THIRTEEN VERY SHORT ESSAYS
Jerry Harkins
IRONY
Jerry
Harkins
Among
the 34 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, the United States is, by far, the most religious and the most
materialistic.
ASK
A MORAL THEOLOGIAN
Jerry
Harkins
Dear MT: My wife says it would be immoral for me to picket Fred
Phelps’ funeral with a sign saying “God Hates Assholes” because it would be a
violation of the injunction “De mortuis
nihil nisi bonum.” Is she right?
I reply: Truth is never offensive. The injunction you cite is a variation
of Thumper’s Rule which holds, “If you can't say something nice, don't say
nothing at all.” Since Thumper is
a fictional Disney character prone to double negatives, the force of his dictum
is somewhat diminished. Thumper
borrowed it from Diogenes Laertius, a pagan philosopher. It may, therefore, be safely ignored.
THE MARCH OF
FREEDOM
Jerry Harkins
Twenty-four states have
Right To Work laws to protect college athletes from being forced to join a
union.
NRA
ANNOUNCES ACQUISITION
Jerry
Harkins
The
National Rifle Association announced yesterday that it had acquired all the
outstanding stock of the Congress of the United States, an organization that
provides sheltered workshop experience to future prison inmates. According to a spokesperson, “This
acquisition is meant to strengthen our core competency of promoting the
lifestyle aspirations of sociopaths.”
PIPPA’S
ASS
Jerry
Harkins
If the
Judgment of Paris was re-imagined as a modern reality TV show, the Middleton
sisters would certainly be among the finalists. Either would be a satisfying answer to Christopher Marlowe’s
immortal question: “Was this the
face that launch'd a thousand ships, / And burnt the topless towers of
Ilium?” Both are gorgeous, Kate
with a smile that could serve as an alternative energy source for the universe
and Pippa…well, Pippa has been blessed with the world’s greatest ass, the gold
standard.
FASHION
WEEK HAIKU
Jerry
Harkins
Inscrutable
clothes
On
androgynous models
Terminal
boredom.
SPOILS ALERT
Jerry Harkins
Mayor de Blasio is pissed off because the press has
been curious about why the lovely Mrs. de Blasio needs a taxpayer funded
$170,000 a year “Chief of Staff.”
It also couldn’t help noticing that said Chief has made a fairly big
mess of her personal life. The
facts of the case are:
· - The now ex-Chief is a highly competent and
sophisticated political player.
· - The members of the fourth estate are a
disgusting bunch of jackals.
· - The Mayor on the other hand is a jackass, dumber
than jackals but not as odoriferous.
· - His wife has no known qualifications for
whatever her job is supposed to be.
·
In case you hadn’t noticed, Mrs. de Blasio is not Eleanor
Roosevelt. Once again the eternal conundrum: Who am I supposed to root for? Who or Whom? So
what else is new?
MILTON SCHOLARSHIP TODAY
Jerry Harkins
You will be delighted to learn that the Oxford University
Press has now released Volume VIII of its projected 11-volume Complete Works of
John Milton. The list price is
$375 but Amazon has three copies left at $279.49. Volumes II and III have also been published but III is no
longer available. [1] Anyone who is the least bit interested
in biblical exegesis or systematic theology ought to have a personal copy of
the latest volume which contains De
Doctrina Christiana. Milton
thought this was his masterpiece but before you start reading it you should put your affairs in order against the risk of dying of boredom.
1. More precisely, the 632-page Volume III, The Shorter Poems, was “withdrawn” because it was said to contain otherwise unspecified “textual errors.”
ANOTHER MEETING TO WHICH I WAS NOT INVITED
Jerry Harkins
The 25 trustees of the British Museum met to
discuss lending one of the Elgin Marbles to the Hermitage in St.
Petersburg. Among the members of
the Board are 4 Lords of the
Realm, 8 Knights and 3 Professors.
One of them must have been awake enough to wonder, “Do you think the
Greeks will mind?” Since the rest
were surely asleep, he got no answer.
There being no objection, the loan was approved
unanimously.
RES IPSA LOQUITUR
Jerry Harkins
Taking note that wages in recent years have not
kept up with inflation or
productivity and of growing income inequality, the members of the New York
State Legislature have proposed giving themselves a hefty raise and allowing
themselves to earn more outside income from businesses that are happy to have
their counsel. Reform is rampant.
THE KING’S ENGLISH
Jerry Harkins
Why do I persist in writing in a language in which
the phrase “known but to God” means exactly the same thing as “unknown but to
God?”
CONVENIENCE ÜBER ALLES
Jerry Harkins
According to the Wall Street Journal (12/18/14)
parents are having their kids use Uber to get to school and other
destinations. Will somebody please
tell me how’s that different from telling the kid to hitchhike to soccer
practice? And why isn’t it child
abuse?
AN ADDENDUM TO DEATH AND TAXES
Jerry Harkins
In a universe governed by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty
Principle, one new sure thing stands out.
It’s a race between idiots and terrorists but, before long, one of those
toy drones will crash into a plane taking off or landing.
