You Don't Want a Bully in a China Shop.

I just love that title. Barbara suggested it to me during the Chinese stock market's meltdown when I asked what I should write about this week.  We’d just finished watching an American Presidential candidate give an encore performance of his coping mechanism when faced with journalistic criticism, and her line had me laughing right up until I looked at the Greek news. 

The same sort of guy, sans money or the hair, actually got elected in Greece and had the Prime Minister’s ear…until he got the PM’s boot.

As I mentioned last week, it’s election time again in Greece, the third this year. There’s also a new Prime Minister, the first woman in Greece’s history and the sixth since the financial crisis began—but she’ll only serve for thirty days. There’s also a new finance minister, the eighth since 2010.

New Greek Prime Minister Vassiliki Thanou

It’s anyone’s guess how this is going to turn out, because no Greek seems to believe a single word any politician says. In fact, the polls make it seem certain that no party will gain an absolute majority, and the environment for a viable coalition government looks even less hospitable now than it did for the government that just collapsed.  All of which means a possible new round of elections before the end of 2015—just what a disheartened people trying to cope with an economy on the edge of perdition needs: more uncertainty.

That was a long way around to an explanation for what I decided to write about this week. Or rather borrow from an email full of chuckles sent to me by a friend. It’s a list of paraprosdokians––figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected, frequently humorous. Of course, it’s a word derived from the Greek, meaning “against expectation.”

And since I didn’t write them, there’s a very good chance you, too, will enjoy them. I’m told Winston Churchill did. :)

1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on my list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

9. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

10. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, Notify:' I put 'DOCTOR'.

11. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

12. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

13. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

14. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

15. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

16. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

17. I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

Not all of the above reflected my attitudes, but they did make me smile, something very little else in the world seems to be capable of doing these days…except for this current visitor to my farm. She always makes me smile.

Jeff—Saturday