BS: The Mother of all BS threads

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: gnu
Date: 22 May 17 - 09:29 AM

And the winner is... BWL. Congrats!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 21 May 17 - 10:27 PM

There is magma to be seen at Yellowstone, but it's all in a special part of the park that's only accessible to certain charter buses.

If you want to see it, you have to book a trip with the Magma Charter Bus Line.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 21 May 17 - 06:17 PM

Supervolcano!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 May 17 - 03:00 PM

Super volcano?!

Hope Mrs. Rapparee in particular enjoys the guests and the sightseeing.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 17 - 02:57 PM

And further more, no sag-bagging, Mom! Honestly. Chin up!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 20 May 17 - 11:38 PM

Neither a Tepid, nor a Hottie, nor a Frigid. A lot of their sisters and subordinates were handed the opportunity to become Saint Frigid but none accepted the dubious honor of it.

A fine spaghetti dinner with the trepidacious Dani has crowned this lovely Saturday. I got a new paint sprayer, as well, which made short work of oiling the container for the trash bins. Gramma comes to visit next week and all must be made ready!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 20 May 17 - 07:37 PM

Hi, Mom! Christians have a saint named Luke, right? Do they also have one named Tepid?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 20 May 17 - 11:13 AM

Sounds like an excellent visit, Amos! Rap, let's hope the roads are free of magma from that super volcano.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 May 17 - 09:39 PM

Hi, Mom! I'm back, at least for a while. Starting Monday Pat and I will be taking our nieces Lauretta and Elizabeth to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. I do hope the roads in the parks are open and free of too much snow.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 17 - 01:36 AM

Salut,chere Mom!

Well, Kendall and Jacqui are back Down East after a week of extensive travels to the mountains est and the beaches East, ending up with a grand dinner party here where Tucker put on a spectacular dinner and a surprising amount of scotch and bourbon got assimilated into various digestive systems. It was a grand week, and we are still re-focusing as the ringing in our ears subsides.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 18 May 17 - 06:24 PM

I've seen some wonderful writing to do with the attitudes and behavior of the White House staff and other government people who work directly for Trump. For the time being, writers can convey their collective dismay as his inner circle tries to figure out how to get the naked emperor to stay away from the windows.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 May 17 - 08:19 PM

People forget that just because you CAN do something does not mean that you SHOULD do it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: gnu
Date: 17 May 17 - 04:49 PM

"Some people seem to confuse having a right to do something with having a reason to do it."

Ditto Acme X 10! Very well said, BWL.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 16 May 17 - 09:22 PM

You spoke volumes with that remark, BWL!

I have now figured out the story of the tabby in my garden. She lives with a family two doors up the street and spends the nights in and the days out. And those out days seem to be in my garden. Perhaps we'll make friends one of these days.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 16 May 17 - 09:03 PM

Some people seem to confuse having a right to do something with having a reason to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 May 17 - 08:22 PM

Not active military, not at a range, not hunting, not a policeman -- yup, what is wrong? Apart from the obvious problems the man has regarding his paranoia, lack of belief in the police, sexual inadequacy, over-belief in television and video game and movie fantasies, and juvenile fascination with firearms?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: gnu
Date: 16 May 17 - 07:18 PM

A grown hairy-assed man wearing a sidearm in public? WTF is wrong with this picture? That's sickening.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 May 17 - 10:39 AM

Therefore, the Reds must be driven from out from our society! Uprooted, cast into the fire like the proverbial fig tree which did not bear fruit! Is it not written, "Amen, amen, I say unto thee?" Yes! They are the very first words spoken in John 6:47! And just read and understand Al-Hijr 15:18! Katha Upanishad 1:8! The Eightfold Path! All teach us what must be done! Chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching shows us how to drive them out! Now, NOW, we must act! And it will be YUGE! YUGE!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 May 17 - 10:13 PM

Especially them, Bee-Dub. They are all illegal alien commie fascist anarchists who want to overthrow our way of life or at least that of Alabama. In each of their hatbands is a copy of the "Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kampf." They listen to music by Larry Welk, a well know sympathizer, and sing songs with notes that appear in the IWW's "Little Red Songbook." How would you like to be beset by the like of them?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 15 May 17 - 09:03 PM

Hi Mom! I saw something this past weekend I had never seen before! I was selling pots at an art fair in coastal Alabama (aka The Redneck Riviera) and saw a biker-type civilian carrying a holstered pistol. I understand about Alabama being an open-carry state, and I don't care if someone wants to walk around with a Glock on his hip, but exactly who did this bozo think he needed to protect himself from at an art festival in a park in Foley, Alabama? Members of The Red Hat Society?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 May 17 - 04:11 PM

oops - a - daisy MOAB

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 14 May 17 - 11:29 PM

MOM, there's a stray cat that seems to live mostly at my house in the yard, except when I go outside it runs away. I think it has come close to making friends with the dogs but still won't come close to me. I don't want a cat, but I like that (probably she, they always are) catches mice in my garden.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 May 17 - 09:44 PM

And now, an immortal poem from the immortal Dylan Thomas:

The last time I slept with the Queen,
She said, as she whispered, "Ich Dien,"*
"Please put the light out:
It's royalty's night out—
The Queen may be had but not seen."

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Donuel
Date: 14 May 17 - 10:10 AM

Predators prowl below
the many lifeforms called facts
Whistling wind blew
many facts into the river of truth
Facts clung to life
in the ever changing river current
Feasts for predators
many facts drown but a few change
Some drift to stagnant
water where toads croak Trump Trump
Surviving facts find
clear water to grow their enormous mind.


I don't know why

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: gnu
Date: 14 May 17 - 09:09 AM

When Mama's in heat and there ain't no meat.

Lynx are loud and sound "eerie" when they do that... the source of the tale of the Dungarvon Whooper.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 13 May 17 - 11:09 PM

Darn - though the volume was turned down that last one had all three dogs charge out of the room and go bark out back.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 May 17 - 10:15 PM

G'wan and scream!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 May 17 - 01:46 PM

And many friends.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Donuel
Date: 13 May 17 - 07:19 AM

MOM'S tactics are basically the same today

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 May 17 - 08:40 PM

Mom had many interests when younger.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 May 17 - 01:17 PM

Mom is too close to the bottom for comfort.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 May 17 - 11:14 AM

MOM had many jobs when she was younger.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Vashta Nerada
Date: 12 May 17 - 08:49 AM

MOM, you're malingering on the bottom rung. I know you wouldn't roll off of the curb until 8 something tonight, but it's unseemly to hang around down there.

Here, lean in this dark doorway instead.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 11 May 17 - 08:56 PM

For cancer survivors, every birthday is a gift. The reminder is a good one, not to be overlooked.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: gnu
Date: 11 May 17 - 02:09 PM

Ditto!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 May 17 - 10:47 AM

Tell Kendall I'm sorry I missed his birthday, but I didn't think he wanted to be reminded of it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 17 - 10:05 PM

Just back from a loverly birthday gathering on honor of the Godfather Skipper Kendall Morse, who is now eighty-something. He and Jacqui flew into town yesterday and we spent a lovely afternoon wandering around Hillsborough. Tonight we drove out to Janie's where she and Dani laid on roast chicken, salad, home-made bread, baby potato salad, and all good things to drink. Plus a real humdinger of a cake for the Skipper, and ice cream and single malt to boot. Songs and misty sentiments alla round. Good times, good times. Kendall and Jacqui did "Carrying Nelson Home" which reduced us to tears.

Tomorrow we head west to Asheville where Chance and Suzetter Shiver are hosting a house concert for my buckaroo pal, Steve Cormier, which should be a grand old kick.

Who knew retirement could be so much fun? Don't tell Trump! He'd figure out a way to ruin it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 May 17 - 08:18 PM

If only it were that easy to teach adults to read the newspaper!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 09 May 17 - 11:46 PM

Figuring out retirement and pensions - that is higher math if ever I saw it.

Hey, MOM, in the last 20 minutes of our after-school tutoring program, I pulled out a copy of the local daily paper and showed my sixth grader how to read the newspaper. Most important stories above the fold, the jumps to finish them inside the section, what is in each section, how to read the weather map, what letters to the editor are, and, to her delight, a page of four-color daily comic strips. Of all the things we've worked on this semester, I think learning to read the paper might be the most important one of all. I'll bring one to each session until the end of the school year. (I just wanted MOM to know they they don't always have to be used in layers of dirt and mulch in the garden to keep weeds out of the broccoli - sometimes people do actually read them!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 May 17 - 10:30 PM

I started working a 4, sorting coal for the CB&Q railroad. I put in six hours before school and six after; for this I was paid twenty-five cents per week (before taxes, etc.). At six I got a job in the textile mill collecting lint off the floor under the looms until I started coughing up lint and blood -- for a raise to thirty-five cents a week (ditto the taxes thing). I was ten then and delivered 407 newspapers before breakfast and in the evening, in blazing heat, tornadoes, blizzards, driving hail storms...but I was making seven DOLLARS every two weeks (ditto taxes). We didn't need work permits because the people who issued them were taking a piece of my pay as "gratuity." But it did help feed my widowed mother, great-great maiden aunt, widowed grandmother, and three siblings.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: gnu
Date: 09 May 17 - 06:09 PM

Got my bank statement for April. Right there in black and white : Direct Deposit CANADA PENSION PLAN. PARTAAAAY! Well, it doesn't say "PARTAAAAY!" but....

I started working at 12 years old at odd jobs (shoveling snow, mowing lawns, trimming hedges, whatever) around the neighbourhood and delivering newspapers in the morning and after school. I started running a trap line and hunted rabbits and sold them in winter BEFORE I delivered the morning newspapers when I was 14. I started getting paid by cheque at 15 (underage work permit) while working in the summer months for 9 hours a night shift seven days a week. Yeah... seven days a week... another special work permit.

So, I got my first CPP payment. If I live past 73 (the "break-even age" if you wait to draw CPP when you turn 65), it will have cost me. But, 73? Not fuckin' likely! Besides, price of living is going up faster than a slut's skirt in a brothel so the math is dicey, at best. Better to take the money and run... well, in my case, hobble.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 May 17 - 03:12 PM

Wishing Amos a very joyous Mudcatter reunion with his visiting friends this week.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 May 17 - 09:19 AM

Dunsiane: a castle in Fawdonshire, part of the Scottish Marches. formerly a stronghold of the "Steel Bonnets," it was used as a prison for English and Scottish women and girls taken on raids. These women, if not ransomed, were sold to brothels in London and on the Continent. It was once rumored that Shakespeare had visited there but more recent research has proven this false. The confusion with Dunsinane (vide "Macbeth") is due to the similarity in names; Dunsinane has three hill forts, one of which may have been used by Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, ca. 1005-August 15, 1057), but this has never been proven. Dunsiane castle was blown up on the orders of Oliver Cromwell in December, 1658.
             "Scottish Castles and Hill Forts," (Aberdeen, 2013).

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 May 17 - 10:00 PM

Ah, Amos! Ceux de qui la conduite offre le plus à rire sont toujours sur autrui les premiers à médire. Si de probité tout était revêtu, si tous les cœurs était francs, justes et dociles, la plupart des vertus nous seraient inutiles, puisqu'on en met l'usage à pouvoir sans ennui
supporter dans nos droits l'injustice d'autrui.

gnu: Y así, del poco dormir y del mucho leer, se le secó el cerebro, de manera que vino a perder el juicio. Mas, la pluma es la lengua del alma: cuales fueren los conceptos que en ella se engendraren, tales serán sus escritos. On est ce qu'on veut. Seulement, il faut du temps pour être heureux. Beaucoup de temps. Le bonheur lui aussi est une longue patience.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: gnu
Date: 08 May 17 - 04:55 PM

Vive la France!!! Merci, eh la?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 17 - 01:56 PM

You are a warrantless rogue, sirrah, and a bread-sucking mongrel amongst great souls. Go to. Sir Willy was there at Dunsiane himself, gathering research material, when those ugly sisters accosted him, predicting your birth. You are unmasked as a varlet, a cutlet, a dried prune and a scurrilous derringer of dullwit. Go to.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 May 17 - 09:34 PM

King Lear? Three witches? Dost thou know the difference between King Lear and Macbeth, Good Amos? But 'tis the infirmity of your age: yet your hath ever but slenderly known yourself. But I must admit that your are not knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition. Nay, thou art not such! Perhaps you are a man more sinn'd against than sinning. But then, Amos, fair is foul, and foul is fair, and we merely over through the fog and filthy air. I know that you dare do all that may become a man and who dares do more, is none. But I shall now stop and call for you the innocent sleep; sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, the death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Acme
Date: 07 May 17 - 11:38 AM

My daughter is a wordsmith and a blacksmith.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 17 - 11:31 PM

I think you mean, sirrah, THIS mighty wordsmith, Alexander Pope, whose Dunciad is dedicated to Jonathon Swift.

Ah, Mom, there is no woe to match that of a wayward child! Sharper than a serpent's sting, one might even say!

If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!

William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1605, regarding the birth of Rapaire as forecast to him by three witches on the moors outside Dunsinane.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 May 17 - 10:20 PM

I confess to plagiarizing Sonnet 29! I have repented just this once! I have sent a check to Mr. William Shakespeare/Shaxpeer/Shakspere/et. al. for one florin two groat quarter farthing to pay for all past, present, and future misconstructions and constructions of any of his works, in whole or in part.

But I have digressed, and must state

The Mighty Mother, and her son¹ who brings        
The Smithfield Muses to the ear of Kings,        
I sing. Say you, her instruments the great!        
Call'd to this work by Dullness, Jove, and Fate;        
You by whose care, in vain decried and curst,              
Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first;        
Say how the Goddess bade dear MOAB sleep,        
And pour'd her Spirit, o'er the land and deep.        
In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read,        
Ere Pallas issued from the Thund'rer's head,              
Dullness o'er all possess'd her ancient right,        
Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night:        
Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave,        
Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave;        
Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,              
She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind.        
Still her old empire to restore she tries,        
For, born a Goddess, Dullness never dies.

¹ The present humble wordsmith.