The Hand of Justice

 
The Hand of Justice (Copyright © B Kahuna 2010) 

MULKIRIGALA, Sri Lanka -- The Hand of Justice, specifically that of the Cheese Justice, blatantly sails into Kahuna's composition of one of the Four Heavenly Kings (Lokapala) at a temple on the third terrace of the Mulkirigala Raja Maha Viharaya.

Captured on 21^st March 2010 with a Canon EOS 30D (EF 50mm 1:1.8 II) on shutter priority (1/80^th of a second) at ISO 400. Adjusted for tone and saturation in Picasa. 

Of Savage Lemmas and Deadly Corollaries

NEW YORK CITY, New York -- Outright buffoonery took place a few days ago when crackpot lexicologist and unconventional orthographer, St Vandoofus redefined parts of the English language and caused chaos across two continents.

It all started with a conversation between the Holy One and Kahuna on the perfectly innocent topic of computer programming, but soon became a quagmire involving the Admiral and the Cheese Justice. The Holy One was holding forth about his coding skills:

Vandoofus (V): I will be coding till I am 80.
Kahuna (K): Do you think you'll be better at it then? :-D
V: If I get any better I will code myself out of the Matrix X-(
K: Maybe your code will work if you get better :-P
V: That's a good quote: If I get any better I will code myself out of the Matrix :-D
K: LOL, and my corollary :-P
V: What's a corollary?
K: Well, it's different from a lemma: [definition of corollary]
V: Why don't you speak English? My lawyer and I spend a lot of time referencing the dictionary trying to figure what the hell you are saying.
K: I just gave you the correct dictionary reference :-P
V: X-(

Peeved at encountering multiple page faults, Vandoofus resorted to a furtive backchannel to summon reinforcements in the form of the Admiral:

Vandoofus (V): The dingbat is not letting me work.
The Admiral (A): What is he doing to you?
V: Using big words.
A: Big words about what?
V: Won't know till I look up the dictionary, and too busy to look up, thus my accusation: he is not letting me work.
A: Shoot him with a big arrow. Now.
V: Could you do it for me? I'm busy.

The ensuing ballistic action lead to a confrontation between the Admiral and Kahuna on another backchannel where the allegedly large lexemes were unmasked and laid bare:

Kahuna (K): The big words were "corollary" and "lemma".
The Admiral (A): Grrr.

At this juncture, the Admiral considered it wise to suspend the siege against Kahuna and declared a ceasefire given the large quantum of work involved in finding a replacement Kahuna. Vandoofus's nomination as Kahuna wannabe was disqualified early:

The Admiral (A): But, you don't use big words X-(
Vandoofus (V): Exactly X-(
A: You're then of no use: you don't have the ability to scare the skin off people at the highest levels.
V: By using big words? I can use other means.
A: No, it has to be big words.
V: I know a couple.
A: You couldn't manage "corollary" and "lemma", what have you got that's better?
V: I thought "corollary" is heart disease and "lemma" is an animal.

It is not everyday that a statement such as this is uttered. And with such gravitas. Indeed, we were fortunate to have been at hand to witness the sublime buffoonery of Vandoofus. Not so fortunate, the editorial staff of the Oxford English Dictionary, whose anguished wailing and gnashing of teeth could be heard as far south as Fat Phil's Angling Centre. The late PG Wodehouse might have gone so far as to say that the Chief Editor, "leaped in his chair with a wordless cry like that of a sleeping cat on whose tail some careless number-eleven shoe has descended." But, we digress. Kahuna was quick to retaliate:

Kahuna (K): I'm going to send a lemma to savage you X-(
Vandoofus (V): It's not that kind of animal: it's a nice pasture-grazing animal.
K: That's a cow, not a lemma X-(
K: "Vandoofus Savaged by Lemma, Dies of Corollary"
V: That sounds right, except a lemma is not a savage animal X-(
K: It doesn't take much to savage you, a squirrel could probably gnaw on your nuts.
V: It should be more like, "Vandoofus was photographing the lemmas grazing the Peruvian grassland on his trip to Peru, when he had a massive corollary."
K: Strunk said, "Omit needless words." Most of your sentence has got to go.
V: X-(

Meanwhile, Vandoofus also filed a complaint against Kahuna with his lawyer, the Cheese Justice. She lost no time in taking Kahuna to task for lexical harassment:

The Cheese Justice (C): You have been accused of using big words against my client!
Kahuna (K): So? "Vandoofus Savaged by Lemma, Dies of Corollary"
C: Grrrrrrr, this is what I mean! This is harassment of my client. I shall forthwith ban you from using such words on him in the future.
K: Your client was grazing the Peruvian grasslands at the time.
C: Oh a cow? Client = cow in Peru?
K: Yes.
C: With hoof and horns?
K: Yes, an ungulate.
C: Gah, there you go again!
K: Now what?
C: Ungulate! Too big! Harrassment! Grrrr.
K: Such grandiloquence X-(
C: I give up! I shall threaten at this point to bring in a witness.
K: Bah, hogwash.
C: [Ear-splitting scream summoning the Admiral]
K: Are you fibrillating now? X-(
C: [THUMP]

A rather violent legal action indeed. On that potentially litigious footnote to this tale of lexical excess, we must sign off.

No lemmas were harmed during this production. However, the safety of St Vandoofus, currently combing his apartment for lemmas, remains dodgy.

Kahuna Ushers in New Era of Buffoonery

REPUBLIC OF BOSTON, Former Massachusetts -- At an impromptu briefing held a short while ago, Kahuna announced sweeping changes to the Circus, suspiciously coinciding with the Ides of March.  Calling the timing purely circumstantial, He downplayed rumors of resorting to brute force à la Junius Brutus.

Getting down to business, Kahuna proclaimed that the blog had been refreshed with an elegant new template designed by Google's Tina Chen.  This, He said was one of the several designs launched along with the new Blogger Template Designer, currently available for Blogger in Draft.  Kahuna claimed that He was pottering about with the widget template for most of Pi Day, which fell on Sunday, 14^th March.  He added that the fruit of his labors was best viewed in Firefox, suggesting that Internet Explorer was liable to make a hash of things.

Kahuna also took the opportunity to announce that He had acted autonomously and invited three new clowns to join the Circus:  The Cheese Justice, the Admiral and the Genie.  Brief, defamatory biographies follow:

The Cheese Justice: Well versed in the art of tort and litigation, the Cheese Justice enjoys a cultured dairy product or two when not defending her clown client, St Vandoofus.  She is certainly not hesitant to feed him to savage wild animals when he gets out of line, which is most of the time.

The Admiral: With ballistic weapons, cacti and Haddockisms at her disposal, the Admiral effortlessly commandeers entire venues at a moment's notice, leaving the staff quavering in their boots.  She conducts research in ichthyology during her spare time and is determined to make Vandoofus walk the plank into shark-infested waters.

The Genie: When he's not busy dreaming, playing chess or beating the crap out of people for the heck of it, the Genie operates a no-nonsense business model ("rub me and I shall give you wishes according to how good you look").   He is currently waiting for an excuse to pick a fight with Kahuna.

Closing his rambling keynote, Kahuna expressed confidence that the latest contingent of clowns would usher in a new era of buffoonery as never before seen upon this Earth.  On that provocative note, we end this post. 

Let the games begin.