Author: Rev. Joe Dirt

Posted on

Word of the Day – Epexegesis

  • Noun: Epexegesis — Adverb: Epexegetically
    1. additional explanation or explanatory matter
  • Synonyms:
    1. annotation
    2. comment
    3. commentary
    4. gloss
  • Usage:

“’For example, there’s a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There’ll be a whole stack of long words stored just this purpose.

‘Where?’

‘In the word-memory section,’ he said, epexegetically.

  • Encountered:
    1. While reading the short story, The Great Automatic Grammatizator by Ronald Dahl.

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

Posted on

Senator Josh Hawley, Unacceptable…

For reasons unfathomable to me, the citizens of Missouri turned out a very capable and very moderate Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill in favor of the Republican candidate, wanna-be Proud Boy Josh Hawley.  He spent the first part of tenure fairly quietly in Washington.  With the presidential election he came completely out of the closet.  When he decided to be one of the Senators that would oppose the electors for Biden I wrote him the following letter via his website. Continue reading “Senator Josh Hawley, Unacceptable…”

Posted on

Artifact or Angel

Robin was taking some pictures with her phone.  It has a function which can do a motion capture of 6 or 8 images.  This makes your still photograph act like it should be at Hogwarts.

There is an interesting phenomenon happening in the middle of the picture that we cannot explain.  I am pretty sure that this is some sort of artifact of lighting or camera movement, perhaps the light reflecting off a passing vehicle.

Señora, however,  is convinced it is an alien entering our space-time continuum from a rip in the fabric of the universe.  Or possibly an angel…

Anybody have a possible explanation?  You can appreciate it more  if your go to full screen.

Posted on

Polio Vaccination

If you are of a certain age…old now, you might remember these cards and the big push to get everyone vaccinated against polio.  I came across this immunization certificate going through a box of papers from my mother’s house.  I also have the cards for Type 2 and Type 3.  I think my mother must have filled in my name as it looks like her handwriting.

The card is from the Orange County Medical Society which is in New Jersey.  As there is a Navy base in the area Continue reading “Polio Vaccination”

Posted on

The Lottery by John Steinbeck

Okay, okay… I got the title a little wrong.  Steinbeck’s book is actually titled The Pearl. I started thinking about this book because the current value of the Mega Millions lottery is $850 million.  The current value of the Power Ball lottery is $730 million.

The Pearl is a wonderful, concise novel of about 90 pages.  It is not near as well known as Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, but it should be. The language and the imagery are captivating and the narrative is spellbinding.  If I remember the back story of this novel it is based on an old Spanish legend.

The story is situated somewhere in South America.  The primary protagonists of the story are an exceedingly impoverished indigenous couple, Continue reading “The Lottery by John Steinbeck”

Posted on

Thbbft…

As any semi-regular reader of my silly little blog will know, I have been studying Spanish for a while.  As part of that exercise I use a platform called, italki.com.  I use one professional teacher from Guatemala who is valiantly trying to improve my grammar and pronunciation.  As you can imagine, working with me, he does indeed have the patience of a saint.  I am also working with what italki calls tutors. These are generally folks not trained in teaching languages, but will converse with you and gently correct your errors.  Some will try to teach a little. I use them mainly for conversational practice.  I am currently using 4 tutors in 4 different countries to sample different accents.  I also occasionally do a language exchange. There is no cost to these.  You spend 1/2 your time speaking your language and 1/2 your time speaking their language. This last method sort of works and sort of doesn’t, at least for me.

I use Skype to take these lessons. My avatar on Skype is Bill the Cat going, “Thbbft“. Continue reading “Thbbft…”

Posted on

Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #9,340

yeah I know you did not ask!

I turned on the TV and watched about 10 minutes of the House “debate” on impeaching Trump for a second time.  This was about 9 more minutes than I could have stomached if I had not been doing other things at the same time.

I came to the conclusion that there are a lot of Republicans that I would like to play poker with.  They have no idea when to fold a losing hand.  I also suspect, given the analytical skills on display, that they would always draw to an inside straight.  Only thing that could be better would be a drunk poker player with lots of cash to bet.

I’m tired of this Irish blessing we are living.

Posted on

Me siento avergonzado

Or in English, I feel embarrassed.

Since the events at our national capitol that the Military Joint Chiefs  are calling sedition and insurrection, I have talked to two gentlemen in Central America.  The young Mexican man living in Honduras was just incredulous.  He could not believe such a thing could happen here. For many people in that part of the world, the United States is their dream.

The gentleman I talk to in El Salvador is a little more seasoned.  He asked me if I felt like I was living in the middle of a Mad Max movie, referencing the Viking helmeted man.  I told him I felt a little like I was living in a república bananera, banana republic.  He agreed that it did seem that way right now to a lot of people living in real banana republics.

The new face of America is a 33 year old, wanna-be actor living at home with his mother.  If you do an image search you will find this individual’s picture in a multitude of foreign news outlets.  How very distressing.

Supposedly Trump made a comment about the insurrectionist wishing they looked a little classier.  I immediately wondered, have you not been looking at your rally audiences for the last 5 or 6 years.  He is not that much different from many of the folks I have been seeing at them.

I’ve been saying for years that we have become a lowest common denominator society. I am beginning to feel we are trying to divide by zero.  As every programmer knows, if you do not handle this error it crashes the program.

What a sad, sad time for our country.

And so it goes.

Keep well.