Welcome to the home of the very worst of the meretricious poetasters!
number 55 for 9-18-05
The Five Heavens You'll Meet in People
NEWSFLASH!
WE INTERRUPT THIS CHRONICLING THE FALL FOR A FOX NEWS ALERT!
A WHITE WOMAN IS MISSING!
REPEAT, A WHITE WOMAN IS MISSING!
YEAH, I KNOW, THERE ARE MAYBE TEN THOUSAND DEAD BLACK PEOPLE MISSING IN NEW ORLEANS, BUT A WHITE WOMAN IS MISSING!
More to scare you at 5, 10, 15, and 30 after the hour. New Orleans is boring now, so on with other crap!
We report, you decide.
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That report actually got nearly the same sized box as the New Orleans update. Christ.
Well, I knew Hugo Chavez was nutty. I have a number of friends and readers in Venezuela (Why there? I don't know, of all places, but I am still grateful as hell). I didn't know he was THIS nutty. He has apparently said that the US is planning to invade. Given our track record of invasion, this isn't that crazy. What's crazy is that he thinks it's going to happen in secret, without the president selling it for a year. Doesn't he know the way the world works now?
He says Venezuela won't send any more oil to the US if we invade. Really, Captain Obvious?
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Of course, as we all know, Republicans are all about good, Christian family values. Like committing yourself so much to your career that your children run wild and get arrested while driving drunk and forging prescriptions for Xanax. That's two of Jeb Bush's children, not to mention the Bush twins and their encounters with alcohol.
Good parenting, there! And this is the family of the figurative father of our country right now.
You know what would happen to me if I got arrested for DUI? My mother, though I'm 25, would kick my holy ass into Oregon. And I'd fucking deserve it. Then everyone I know would kick my ass. That's how a good community network works. When you have all the money in the world and no accountability, you can get a DUI and then in two decades become the president.
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An AP reporter zoomed in and got the above picture of George Bush's note to Condoleeza Rice asking to go to the bathroom in the middle of an important meeting. Most people are upset that he had to piss in the middle of the important meeting. That doesn't make sense to me. Having to piss is natural.
What pisses me off is that he punctuated his sentence wrong, and it's hard to be that dim with punctuation:
"I think I may need a bathroom break?"
Well, do you or don't you, pretzel choker?
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And just for fuck's sake, do you find the bathroom, or do you loot it?
This one's for Felix...
He wanted a list of how to tell your neighbor's a hard-core religious fanatic or a narrow minded person. I can't really tell you that on a constant basis. Sometimes people have come over on the first day to try and convert me, other times, it takes months, years, if they're religious, but it always happens.
The best I can offer is this: There's a 90% chance your neighbor is Christian. And I've only met five or ten who have never tried to convert me in my lifetime.
So here, in that eventuality, is how to handle it. Most of it is intuitive:
Knock, knock.
"I was wondering if I could have a few words with you."
"Sure."
"Have you heard the good news?"
"Sure."
"So you're a Christian, then?"
"No."
"You're not?" Usually, a look of incredulity, then one of satisfaction and hunger.
"No."
"Can I ask why not?"
In my house, and under my roof? "Yeah."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't believe in God."
"You don't believe Christ died for our sins?"
"He may have, but so have many. I don't believe he was divine, if that's what you mean."
"Well, what drives your life then?"
Glib response: "Fucking, fighting, and drugs."
My response: "Trying to do what's right."
Usually, the Christian will be perplexed, and begin shifting to rhetorical argument. That's where every question you pose is answered with a question, and where every question they pose is expected to be answered directly. Unfair, but still combatable easily.
"What would you say if Judgement happened right now?"
"What do you mean?"
"If you died right now and were called to Heaven, what would you say at the gates?"
"I don't believe that will happen."
"All right. But suppose it did."
"I'd probably say, "Hey Jesus." And walk in."
"You think you'd be allowed in?"
"Yes. The Bible says that if you honestly repent your sins at judgement, you'll be allowed in. If I'm proved wrong on judgement, I will be honestly repentant, and just walk right in."
"It doesn't work that way."
"I think it does. How do you know."
Then they'll usually cite an obscure reference to God punishing the wicked, or those who purposefully ignore his word.
"But there are many more passages that say the humble and the honest and those who are honestly repentant will go to Heaven."
"I don't see it that way."
"I do."
Then the Christian usually says, "We'll have to agree to disagree."
Next tac:
"If you don't believe in God, where do you think the world came from?"
"I don't know."
"You don't care?"
"I don't know. I'd like to know, I care."
"Well that's good, because in Genesis..."
"I've read the Bible cover to cover twice." (And you should too. It allows for more cogent and coherent argument against the yahoo.)
"Then you know how I believe the world came about."
"Yeah. Sounds like a greek myth to me, only with more sexism, if that's possible."
"Well, okay. So then, imagine you find a watch on the ground. You'd say that the watch had a watchmaker, right?"
"Heard this one my first day in college. Daniel Denett refutes it awesomely in his book "Darwin's Dangerous idea." In simulations and in point of fact, random evolution is constantly supported by the evidence. It's like this. Christians find a boat in the desert, which is one piece of improbable evidence in a sea of irreproducible phenomena and they call it evidence. They find one example of where evolution fails in a body of work 100 years long, repeatable, and believed by most of the intellectual class, and they try and cast doubt on Occam's Razor. Smoke and mirrors. Let me ask you a question. Why is intelligent design more likely than evolution, given that most of the evidence supports evolution?"
"Well, let me ask you a question. What do you think of the complexity of the flight of a bumble bee?"
"Answer."
"Okay. I am. What do you think of the complexity of the flight of a bumble bee?"
"That's not an answer."
"I'm getting to my answer if you'll let me."
And then they do that until they change the subject from the uncomfortable.
"Well, will you read these books I recommend you?"
At this point I usually politely take them down and never read them. When I DID search them down, they were always polemic, biased, badly researched publicity tomes for religious organizations to make money with.
"Well, what about your morality?"
"What about it?"
"Without God, how do you know what's right or wrong?"
"Well, let me think about that. Should I poke you in the eye?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It would hurt."
"Is that in the Bible?"
"The Bible says to do unto others..."
"So do every other religion's text. Oh, and the secular laws. Does that mean it's from God?"
"It does to me."
At this point I poke them in the eye.
Eventually they sigh, get tired of asking questions, and agree to come back and chat another time. And they never do. As they leave, they say, "I'll pray for you."
There are two ways to deal with it. Have patience, or eventually, just be rude. Say you don't want to talk about it and send them away. Right now, I'm still listening. I probably always will, because a world with a God is better.
But there is none, save in the impetus for superiority in the heart of your neighbor and a reason to kill dark-skinned men in obscure countries.