Category: Language
Cold Enough to Freeze the…
Thanksgiving and Christmas 2024 and New Year and Valentines Day 2025 have come and gone. We’ve been sick here in Kansas since a week or two into January. Not just the old rhinovirus (bad cold) but that godawful Norovirus and then type A flu although I avoided the flu so far but suspect rhinovirus has taken hold. I’m hitting it with lots of echinacea and zinc and we’ll see how it goes. I have a physical therapy session scheduled for Friday. It was prescribed ostensibly for lower back pain, but it’s actually bursitis in the right hip/leg. And then there’s the weather. We had a blizzard a couple weeks ago with near zero temps, and this week it’s snow again but less of it, but colder, not just near zero but below zero. As I’m writing this the device on my wrist says the temp is -2 with “feels like” of -13. Just going out to check the mailbox (empty!) was enough to numb my fingers, wearing gloves. Supposed to be colder tomorrow and Friday. Which reminds me… In answer to the question, “How cold was it?” our friends at GasKan explain the source of the answer, “It was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!” I’m afraid I have no pictures of brass monkeys, but may have some depicting examples of our new year so far. If I have the time and/or the energy, I’ll add a couple of them here, but I don’t have at the moment. For now, g’night, and watch out for them brass monkeys!
No Stinkin’ Badges
The Douglas County Law Library has a film series, presents a movie at the public library every couple of months about a trial or something of legal interest. I plug them with announcements on the Bar Association website. Recently, the feature was In Cold Blood, one of the stars of which is Robert Blake. He was a “Little Rascal” and was the kid who sold Humphrey Bogart the lottery ticket in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I wanted to quote his line from the movie. I thought it was something like “Hey Mister, you wanna buy a ticket?” but I didn’t want to get it wrong. So, I was researching it (I never found it) and ended up at You Tube watching the infamous “No Stinkin’ Badges” scene. Figured I was obliged to share it with the family. Enjoy.
Strange Beasts
June 16, 2026
Language, Wisdom
No Comments
John Chappell
Why do I enjoy the Tarzan books of Edgar Rice Burroughs? Partly, it’s gems such as this conclusion of Tarzan the Invincible:
“This man has a casket,” reported one of the warriors, “which he says contains The Father of Diamonds.”
“The true Father of Diamonds, which Herkuf just brought with him from Thobos,” said Chon, “rests here in its casket on the altar before me. There cannot be two. Let us have a look at what the man has in his casket.”
“No!” shrieked Alan Thorne. “Don’t open it! It is mine, and I have been waiting to open it in Paris. I shall buy all of Paris with it and be king of France!”
“Silence, mortal!” commanded Chon; then, very deliberately, he opened the casket, while the trembling Thorne stared with mad eyes at the contents — a small lump of coal. At sight of it, realizing what it was, Alan Thorne screamed, clutched his heart, and fell dead at the foot of the altar of the true god.
“For this false and accursed thing,” exclaimed Brian Gregory, “we have all suffered, and many have died; yet the irony of it is that it is, in truth, The Father of Diamonds.”
“Men are strange beasts,” said Tarzan.
altarsBurroughscoaldeathdiamondsGodTarzan