Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Shrove Tuesday and the State of the Union Address

I’m wondering out loud at the chance combination that President Obama offered up the State of the Union Address on Shrove Tuesday, the first day of Lent, that day when we’re supposed to acknowledge our sins before God. For those wishing for a more detailed explanation of the antiquated term I found this after a Google search .

“The day before the beginning of Lent is known as Shrove Tuesday. To shrive someone, in old-fashioned English (he shrives, he shrove, he has shriven or he shrives, he shrived, he has shrived), is to hear his acknowledgement of his sins, to assure him of God's forgiveness, and to give him appropriate spiritual advice. The term survives today in ordinary usage in the expression "short shrift". To give someone short shrift is to pay very little attention to his excuses or problems. The longer expression is, "to give him short shrift and a long rope," which formerly meant to hang a criminal with a minimum of delay.”

I kind of like that last part, at least as far as the criminals we have fleecing us in Washington. Time for a “short shrift and a long rope” for those who voted to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars without ever reading the fine print which points to over 3000, that’s Three Thousand just to make sure your eyes are picking up on that huge number, 3000 earmarked pork barrel projects which had nothing what so ever to do with stimulating the economy.

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