Jean-Pierre Hallet was a former Belgian colonial official who wrote a couple of corking best-sellers (Congo Kitabu, Pygmy Kitabu) back in the 1960s.. He was a huge man:I met him once, when he gave a lecture at Rutgers.
Hallet’s theme was that any animal, if it receives enough love and kindness, could be trained to friendship with a human. To prove it, he tamed a rhinoceros. He used to ride it around.
There really is so much that love can do! Give it a chance.
I had a yen today to watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It was the fourth film in the series, and it’s one of my favorites. It’s very refreshing to see a lot of rich fat-heads choking on their hubris. The world needs more of that in real life.
Fallen Kingdom, like all the others in the series, is a parable. “There was once a man, or group of them, who thought he could do absolutely anything…” We know where this is going–to the Land of Nothing Works. Just a couple of minutes into the film, we see an elevator door that doesn’t work. It’s telling us what to expect.
And it’s not just the machines that fall down on the job. The shambles, the disaster, is caused entirely by Real Smart People blinded by their own reflections in the mirror. But we know from history that most of the really stupid things done by the human race–Original Sin, in fact–are done by idiots who think they’re geniuses.
Our world already has too much of that.
A hyena’s breakfast
Gee, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard from the Perky Publicist. Is she still out there pushing “fantasy literature” that would make a jackal retch?
Here’s one of the monstrosities she tried to unload on me in 2016:
I used to get these come-ons in my email all the time, and usually I just deleted them. But every now and then they came up with something so truly horrendous that just had to be booed and hissed off the stage.
Have they stopped pushing crapola? That would be nice. Then maybe we could move on to erasing dreck disguised as politics.
Here’s a memory I’ve had buried for many years.
When I was a little boy, my parents took me to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs.
We also saw the sharks in the Hall of Fishes; and I’m afraid I took those exhibits a bit too literally. I mean, what would happen if the glass broke and all the sharks got loose? I was afraid to take my bath that night. Had some rather too dramatic dreams that night, too. The mako shark followed me home.
I don’t remember how long it took me to get over that.
Special Note to Kristi Ann: Welcome back, Kristi Ann! I’m so pleased to see you here again.
Down by the Riverside–we used to sing it at Y Camp.
We have to pray for peace and work for it. Here Grandpa Elliott leads singers and musicians from all over the world in this beloved traditional hymn.
When I was a little boy, my aunts visited Yellowstone Park and brought back all these cool slides and souvenirs. But there are other souvenirs you can get that you can’t bring back with you… and you’d better not try.
In this video we see dudes from the East taking their toddlers to see Mr. Bison up close and personal. A same-day newscast reported a tourist from New Jersey getting gored because he got up too close to a bison and annoyed it. A 1,000-pound animal is not safely cheesed off.
Really, now–how close do you want to get to a wild bison who’s trying to eat? They’re not hyper-aggressive animals, but they do want their space. In fact, they injure many more tourists than grizzly bears, mountain lions, or other tourists do. That’s because people insist on bugging them.
Leave your toddler safely in the car.
Two little posts today, that was my output. Well three, counting this one.
When I was a boy my absolute favorite comic book was Turok Son of Stone, the adventures of a couple of Native Americans in a lost world chock-full of dinosaurs, cave men, and everything else that made prehistoric life worth living. Dodging a pair of battling tyrannosaurs: it doesn’t get any better than that!
Anyway, I don’t have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and I’m looking forward to catching up on the nooze.
Meanwhile, if you’ve encountered any nooze articles you think I ought to look into and write about, please let me know.
What does she think is so funny?
You wonder about liberals sometimes, you really do.
Like, for instance, this push, some years ago, for completely changing Christian doctrine to accommodate their follies–abortion and “gay” pseudo-marriage.
Assorted Left-Wing Jidrools: ‘Religious Beliefs Must Change!’
I mean, really–how desperate do we have to be to adopt Hillary Clinton as our instructor in morality? And the host of other ones is just as bad.
Sometimes it seems like a miracle that we ever got Donald Trump back into the White House.
And maybe it was.
My grandpa had a double lot–one for the house, one for the garden. And what a garden it was! Black raspberries, red raspberries, roses, tiger lilies, morning glories, hollyhocks–he could grow just about anything.
Our family congregated at Grandpa’s house for Easter, Christmas, and other major holy days. I don’t know how the house held us all–seventeen of us, usually–but of course we could always have our celebration outdoors, weather permitting.
Well, it was a long time ago. Almost everybody’s dead and gone, except for a few who now live hundreds of miles away. Even the house is gone. And the gardens.
Oh, Lord! Will there be a garden for us in Your kingdom? Will all that has been broken be restored?
We think the empty tomb, that very first Easter, says “Yes!”
This video of the Mills Brothers is from 1957 (holy cow, the Spike Jones Show!), but I think my memory of the song is older than that: The Whole Town’s Talkin’ About the Jones Boy.
We were visiting Grammie at the old house my father and his brothers grew up in. Dad put the disc on the record player–does anybody still have one?–and launched the song. He also produced two spoons and played them in time to the music. He was awfully good at that. But it must be 65 years since I’ve heard anyone play the spoons.
I sigh. Everyone who was once gathered round that record player–everyone but me–has passed away. I’m the last one left.
But God will restore what’s been lost; Our Lord Jesus Christ has said so.
Easter’s almost here, and we should remember that.
