Hell is Hurting
Ian Frazier has written a very funny satire in the New Yorker on the impact of global warming for hell and its inhabitants. Enjoy!
THE TEMPERATURE OF HELL: A COLLOQUIUM
According to the best scientific data currently available, both the average and the mean temperatures of Hell have risen 3.8 degrees since 1955. Although an increase of this size may seem insignificant, especially to those not spending eternity there, the reality of the situation is quite different when experienced in concrete terms. For example, occupants of Hell who in 1955 were standing night and day in boiling pitch up to their knees report that, owing to the expansion of pitch at higher temperatures, they now must endure the torment all the way up to mid-thigh, or even higher, during Hell’s warmer seasons. Condemned souls who have to lie on their backs chained to a flat rock while a white-hot sheet of iron is lowered to within inches of their faces have stated that the rise in Hell’s ambient temperature now makes the iron seem much closer to their faces than it actually is.
The Soul Storage Company
On page 29 of the July 24, 2009, issue of the New Yorker various small ads appear for products like the famous AERON chair, the National Geographic expedition to Costa Rica, organic almond butter, etc. On the top right corner my eyes hit upon an ad for the Soul Storage Company. Its reads:
Is your soul weighing you down?
Store it!
In an outpatient procedure,
Dr. David Feinstein can extract and store your soul
in a state-of-the-art cold storage facility.
Go to the website and see why this ad is probably most ingenious marketing campaign that I have ever seen.
Continue ReadingHow to Fight ‘Right’ Courtesy of Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen Rubin shares with you her lessons how to fight ‘right’ and when you click on “More” she also tells how to fight ‘wrong’. Enjoy!
When my husband and I do argue, I find that the single best technique to apply is humor. If one of us can laugh and joke around, the angry mood lifts instantly. But during an argument, my sense of humor is the first thing to go.
Failing that strategy, here are 23 phrases that help turn down the heat of anger:
Please try to understand my point of view.
Wait, can I take that back?
You don’t have to solve this—it helps me just to talk to you.
This is important to me. Please listen.
I overreacted.
TAILS OF MANHATTAN
I no longer have the patience to watch Woody Allen movies, but his short pieces in the New Yorker are still fun to read. Here is a wonderful postscript to the Madoff Ponzi scheme that made many jewish people wonder why they would be so credulous.
Woody Allen in New Yorker, March 30, 2009: Two weeks ago, Abe Moscowitz dropped dead of a heart attack and was reincarnated as a lobster. Trapped off the coast of Maine, he was shipped to Manhattan and dumped into a tank at a posh Upper East Side seafood restaurant. In the tank there were several other lobsters, one of whom recognized him. “Abe, is that you?” the creature asked, his antennae perking up.
“Who’s that? Who’s talking to me?” Moscowitz said, still dazed by the mystical slam-bang postmortem that had transmogrified him into a crustacean.
“It’s me, Moe Silverman,” the other lobster said.
Continue Reading
The election killed my personal life!
I think Megan McCain was a good girl blogging from the campaign trail for her father to give the McCain campaign a youthful voice. But now it is time for her to grow up and hook up with a Marxist to spice things up a bit for a while. After all, has socialism arrived in America via Wall Street.
Looking for Mr. Far Right
by Meghan McCain
Somewhere in between college and the election, I started allowing politics to dictate the kind of men I date. And the worst part is, it’s not just Obama supporters who turn me off—it’s often my father’s.
The election killed my personal life.
Continue Reading
Capturing the Moment: Cohen Tribute To Obama
Start the Fire By ROGER COHEN (NY Times)
With apologies to Billy Joel, who’s more of a chronologist, and in tribute to a president, Barack Hussein Obama, representing a new post-cold-war generation of 21st-century Americans.
We Didn’t Start the Fire (2)
Bill Clinton, Tina Fey, capitalist China, O.J.,
Asia rising, Facebook, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ugg boots, Seinfeld
West Bank, Gaza City, Tupac Amaru Shakur
Continue Reading
Fighting Sin with Catholic Google
Catholic Google is supposed to help avoiding sin. I don’t think it works. Try it out with your favorite sinful words!
Continue Reading
© 2026 Peter Murmann. Powered by ExpressionEngine.
