Barry Parham's Blog: The Mooncalf Communion, page 4

Agonizing Reappraisal

(Time to face the mirror)
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Recently, I realized I’m not perfect. I know thousands of you will argue with that judgment, but I’m afraid it’s true.

The bitter truth hit me during a dull but revealing moment in-between not doing something I should have been doing, and doing something I knew I shouldn’t be doing. Don’t ask.

I don’t know if it’s possible to have pet peeves about yourself, but that’s what this discovery feels like. I do stuff that irritates me. A chink in your armor...

Babyself Begets A Muppet

(a Biblical case against more public bathrooms)
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Okay, friends, I may need some help. Apparently, I missed a meeting, because I’m now being told I can choose my own gender.

How liberating! All these years, I’ve just been blindly assuming I was a boy … a male, a guy, a dude, and one weekend in college, a bachelor … and not just due to being born with guy, um, things, like blue gifts from my parents’ friends. And not just because I do guy things, like try to carry twelve bags of gr...

I Hate You, Squared

(Wake up, Woke!)
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Good morning, America. Have you heard about the latest thing that’s being called racist?

Math.

Mathematics – the one thing I thought I could depend on to treat everybody else better than it treats me. But now the Warriors of Woke have decided math is hateful.

What part of math, do you suppose, is harboring all the hate? Prime numbers? Pi? Your age?

Someone recommended that the most hate-filled member of math may indeed be Pi … after all, it is an irrati...

Bumpy Start

(the Stupor Bowl and beyond)
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Look! Already, it’s February 2021, aka The Year After The Weird Year. And so far this year, there have been days when I think 2021 is just sitting back, rubbing its hands together, muttering “You thought that was weird?”

Last week, in-between impeachments, there was just one football game, the very last game of the season, which is bad news for guys like me, because for the next several weeks there’s nothing to watch except professional league bowlin...

What Paige Wishes She Could Say

Fast-forward ten years. Paige is now responding to Maintenance emails…and her AI has developed an attitude.
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Paige,
The vent keeps running and won’t turn off.
Signed, Tony

Tony,
Don’t worry about it. But please let us know if the light starts sucking air out of the room.
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Paige,
The toilet runs inside itself.
Signed, Rey

Rey,
We’ll get you a more outgoing toilet.
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Paige,
The heater will not turn on at all, and when it does, it won’t blow hot air.
Signed, Marl...

Paging Dr. Ghedreel

(therapy for our times)
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Lately, people in America have gotten weird. Okay, fair point. People in America have gotten weirder.

I don’t know if it’s a punishment, or a cleansing, or some side-effect of something else. Maybe it’s some kind of cyclical anthropology, some naturally occurring phenomenon caused by too many people watching too many reality TV shows. (Of course, these days, “reality TV” is anything that’s not the news).

Maybe it’s a result of parents being in quaranti...

Resident Joey

(The ‘P’ is silent.)
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If you haven’t yet heard, America has a new President. And, for a change, it’s an old white man.

But after four non-stop years of watching the last President being called evil, racist, misogynist, Hitler, Satan, and a non-vegetarian, I’d like to lower the temperature. I think I’ll just refer to this one as something placid and non-threatening … say, President Joey.

You know, Joey. Just a cute, seventy-eight-year-old baby kangaroo, with a pocketful of Poli...

2020 + 1

(notes on shutting up)
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Okay, it’s 2021 now, and I’m confused.

If you’re like me, you’ve been thinking that when 2020 finally shut up, there was suddenly going to appear some kind of magical, King Kong-style retaining wall, rising between us and insanity. But from everything I’m seeing so far, it looks like 2021 didn’t get the memo.

Let’s review, shall we?

First, let’s get to that ‘19 virus that China fired at us in ‘20 and which seems to only be getting started in ‘21. As ...

I Never Really Liked Me

(promises, promises)
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2021.

It’s official. If you’re reading this, you survived 2020 AD. Of course, the way last year behaved, I recommend waiting a while before buying a new calendar. Last year may still have a few tricks up its sleeve.

If you didn’t survive 2020, and you’re reading this anyway, that confirms two disturbing things:

The afterlife has access to the internet (I bet it’s really slow)You’re now eligible to vote in Georgia

And now we all wait, a bit nervously...

Same Time, Last Year

(mince pie, mistletoe, murder hornets)
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Merry Christmas! Don’t look now, but the year 2020 AD is almost over.

Or not.

Just because the kitchen calendar says we’re down to just one week and counting, 2020 has shown us all that we can no longer depend on normally dependent constants like time, or gravity, or elections.

And the madness is not over yet. Early in Christmas morning, somebody tried to blow up downtown Nashville. Racism does not appear to be a motivation, since the...