Scribal Terror

The Night Owl Is Afraid of Rifle-Toting Dutchmen

But still curious about pranks and hijinks, musings and mutterings, and the door is open all night.

It's a Frickin Bird

The Dutch are dropping off their condolences for a dead sparrow, here, at a special website constructed in its honor. The bird got loose in a domino tournament and knocked over 23,ooo dominos before it was shot. I actually think shooting it was a little over the top. Why not just shoo it out the door or something? But the Dutch have done overboard with the grieving. The BBC writes:

Not since Cock Robin has the death of a tiny bird caused such emotion. The shooting of a sparrow on the set of a Dutch world record domino-toppling attempt sparked outrage among animal lovers and led to threats to staff. ... The head of a bird protection agency appealed for calm. ... [T]he Dutch animal protection agency threatened to investigate, and radio stations offered bounties for anyone who could knock down more of the dominoes before the event.

I think it would be best if no one told them about the pheasant Prairie Biker shot today. Or about all those turkeys that were killed for Thanksgiving. There could be serious psychological repercussions.

H/t Moonbattery via Wunderkraut

Thefe!

Some smartass limeys have been imitating Arlington. Shamelessly! Did they really think they could get away with this?

What Kind of Animal Is This?

It's living in Shelleigh's house, and I'm not quite sure it's OF THIS EARTH . . .

Let's Get [Meta]Physical

I've been thinking abstruse thoughts this morning, and I intend to inflict them on you. Here goes. When you think of a particular spiritual belief --  not a doctrine/concept, like kenosis or dharma, but a nonphysical, i.e., spiritual, thing or place, like angels, for example -- whether you believe it or not, how do you think you should try to understand it? As factual (e.g., how is an angel like a tree)? As metaphorical (e.g., how is your image of an angel like your image of something that is as real to you as a tree)? Or as something completely different? For me, it's something completely different, but I'm interested in what you all have to say before I try to put it into words.

As True Today As It Was Then

Among the 13th century table manners, one book tells diners not to pick their teeth with their knives, and to "refrain from falling upon the dish like a swine while eating, snorting disgustingly and smacking the lips."
--Lance Gay, Scripps Howard News Service

Gay points out, however,  that the medievals could practice their good manners on many more interesting foods than we have at table today, including "starlings, vultures, gulls, herons, cormorants, swans, cranes, peacocks . . . , dogfish, porpoises, seals, whale, . . .  hedgehogs, . . . [and] lamprey eels.".

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay,alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing syllepsis, dirty syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.

The Night Owl Is Curious

about pranks and hijinks, musings and mutterings, and the door is open all night.

How to Chew Tobacco in Church

Many of the brethren chew tobacco, and I have advised them to be modest about it. Do not take out a whole plug of tobacco in meeting before the eyes of the congregation, and cut off a long slice and put it in your mouth, to the annoyance of everybody around. … If you must use tobacco, put a small portion in your mouth when no person sees you, and be careful that no one sees you chew it. I do not charge you with sin.
--Brigham Young

A Literary Poll (No, NOT Joseph Conrad He Was a Literary Pole)

What literary figures would you like to hang with?
	The Romantics (Shelley, Mary Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Byron)
	The Lost Generation (Stein, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos, Hart Crane)
	The Beat Generation (Kerouac, Burroughs, Cassady, Ferlenghetti)
	The Inklings (C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, plus honorary Inkling Dorothy Sayers)
	The Augustan Satirists (Swift and Pope)
	The Victorians (Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Wilke Collins)
	The Elizabethans (Shakespeare, Marlowe, Webster)
	The Restoration Playwrights (Congreve, Wycherley, Dryden, Behn, Etheredge)
	The Absinthe Swilling French (Rimbaud, Verlaine, Baudelaire)
	The Medievals (Chaucer and anybody he invites over)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

You can explain your choices or suggest other options in the Comments.