Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Helen Philpot: Oh Happy Day

Grrrr. About the only political "pundit" worth the read today is Helen Philpot, of Margaret and Helen fame. You can start here, and finish over on the Front Porch at her place.

I hear that the Back Porch is pretty racy; They serve a mean hard lemonade.  And, for a limited time, apparently, there is pie.

What are you waiting for? Get busy. Read!

Margaret, happy days are here again. The skies above are blue again. It really is just too good to be true. The Republican gains delivered by the Tea Party are almost more than I could hope for. I only wish that lovely Witch in Delaware could have come along for the party as well.


Now let’s see. Where do I begin? Our taxes will soon be about zero percent so let’s start spending today to get this economy back on track. The government will shrink to a size somewhat equal to the size of our military which means Social Security has to go. Those of us who were smart enough to save for a rainy day will be high and dry… for at least a few months. And I got a good check-up from my doctor recently so I don’t need my Medicare… for at least a few months.


Now about that black man in the Oval Office. It will take a few days to get impeachment hearings underway, but until then I hear they are moving him out of the White House and into that little room at the top of the Washington Monument so he can’t cause any more trouble. Oh and Ms. Pelosi is out too. How dare she take on the Health Insurance Industry. Didn’t she realize people own stock in those companies?


Gays are no more. They all left, presumably to join the French Army. And teen pregnancies are a thing of the past. Teens will no longer have sex. Except the Palins. The Palins will abandon teen pregnancies as easily as a camel will pass through the eye of an early pregnancy test stick. No. The Palins will continue to give birth to abstinence only babies. That we know for sure.


Abortion? Well everyone knows that was just a luxury American women really couldn’t afford anyway. And government will now be small enough to actually fit inside a woman’s uterus, so all women with unwanted pregnancies have left, presumably to join the French Army....
[continued at site of origin, HERE.]



From The Phrase Finder:

SOUR GRAPES

Meaning -- Acting meanly after a disappointment.

Origin -- In the fable The Fox and the Grapes, which is attributed to the ancient Greek writer Aesop, the fox isn't able to reach the grapes and declares them to be sour:

Harrison Weir's 1884 English translation, which claims to be "from original sources ", presents the text like this:

A famished Fox saw some clusters of ripe black grapes hanging from a trellised vine. She resorted to all her tricks to get at them, but wearied herself in vain, for she could not reach them. At last she turned away, beguiling herself of her disappointment, and saying: "The Grapes are sour, and not ripe as I thought."
Some of the fables associated with Aesop were written as late as 1900 and many of the earlier ones were considerably amended in Victorian translation into English. Also, some scholars also prefer 'unripe' to 'sour' as a literal translation of the earlier Greek texts.

The phrase also occurs in the Bible, Ezekiel - in Miles Coverdale's Bible, 1535:

18:1 The worde of the LORDE came vnto me, on this maner:


18:2 What meane ye by this comon prouerbe, that ye vse in the londe of Israel, sayenge: The fathers haue eaten soure grapes, and the childres teth are set on edge?


18:3 As truly as I lyue, saieth ye LORDE God, ye shal vse this byworde nomore in Israel.
The difficulty in dating Aesop's work makes it uncertain whether it first entered the English language via the Fables or via the Bible.

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