I love the light in this photo. This Schornsteinfeger (chimney sweep) was working in Gertrudplatz 7 in the 18th Bezirk of Vienna, sometime in the latter part of 1976. I caught him up in the attic and asked him to pose for a photo. It’s one of my favorite memories of Austria. (Next to the heiße Maroni, the Schnitzel, the Chokoladeschnecken, the mountains of Innsbruck, usw usw usw…=)
Today, Reuters reported that the Taliban in Afghanistan is after Prince Harry, hoping to make political hay out of a high-profile target. The article states in part,
“(Reuters) – The Afghan Taliban said on Monday they were doing everything in their power to try to kidnap or kill Britain’s Prince Harry, who arrived in Afghanistan last week to fly attack helicopters. Queen Elizabeth’s grandson is in Afghanistan on a four-month tour, based in Camp Bastion in the volatile Helmand province, where he will be on the front line in the NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents. ‘We are using all our strength to get rid of him, either by killing or kidnapping,’ Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location.”
Mr. Muhajid, you understand nothing of Islam. You understand nothing of jihad, which is personal struggle to make yourself more like the Allah you claim to worship, but whom you understand not at all. Tom Clancy said it far better than I ever could:
“Islam is not the enemy of our country or any other. Just as my family was once attacked by people calling themselves Catholics, so these people have twisted and defiled their own religious faith in the name of worldly power, and then hidden behind it like the cowards they are. What God thinks of that, I cannot say. I know that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, teaches us about a God of love and mercy–and justice.”
Tom Clancy, Executive Orders
No one is fighting a war against Islam, except withing the confines of your own uneducated and deluded minds. You are wrong about the world, wrong about freedom, wrong about personal liberty, and wrong about your own faith.
©Bill Watterson
If Allah exists in any form at all, he is not one of the Old Gods. He does not demand blood and sacrifice, or the suppression of other human beings – women, gays, Baha’is, Jews, or any other of his creations; he does not demand that unbelievers be subject to the Dhimmi tax, or beaten for your pleasure, or executed at your whim. Your guns do not make your right; your misguided mullahs and imams do not make you right; the destruction of priceless cultural treasures at the fatwa of one insane man do not make you right. You are wrong, and all the bullying thuggery in the world will not change that. You will no doubt consider this blasphemy and worthy of death, but I do not excuse my words. I am not a Muslim, but I tell you plainly that I understand your Allah far better than you ever will.
Humanity will survive your onslaught. Shari’a will not prevail. As our race gropes toward the stars, backward-thinking mobsters like yourself and those who follow you will fade into obscurity and irrelevance. The only hope you have for survival is to lay down your weapons of war and join those who seek to live in peace with their neighbors, who seek to build a better world for all people. Do this, and you will live. Do it not, and you and each of you relegate yourselves to the dustbin of history.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
-W. Somerset Maugham
I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;
For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.
Jessie Belle Rittenhouse (1869–1948)
Taken from the Continental Bank building where my uncle, Courtney Rogers Draper, officed with his father, Delbert Morley Draper. Courtney was a promising attorney before being sent to the Philippines in 1939. He was interned by the Japanese and lost his life on the Enoura Maru in Takao Harbor on December 15, 1944.
Hasanlu Tepe is an archaeological site in Azarbaijan Province of northwestern Iran.
These two skeletons were found in a pit with no identifying marks or artifacts – only a stone slab beneath the head of the one on the left. What story could these two have told?
“L’homme auquel il avait appartenu était donc venu là, et il y était mort. Quand on voulut le détacher du squelette qu’il embrassait, il tomba en poussière.”
-Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris
(Holloway’s monologue leaves off the last 3 verses, but it’s lovely to listen to!)
YORKSHIRE PUDDEN
by
Weston and Lee
Hi waitress, excuse me a minute, now listen,
I’m not finding fault, but here, Miss,
The ‘taters look gradely… the beef is a’reet,
But what kind of pudden is this?
It’s what?…
Yorkshire pudden!, now coom, coom, coom, coom,
It’s what? Yorkshire pudden d’ye say!
It’s pudden, I’ll grant you… it’s some sort of pudden,
But not Yorkshire pudden… nay nay!
The real Yorkshire pudden’s a dream in batter,
To make one’s an art, not a trade,
Now listen to me, for I’m going to tell thee,
How t’ first Yorkshire pudden wor made.
A young angel on furlough from heaven,
Came flying above Ilkley Moor,
And this angel, poor thing, got cramp in her wing,
And coom down at owd woman’s door.
The owd woman smiled and said, ‘Ee, it’s an angel,
Well I am surprised to see thee,
I’ve not seen an angel before… but thou ‘rt welcome,
I’ll make thee a nice cup o’ tea.’
The angel said, ‘Ee, thank you kindly, I will’,
Well, she had two or three cups of tea,
Three or four Sally Lunns, and a couple of buns…
Angels eat very lightly you see.
The owd woman looking at clock said, ‘By Gum!
He’s due home from mill is my Dan,
You get on wi’ ye tea, but you must excuse me,
I must make pudden now for t’ owd man.
Then the angel jumped up and said, ‘Gimme the bowl…
Flour and watter and eggs, salt an’ all,
And I’ll show thee how we make puddens in Heaven,
For Peter and Thomas and Paul’.
So t’ owd woman gave her the things, and the angel,
Just pushed back her wings and said. ‘Hush’
Then she tenderly tickled the mixture wi’ t’ spoon,
Like an artist would paint with his brush.
Aye, she mixed up that pudden with Heavenly magic,
She played with her spoon on that dough,
Just like Paderewski would play the piano.
Or Kreisler now deceased would twiddle his bow.
And then it wor done and she put it in t’ oven
She said t’ owd woman, ‘Goodbye’,
Then she flew away leaving the first Yorkshire pudden,
That ever was made… and that’s why…
It melts in the mouth, like the snow in the sunshine,
As light as a maiden’s first kiss,
As soft as the fluff on the breast of a dove…
Not elephant’s leather, like this.
It’s real Yorkshire pudden that makes Yorkshire lassies,
So buxum and broad in the hips,
It’s real Yorkshire pudden that makes Yorkshire cricketers,
Win County championships.
It’s real Yorkshire pudden that gives me my dreams,
Of a real Paradise up above,
Where at the last trump, I’ll queue up for a lump,
Of the real Yorkshire pudden I love.
And there on a cloud… far away from the crowd,
In a real Paradise, not a dud ‘un,
I’ll do nowt for ever… and ever and ever,
But gollup up real Yorkshire pudden.
And all this because the goodwoman of the house served me divine Yorkshire puddings for breakfast…
While this looks photoshopped, it’s an actual phenomenon, a fire swirl caused by a heat-generated vortex.
March 11, 2003 – a Salt Lake City strip mall goes up in flames due to faulty attic wiring above a shoe repair shop.
The view from my office, Cathedral of the Madeline in the center (it wasn’t close to the fire)
Employees and bystanders form a brigade to rescue clothing from a dry cleaner’s before it goes up. Felt-Buchhorn, a long-time landmark in Salt Lake, fell victim to the recent recession.
Oh, the irony.
Article here.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
This recreation depicts a dental office as it might have appeared in the late 1800’s. Pioneer Village at Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington is a “living museum,” a tribute to the pioneers who carved a living out of the desert after arriving in 1847. In addition to the 42 19th-century stores and offices, each appropriately furnished, the village contains a railroad museum and one of the finest small arms collections in the nation.
This has been around the internet for a long time, but as far as I can determine, it was originally written by authors at the Onion.
WORLD NEWS:
CLINTON DEPLOYS VOWELS TO BOSNIA
Cities of Sjlbvdnzv, Grzny to Be First Recipients
Before an emergency joint session of Congress yesterday, President Clinton announced US plans to deploy over 75,000 vowels to the war‑torn region of Bosnia. The deployment, the largest of its kind in American history, will provide the region with the critically needed letters A,E,I,O and U, and is hoped to render countless Bosnian names more pronounceable.
“For six years, we have stood by while names like Ygrjvslhv and Tzlynhr and Glrm have been horribly butchered by millions around the world,” Clinton said. “Today, the United States must finally stand up and say ‘Enough.’ It is time the people of Bosnia finally had some vowels in their incomprehensible words. The US is proud to lead the crusade in this noble endeavor.”
The deployment, dubbed Operation Vowel Storm by the State Department, is set for early next week, with the Adriatic port cities of Sjlbvdnzv and Grzny slated to be the first recipients. Two C‑130 transport planes, each carrying over 500 24‑count boxes of “E’s,” will fly from Andrews Air Force Base across the Atlantic and airdrop the letters over the cities.
Citizens of Grzny and Sjlbvdnzv eagerly await the arrival of the vowels. “Bože moj, I do not think we can last another day,” Trszg Grzdnjkln, 44, said. “I have six children and none of them has a name that is understandable to me or to anyone else. Mr. Clinton, please send my poor, wretched family just one ‘E.’ Please.”
Said Sjlbvdnzv resident Grg Hmphrs, 67: “With just a few key letters, I could be George Humphries. This is my dream.”
The airdrop represents the largest deployment of any letter to a foreign country since 1984. During the summer of that year, the US shipped 92,000 consonants to Ethiopia, providing cities like Ouaouoaua, Eaoiiuae, and Aao with vital, life‑giving supplies of L’s, S’s and T’s. The consonant‑relief effort failed, however, when vast quantities of the letters were intercepted and hoarded by violent, gun‑toting warlords.
For what it’s worth, “rhythm” and “syzygy” are the longest English words with no vowels if you don’t count archaic forms like symphysy or names like Twyndyllyngs. Slavic languages or which use syllabic consonants can actually form sentences like “Strč prst skrz krk” (Czech for “stick a finger through your neck”).
Th Ld Wlf hs Spkn.
No, that’s not Chinese – it’s English. It’s a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, beautifully calligraphed by Yongsheng Zhao.
Rotate the text to the left (or bend your neck to the right) and read “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Playing in the World Game 