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Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedOnce upon a time on the rez, we found a dead deer so decayed that it had become a carpet on the forest floor— its brown and white hide draped over green and yellow wild grass. We Indian kids, who already understood more about death than we should've, marveled aloud at the beautiful finality of that deer.

Scripture (semicontinuous)Old Testament: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 Psalter: Psalm 78:1-7 Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Gospel: Matthew 25:1-13 Scripture (complementary)Old Testament: Wisdom 6:12-16 Psalter: Amos 5:18-24 Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Gospel: Matthew 25:1-13 ___ PrayerYou let us choose, O God, between you and the false gods of this world. In the… ncG1vNJzZmiZnKGur77Bnq2eqpVjwLau0q2YnKNemLyue89ooKxlpJ2ys7GMmmSrmaCpwrOxjKKlZmldqbWmv9Kao6immZa7tA%3D%3D

A lot of people, even people who are quite morally rigorous, assent in practice to the norm that an off-color joke being hilarious can make it acceptable. I cannot emphasize enough that, in my experience, even people one would think are morally rigid seem in many cases to give at least tacit consent to this principle. ncG1vNJzZmiomJ65sL%2FOqZ%2BympWWv2%2B%2F1JuqrZmToHuku8xop2iho2LBqbHRnmSgp5%2BZerOxwKymp2WkpHqnu9GgoK%2BdXaSzp3vCqKSmnZ6pwA%3D%3D

Welcome to Natural Wonders, where I hope to pique your interest each week by sharing some fascinating questions and answers about natural phenomena. If you’re new here or if someone forwarded you this email, you can subscribe below. Check out past posts by going here and see who I am and what Natural Wonders is about here. This week’s question comes from a reader, Joe, who is an artist and overall observant person.

Jack Del Rio has a lot of quarterbacks to cut, so let’s get started!  Brunell has a wonderfully tidy legacy. He arrived from nowhere, led an expansion franchise to unprecedented, sustained success, faded with dignity (give or take an unceremonious benching at the end) and moved on to a distinguished career as a mentor, then a coach. His Jaguars never reached the Super Bowl but came closer than anyone ever hoped they could, so no couldn’t win the big game label was ever affixed to him.

If there is a single piece of advice I have for cocktail enthusiasts and home bartenders, it’s this: Focus on mastering classics.  The core skill is not mixing a dozen unusual ingredients into the same concoction, which may or may not be interesting. It’s learning to make a superior Daiquiri or Old Fashioned or Manhattan or Margarita. It’s finding the best way (or ways) to make a familiar drink. That includes picking and preparing the right ingredients.

BARBARIAN SOUP A classic, no-effort comfort dish, handy for those back-of-the-cupboard ingredients a little past their sell-by date. Writing time: 30 minutes Serves: Men over fifty, lazy editors Ingredients: 1 ripe barbarian + sword 1 wilted slave girl (clothes removed) 1 mad sorcerer + minions (you can substitute the traditional robed cultists for animated skeletons if you prefer a little crunch) 1 giant snake (or unknowable horror if you’re feeling exotic)

Welcome back to The Onion: 20 Years Later, where we review the print issue from exactly 20 years ago, find out what’s still funny and examine the cultural impact. Today, we revisit Aug. 30, 2000. Welcome, new subscribers! You’re in for a treat, as this might be the best top-to-bottom Onion issue I’ve ever seen. Yes, the post-9/11 issue is more iconic and heart-wrenching, but this is funny in so many ways: fantastical silliness, real-life parody, funny headlines and clever story writing.

Warning: This edition of Message from the Underworld contains spoilers for the movie Get Out. I’d just started reading Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning screenplay Get Outfrom Inventory Press when I heard the news that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.  It felt like a punch in the gut. The repercussions were immediately apparent: Ginsburg’s death would trigger a paroxysm of anguish on the left, and a power grab on the right, with the net result being increasing feelings of helplessness as our country slides further into authoritarianism.