Sweet Fanny Adams

I’m saddened by the passing of Harry Morgan, a great old character actor.

I’m too young for Dragnet, but I’ve probably seen every episode of M*A*S*H at least twice.

The remarkable thing about Morgan’s character, Col. Sherman T. Potter, was that you always knew he was swearing, but you never actually heard him swear.

Col. Potter was an old soldier, but you can’t cuss like an old soldier on prime-time network television. So the writers of M*A*S*H provided Potter a steady stream of euphemisms. And Harry Morgan made them sing.

Some of my favorites:

Horse hockey … crock of beans … mule fritters … monkey muffins … buffalo bagels … buffalo chips … pigeon pellets … pony pucks … beaver biscuits … cow cookies … bull cookies … road apples … hot sausage … pony pucks … sufferin’ sheep-dip … Great Mother McCree … Sweet Fanny Adams.

Apart from Col. Potter, my favorite source of non-swearing swear words is the treasury of euphemisms supplied by science fiction — with a cornucopia of options supplied by Battlestar Galactica (my favorite actually traces back to the original series — the one with frakking Dirk Benedict) or frelling Farscape, or gorram Firefly.

Shazbot, there are a million smurfing alternatives to pick from for whenever I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle.

(More helpful suggestions where those came from here.)

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Ecclesiastes 3:1-9 (Contemporary GOP edition)

For everything there is a season, and time for every matter under heaven:

a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers;
a time to cut taxes on the rich, and a time to increase taxes on workers.

What gain have the workers from their toil?

(Riffing off this Pat Bagley cartoon.)

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Christian Post: “Jesus Second Most Popular Person in America, Poll Finds”

It seems 90 percent of Americans view Jesus favorably, just behind Abraham Lincoln with a purported 91-percent favorability rating. (I doubt it — more than 9 percent of the country lives in the South).

But the headline there is a bit misleading in that this poll also asked respondents how they view themselves. The poll found 93 percent of Americans view themselves favorably.

It’s official: We Americans think we’re better than Jesus.

Other findings from the Public Policy Polling survey: 31 percent of American white people have an unfavorable view of Martin Luther King Jr. and 36 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Gandhi. Sweet Fanny Adams those gorram monkey muffins are frakked up.