The Werewolf Shepherd

 The Werewolf Shepherd

 

Once upon a time a Shepherd came upon a Wolf, standing bloody-jawed over the corpse of a Lamb.

The Shepherd said, “How dare you commit this crime?”

The Wolf said, “It is my natural right to exploit the inferior.”

The Shepherd said, “Who are you to judge the Lamb?”

The Wolf said, “The Lamb was weak. It could not stop my attack, and therefore deserved it. I am innocent because I am successful.”

The Shepherd said, “Evil will take any excuse.”

The Wolf said, “Who are you to judge a wolf?”

The Shepherd said, “I too am a wolf.”

The werewolf Shepherd turned into his wolf form and attacked the Wolf. The lycanthrope had the strength of a wolf and the cunning of a human, so he soon slew the Wolf.

Then he turned back into his human form. The Shepherd carried home the body of the Lamb and the pelt of the Wolf.

That evening he wore fur and ate mutton.

 

Moral:  Law excuses its own enforcement.

 

          Comment: Shepherd is the ideal occupation for a werewolf. He defends the sheep for his own reasons, not theirs. From the flock’s point of view, the main difference between the wolf and the werewolf is that the werewolf is more systematic.

smart hero vs superstrong villains

 I want a smart hero vs superstrong villains

 

NH:

I want a comic book where the hero is supersmart, and has a conscience and a villain's name, and the villains all have super strength, think they're heroes, constantly fight, and are all corrupt. Also, in that world, supersmart = normal intelligence; the villains all have comic-book level intelligence. So Dr. Sinistro saves the city from Captain Valiant's evil plan because that plan was stupid too, with flaws obvious from the start to a smart reader, and also to Dr. Sinistro. (A name that the others pinned on him!)

 

 

GDN:

You are describing the plot of Wagner's ring cycle.  It didn't end well.

 

Riddle

 

It is in a room, yet it is not in that room;

It’s like rock, and like air;

It stops the storm but not the thunder;

And when you look at it, you see something else.

What is it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A window.

 

 

Cyberguard, Cyberguard

 Cyberguard, Cyberguard

To a reluctant security program

To the tune of “Matchmaker, Matchmaker”

 

Cyberguard, cyberguard

Stop saying nay

It’s not OK

You’re in the way

Time after time I try pressing these keys

So give me my access, please!

For God’s sake, can’t you be mellow

For students, and for faculty too

For me, well, I wouldn’t bellow

If I never more had to deal with you!

 

The abortion debate is a fraud

 

   The abortion debate is a fraud because it measures rich and poor by different standards. Consider the following two cases:

    Both were women who had abortions, and who wrote about their feelings for the Press. (One wrote for a national‑distribution magazine [Harpers, if I recall correctly], the other for a SF Bay Area free paper [East Bay Express].) Both changed their minds about the issue, but in opposite directions. How they chose, why they chose, and what they felt about it afterwards reveals the class‑based hypocrisy that defines this  'debate'.

    The rich woman started out a fervent believer in the Right To Choose. Accordingly, she exercised this right, not once but many, many times; and she did so essentially for convenience. She had life‑plans, work‑plans, money‑plans, and love‑plans that she would not allow several unplanned pregnancies to interfere with. Eventually the time came for her to raise that prosperous, secure family she had been planning all along; but with the passage of time her fertility had declined, and getting pregnant was harder than she anticipated. Being well‑off, she got the medical attention needed to overcome this problem; and during her pregnancy she found her opinion of the matter changing. By the time she gave birth her views had changed 180 degrees; and therefore she wrote an article saying so. She declared her previous views and actions wrong; but she also said that she forgave herself. Her feelings are calm, her mind is centered, her life is sweet.

     The poor woman started out a fervent believer in the Right to Life. When she and her disabled husband had their first child, they expected nothing but joy; but they were wrong. Alas, times were hard; very, very hard. Times got harder all the time, for a long time indeed. Had they still been childless, they might have been able to cope; but as is they suffered grievously.  Eventually hard times subsided; things started to look up; they dared to hope for themselves and their child. Then she missed her period, and the nightmare began. They knew, all too well, the hell of poverty that awaited them in nine months; they *knew* that they could not support another child. Before they were shielded by inexperience, but no more; they were face to face with the hideous reality that they just couldn't make it. Their church (a pro‑life support group) was there with advice, emotional backup, Scriptural suasion ‑ everything except actual material aid. So finally she made the hard ‑ but, to her mind, utterly necessary ‑ choice of abortion. She found this emotionally devastating, not least because her own prior beliefs mocked her; but she went through with it, for the sake of her family. In the end her views had changed 180 degrees; and therefore she wrote an article saying so. She declared her previous views and actions wrong; but she also said that she did not forgive herself. Her feelings are turbulent, her mind is unsettled, her life is bitter.

    Do you want all of the sex and none of the guilt? Then be rich. Do you want none of the sex and all of the guilt? Then be poor. This fundamental injustice is *why* the abortion pseudo‑debate is fraudulent to the core; it rants about rights, responsibility, choice, life, souls, cells, Freedom, God... but never, ever about the one thing that really matters; the one factor that calls ALL the shots:

     $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

     Note that the bucks in your wallet say, "In God We Trust". Now let me ask you; what kind of a God does one invoke on money? What but a God *of* money?

      Mammon; America's true Lord.

 

Miracle Worker

 Miracle Worker

an Underfable

 

Once upon a time, an Activist said to a Rastafarian, “If only the Whites would pay reparations to the Blacks! Then we could forget history, and there would be peace, harmony and justice.”

The Rastafarian said, “I will work on this.” He then performed holy rites to contact the spirit of One Love. He chanted, he danced, he sacrificed great quantities of sacred herb.

After a week he emerged from the mystic mist, and he told the Activist, “I have good news. The Blacks are willing to accept!”

 

Moral: Work half done is work undone.

 

Comment: This fable is a cover of a tale from the Yiddish joke-lore, about a wonder-working rabbi, the rich, and the poor. The Rastafarian was a holy fool, but the Activist was also foolish, for he wished to forget history.

Serpent in Eden

      Serpent in Eden

 

          Once upon a time, Mr. Morden, Shadow thrall and agent of Chaos, awoke on a planet unknown to him. A Starfleet officer explained that he had materialized in the United Federation of Planets. The officer described Federation society as a utopia without war, poverty, disease, or oppression. The officer said, “In the Federation, all are free, and all are equal. We cooperate to better ourselves, and all humankind, and all sentient life. We have evolved beyond competition.”

“Very nice,” Mr. Morden said with a tight little smile.

“There is no need to compete. With our replicator technology, you can have anything you want. So what do you want?”

Mr. Morden smiled more broadly. That was his kind of question. He ordered coffee; they replicated a cup, he sipped it, and he frowned.

“This coffee is weak and watery,” he declared. “Can I have another brand of coffee?”

The Starfleet officer explained that replicators have the same programming all over Federation territory. There was no coffee any worse, and none any better, anywhere in the Federation.

Mr. Morden frowned. Then he smiled and asked the Starfleet officer what he wanted. The officer gave an anodyne answer; Mr. Morden repeated the question; after repeated hectoring, the officer confessed affection for a certain woman, but she was already engaged.

          Mr. Morden said, “As you wish, so be it,” and took his leave.

          Mr. Morden set forth to grant that wish, by any means possible. He framed the woman’s fiancée on trumped-up charges; this broke up the engagement, and the Starfleet officer caught her on the rebound.

          Mr. Morden busied himself by going to and fro in the Federation, and walking up and down in it. Everywhere he went he asked people what they want; and he granted those wishes in the most chaotic way possible. The Shadows had trained him to do this. Nowhere in the Federation did he get what he himself wanted, which was a cup of coffee as good as the coffee that the Shadows had brewed for him.

          Mr. Morden smuggled black market luxury goods. He hacked the central accounting system. He trafficked in latinum, drugs, and weapons. He busted crooks, rebels, and lunatics out of the Federation’s gulags by blackmailing the guards. He encouraged wastrels to play raucous music to cheering slackers and shocked Federation bourgeois. Everywhere he went, the orderly and lawful Federation quickly slipped into chaos and conflict. It broke along its hidden fault lines, as if that were the most natural thing in the world.

          Mr. Morden lied, cheated, bribed, extorted, and used every filthy trick possible to reach the ‘core’ of Federation society – what they called the top. There he found people as devious as him; but even their coffee was weak and watery.

Mr. Morden anonymously revealed their corruption to the Federation masses, and political chaos ensued. Crime and injustice emerged from that chaos; but so did competition and innovation.

One day Mr. Morden strolled through a broken city in the broken Federation. He went to a restaurant, in a struggling neighborhood between newly-rich and newly-poor. He ordered lunch with coffee. He sipped his beverage, and he smiled.

He said, “Finally, a decent cup of coffee!”

 

          Moral: Nature sides with the hidden flaw.