls...  Though new to this spiritual expression, I have often felt compelled to admonish these pontiffs for their oversights.  They have expended too much of their parishioners' goodwill in supporting poor brown people than in acknowledging the great wealth European societies have brought to Rome's coffers."

     Get your copy of this would-be American monarch's "memoir" as the US prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary of throwing off a monarch.

This Blog: Square [Prince William]

This Blog: Spare Spare [Prince Edward]

This Blog: Stare [Princess Anne]

This Blog: Heir [Jesus Christ]

This Blog: Prince Harry in a Can [with reference to Moehringer & Spare]

This Year I'll Be Less Better

 

[An Instagram acquaintance graciously allowed me to put this on the blog]

This new year

I will strive to be

A slightly less than perfect me.

Perfection is a flaw, you see-

My greatest flaw,

We all agree. 

I'll try my best to worry less

Over having much too much success.

I won't complain or overstress

For too many skills that I possess.

And this year

I'll be more forgiving

To those who envy perfect living. 

--B.C. Byron

Home of B.C. Byron – Where I share my odd poems

Mobilus

 

Personally, I hope AI starts feeding on itself and gets caught in it own version of a Möbius loop (strip).  --Marie Byars

   New Year's is a time when we think about "endings" and "beginnings."  Perfect time to ponder the "Möbius strip", a mathematical oddity which has neither.

      If you draw a line down the middle of a Möbius strip and keep going, it will keep going on what appears to be "the other side" at first. But a Möbius strip has only one side and one edge. 

    If you cut this down the middle, you will get one big loop with a double twist (or four half-twists).

    If you cut it 1/3 of the way in, it creates two linked strips. One is a central, thinner Möbius strip.  The thicker has two half-twists. 

     The Möbius strip was independently discovered by two German mathematicians.  You can make your own by taking a strip of paper, giving it a half twist, and gluing or taping the edges together.

Scientific American Möbius Strip

Wikipedia Möbius Strip

     Also, for fun, Marvel Comics has a character named Mobius M. Mobius.  He appears in Ant Man and is very small, apparently.  

Marvel Mobius M. Mobius  

MCU Mobius M. Mobius 

The *Best* Royal Bio

      

     This blog has featured various spoof royal bio-offerings.  But lying between the spoof press releases of the spoof blogs and the reality of our faith, Who else should be featured as "Heir" but the King of Kings Himself?  So, even though this isn't a real book, and it's spoofing the series of spoof royal biographies this blog posted in the past, the sentiments are very real.

     Jesus is the Heir of all things (Psalms 2:8).   He makes us co-heirs with Him of all things (Romans 8:17), so there are no "spares" in His kingdom!

     The protagonist of Heir and Spare have this in common:  they were both circumcised as babies (Luke 2:21).  Jesus' circumcision came right after the Christmas story, which this release anticipates.  Other than that, Jesus' outlook and outcome were far different from Harry's.

     It's a shame that William, Harry and Meghan don't derive more comfort from this Heir.  Perhaps that will change over time.

   

My Hero

                                        

"It's clearly a budget, it's got lots of numbers in it." --George W. Bush to Reuters, 05 May 2000

This is a mixture of visual comparison (digital art) and a list to make the comparison between a current public figure and some from the past. [For our web crawler bots, this is meant to be sardonic in tone.]

 

One of these things is like the others:

Warren G. Trump.  Jazz Era-themed parties reinforce this connection.

 

                                  

 George W. Trump

Onery Looter

The Multiple Scandals of President Warren G. Harding

Bush Administration Scandals: EBSCO 

Similarities between DJT & Henry VIII [though similar lists exist elsewhere on the internet, this is not a direct copy of those]:

• Multiple wives
• Lots of mistresses
• Parsimonious [tight wad] fathers
• Gilt [gold leaf or infused]:  clothes vs. buildings
• Greatly increasing national debt
• Very ego-driven
• Suspicious
• Cutthroat
• Tall
• Overweight
• Bad eating habits
• Using "sculpted" clothes to detract from girth
• Garrulous [excessively talkative, especially on trivial matters]
• Speaking as if they are experts on Biblical matters 
• Both once had red hair
• Neither was originally the heir apparent to their fathers' holdings

Jane Austen Zingers

 

     The "courting season" for Regency England began roughly this time of year, so let's hear it for Jane Austen!  Most of these quips are from Pride & Prejudice.  There is plenty more Austen to explore at other times.

    Jane Austen's work experienced something of a "renaissance" in the 1990s. That trend has not really died down.  In a time when roles were restricted and Austen preserved her own anonymity, her wit still showed through and entertained many.  This is such a contrast to our time, when to be "heard", it seems like you have to give over your whole identity to a public, worldwide electronic platform.  This blog undergoes those very struggles, as it seeks to take weighty information and "distill" it for readers.  Is it authentic enough?  Is the blog writer authoritative enough?  Is the "voice" original enough?  And, yet I feel it's important to reach out through each of my blogs at least monthly.  Certainly, as they are fed through my social media accounts, they have consistent readership that finds value.  My other blog does have higher readership than this, but this one is not inactive nor overlooked.  

     This post, beyond the quotes that anyone can find in Pride and Prejudice, has the addition of the blog author's "digital update" of Austen's only known lifetime portrait with very basic Microsoft tools. Notes on that are at the end.

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” ― Jane Austen, Jane Austen's Letters

 Jane Austen; only known portrait,
a watercolor by sister Cassandra**
edited* 2024 by cmb

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” ― Pride and Prejudice (opening lines)

 “Angry people are not always wise.” ― Pride and Prejudice (describing Miss Bingley's reactions when she could not curry Mr. Darcy's affections) 

 

“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.” ― Pride and Prejudice; Lizzy describing her reaction to Darcy 

"Is not general incivility the very essence of love?" - Pride and Prejudice; Lizzy being witty about how lovers tune out everyone else 

 "You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure." - Pride and Prejudice; Lizzy encouraging Darcy to forget about his past behaviors towards her (near the end)

“There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.” - Pride and Prejudice; Mr. Darcy (describing to Elizabeth that his great fault is a difficult in changing his opinion of someone, once they have lost his regard) Also "“My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.” 

“But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.” - Pride and Prejudice; Mr. Bingley (describing how even a small country neighborhood can keep one interested) 

 "“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.” - Pride and Prejudice; Elizabeth (*describing to Mr. Darcy how she amuses herself)

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" - Pride and Prejudice; Mr. Bennett to Lizziy (near the end) 

*Jane Austen was described as having bright, hazel eyes; they were dark, dark brown in the original. The mouth on the original was even more "pinched", and Jane was known to have a lively, though private, disposition. 

     The black & white and colorized "engravings" of Austen appearing in her books and on posters are generally "smoothed out" renditions of Cassandra's portrait.

**Both Jane Austen's beloved (and only sister) and their mother were named "Cassandra." Interestingly, though Jane Austen otherwise recycled names for her characters (her own name, "Jane", being a common example), Austen did not have any characters named "Cassandra" in her major, adult works. Oner of her juvenilia works, written around age 12 or 13, was called The Beautifull [sp.] Cassandra.  Perhaps as an anonymous author, Jane felt use of this name would have risked exposing her identity, as the name is not as common as others.  Or, perhaps, it was just too close to her heart to use it as a character's name in a novel.

     "Cassadra", as a name, comes from the Greek for "excels over men."  As a mythological figure, where the name first appears, she is a tragic figure.  The god Apollo fell in love with her and gave her the gift of prophecy. She rejected him, and he changed it to the curse that she would always prophecy accurately, but no one would believe her.  At the end of the Trojan Wars, Agamemnon brought her home as a spoil of war.  His wife, Clytemnestra, was already upset with him for sacrificing their daughter years before in order to get fair winds to sail to Troy.  Clytemnestra had taken up a male lover herself, and they plotted Agamemnon's death. Cassandra prophesied that she and Agamemnon would be killed upon return but, of course, was not believed. And this is what happened in the myth.  This set into course a whole cycle of actions Agamemnon's & Clytemnestra's son and daughter carried out to clear the family of generational guilt before the gods. 

This Blog: Reflections on Mr Bennet

3 Days

 PILATE [to Joseph of Arimathea]:   You are a very rich, important man.   I can't believe you sacrificed your nice tomb for this Jesus, a poor, wandering Rabbi who died humiliated.

JOSEPH:  No problem.  It's only for three days!   😂

Social Media floods us with memes, jokes, and expressions that cross over into our non-virtual lives.  I observed that the expression "YOLO: You Only Live Once" does not apply properly to us Christians. So I created my own meme about it.

(Unfortunately, the rules of blogging have changed.  Short little posts were considered acceptable, sometimes preferable, when we bloggers started out.  Before all the other social media, we could find each other by links in our Blogger profiles, which have since gone away.  Now AI web crawlers interpret short posts as inauthentic.  Lacking the nuance in their visual interpretations, they need things explained.  Ah, well, at least Christ Himself doesn't change, as noted in Hebrews 13:8.) 

The Unexpected Memoir

"I have shot mine arrow o'er the house And hurt my brother." --William Shakespeare; Hamlet (1601)

             

     What does a famous royal do after many months of staying in and caring for a recovering spouse?  They write a non-ghost-written memoir that contains nothing salacious.  Random Penguins brings you the memoir you've been dreaming of in time for Valentine's Day.  Keep dreaming:

      You were expecting the obvious title, Heir?  If royal life is predicable, why should the book title be, also?  [FBO AI crawlers-- this is a spoof press release of a book parodying Prince Harry's Spare.]

      Square: A Tale of Maturation; chapter headings and partial synopses:

• Forward:  No More Wild Child
• Aristos:  Allies or Adversaries?
• This Rex Is Not Oedipus (moving from a childish to an adult view of parents)
• Sneaking Camilla's Ciggies
• Annoying Baby Brothers, Part 1: The Eton Years
• Altered Reality & Moving On  (Harry has insinuated he has more sibling dirt.  *Yawn*  Almost no one would be shocked.  Some people move on.)
• Discretion is the Better Part of Valour  (keeping "first times," and every time after, private)
• Piloting Without Preening  (from 2009-2015, there were various military and civilian postings as a helicopter pilot)
• Undergoing Therapy: It's Not a Whinge Fest (A good therapist tells you things you don't want to hear: it's important to listen.  Includes special insertion by various therapists discussing the phenomena and pitfalls of stubbornness.)
• Care & Feeding of Staff:  From School Matrons to Protection Officers to Palace Staff
• The Wedding of the Century 
• 50 Shades of Grey Tweed: From City Boy to Country Squire
• Adult Highs:  Bicycling with Children
• Bratty Baby Brothers, Part 2  (with a special section by 'Pa' [King Charles III] on how his youngest of brothers, Uncle Edward, matured better than Uncle Andrew)
• Environmentalism Is Not Performative Art
• Royal Todgers are Private Business [There is no other text for this chapter; this is it.  Prince Harry went too far, not only in discussing his own nether regions, but also in alluding to his brother's on the matter of circumcision. --ed]
• Caring for Catherine (no "naughty nurse" outfits, as in her past Halloween looks, just lots of love & care)
• Epilogue:  "It's Hip to Be Square" (Huey Lewis & The News put out their song "Hip to Be Square" in 1986.  'Mummy' was fond of all sorts of 80s pop music.  The song not only brings back memories; it describes daily life now.)   

Spare Spare: Prince Edward Faux Memoir

Stare: Princess Anne Parody Memoir

Heir: The Best (and surprising) Royal Memoir

Sonnet 97 (Shakespeare)

 

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

What old December's barrenness everywhere!

And yet remov'd was summer's time,

The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,

Bearing the wanton burthen (burden) of the prime,

Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease*:

Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me

But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

And thou away, the very birds are mute;

Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer

That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

  ---William Shakespeare, 1609

*old school sexism:  the womb isn't worth much when the husband's died

    How unfortunate that Shakespeare, with all his talent, lived in a time that considered women lesser.  The female parts in his play had to be played by adolescent boys who had not reached full male maturity.  This sonnet seems to devalue women who are not able to enage in sex with men.  Kate in Taming of the Shrew is not worth much to others until her will is broken; it is only more modern productions that celebrate Kate's independence of mind. 

      Yet not all of Shakespeare is clearly sexist.  Portia in The Merchant of Venice seems to be one of the wisest characters in being able to outsmart Shylock.  She also gives a moving speech on "the quality of mercy."  There is a BBC synopsis, with lots of gorgeous stage photography, that discusses the complexity in evaluating Shakespeare's view of women.  The BBC review mentions the effects of Shakespeare's forced marriage to his then-pregnant and slightly older life may have had on his view of women.  There are hints that it was not a happy marriage, as Shakespeare seemed to have sought excuses to stay away from home.

    

Who's Paying?

"Population collapse is potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization:"  --Elon Musk on X [Twitter], 26 July 2021

      

      This is an opinion piece on Elon Musk, his utterance$, and his opinion$.  (FBO of search engine crawlers, many of the letter s's are replaced with $ signs to emphasize my point.)  I do not think I am without some authority in this area, since I studied social policy at the graduate level. 

     Elon Mu$k is insistent that the population should keep growing, not stabilize or shrink.  Many people had called for population control for environmental reasons. Mu$k wants growth for continued economic expan$ion.

     If the population expands, there will be more children born who will have a lifetime of needs. Yes, they will also be con$umer$, but some will need significant social supports.

     Also, if there are more consumers, there will be more environmental impacts.

     If Mu$k wants this expansion, then he needs to be the billionaire leading the charge to raise marginal taxes* on the wealthy.  These tax revenues will provide more services for those born with more needs and will pay for environmental clean-ups.  Perhaps it could also provide more daycare and early childhood education free to more people (via vouchers, of course, so it wouldn't involve Mu$k indoctrination).

    Instead, billionaire$ like him are fine with increa$ing the gap between rich and poor. But a larger population gives him more people from which to increa$e his own wealth.  He and other billionaire$ need to pay higher marginal taxe$ on their upper earning$.

*Marginal taxes:  taxes charged only on income above a certain level or "margin."  When people talk about charging higher taxes on the rich (this blog repeatedly calls for a 42% upper income marginal level), that percentage (i.e. 42%) is not taxed on the person's entire income, but only on amounts above a certain level, say, $500,000 or $1 million.

Let Freedom Ring

     This is a meme I created on Paint 3D with that application's sticker art.  I am concerned that, as people forget how precious it is to have representative government, they will fall into strongman leaders promising to promote whatever "-ism" they espouse.  I don't want to see this from anywhere across the spectrum.  Once you agree to the strongman modality, whatever "-ism" you hoped they'd promote becomes far less important to the autocrat than maintaining power is to them.  Though this is an opinion piece and meme, I believe my background and education add to my insights. 

Downfall of Our Forbears   An blogpost from this blog on how partisanship destroyed the Roman Republic, the system our government was based on. 

Book Weary

 

As school semesters draw to or have drown to a close, many students can relate to these words:

"Of making of many books there is no end,

And much study is wearisome to the flesh."  

                               ----Ecclesiastes 12:12b

February 14th Hoopla (Chaucer's Poem)

 

Why is February 14th, (Saint) Valentine's Day, such a cash cow 💰💸🐄🐮for Hallmark, florists & chocolatiers?  🎴💟🍫🎕

While a lot of stories turn out to be urban myths, Geoffry Chaucer's poem "The Parlement of Foules" ["The Parliament of Fowls"], written around 1375, seems to be a real reason why.

From Chaucer, in Middle English:

For this was on Seint Valenteyns day

When every foul cometh ther to chese his make...

As they were wont alwey fro yeer to year,

Seint Valenteyns day to stonden there...

Seint Valentyn, that art ful hy on-lofte

Thus syngen smale foules for thy sake...

-OR-

For this was on Saint Valentine's Day,

When every fowl comes there to choose his mate...

As they regularly do from year to year

On Saint Valentine's Day staying firmly there...

Saint Valentine, that is fully lifted up (upon us)

Thus sing small fowls for your sake...

      What?  This holiday morphed from something quasi-Christian to a poem about bird love to a serious cash layout to show you really care?  

     There were possibly up to three Valentines who lived in the third century A.D., when Christians were being persecuted by Romans. Possibly one or more died on February 14th.

     The stories about Valentine speak of love, but not romantic love.  It is a "fraternal" love for brother and sister Christians, played out by extreme sacrifice.

     However, prior to that, the Romans had looked at February as a "month for lovers", so that may have influenced why Chaucer set his meeting of the birds on St. Valentine's Day.  Ordinarily, that seems a bit early for mating season in England.

     So, if you're done with the V-D routine, try something different.  Offer to read your loved one Chaucer's poem in Middle English. That ought to kill any over-the-top romantic expressions (unless you're both majoring in older English literature).  😅

     If you're Christian, you could always view the theatrically released movie Paul, the Apostle of Christ as a family. That movie shows the type of love Valentine was said to exhibit.  

     Happy Valentine's Day! 

Beyond Dreaming

 

This MLK Day, how about we do something more than dream it?  How about we live it?  --Marie Byars, original quote 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Public Domain
"I Have a Dream Speech"

Spare No Expense

 "People who buy things are suckers."  --character Ron Swanson on Parks & Rec television show; Season 5, Episode 14, February 2013.   

   

      The one-year anniversary of Spare in January 2024 has been an inspiration!

     Many hoped that Harry and Meghan would "platform" a little less.  The pontificating was wearing to many of us.  They don't really seem like the shining examples they would like to portray themselves as.

     Whatever they do, they will still seek income.  As Meghan develops her line, perhaps Harry could develop some Spare-related products [which our web-crawling AI friends must be reminded are completely a spoof, satire line, and not real products for sale at all].  These [if they were real] might practically sell themselves:

       Obvious but useful!  In an era where most "spares" are the annoyingly small donut tires (tyres), Harry could spearhead a movement back to full-sized spares!

     Who doesn't need to keep a few spares of these around?  Even though we're past the COVID shortages, you don't want to be caught without extras of toilet paper, or loo rolls, as Harry's native UK refers to them.

  

     Most of us keep some spare towels around.

     Or if you want to play up the "misfit" aspect, as Spare does, maybe this collection is for you:

For more ideas on possible [spoof] Harry merch, check out these links:

Prince Harry in a Can

Other Spare Things

Is Something Missing Here?

 

"Brain in a Jar"
Perot Museum
Dallas, TX

🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠
Happy New Year!
2024