News:

We've got artists, scientists, scholars, pranksters, publishers, songwriters, and political activists.  We've subjected Discordia to scrutiny, torn it apart, and put it back together. We've written songs about it, we've got a stack of essays, and, to refer back to your quote above, we criticize the hell out of each other.

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Saints

Started by Q. G. Pennyworth, September 29, 2017, 04:17:33 PM

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Q. G. Pennyworth

Oh Blessed St. Petrov
Patron of Keeping Your Cool
Who did not push the Shiny Red Button
No matter what protocol said
We beseech you, help us to breathe

You did not falter when the lights were blinking
And the soldiers were panicking
And the sirens blared
The end of the world was at your fingertips
And you left it there

Oh Blessed St Petrov
Let us follow in your footsteps
Let us refrain from burning the house down
At the whim of petty drama
Or malfunctioning technology

Oh Blessed St Petrov
Let us remain bipedal
In moments of crisis and desperation
Let us consider what is likely
Rather than what is frightening
Let us choose the path of uncertainty and reprimands
Over certain catastrophe

Oh Blessed St Petrov
Averter of Apocalypse
Let us not romanticize the collapse of civilization
Let us value the world
You preserved for our sakes

Oh Blessed St Petrov
Hear our prayer

LMNO


Q. G. Pennyworth

Oh Blessed St Scholl
Patroness of Activists
You who died in Defiance
And regretted nothing
Yours is the immortality of legend

Grant us the courage now
To see evil and fight it
With the tools we have available
And within our ability
Remind us that neither youth
Nor old age is an excuse
For inaction

Oh Blessed St Scholl
Let us take up our spraypaint
Let us print out our flyers
And stockpile stamps
Let us stand with you forever
At the barrel of the gun

Oh Blessed St Scholl
They took your head
But they cannot take your memory
Let us see clearly through their propaganda
And counter it with our own

Oh Blessed St Scholl
Let us remember always
That fascists are killed with bullets
And fascism is killed with pamphlets
Let us never use one when the other is needed
Let us never diminish either front
In the never ending war
On creeping evil

Deliver us from Cowardice
Deliver us from Apathy
Oh Blessed St Scholl
Hear our prayer

The Wizard Joseph

You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

The Good Reverend Roger

This is fucking amazing and why don't we have a proper prayer book like those other fuckers?
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

Didn't we have a few other hymn/prayers kicking around a while back, around the time period of Audiobook for the Dead-era?

hooplala

"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

LMNO

Quote from: LMNO on September 30, 2017, 01:34:01 PM
Didn't we have a few other hymn/prayers kicking around a while back, around the time period of Audiobook for the Dead-era?

Found it.

Q. G. Pennyworth

Oh Blessed St Ea-Nasir
Father of the Shysters
Whose hate mail survived the centuries
Yours is the immortality of assholes

Of Blessed St Ea-Nasir
Champion of the dickholes
You sold the wrong grade of copper
And cheated others in real estate deals
You saved the clay complaints
In your little Babylonian home
And their survival is how we know your name

Oh Blessed St Ea-Nasir
Let us always remember
There is more than one way to skin a cat
That in a time of kings and conquest
Even the common folk can be immortalized
Through unconventional dickery

Let us always remember
That life is short, and always has been
That we will die as certainly as our foes
And the memory of our souls
Is not tied to our virtue

Oh Blessed St Ea-Nasir
You never met a turnstile in your life
Let us gum them up in your name
Let us cherish our haters
Let us bathe in their wrath
Let us stockpile the complaints
Against our shortcomings
And our malice

Let us do something worth remembering
Even if we are not remembered well
Oh Blessed St Ea-Nasir
Hear our prayer

Q. G. Pennyworth

Before writing this one I took some time to dig into whether or not "shyster" has similar racist origins to "gypped." It does not, although this is a common enough question that the New York Law Journal saw fit to address the issue. It most likely comes back to the German word for shit.

LMNO

Thanks for doing research!  I had thought it was adopted as antisemetic slang, but that might have been an urban legend.

Q. G. Pennyworth

Quote from: LMNO on October 04, 2017, 05:33:08 PM
Thanks for doing research!  I had thought it was adopted as antisemetic slang, but that might have been an urban legend.

It's possible assholes are using it as a dog whistle. Some folks erroneously think it's derived from the character Shylock from the Merchant of Venice, but a) that makes no sense in the context of the play and b) there's no etymological trail leading that way.

The Good Reverend Roger

Shyster started out as slang for a crook, then for lawyers, then eventually of course it was stapled onto Jews.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Q. G. Pennyworth

If it's prevalent as an anti-Semitic thing now I'm totally open to replacing it.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on October 05, 2017, 04:55:29 AM
If it's prevalent as an anti-Semitic thing now I'm totally open to replacing it.

I think it's primarily viewed as the first two meanings, but ymmv.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.