Walking around in the city just a little while ago, I spotted a large sign set up outside a shop, which read:

TALLER

JESUS

The Almighty Tallest regard a lowly Invader

Hmmm… If there’s a Taller Jesus out there, that suggests there might be a Tallest Jesus somewhere as well. Together with the Shortest (or, perhaps, “Least Tall”) Jesus — presumably the one we’re familiar with from all those icons, this suggest there are at least three Jesuses in total. This would leave the Holy Trinity as a Holy Quintity (or something), at the very least. Gosh, what a mess!

Now is the Tallest Jesus the Almighty Tallest? What implications does that have for the Irken Empire, who are led by not one but two Almighty Tallests?

Certainly, more research is required.

(“taller” is a Spanish word for “workshop” or “studio”)

As the two friends wandered through the snow on their way home, Piglet grinned to himself, thinking how lucky he was to have a best friend like Pooh. Pooh thought to himself: "If the pig sneezes, he's fucken dead."

If you were never a listener of US daily news radio between, oh, about the 1950s and early 2009, you won’t really understand. Folks of my generation remember Paul Harvey as a voice they began to hear, powerful and distinguished, in their early years.

Paul Harvey, 4 September 1918 – 28 February 2009

Paul Harvey was an institution. He was an icon, in a sense. He was one of the Last Great Upstanding Men of Journalism, trivial though that may seem in today’s world. But his voice and his thoughts were known to tens of millions daily and hundreds of millions by influence. He was part of the underlying infrastructure of American life for more than half a century. No matter what horrors might transpire in the world, Paul Harvey was always there, five days a week, to tell you the rest of the story and bid you good day at the end.

His segments were not always enlightening, yet often were. He was not always the most brilliant commentator, but thoughtful always. He rarely broke news, at least in the years I knew his voice, preferring instead to add perspective to the stories already on the airwaves. Sometimes his segments were rather trivial human interest pieces which, despite their lack of deep philosophical significance managed to captivate the listener’s ear by simple virtue of the man’s talent for delivery. Still, what Paul Harvey did with his voice and with his words was monumental. He reflected a culture — a flawed, broken culture, yes — and aimed to reflect the best of it. He remained a gentleman where gentility had passed out of fashion, and occasionally was a subtle (and, less often, not so subtle) firebrand where those making the news deserved derision in the reporting of it. At his best, he poked sticks in the eyes of the boobs in the highest offices. At his worst, he was a flawed human being just like those around him. And he emerged from the same, now nearly entirely extinct, tradition of quality broadcasting that brought such radio voices as Garrison Keillor and Walter Cronkite to well-deserved fame, defining entire genres of reporting, commentary and humor, while transcending and redefining them in the process.

Thanks, Paul Harvey. You done good.

Good night, Paul Harvey, and good day.

Change we can believe in (Pure silver, silver, me hearties! Yaaaar!)

Original image by Ian-S @ flickr.com, who writes:

Found in the Norfolk (UK) village of Snettisham in 1985, the contents of a narrow-necked roman pot were found to consist of stock, raw materials and coins hidden by a Roman jeweller. The collection has become known as ‘The Snettisham Jeweller’s Hoard’, and dates from the late second century AD. These are some of the 83 silver coins from the hoard, and they all seem to show the Emperor Domitian (reigned AD 81-96). Some later coins dated at 154-5 AD were present too, and these dated the find.

To: All Employees

Date: 22 December 2008

Due to the current financial crisis facing the world, the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off until further notice to save on electricity costs.

Yours truly,

The Management