Volume 2 — Whiz Bang Editorials
Reading edition
“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet”
During the past month, we have received an inquiry from a reader asking us to define a “lounge lizard.” We have nothing of that caliber in this rural community of Robbinsdale. Most of us are poor financially, but strong in the knowledge of Mother Nature and the homely ways of the farm and fireside. During the midst of our studies, we journeyed through Shakespeare’s immortal “King Lear,” and in the scene before Gloucester’s castle, we find the following:
Kent: Fellow, I know thee.
Oswald: What does thou know me for?
Kent: A knave, a rascal; and an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action taking knave, a glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue. One that would’st be a bawd in the way of good service, and are nothing but the mad composition of a knave, beggar, coward, and the son and heir of a mongrel; one whom I would beat into a clamoured whining if thou denyest the least syllable of thy addition.
We have omitted some expressions from this denunciation. We have deliberately weakened it. We cannot find it in our soul possible to condemn any fellow man in such language as Shakespeare uses. We follow the quaint philosophy that every man has a redeeming quality and that none combines the bald badness which Kent ascribes to Oswald. In our community, a man denounces another in few words. We shake our fist and call our enemy “a blankey-blank-son-of-a-blank.” Our language may not be as polished as Shakespeare, but it seems to satisfy the vendor.
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Wonder what a dog thinks about while he sits hours at a time watching his master bending over a battered desk pecking with two pitchfork-blistered fingers at a typewriter model of 1898?
Have you ever stopped to consider the dog? I’ll admit that in the eight years my collie breed “Shep” has been my faithful companion, I have never stopped to give him thanks or to reason with myself why this dumb beast should love me so.
As I work here by my old desk in Whiz Bang headquarters, “Shep” sits on his hind quarters panting. Occasionally, as I turn in a friendly glance, he points his nose as if inviting an affectionate pat. “Shep” seems to approve of my magazine. I really believe he understands what it is. He seems never so happy or affectionate as when he sits beside me in my study. When I’m in the field he saunters about, paying little attention to me, but here in the study he seems vitally and keenly interested. His attitude brings me to Senator Vest’s plea for a dog.
“The best friend a man can have in this world may turn against him,” said the senator. “His son or daughter, whom he has raised with kind and loving care, may prove ungrateful, those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to our faith. The money a man has, he may lose; it flies away from him when he perhaps needs it most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. Those who are prone to fall on their knees and do us honor when success is with us, may be the first to cast the stone of malice when failure settles its clouds upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend a man can have in this selfish world, is his dog.
“A man’s dog stands by him, in health and in sickness, in poverty and in wealth; he will sleep on the cold ground, when the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer him; he will lick the wounds and the sores that come from an encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.
“If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast into the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than to accompany him, to guard against dangers, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all takes place, and death takes the master in its embrace, and his body is laid away in the cold ground; no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will be found the faithful dog, his head between his paws, his eyes open yet sad, in alert watchfulness. Ever faithful unto death.”
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What Daughter Learned
Grandmother—“Come here, Diploma.”
Visitor—“That’s a funny name for your grandchild. Why do you call her that?”
“You see, I sent my daughter to one of those nawthern seminaries and that’s all she brought back.”
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Progress Is Our Motto
Electrical appliances have superseded steam, Old time sailing vessels are an antiquated dream; We have our horseless carriages driven by the rich, Our ladies wear silk stockings but never take a stitch; We have wireless telegraphy which flies o’er land and sea, We play upon the piano but never touch a key; The belly-ache of former days is appendicitis now, And we are eating creamery butter that never saw a cow. Though progression is our motto and modern times have come to stay, Thank God! We raise our babies— In the good old fashioned way.
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Back to His Childhood
Pat and Mike walked into a drug store and said they wanted something to make them feel young again. The druggist gave them a well known remedy, and Pat and Mike each took a swallow and started out.
A block down the street they took another swallow.
“I feel foive years younger,” said Pat.
“Begorra, I feel like a boy,” said Mike.
A few blocks farther Pat said: “Bejabers, Mike, don’t drink another drop of that stuff. I’ve gone back to infancy.”