Sunday Strip: Great Balls of Fire!
(But according to my Aunt Renee, the bingo hall was a lot more fun.)
Humor isn't meant to comfort people. It's meant to reveal truth, and truth has always offended someone.
The video below is disturbing -
The man was the unfortunate object onto which an already highly aroused rutting bull directed its aggression. Had another person, cyclist, vehicle, or even another bison occupied that same place at that moment, they might well have become the target instead.
That is one reason wildlife biologists often say that rutting bison are among the most unpredictable large mammals in North America. During the breeding season, their behavior can shift from apparently placid to explosively aggressive with remarkably little obvious provocation.
Freedom - Getting serious now.
The meme coin above may offend some people because it jokes about someone being seriously injured. But to me, that image perfectly captures what freedom means.
Freedom means accepting responsibility for taking chances. It means choosing to be in places where the unexpected can happen. It means accepting that, yes, you might get seriously hurt. Sometimes by animals that have no concept of what it means not to be free.
Robert and I live on a farm with heavy equipment, large animals, and countless opportunities to get hurt. And we have. More than once, we’ve found ourselves in situations where the stakes were very real.
Just on Friday, we bred a 1,200-pound mare to Jade. The mare threw an absolute anxiety tantrum after being separated from her filly for all of five minutes. She repeatedly lashed out at the gate where Jade was standing. Had I not stepped aside after seeing her ears pin back, I could have been seriously injured. Robert was just as exposed while trying to steady the mare as I opened the gate. This mare is one of our nicest, kindest mares. But in that moment, all hell broke loose.
Was it fun? No. Was it scary? Absolutely. But it was also seemed the safest way to make sure the filly wasn’t hurt. Everything worked out, but those are the kinds of decisions we make year after year because that’s what comes with running a breeding farm. When you choose to work with large animals, you also choose to accept the risks that come with them.
“There are two kinds of bulls: the ones that have tried to kill you, and the ones that haven’t had the chance yet.”
By the way, the humble cow is closely related to the bison.
And dairy bulls are widely considered among the most dangerous domestic animals in the world.
So, people choose to do all sorts of things that may not be in their best interests, but that is what freedom brings - the risk and the responsibility to make our own choices.
On the flip side of the coin, the homestead and the horses keep us fit. We look and feel years younger than we are.
Life is a balancing act - and a trade-off.
Every Sunday, I gather the funniest things I stumbled across during the week. Some are clever. Some are absurd. Some are politically incorrect. More than a few are guaranteed to offend somebody.
That’s the point.
As the saying goes, if no one is ever offended, you’re probably not telling jokes. You’re just seeking consensus.
Humor has always been one of the safest ways to challenge orthodoxy, puncture arrogance, and remind us not to take ourselves quite so seriously. If every joke has to pass through a committee to ensure no one is uncomfortable, it stops being humor and starts being public relations.
So, if you enjoy a weekly dose of memes, videos, satire, and the occasional joke that makes polite society clutch its pearls, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Your subscription doesn’t just support our writing. It keeps this community independent, keeps the lights on, and gives me an excuse to spend part of every Sunday hunting down the funniest content on the internet so you don’t have to.
Life is serious enough. Once a week, let’s laugh at it together.
Forget playing it cool, find someone who’s genuinely obsessed with you in the healthiest way possible. Someone who can’t go hours without talking to you. Who misses you after being apart for a few hours. Who expresses love freely without making it feel like effort.
Society shames clinginess like it’s toxic, but there’s a huge difference between codependency and someone who just genuinely loves being around you. A clingy partner isn’t checking your phone or controlling your life, they’re the person who texts you random I love yous throughout the day. Who wants to spend quality time together because they actually enjoy your presence.
Who shows affection naturally without you begging for it. Who makes loving you look easy because for them, it is. Meanwhile, emotionally unavailable people treat basic affection like a chore. You have to ask for attention. Beg for texts back. Request quality time like you’re scheduling a business meeting.
They make you feel needy for wanting what should be automatic in a relationship. Life’s genuinely too short for that. Find someone whose love language is showing you constantly, consistently, enthusiastically that you matter. That’s not clingy, that’s partnership.
-Author unknown
There are those who talk the talk, and those who walk the walk. Over 50 years together, still in love, and still frisky. And, back in the day, they all said we were too young. They were wrong. The above photos were from a photo shoot yesterday for an article in Homesteaders of America (due out in September), promoting our book.
JGM
Congratulations on 50 years together!!! You are a very fortunate pair who found each other on the first try. Not everyone is that lucky…. some of us had to kiss a few frogs first……. ;-)
I recognize that COVID toilet paper hoarder. He did time in the 70s for squeezing the Charmin. Mr. Whipple had no sense of humor about that kind of thing.