Tag Archives: danger

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Calm Discussion

Say what you will about Charlie Kirk – and many have – but he championed discussion and debate, not dismissal and censorship.  He had much to say – but he always listened.

SPEAKER DROPPED FROM LOCAL MENTAL HEALTH EVENT

An American speaker was invited to a local symposium, titled, SEE ME, HEAR ME – THE UNHEARD VOICES.  Enough people complained about his social and political opinions, that the invitation was withdrawn.  The irony lies heavy upon the ground.

Beware the zealot!  The true believers are the worst.  The average person’s psyche is a spider web.  Pull on the right thread and you will get the desired result.  Praise them, and they will like you.  Ridicule them, and they will hate you. The greedy can be bought, timid can be frightened, smart can be persuaded, but the zealots are immune to money, fear, or reason.  A zealot’s psyche is a tightrope.  They have severed everything else in favor of their goal.  They will pay any price for their victory, and that makes them infinitely more dangerous.

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The Danger Of Believing In Nothing

My title, above, was his title, I presume as some sort of ‘gotcha’ Christian argument.  In his post, it changed to The Danger Of Belief In Nothing – Atheist Quotes.  I responded,

The Danger Of Believing That Atheists Believe In Nothing

and the debate was on.  In a 1000-word blogpost, he never actually described or explained what the danger was.

Hi Archon, thank you for the commenting. Feel free to share here. The floor is always open for discussion. Do you feel that Atheists believe in something and that the faith of no faith has faith?

Naah….  Despite my warning, you’re still couching your questions and statements in your belief in unverified assumptions.  Atheists believe in pretty much the same things that Christians believe, except the existence of an incoherent, ill-defined, unprovable, supernatural entity, which is the creator and ruler of the Cosmos.  Atheists, generally, have no faith.  Faith is the excuse that people give for believing something for which they have no good reason.  If they had a good reason, they would give that.  Atheists have reasonable expectations, based on inquiry, research, and previously-observed history.

His Atheist quotes included, Julian Barnes (Atheist novelist)
“I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him.” and
Jean-Paul Sartre
“That God does not exist, I cannot deny. That my whole being cries out for God, I cannot forget.”

None of his ‘Atheist Quotes’ prove the existence of God, or even give convincing evidence.  Several of them speak merely of ‘meaning, purpose, or spirituality.’  They are statements from intelligent, insightful writers who recognize the desperate desire of many believers to want and need a softer, kinder, New-Age, Woke, benevolent Cosmic Overlord, which cannot be shown to exist.  Even the Bible – which should be the sole font of all that is Christian, but often isn’t – only shows an improvement in their imaginary God, from a smiting, judgmental psychopath in the Old Testament, to merely a sociopath in the New Testament.

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Poetry Pavilion II

The following is a homemade poem of acclaim and recognition, hand-crafted, and presented to me some years ago for my birthday.  Since I managed to do it again, for the 81st time, I thought I’d brush off the dust and cobwebs, and publish it again.  Once a King – Always a King.  Once a Knight is enough.

Tale of the Great Northern Knight

He loosened his pants and girded his loins

For battle he did prepare

He grabbed up his sword and mounted his horse

To defend his queen so fair

Whilst traveling through the land of Kitchener

He gave no heed to danger

For he had the gift of words and prose

And never met a stranger

His fated path crossed Ranty Knight

To which he doth did hail

Archon rambled on and on

(and on)

A great and many tale

Though humble and honest the Knight did speak

‘Twas the day of his creation

Ranty cried out, “Awesomesauce Man!”

‘Tis cause for a great celebration

Pillage these wenches – steal all the bacon

‘Tap us a fine keg of ale

I’m of the order of a Free Thinking man

(which means, “Bet your ass we will”)

So feasts were brought forth, a rare coin for a gift

Ensuing tales about bravery

Archon was happy on this mighty fine day and

Ate a big bowl of taters n gravy

(with cheese curds on top)

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Happy Birthday Archon!! I hope you are surrounded by all the people you love tomorrow. (I love ya, too Grumpy Dude)

 

Thank you for being my friend and sharing all your wonderful tales. You are very kind and one of the most honest and intelligent people in blogtown.

 

Love,

Whitelady

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Familiar Fibbing Friday

A mixed bag from Pensitivity101 last week, my friends, some familiar words, but how would you define them?

1. What is a gigolo?

A very amusing comedian

2.  What is meant by paramount?

One of those amazing, three-wheeled racing wheelchairs used in the Special Olympics, capable of passing a Ferrari

3.  What is a scenario?

That’s what my mainly-Italian wife throws, if she doesn’t get her way in public.  Also see super-snit.

4.  How many fingers do fish have?

It depends on the size of the box

5.  What is a bell hop?

A pet bunny-rabbit, with a cat collar on it.

6.  Why do pets ‘shed’?

So that they can keep their grow-ops of magic mushrooms or Mary Juwanna unseen, in a little house behind the house.

7.  What is the difference between toilet tissue and toilet paper?

Mean household income.  Below these are newspaper, burdock leaves, and corn cobs.  Catalogue pages have become technologically obsolete.  It’s hard to wipe your butt with a PDF.

8.  What is a chalet?

A chav’s girlfriend

9.  What is a clog?

An obstruction in my nasal passages, whose removal can be assisted by the consumption of extra-spicy curry

10. Why can Lego™ be dangerous?

It can entice children away from lucrative, culturally impressive careers like Tik-Tok stars, or Social Influencers, into meaningless, dead-end positions in engineering or science.  😮

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Humorous Answer To A Seriously Stupid Question

WHY DO GUN NUTS INSIST THAT THE AR15 IS SEMI-AUTOMATIC, WHEN IT IS CLEARLY FULLY AUTOMATIC, WITH A HIGH CALIBER MAGAZINE?

Well, bless your poor little dumb-ass heart, Sparky! The old “full-auto / high caliber clip” argument, huh? I do think that people can be so, SO ignorant that they have no idea just how truly ignorant they are, and this ‘question’ here is a prime example. You are the type of person that would try to fill a Tesla up with diesel because you know it doesn’t run on gasoline.

You can’t help but to stare at the orange juice carton because it says “concentrate”. It takes you 3 hours to watch “60 Minutes,” and an hour to make Minute Rice. When you saw a sign stating “under 17 not admitted” at the movies you went out and got 16 friends. Hell, you sit on the TV and watch the couch, and you are absolutely sure General Motors was in the army.

When you missed the #66 bus, you took the #33 bus twice instead. If someone gave you a penny for your thoughts you’d have to give back change. You’d have to increase your IQ by a good 40–50 points just to have dementia. When someone gives you a piece of paper with ‘please turn over’ written on both sides, it’ll keep you entertained for hours. You stuck a phone up your ass to make a booty call and you even asked somebody what the number was for “9–1–1” so you could have it ready in case you needed it for an emergency. Similarly, you had to ask someone how to spell “TV”.

Particularly fitting, you were once stabbed at a shootout. When you heard that 90% of all accidents happen in the home, you immediately moved, only to realize you had to move again…and again…and again. When you see someone doing something dangerous and they tell you “don’t try this at home”, you walk over to your neighbor’s place and do it. Hell, when you saw a sign that said “Airport Left” you turned around and went back home! You even climbed over a glass wall to see what was on the other side.

Under “education” on job applications you put “Hooked on Phonics”, then at the end where it says “sign below”, you put Libra. You never could get it through your little head that “Tupac Shakur” wasn’t a Jewish holiday, and you take a yardstick to bed to see how long you sleep. Hell, you locked yourself in a bathroom and pissed all over yourself. If you spoke your mind, you’d never have a single damned thing to say.

You once got locked into a mattress store and slept on the floor, and you tried to kill a bird by throwing it off a cliff. You even bought a solar powered flashlight. You looked in the lake a while back, saw a reflection of yourself, then jumped in and tried to save yourself from drowning. You think that the way to leave a voicemail is to scream into a mailbox.

FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS

I was going to add some serious thoughts and rebuttal to that silly claim above, but this post is already long enough, and you’re in no condition to take them seriously.  I’ll make it a two-parter.  Keep your eyes peeled for my logic and facts post.  No, no! Don’t do that.  They’ll get all dry and irritated.  😉

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Score One For Fibbing Fridays

A history lesson from Pensitivity101.

  1. Why was the Mona Lisa smiling that enigmatic smile?

Because she got her hair done, just in time for the portrait.

2. Who painted The Laughing Cavalier?

Actually, it was Lenny, from Rodrigo’s Painting and Decorating, but it wasn’t his fault.  If the horse’s ass rider hadn’t been yucking it up, and had been paying more attention to where he was going, instead of his Smart Phone, he wouldn’t have walked under Lenny’s ladder.

3. As per the song why was the Policeman laughing?

Because his unmarried daughter had just told him that she was pregnant with twins, and he knew that she had never been on a double date in her life.

4. Who sang ‘I started a Joke?’

That was Chris Rock, just before Will Smith got up and slapped him.

5. From which film did Little April Shower come from?

It was a porno flick, titled Golden Memories.

6. What was the family harvesting in the Panorama programme on April 1st 1957?

That was spaghetti, but it was a meager crop, because spaghetti trees do not do well in England.  The only things the UK has in abundance, are pea-soup fogs, and Carry On movies.  The Italian TV networks seemed to have no reason to boast about their bumper crops of penne, and rotini.  And the trees near the Mediterranean shore were laden with lots of juicy calamari.

7. Who played the Court Jester?

That was Richard Moll, playing bailiff, Bull Shannon, in the hilarious TV series, Night Court.  Oh, the rest of the cast were amusing, but Bull brought a serious silliness to his character, like the time he tried to stop an escaping male tween.  He jumped out in front of him in the corridor, and pointed his finger at the kid, who said, “Yeah??!  Waddya gonna do with that?”  Bull replied, “Poke a 4-inch hole in your forehead if you don’t stop.”

8. Why are Jokers wild?

Because they think that they are hilarious, but no-one else does, or takes them seriously until someone has been injured.  The video for vocal group, Home Free’s version of Castle On The Hill is a sad example.  The she of the featured couple is the worst.  She steals toilet paper from an outhouse, before her he is finished, convinces him to climb over a locked gate, to TP the tree in someone’s back yard, pushes him backward off a dock into shallow water at the edge of a small lake, ignoring possible rocks or submerged branches, and ends by handling fireworks and shooting roman candles at each other.  What fun!!  Adding another entry to the Darwin Awards list.  😯

9. In which country is April 1st officially a bank holiday?

That would be Lichtenstein.  It’s a land-locked little country, high up in the Alps where you can get a Flag Of Convenience for your ocean-going ships, to evade avoid onerous restrictions, such as high taxes, safety regulations, and minimum-wage laws.  The entire country is scarcely larger than the parking lot of a good-sized McDonalds, but they manage to shoe-horn in dozens of discreet, don’t ask – don’t tell, financial institutions, where movie stars, drug lords, and tin-horn African despots hide their ill-gotten riches and filthy lucre.

10. If today is your birthday, what star sign are you?

No Stopping!
No Standing!
No Loitering!

He took her for a car-ride, and showed her a sign that said, Yield.
She showed him one that read, Refuse.

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Firearms VS. My Skull

Shotgun

Have you ever had your head blown off with a 12 gauge shotgun?  I have, almost, and it still gives me shivers when I’m reminded of it!  Actually, that’s a silly question.  If you’d had your head blown off, you wouldn’t be here, answering this silly survey.

Children in my small hometown owned weapons. 14, 15, 16-year-old boys possessed rifles and shotguns.  It was not unusual, of a warm, sunny summer Saturday, to see a group of armed youths, ‘going hunting’, if hooting and yelling, and telling jokes while clomping through the near-by woods could be called hunting.  All the animals were hiding behind trees and snickering.  The only things that got shot were trees and fenceposts – or old appliances and food tins, if we reached the city dump.

One well-armed wight once boasted of ‘bumping off a chickadee’, as if he were a mob hit man. From a distance of 20 feet, he blasted away with a 12 gauge shotgun, leaving nothing but a fine pink mist.  He was also the genius who found an arm-thick, wild apple tree amongst the evergreens, and ‘chopped it down’ using three blasts to its base.

The rifles we owned were mostly little .22 caliber plinkers, capable of very little serious damage. Those who carried 12 gauge shotguns though, were far more dangerous.  .22s are only 22/100ths of an inch wide.  Even .45s, a large handgun shell, are less than half an inch.  12 gauge though, is .730 inches in diameter. And the power comes from the ‘squared’ portion of the Pi/R/Squared formula.  See the size comparison below.

Gauge

I had moved away to get a job, and had returned for Christmas. I’d been able to get presents for my Mom and Dad, but admitted to him that I had no idea about what to get my brother.  He told me that my brother wanted to be armed like his friends for ‘hunting season’, and also told me where there was a bolt action shotgun for sale, much like the one at the top, only in far better shape.

Bolt-action, for a shotgun, is quite rare. It cocks, ready for the next shot, when you lift the bolt handle, rotating a wedge-shaped section backward.  After you manually insert another shell and close the bolt, it is fired by pulling the trigger, to release the spring-loaded portion….usually.

After I had presented it to him on Christmas Day, the brother oohed and aahed over it, and took in into his bedroom, ‘to put it away in his closet.’ I had a small repair chore to do for my Dad, and stepped out into a shed, attached to the back of the old, frame house, with a work area in it.

I was standing close to the house outer wall, with a file and screwdriver in my hands. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and my head and shoulders stung from small impacts.  I thought at first that a two-bulb, 4-foot fluorescent light fixture had exploded in the cold….but no, I still had light.

I turned, and there was a head-sized hole in the wall, right beside my head.  I could see my brother inside, with the shotgun in his hands, and a dismayed expression on his face.  By the time I’d left home, I’d acquired almost 300 hours of gun-handling and safety training.  Not so my brother, and his gun-toting friends.

He just HAD to know how the gun operated, and inserted a shotgun shell.  Apparently the gun had a 6-inch split, at the back of the barrel.  Instead of cocking, as the bolt was raised, it allowed the cocking cam to slip out of a groove, machined into the barrel, and hang up on the barrel’s rear edge.  When the bolt was pushed forward, it stretched the firing spring, and when the bolt was cranked down, to lock it, the cam snapped back into its slot, and suddenly flew forward, firing the gun.

A couple of fortuitous degrees of angle, or inches of difference in where he, and I, were standing, were the only things that prevented me from becoming a Wisconsin Swiss-Cheese-Head. The gun’s vendor had not wanted to lose a sale by mentioning the flaw, but had to refund my money, and got a good blast from both me and my Dad.  My brother never did end up owning a gun, and it’s probably just as well.

Do any of you have an almost-died story that you wish to share?  This is not my only one.  My brother also almost drowned the both of us one time.   😯  I’m alive and safe now, and look forward to hearing from you again soon.

 

 

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THE DAY I FELL DOWN

Lighthouse

Chantry Island lighthouse off Southampton Ontario

 

Did I lead a charmed life as an active, adventurous young boy?? Did I actually put enough preventive thought and safety planning into some of my more life-and-limb-threatening activities?  Or is it just that what was, to a horrified adult retrospect, not really that dangerous?

How did some of us ever survive to grow up? Most (but not all) of my questionable young antics involved getting high – I loved to climb things.  I have written of being 9 years old, and scrambling to the topmost branches of a mighty, old oak, located on the highest elevation in town.

When I entered my teens, a trusted friend and I often crossed the river on the arching steel support trusses, beneath the new bridge, ignoring the possible 50 foot plunge to the river below. In the summer by boat, and in the winter by walking across frozen lake ice, groups of us went to an island a mile offshore, and climbed to the top of the 100 foot lighthouse.

It is possible that large rocks, and chunks of logs got up the inner stairways, and accidently fell on the roof of the attached, unused, derelict, century-old storage shed.  When the caretakers bricked up the entrance and added a steel door with a stout padlock, I went around the back, and used the 1 ½ inch copper lightning-ground cable to reach the observation level.  Apparently, only to prove I could.  These were reconnaissance missions only – no bombing runs.  The view of a flat lake, whether liquid or frozen, isn’t really that spectacular.

In the early 1950s, what passed for the cognoscenti of our little town were all agog, waiting for the release of a book. A ‘famous writer’ from Toronto, 100 miles south, had researched 8 lighthouses in the north end of Lake Huron, including ours.  When the book finally arrived at the General Store, I managed to sneak a copy off the shelf, and quickly read what he’d written.

He said that, after climbing the circular metal stairway inside the lighthouse, the view from the top was magnificent…. only; our lighthouse had solid wooden floors every ten feet, for storage, with unrailed wooden stairs ascending from level to level, East to West, then North to South, etc.

I don’t know if he ever actually set foot on the island, or just did his research from the pub. It was the first time I caught an author lying to me.  Sadly, it wasn’t the last.

Alone, and with my friend’s help, I reached the top of many of the town’s public buildings. The arena was easy, but boring.  I got to the roof of one church, and the top of the bell-tower of another.  He and I sat on the roof of the three-storey bank building at the main intersection.  When his mother was late, and he was locked out of the second floor apartment in the building next to it, we scampered up the front and went in the balcony door, or up to the roof and down through the skylight.

The view from the top of the 120 foot water tower, next to the oak on the hill, was worth it. The climb was simple.  A steel ladder reached to within 10 feet of the ground, but was right beside the overflow pipe.  A foot placed here, and a grab there, and soon we were at the top.

It was so easy that my girlfriend caught us lurking near it one evening, as she walked to the library, and wanted to know what we were up to.  When we explained, she demanded to accompany us.  With him pulling and me providing a shoulder, we all soon enjoyed the lights in the town 5 miles away.  Crazy!

The day I fell down, I started with my feet firmly on the ground. I was in Grade 7, and returned to school after a September lunch break, to find a gaggle of boys surrounding a burly Grade 8 lad.  Slowing to eavesdrop on the conversation, I heard that he was bragging that he knew a way to make someone unconscious. ‘Bet you don’t!’ ‘I bet I do!’

To prove his claim, he needed a victim willing volunteer.  Why is everyone looking at me?  “Now you need to take a deep breath and hold it.  I’m gonna get behind you and give you a bear-hug, and squeeze you really, really hard.  Don’t forget to hold your breath!”

….and I woke up with my face embedded in the blacktop. My nose was bloody.  My lips, especially the top one, were swollen, and I’d lost a tiny chip off the corner of one front incisor.  None of us, me included, really thought this thing through, did we?

“Why did you let me fall down?” “Well, you didn’t collapse.”  “How could I?  You were holding me up.”  He’d set me down, but apparently my knees were locked.  Instead of winding up in a limp pile at his feet, (would that have been any better?) I had pitched forward, like the mighty oak up the street, plowing a furrow with my face.

Nowadays, I ingest an OxyContin, and take along a pillow if I have to wind down a window in the car. Surely none of you readers were as foolish as me.  Do you have a childhood escapade you wish to admit to?   😉

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Flash Fiction #39

Old Shep

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Had A Little – Fright

They asked, “Why does the lamb love Mary so?”
‘Tis that Mary loves the lamb, you know.

Mary didn’t have a lamb.  She had an old dog named Shep.  She could not bring herself to tie Shep up, but he followed her everywhere.

“I won’t fall down a well, Lassie.  I won’t crash through the floor of an old barn.  I’m just going to walk to school beside the tracks, like I do safely, every day.”

Until the day old Shep rushed at her, barking furiously, just in time for her to see the unscheduled freight, with the extra-wide load.

 

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday picture as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story