Eccentric – Page 8 – Deborah Makarios

August 21, 2021August 21, 2021

The Birth of a Sock

There comes a time in everyone’s life, sooner or later, when they stop partway through getting dressed, and, for the first time, ask themselves that deep question: where do socks come from?

Fear not, your questions are about to be answered, in the relative anonymity and privacy of the internet (relative to your settings, choice of browser, &c.).

The process begins when a sock egg is laid. These eggs can be found in great numbers at your LYS (Lair of Young Socks), where you can select the sock species of your preference. As socks do not like the solitary life, it is generally best to get two eggs of the same sort, although some advanced practitioners have had success with combining two eggs of complementary though different species.

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August 1, 2021August 1, 2021

The Tale of Jael

It always strikes me as strange when people interpret the Bible to say that women shouldn’t hold positions of authority (except possibly over children and other women). Have they not heard about Deborah?

Not me – the much much earlier Deborah. She lived in a very low-government era, when the people of Israel were governed by a) the Law of Moses (which was short and straightforward enough that ordinary people could actually know the whole thing) and b) a judge.

This simple system had the frequent addition of an oppressive foreign overlord who made the conquered people pay tribute and generally ground them beneath his heel. Because there’s nothing like getting ground under the heel of the oppressor to make you realize (and regret) you’ve been oppressing others yourself: failing to protect the rights of widows and orphans, taking advantage of the poor, or failing to give the land its statutory holidays. (Yes, the actual land.)

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June 24, 2021June 24, 2021

Adventures with Avians

There are dinosaurs in our back yard. For a given value of dinosaur. “Feathered theropod dinosaurs” is what Wikipedia calls them (not to be confused with the celebrated therocephalian therapsid Purlovia Maxima). One is Troodon and one is Kryptops, and both are hens. Well, technically, only Kryptops is a hen. Troodon (pronounced Troo-don, not Tro-o-don like the original dinosaur) is a pullet.

And therein lies the problem. A pullet is a teenage hen, more or less, and Troodon turns out to be one of those rebellious teenagers who’s never seen a boundary she didn’t want to cross.

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