Le Parlement Européen

Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC, the European Parliament has commissioned a feasability study in ways of improving efficiency in communications between Government departments.
European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult; for example: cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of changes to iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be administered by a committee staff at top level by participating nations.
In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter.
There would be growing enthousiasm when in the sekond year, it was anounsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written 'f'. This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty per sent shorter in print.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling.
We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptive to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' by 'z'.
Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsh is, after al, half a 'w'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o' kould be dropd from words kontaining 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls, difikultis and evrivun vud fin it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems of the Guvermnt vud finali hav kum tru.

~From a doctoral student in France~

Epithets

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York:Born 1903--Died 1942.

Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down.

It was.

In a Thurmont, Maryland , cemetery:

Here lies an Atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.

On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery , Nova Scotia :

Here lies Ezekial Aikle, Age 102.

Only The Good Die Young.

In a London , England cemetery:

Here lies Ann Mann,

Who lived an old maid but died an old Mann.

Dec. 8, 1767

In a Ribbesford, England , cemetery:

Anna Wallace

The children of Israel wanted bread,

And the Lord sent them manna.

Clark Wallace wanted a wife,

And the Devil sent him Anna.

In a Ruidoso, New Mexico , cemetery:

Here lies Johnny Yeast... Pardon me for not rising.

In a Uniontown, Pennsylvania , cemetery:

Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake.

Stepped on the gas instead of the brake.

In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:

Here lays The Kid.

We planted him raw.

He was quick on the trigger

But slow on the draw.

A lawyer's epitap h in England :

Sir John Strange.

Here lies an honest lawyer,and that is Strange.

John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England , cemetery:

Reader, if cash thou art in want of any,

Dig 6 feet deep and thou wilt find a Penny.

In a cemetery in Hartscombe , England :

On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune.

Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls , Vermont :

Here lies the body of our Anna,

Done to death by a banana.

It wasn't the fruit that laid her low,

But the skin of the thing that made her go.

On a grave from the 1880s in Nantucket , Massachusetts :

Under the sod and under the trees,

Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.

He is not here, there's only the pod.

Pease shelled out and went to God.

In a cemetery in England :

Remember man, as you walk by,

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so shall you be.

Remember this and follow me.

To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:

To follow you I'll not consent ... Until I know which way you went.

This Just Stinks

Editorial from my down-home newspaper this past week.

Another reason our Constitution stinks: The smell from up north.

10-09-2007
Of the many complaints lodged against our current constitutional arrangement, one of the most frequent is the difficulty that local governments face when they want to regulate things in their own back yards.
(Another criticism is the way special interests use that constitutional arrangement to keep local governments, or state government for that matter, from regulating what the special interests don't want regulated.)
Among the many things local governments struggle with is regulating nuisances such as junk yards, dumps, mean dogs that are on the loose, and treated human waste that's being used as fertilizer.
That's right.
While no one was looking — at least no one who would or could do anything about it — a Texas company worked out a deal with New York to take sludge from waste treatment plants up there, ship it to Alabama, treat it again, and then give it to farmers to use as fertilizer. They are doing this up in Limestone County.
Let's not blame the farmers. It is good fertilizer and it's free. Plus, the Environmental Protection Agency says it is not a health hazard.
But it stinks.
Not just that good, old-fashioned farm stink that is more nostalgic than nasty, but a stench that, according to someone living in the neighborhood, "smells 10 times worse than a pig barn."
The farmer is in a bind. For years, farms didn't have neighbors. Farms were way out in the country. But in recent years neighborhoods have encroached on farmland, so now the farmer must be concerned about what the folks next door think about farm smells. On the other hand, the folks next door need to be aware that farming has certain scents associated with it.
Human waste, however, should not be one of them. But what can be done?
Not much, unless the Legislature passes strict environmental standards covering this sort of thing or the Constitution is changed to give local government the power to deal with what is clearly a local matter.
Neither is likely to happen unless a lot of folks raise a big stink — bigger than what is already being smelled.

*I don't know about you, but this kind of makes me feel a little queasy. It's not the smell aspect of it that bothers me, but the thought of eating food grown with the use of human waste from New York. How can they be one-hundred-per-cent sure that it is safe? A million thoughts go bounding around in my head at the thought of that. What are your thoughts on the subject?