Author: leeduigon

I have lived in Metuchen, NJ, all my life. I have been married to my wife Patricia since 1977. I am a former newspaper editor and reporter. I was also the owner-operator of my own small business for several years. I wrote various novels and short stories published during 1980s and 1990s. I am a long-time student of judo and Japanese swordsmanship (kenjutsu). I also play chess, basketball, and military and sports simulations.

How They Almost Lost Chumley (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Pin on humor

Chapter CDLXXXXIII of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, finds Constable Chumley clinging by his rapidly-weakening fingertips to the brink of a cliff with a hundred-foot drop while Lord Jeremy and the constable’s mother–you will remember she was disguised as Thir Lanthelot the lisping knight–discussing how they might save the poor chap from falling onto the jagged rocks below.

What a sentence! I dare anyone to diagram it.

The constable pleads, “Mum! M’lord! Ith woogen ye minndle!” Meanwhile the constable’s mother asks, “What tipped ya off I was a dame, big boy?”

(Oh, now, just a cotton-pickin’ minute! I refuse to sit here and edit and publish such twollop. If the characters are going to start talking like a 1930s gangster movie, I’m out of here.)

“Some of you have complained about the constable’s mother’s choice of words,” writes Ms. Crepuscular. “In fact, I have received death threats–as if those could scare me! Obviously the readers are ignorant of the art of stymphalianism, which allows fictional characters in any genre to talk like a 1930s gangster movie. Edward G. Robinson isn’t the only one allowed to talk like Edward G. Robinson! But in deference to my readers’ philistine tastes in literature, I’ll give this a twenty-three skiddoo from now on.”

How much longer can she keep poor Chumley hanging?

Ugh! Giant Monster Bacteria

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A picture shows Thiomargarita magnifica next to a dime,

Nature always has surprises in store for us, and not all of them are nice.

Giant bacteria big enough to be seen by the naked eye, for instance. They’re 5,000 times the size of regular bacteria.

https://gizmodo.com/largest-bacteria-thiomargarita-magnifica-1849099051

These monster bacteria live in the mangrove swamps of Gaudeloupe Island, in the Caribbean, and were only discovered in 2009. Now they’re being studied in a lab somewhere. “Oh, boy, Dr. Frankenstein! If bacteria can get this big, why not bigger? Why not as big as boxcars? Our friends in China have a nice lab in Wuhan where we can work on that without Rand Paul breathing down our necks!”

It would never occur to anyone just to leave stuff like this alone. They never just leave it alone: that’s how they brought us King COVID.

A mangrove swamp seems like a very good place to avoid.

 

‘Did Jesus “Hate”?’ (2019)

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82 Jesus in the Temple ideas | jesus in the temple, jesus, biblical art

He didn’t want the moneychangers in His Father’s temple, and he didn’t want the Nicolaitanes in His churches: Jesus Christ Our Lord did NOT “accept,” “affirm,” or even tolerate everyone and everything.

Did Jesus ‘Hate’?

Time has erased the memory of what, exactly, the Nicolaitanes said or did that earned Christ’s condemnation: but the condemnation is in no uncertain terms, and He does use the word “hate” to describe how He feels about them and their teachings.

Maybe we’re better off not knowing what those were.

By Request, ‘In His Time’

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All those butterflies and flowers! God’s hand formed them all… and then pronounced it good.

Requested by Erlene–In His Time, performed by Maranatha! It makes me want to go outside and drink in the beauty of the Lord’s creation.

Kittens Searching for Lost Cities

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Well, okay, they didn’t find any! Is that my fault? How many lost cities have you found lately?

Ah, it’s been a long time since we had kittens romping around our living room. When Robbie and Peep discovered they could fluff out their tails and run sideways, they couldn’t get enough of it. They grow out of it, though, so enjoy it while you’ve got it.

Oh, The Things I Should (?) Have Done!

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Amazon.com: Master of Life and Death eBook : Silverberg, Robert: Kindle Store

I read this book while I was still in grade school–Master of Life and Death by Robert Silverberg. Its theme was a harsh government response to “overpopulation.”

Now I’m reading Hell’s Cartographers, autobiographical sketches by prominent science fiction writers who had long careers; and the first essay is by Robert Silverberg.

Fascinating! And it’s a paradox. Silverberg attained financial success as a writer when he was still very young, and yet he was haunted by a conviction that all he’d done was to become a hack who cranked out reams and reams of bilge. And he tells you how he did it! Gee, I never even though of doing most of the things he did to grow his career. And I haven’t yet read how he resolved his inner conflict. All I see is that you can become a big success without doing anything worthwhile.

I suspect that one of the lessons I’ll learn from this book is that each and every published writer must follow his own path to “getting there.” My own path has been long and convoluted: didn’t get a novel published until 1986. If only I’d thought of schmoozing with other individuals in the publishing industry!

But would my own work have been the better or the worse for it?

Once upon a time I wrote a perfectly serviceable thriller that a major magazine would have bought and published–if, and only if, I rewrote it to plug in some sleazy sex scenes. I agonized over this for quite a while; but my wife warned me that if I did it, it would surely come back to haunt me. And how could I ever present such work to my Aunt Betty, the nun, or Uncle Bernie, a Methodist minister? So I didn’t make the changes, and that was that.

Hell’s Cartographers, I think, will be quite an adventure for me.

Byron’s TV Listings, June 25

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A Review of the 1973 TV Guide Fall Preview Issue | Cavalcade of Awesome

G’day! Byron the Quokka here–and would you believe it? Next time I’m here, it won’t be June anymore. But in the meantime, Quokka University still brings you shows like these:

7:01 P.M.  Ch. 18   OCD EXPRESS–Crime drama/Game show

The cops at the 55th Precinct all suffer from OCD–so they need the help of you, the viewers, to get out from behind their desks and solve some crimes! The world’s first interactive cop show, you name the crime and you decide whodunnit! Inspector Farrakhan: Dom DeLuise. Sgt. Flabb: Unidentifiable. Officer Perky: Irish McCalla. Lt. Fillibuster: A potted rubber plant.

7:15 P.M.  Ch. 05  WHIMPERING SMITH–Western

Sam Waterston stars as Sheriff Jake Smith, the whiniest lawman in the West. It’s all Deputy Snivel (Yogi Bear) can do to stop him from “annoying people to death!” This week: A psychotic rotifer rustler (Alain Delon) tries to shoot himself rather than listen to any more of Jake’s whining.

7:30 P.M.  Ch. 27  NEWS WITH GNUS–News & commentary

Highest ratings ever for a major news show! A team of wildebeests, backed up by great ventriloquists just out of sight, covers all the news while munching grass, mating, head-butting, and running away from lions. Of course, that’s it for Sports that night, if the lions catch the gnu who happens to be covering it…

Ch. 41  RUIN YOUR HEALTH!–Health & fitness

Uzguck Swaley has been called “the Anti-Jack LaLanne,” but there’s a method to his madness! Unfortunately no one knows what it is. This week Uzguck introduces a new exercise “that hurts like hell and doesn’t accomplish anything at all.” Special guest: the cast of “The View.”

8 P.M.  Ch. 71  MOVIE–Ancient Egyptian fertility tragedy

(Give us a break: we don’t make ’em, we only show ’em!) In My Mommy the Mummy (Norman/Saxon, 1966), the June Taylor Dancers star as oppressed but dismayingly cheerful peasants whom the evil Pharaoh (Reggie Jackson) just can’t control… but maybe Vincent Price (himself) can! Columbo: Peter Falk. Peter Pan: Mary Martin.

Well, folks, have we aroused your appetite for gourmet TV? Sorry, we had a live cooking show planned, but everybody’s laid up with food poisoning. I told them about those mayonnaise!

Quokka (Setonix brachyurus) eating a banana peel that it has stolen from the bin in accommodation hut, Rottnest Island, Western Stock Photo - Alamy

Byron the Quokka, signing off. Banana peel, anyone?

Abortion as Self-Defense (Are They That Crazy?)

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Ezekiel 8:14-18 KJV - Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

Tammuz was a pagan deity, an idol, whose worship crept into Jerusalem and reached even into the Temple of Jehovah, as told in Ezekiel 8. In those days in Judah, the right worship of God was corrupted by “going along to get along” with paganism.

We don’t have Tammuz anymore, but we do have plenty of idols. “Science.” The state. Celebrities. And Abortion (!), aka “Women’s Health,” “Reproductive Rights,” and “Choice.” And now that the Supreme Court has knocked it down as law for the whole country, kicking it back to the states, there are plenty of wackos out there literally weeping (and cursing and screaming) for this heathen idol. Just like they used to weep for Tammuz, before the destruction of Jerusalem.

But look at it this way.

If you abort a whole generation of babies, there’ll be no one around to have you euthanized the moment you miss a step.

Pushback! College Has to Cough Up $800G to Christian Student

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Everywhere a Student Happens to Be Standing Is a "Free Speech Zone" | FreedomWorks

Georgia Gwennit College was only one of hundreds of colleges with speech codes, free speech zones, etc. But now those hijinks are going to cost the college $800,000 (https://www.thecollegefix.com/college-will-pay-800000-to-settle-free-speech-lawsuit-filed-by-silenced-christian-student/).

In 2016 the college silenced a Christian student who tried to evangelize on campus. He got permission to do so in one of the “designated free speech zones,” but that was taken away because “someone complained.” (See how far you get, “complaining” about Critical Race Theory.) So was born a lawsuit brought by the Alliance Defense Fund representing the Christian student. The $800,000 is an out-of-court settlement. We can only imagine what the college would have to be if the case had gone to trial.

But as usual, the Far Left bullies backed down when it came time to go to court.

And this year Georgia passed a state law abolishing “free speech zones.” The Constitution makes the entire United States a free speech zone.

Gwennit College tried to weasel out of it in 2021 by “amending” its speech code “to bring it into line with the Constitution,” but a court ruled that didn’t let them off the hook for abuses perpetrated earlier.

Of course, no amount of fines or penalties will really hurt a college–not when they can just raise the tuition at will and get federal money for promoting transgender.

People staying away from college and not sending their children there, letting these schools go out of business and die–that will stop the abuses.

‘Toxic Fiction’ (2013)

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DALLAS | J.R EWING FUNNY MOMENTS - YouTube

Ooh-ooh! I wanna be a TV villain! I don’t have a show, but I can still be a villain!

Toxic Fiction

Many of you are way to young to remember Dallas, a red-hot hit of a TV show starring Larry Hagman as iconic antihero J.R. Ewing. J.R. captured the public’s imagination: the more evil he did, the more they liked him.

Well, we don’t need J.R. or Dallas anymore; we have real-life villains that make him look like a philanthropist, and the daily nooze coming out of the Biden administration puts Dallas in the shade. And unlike Dallas, it’s on every day, not once a week. J.R. was a saint compared to these stiffs.