Never Put Off Until Tomorrow The Pleasures Of Today

My all-time favorite comic strip; thank you, Bill Watterson.

The March edition of the NOBULLetin is still in the works, the delay being due to a case of procrastination, lack of inspiration and sloth (the human condition, not the animal; believe me, if something that goofy-looking (see below) was interrupting my writing, I'd know it).

Anyway, I promise, cross my heart, to get this month's edition out ASAP.

Honest.

Just in time to do April's.

(Large sigh of resignation here.)

Love and tomorrow,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

Sticks And Stones

An Open Letter To Russian President Vladimir Putin

from

Pope John The Tall, American

Mr. President:

By the way, before I get started, is it "Poo-tin" or "Pew-tin"?

As the Head Guy of one of the world's foremost organizations, the All John All The Time World Church (see above for explanation of this atrocity), and a loyal American, I thought it behooved me to write you this letter and apprise you of the possible consequences of your recent actions in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

You should know what you're getting into.

Please be advised that our President, Barack Obama, is not a man with whom to be trifled; you take your safety and that of your country lightly if you believe this not to be the case. His rhetorical skills far surpass those of any of our previous Presidents.

If you continue your naked aggression against the sovereign country of Ukraine, President Obama will be forced to take action, and I as see it, such action could be any, or all, of the following:

~convince NATO and European Union countries, as well as others around the world, to participate in an economic boycott of Russia, in conjunction with the United States, that could potentially cost your country hundreds (that's 100's) of rubles;

~or convince these same countries to join together to ostracize Russia from the community of nations, resulting in great embarrassment for your country and a stinging loss of prestige for you, coupled with a tongue lashing of epic proportions;

~or finally, in cooperation with the International Olympics Committee, work to deny Russia the opportunity to host the Winter Games again, ever.

Should the threat of initiating these measures prove to be an insufficient deterrent to your dreams of hegemony, our President will continue to make speeches against your actions until such time as, well, let's hope this crisis doesn't get that far.

Please remember, Mr. Putin, that our President was the man who, upon learning that President Bashar Assad of Syria, in the civil war that continues to this day to plague that country, intended to use chemical weapons in his battle against the insurgents, issued a warning to Mr. Assad that the use of these weapons would cross a "red line", and that American response would be swift and decisive.

You know how that whole thing ended.

So you would be well advised, sir, to recall the lessons of that unfortunate situation, and know that it is dangerous to disregard the words of our President, a man of strong oral skills, and a man, indeed, of great verbosity.

Forewarned is forearmed, and although we abhor giving you two more than you had previously, you are well advised to know that President Obama will take the necessary rhetorical steps to end this crisis you have perpetrated, painful to the ears as it may be.

Again, you are cautioned not to take lightly the verbal skills of our President.

Know you this, sir, that as a leader of a powerful country such as the United States, President Obama would make a fine TV news commentator.

You stand forewarned.

Love and Pussy Riot,

PJTT

P.S. to my daughter...I'm sorry, Poopsie, I know I promised not to write about politics but this Putin guy had to be warned. Please forgive me.

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

But Don't Quote Me

"...a cloud of dust and a hearty "Hi-ho, Silver..."

According to the "What Do You Think?" poll on MSN.com, when asked the question, "What was your favorite part of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia?", readers of the website responded thusly:

            ~Amazing athletes...........................................29%

            ~Mishaps/memes............................................3%

            ~Team USA gold-medal performances............9%

            ~Bob Costas' eye............................................10%

            ~DIDN'T WATCH........................................49%

These numbers were taken from 323,986 responses, as of 4:00pm CST on 2/25/14.

Your Pope Guy didn't watch either.

FYI, the Pope Guy is yours truly, John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church and All-Night Diner; if you're interested, there's an almost viable explanation as to how this travesty occurred above (see above).

Recently, your Popeamundo has immersed himself in Presidential and Founding Fathers history, for reasons undetermined at this time; mostly, it just kinda' happened that way.

It probably started about a year ago when I read, back to back, two outstanding biographies: that of Abraham Lincoln, entitled cleverly, "Lincoln", by David Herbert Donald and of Harry S. Truman, also cleverly entitled, "Truman", by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, David McCullough.

Both were outstanding.

Before long, caught up in a desire to learn more about the background and thinking processes of the various men who have risen to become the most powerful leader in the world, I went on a feeding frenzy of reading, which is my normal routine anyway (being forced to choose between reading and eating, I would have to give the proposition serious consideration), and devoured the following tomes over the last several months:

            ~"John Adams" again by the above-mentioned David McCullough

~"Team Of Rivals" by Doris Kearnes Goodwin, which was the book the movie "Lincoln", with Oscar-winner Daniel Day Lewis, was based on

~"Theodore Rex" by Edmund Morris, which described the Presidential years of Teddy Roosevelt's life

~"Eisenhower" by Stephen E. Ambrose

~"Washington, A Life" by Ron Chernow, an excellent work

~"Thomas Jefferson, The Art Of Power" by Jon Meachum, a wonderful book

And sitting on my shelf waiting patiently are:

~"The First American, The Life And Times of Benjamin Franklin" by H.W. Brands

~"John Quincy Adams" by Harlan Giles Ungar, a distant cousin of Felix, I presume

(Yes, I know Franklin wasn't a President, but he was one of the most influential of the signers of the Declaration Of Independence, so I figured, why not?)

The thing that has struck me about all of the above is number of "quotes", or if I were to use the current vernacular, "sound bites", that appear in the pages of these books.

So I thought to myself, Pope, you should share some of these treasures, with your loyal followers, all three of you, along with some of my own pithy and occasionally deeply profound gems of wisdom, as well as a number of comments, wry and ridiculous, from other famous commentators, Presidential and otherwise.

In no particular order then, here they are:

~"Is the present state of the national republic enough? Is virtue the principle of our government? Is honor? Or is ambition and avarice, adulation, baseness, covetousness, the thirst for riches, indifference concerning the means of rising and enriching, the contempt of principle, the spirit of party and of faction the motive and principle that governs?"

            John Adams

~"Blessed are the tall, for they can reach the top shelf."

            PJTT

~"What would Jesus Christ have preached if he'd taken a poll in Israel?...It isn't polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It's right and wrong."

            Harry Truman

~"Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything. You've never been out of college, you don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."

            Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Akroyd in "Ghostbusters")

~"Free speech is a restraint on government, not an incitement to the citizen."

            Dean Acheson (Secretary of State under Harry Truman)

~"...and blessed are the bewildered, not because they're cool or anything, but because they can use all the help they can get..."

            PJTT

~"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."

            Thomas Jefferson

~"A blind horse upon a treadmill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be-all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly."

            Abraham Lincoln (speaking of a slave society)

~"I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."

            Winston Churchill

~"Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours."

            Ronald Reagan

~"America and Britain are two nations divided by a common language."

            George Bernard Shaw, playwright

~"The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words."

            Thomas Jefferson

~"If you come to a fork in the road, take it."

            Yogi Berra, catcher

~"Blessed are the lazy, for although they don't accomplish much, they're well rested."

            PJTT

~"If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim'."

            Lyndon Johnson

~"They read the same Bible, and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other."

            Abraham Lincoln (speaking of people of the North and South during the Civil War)

~"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
            Mitt Romney, wannabe President

~"I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress."

            Ronald Reagan

~"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

            Leona Helmsley, wannabe human being and billionaire

~"For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country."

Michelle Obama

~"It's like deja-vu, all over again."

Yogi Berra

~"I am on my way to Massachusetts, where I have a son at school, who, if report be true, already knows much more than his father."

Abraham Lincoln

 And my all-time favorite...

~"Never tease an armed midget with a high-five."

            PJTT

Love and quotation marks,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.