The State of Red and Blue
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Category Archives: Cartoon
The Sooner the Better
Thanksgiving Update
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Literally Figurative
Pontificate: Long before the term was ecclesiasticalized, its Latin roots teamed up to connote bridge (pons) building (facere). Now there’s a switcheroo!
Morning Has Broken
Some viewers and followers may know or may have surmised that, before getting married, I spent a few years in a monastery, completed monastic and seminary formation, and became a solemnly professed – no, not Solemn Vowels, ordained monk.
A funny thing happened on the way to mass one day. About 30 or 40 of us concelebrants were processing in and singing the opening hymn. Everyone properly intoned the first phrase of the hymn, Morning has broken, but someone behind me changed the next few words, as shown in the drawing, and sang it loudly enough for those of us in his sound shed to hear easily that he had referenced Fr. Frank, who at the time was the Director of Physical Plant, the only person on Earth capable of fixing a broken morning… for Christ’s Sake.
For fun, have a listen to a traditional version of this hymn or better yet, check out this rendition by Cat Stevens a.k.a. Yusuf Islam.
Did you catch the spelling error on the first rendition of this drawing?
The Balloonist and the Hiker (An Evaluator Joke)
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman hiking down below. He descended a bit more and shouted, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The hiker, shouting back, replied, “You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are somewhere between 29 and 31 degrees north latitude and 89 and 91 degrees west longitude.”
“Hey, what are you, an evaluator?” yelled the balloonist.
“Why, I am,” the hiker yelled back, “How did you know?”
“Well,” shouted the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information! Fact of the matter is, I’m still lost, and you haven’t said or done a damned thing to help!”
“You must be a program manager.” The hiker yelled back.
“I am,” shouted the balloonist, “but how did you figure that out?”
“Well,” the hiker bellowed, “you don’t know where you are.
You don’t know where you’re going.
You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air.
You’ve made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and now you expect me to solve your problem.
The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”
[Oh those crazy evaluators!]
Source unknown. Maybe I got it from someone at the American Evaluation Association. I found this story in my digital files the other day while, of course, looking for something else. It does come in handy; I’m thinking a lot about the relevance and utility of evaluation findings.
Hey, help me out, if you know to whom I should attribute this, then by all means, leave a comment. Thanks.
Elevator Speech
Finally, the right building to start practicing mine!
Owl Set Free
BREAKING NEWS: Click on the WOOD tab above for exclusive Redwood Owl w/ Knot Eyes YouTube video update.
Use of Force – Post 9/11
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My name is _____________, and I’m an underbreather
I’ve been practicing yoga since 2011, and I realize – for me at least – it’s all in the nose. Whether at a studio under formal, individualized attention, a more loosely structured fitness center, or here at home, my nose muscles are finally toned enough that I can begin to learn from the story that my own breathing is telling me. And for that I need air – lots of it. I had been on various breathing diets, as it were, in conjunction with meditation, spirituality, and even organized monasticism, but for reasons that I promise to honor but not discuss, yoga has somehow empowered me to admit that I, indeed, want more, much more out of air, and that I need to associate myself with others who interact with it proactively and in front of whom I can honestly say, “I’m Paul, and I’m an underbreather.”
