A fart in time saves nine.
You can lead a hog to a pigsty but you can’t make him stink.
One good fart deserves another. (Familiar Bulgarian saying)
Let the smeller beware.
A new fart smells clean.
When the czar farts it bursts with pride. (Old Russian saying)
A smelly fart requires many words. (German proverb)
A stuffy nose smells no farts. (Heard at Scotland Yard)
Your fart’s smell is a good mirror. (Irish saying)
A house without a fart is the house of a scoundrel. (Portuguese proverb)
A man is not fragrant just because he never had a chance to stink.
A penny for your farts.
A prudent man does not make a fart his calling card.
A single Russian fart outsmells the Polish nation. (Old Russian saying)
A pig believes everybody farts. (Bedouin adage)
A fart should be smelled from behind. (Swedish proverb)
After smelling the fart of a Greek, check your nose. (Albanian saying)
A fart in Germany is a rose in Rome. (Traditional German proverb)
A fart without a smell is folly. (Latvian lamentation)
Beggars should not blow farts. (Oft-heard admonition on Wall Street)
Better to open a window than curse the smell.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
LEGALIZE POT ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS
Pardon me if I banter Christians more than the other organized religionists; I’m a product of the Catholic school system from grammar school to Boston College. The other religions are equally as farfetched. It’s just that I’m better acquainted with the doctrines of the church than the conventions and convictions of Judaism or Islam.
I rejected religious ideas at a very early age. The fables were too unbelievable, even to a seven year old: Jonah living in the belly of a whale; Adam and Eve chatting with that slimy, duplicitous snake; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego hopping out of the furnace and scaring the piss out of mean King Nebuchadnezzar. Jesus thrashing the money changers for doing business in the temple was another one; He should at least have been as non-violent as Confucius or Buddha, methinks. What a tragic example he set by condoning violence when morally offended. How many fanatical soldiers lost their lives fighting while morally vexed —even in foreign lands where they didn’t belong?
In high school the fundamental concepts of Christianity perplexed and irritated me: An omnipotent being creates a peculiar ape that disobeys and offends him. He is angry and his feelings are hurt. So He wills that his only son transmogrifies into a peculiar ape and gets tortured by His brutish, bloodthirsty creation. All so God could appease himself.
So my first argument for legalized pot is to appeal to the country’s sense of fair play. Weed is to my religion what Holy Communion is to Catholicism. Communicants are told to believe bread and wine are the actual body and blood of Christ—no symbolism, we’re talking about real meat you can chew on. That’s okay. If they want to make believe they are sanctified and blessed by carrying the lord around in their bodies, that’s fine. It’s far out but à chaqu’un son gout. It’s a free country.
But grass has a tangible, perceivable effect on my brain at the molecular level. Neurotransmitters get stimulated and turned on. The basal ganglia and the limbic system in all of us— including other mammals—are rich in CB1 receptors. These receptors are essentially absent in the medulla oblongata, the part of the brain stem that is responsible for respiratory and cardiovascular functions. There is no risk of respiratory or cardiovascular dysfunction as there is with many other drugs. CB1 receptors appear to be responsible for the euphoric and anticonvulsive effects of cannabis.
The high’s quite real and I feel euphoric. Tetrahydrocanabinol is a euphoriant. At this very moment I’m as high as a GPS satellite, observing and enjoying earthly phenomena with godlike fancy. I’m listening to the glorious Camille Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, and at the organ’s grand entrance in the third movement, I feel I’m standing at the portals of heaven. Order, peace, harmony, reason. Art is the human intellect at its most sublime. The high leads me to believe that heaven on Earth is possible for all human beings once we shirk the stultifying effects of mine-controlling ideolgy and we resume evolving. Unlike Holy Communion, where the communicants feel a self-delusionary, make-believe high, there is an actual change of consciousness on grass.
I’ll never forget the first time a smoked some good weed. It was the time of Woodstock Nation, John Lennon, Allan Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. A psych major from NYU’s class of ’66 marched to the beat of different drummer, that’s for sure. When I witnessed how people acted on TV commercials—deranged by consumerism—I felt like I was from another planet.
Twenty-six years old, standing on the banks of Lake Willoughby in the lovely, rolling Green Mountains of northern Vermont. A kaleidoscope of chlorophylls and carotenes tickled my retina with shimmering light—earthy colors of rust and yellow, brown and beige, every shade of red that sunrays could irradiate. The leaves on the far embankment seemed to sparkle in the midday sun. The glinting crests of tiny wavelets on the lake blended with the leaves so as to present a panorama of continuous light—like a Monet or Cezanne.
As a NYC boy, the amorphous lake was the most beautiful natural beauty I had ever seen. Before that day, Central Park was the most beautiful nature I had ever experienced. The rise in consciousness was palpable.
On a nearby white birch tree, a lazy squirrel hung by his hind claws. Dangling upside down, propped up on his elbows, he confidently held an acorn like a kid in front of a TV with a bag of popcorn. He wasn’t afraid but with my delightful high I could absolutely determine he was wondering what I was doing there emitting this peculiar ropy smell. I felt a holy communion all right, but with the living— mammal to mammal, each enjoying life in our own way.
Grass increases one’s connection with nature. I hesitate to make a blanket statement but it sure does for me and many people I know. The image of the squirrel stayed with me nearly fifty years.
Along Foliage Road on the other side of the lake, a dump truck intruded into my personal heaven. It hissed, growled and devoured the sleepy country road. The sounds were threatening and a conspicuous intrusion into the peacefulness of the lake. Over the tops of the tree, I could make out in the back of the truck plastic pipes and rubber tubing, flailing and whirling in all directions like the snakes of Hydra’s hair. The monster was undoubtedly headed for some construction site to devastate scenery as lovely as this.
Poor Earth.
With grass, the programming and indoctrination of school and “socialization” melt away like chains of ice. I don’t passively accept that the driver has to earn a living. I view the lake and think of Henry David Thoreau. What would he say about the dump truck meeting up with bull dozers and other earth movers? What misguided powers have preordained the truck to invade my idyllic reverie? Powers far-away, in glass and aluminum, cubical skyscraper offices. They have no idea what they are doing because they forfeited feeling for Lake Willoughby. Their religions have numbed their sensibilities and ability to empathize with nature and the biodiversity of life. Love and respect that belongs to Nature are diverted to a hallucinatory Moloch.
“Religion,” an interesting etymology. “Re,” of course, “again” or “back.” But “lig” refers to a tying, as in “ligature.” We’re talking about a reconnect, but unfortunately for humanity the retying has been to human organizations with bank accounts, presidents, boards of directors, real property and an army of working professionals. The Mother Church has usurped love and devotion that belongs to nature.
I felt like grabbing the truck driver (the logger, construction worker, land surveyor) and getting in his/er face: “Look, man, with all due respect, you don’t know what you’re doing. Think of how unfeeling and robotic you have to be to mutilate the land itself. What kind of people would devastate our nation’s ineffable natural beauty in favor of strip malls and shopping malls, chemical plants and plastic factories? You need to reconnect. Hop out of your mental cage and smell the wildflowers—the bars of the cage are all in your head.”
As I stared across the shimmering lake, a chilly New England breeze made me feel the hair on my arms and blood streaming faster down my legs. A dappled rock bass jumped a few yards away.
How wrong and sad it is that the truck driver pays respect, homage and love to a non-existent god rather than Nature. If he weren’t sidetracked by mythological, conditioned beliefs, he’d probably be getting high, enjoying the beauty of nature and art, striving to be a good person and thinking about generations to follow. We grew out of the planet; there’s no doubt about it to a bio teacher. The wellbeing of all future life depends powerfully on how well we understand the cosmos and planet from which we arose abiogenetically (without parents) and evolved.
Now nearly fifty years after Lake Willoughby, Carl Sagan urges a new religion based on our perception of the cosmos as revealed by science. Instead of the writings of ancient goat-herders and fishermen, we need a religion based on information revealed by telescopes and microscopes, computers and spacecraft sent to the outer reaches of the solar system.
I dreamed of a new religion when I fantasized about scolding the truck driver. Weed can be our holy eucharist. Instead of each person mutely receiving a sterile wafer, people of a New Age religion will pass around a joint and rap about philosophy, science and art, instead of humiliating silence with simulated piety. They’ll actively participate; they’ll be the religion because they are real. Instead of making sacrifices, they’ll share a peace pipe and have fun listening to music, perhaps enjoying views of nature by a pristine mountain lake.
How about John Lennon for the hippie religion’s first martyr and saint?
James Dean could be John the Baptist, urging the young not to repent but rebel. How wrong it is for professional clerics to teach kids that they are born in sin; how ungrateful to the serendipity of evolution to inculcate students with the belief that sex and their naked bodies are shameful and dirty.
Bob Dylan could be the first prophet.
Okay, maybe Dean shouldn’t be John the Baptist and John Lennon the first voice in the wilderness. Imagine there’s no religion at all. What difference does it make? It’ll be a disorganized religion. Some days we’ll meet on Wednesdays at 10 am, some nights Tuesday at 11 pm. Who needs dogma and rituals? A disorganized religion belongs in a free country.
Churches and synagogues could be converted into community centers where lovers of the human condition congregate to have fun and get to know one another. Let’s produce plays and bring back poetry instead of watching TV. Let’s play our own game of baseball instead watching overpaid cheaters. Enjoying educational and humanistic activities is more beneficial to the community than listening to the same tiresome sermon week after week.
(Please note: I’m not talking of any seizure of property. I’m speaking about the legal sale of church property due to lack of interest by the public—or when the churches are asked to pay their fair share of taxes.)
A 1960s song title: They called for a war and nobody volunteered. They called for a mass and nobody was interested.
Visionaries don’t care how unpopular or farfetched their ideas. I know humanity can not go on worshipping plastic idols forever: we are reproducing exponentially as millions starve every year. Every religion exhorts its following to spawn as many babies as possible. The planet is at its carrying capacity right now. It’s certain Gaia eventually will have enough of this nonsense and refuse to take any more abuse from the apish bipeds. If unbridled reproduction continues, Gaia will punish mankind’s imagined self importance and contemptible arrogance. Most of the world’s religionists have the delusion that we have some privilege in this vast cosmos other than our humble and limited consciousness.
As far as the slippery-slope argument goes, people don’t become homeless winos from a sip of burgundy. THC isn’t chemically related to the hard drugs. It’s not even close in composition. Legal oxycodone and its derivatives like Oxycortin and Percocet are chemically closer to heroin than marijuana. They are addictive and scientifically documented depressants to the central nervous system. Plus there are terrible side effects like constipation and lethargy. With grass you can’t even overdose because you’ll pass out and wake up in the morning without even a hangover.
Denis Miller asserts in one of his gigs, “If Prozac and marijuana went head to head as the drug of choice, Prozac would lose.” Pot is illegal because Big Pharma wants it that way and wastes millions on bogus organizations like Partnership for a Drug-free America and DARE. Money that could have been used fixing up inner city schools or sheltering the homeless.
To present evidence that marijuana is not a source of disease, I end this post with a link to an interview last year with my friends Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard and radio host, Lynn Thompson.
http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/living-purpose/episode-127-lester-grinspoon-md
As far as psychological addiction goes, I’m reminded of the late comedian Bill Hicks’ comment about Art Linkletter’s kid who jumped out the window. “Dork, why did she have to ruin it for everybody?” (Ironically, toxicology tests confirmed there was no evidence of LSD usage.) Just because something is good doesn’t mean you have the right to abuse it. We recommend responsible use. I’ve been smoking nearly 50 years but only on special occasions like parties or an opera. I don’t even like the sight of needles.
Perhaps President Obama at the 2012 Democratic Convention will repeat the words of FDR in ’32: "This convention wants repeal. Your candidate wants repeal.
And I am confident that the United States of America wants repeal."
But he’ll be talking about grass instead of booze. Just ask the eighty millions Americans who have tried grass with zesty inhales.
I rejected religious ideas at a very early age. The fables were too unbelievable, even to a seven year old: Jonah living in the belly of a whale; Adam and Eve chatting with that slimy, duplicitous snake; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego hopping out of the furnace and scaring the piss out of mean King Nebuchadnezzar. Jesus thrashing the money changers for doing business in the temple was another one; He should at least have been as non-violent as Confucius or Buddha, methinks. What a tragic example he set by condoning violence when morally offended. How many fanatical soldiers lost their lives fighting while morally vexed —even in foreign lands where they didn’t belong?
In high school the fundamental concepts of Christianity perplexed and irritated me: An omnipotent being creates a peculiar ape that disobeys and offends him. He is angry and his feelings are hurt. So He wills that his only son transmogrifies into a peculiar ape and gets tortured by His brutish, bloodthirsty creation. All so God could appease himself.
So my first argument for legalized pot is to appeal to the country’s sense of fair play. Weed is to my religion what Holy Communion is to Catholicism. Communicants are told to believe bread and wine are the actual body and blood of Christ—no symbolism, we’re talking about real meat you can chew on. That’s okay. If they want to make believe they are sanctified and blessed by carrying the lord around in their bodies, that’s fine. It’s far out but à chaqu’un son gout. It’s a free country.
But grass has a tangible, perceivable effect on my brain at the molecular level. Neurotransmitters get stimulated and turned on. The basal ganglia and the limbic system in all of us— including other mammals—are rich in CB1 receptors. These receptors are essentially absent in the medulla oblongata, the part of the brain stem that is responsible for respiratory and cardiovascular functions. There is no risk of respiratory or cardiovascular dysfunction as there is with many other drugs. CB1 receptors appear to be responsible for the euphoric and anticonvulsive effects of cannabis.
The high’s quite real and I feel euphoric. Tetrahydrocanabinol is a euphoriant. At this very moment I’m as high as a GPS satellite, observing and enjoying earthly phenomena with godlike fancy. I’m listening to the glorious Camille Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, and at the organ’s grand entrance in the third movement, I feel I’m standing at the portals of heaven. Order, peace, harmony, reason. Art is the human intellect at its most sublime. The high leads me to believe that heaven on Earth is possible for all human beings once we shirk the stultifying effects of mine-controlling ideolgy and we resume evolving. Unlike Holy Communion, where the communicants feel a self-delusionary, make-believe high, there is an actual change of consciousness on grass.
I’ll never forget the first time a smoked some good weed. It was the time of Woodstock Nation, John Lennon, Allan Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. A psych major from NYU’s class of ’66 marched to the beat of different drummer, that’s for sure. When I witnessed how people acted on TV commercials—deranged by consumerism—I felt like I was from another planet.
Twenty-six years old, standing on the banks of Lake Willoughby in the lovely, rolling Green Mountains of northern Vermont. A kaleidoscope of chlorophylls and carotenes tickled my retina with shimmering light—earthy colors of rust and yellow, brown and beige, every shade of red that sunrays could irradiate. The leaves on the far embankment seemed to sparkle in the midday sun. The glinting crests of tiny wavelets on the lake blended with the leaves so as to present a panorama of continuous light—like a Monet or Cezanne.
As a NYC boy, the amorphous lake was the most beautiful natural beauty I had ever seen. Before that day, Central Park was the most beautiful nature I had ever experienced. The rise in consciousness was palpable.
On a nearby white birch tree, a lazy squirrel hung by his hind claws. Dangling upside down, propped up on his elbows, he confidently held an acorn like a kid in front of a TV with a bag of popcorn. He wasn’t afraid but with my delightful high I could absolutely determine he was wondering what I was doing there emitting this peculiar ropy smell. I felt a holy communion all right, but with the living— mammal to mammal, each enjoying life in our own way.
Grass increases one’s connection with nature. I hesitate to make a blanket statement but it sure does for me and many people I know. The image of the squirrel stayed with me nearly fifty years.
Along Foliage Road on the other side of the lake, a dump truck intruded into my personal heaven. It hissed, growled and devoured the sleepy country road. The sounds were threatening and a conspicuous intrusion into the peacefulness of the lake. Over the tops of the tree, I could make out in the back of the truck plastic pipes and rubber tubing, flailing and whirling in all directions like the snakes of Hydra’s hair. The monster was undoubtedly headed for some construction site to devastate scenery as lovely as this.
Poor Earth.
With grass, the programming and indoctrination of school and “socialization” melt away like chains of ice. I don’t passively accept that the driver has to earn a living. I view the lake and think of Henry David Thoreau. What would he say about the dump truck meeting up with bull dozers and other earth movers? What misguided powers have preordained the truck to invade my idyllic reverie? Powers far-away, in glass and aluminum, cubical skyscraper offices. They have no idea what they are doing because they forfeited feeling for Lake Willoughby. Their religions have numbed their sensibilities and ability to empathize with nature and the biodiversity of life. Love and respect that belongs to Nature are diverted to a hallucinatory Moloch.
“Religion,” an interesting etymology. “Re,” of course, “again” or “back.” But “lig” refers to a tying, as in “ligature.” We’re talking about a reconnect, but unfortunately for humanity the retying has been to human organizations with bank accounts, presidents, boards of directors, real property and an army of working professionals. The Mother Church has usurped love and devotion that belongs to nature.
I felt like grabbing the truck driver (the logger, construction worker, land surveyor) and getting in his/er face: “Look, man, with all due respect, you don’t know what you’re doing. Think of how unfeeling and robotic you have to be to mutilate the land itself. What kind of people would devastate our nation’s ineffable natural beauty in favor of strip malls and shopping malls, chemical plants and plastic factories? You need to reconnect. Hop out of your mental cage and smell the wildflowers—the bars of the cage are all in your head.”
As I stared across the shimmering lake, a chilly New England breeze made me feel the hair on my arms and blood streaming faster down my legs. A dappled rock bass jumped a few yards away.
How wrong and sad it is that the truck driver pays respect, homage and love to a non-existent god rather than Nature. If he weren’t sidetracked by mythological, conditioned beliefs, he’d probably be getting high, enjoying the beauty of nature and art, striving to be a good person and thinking about generations to follow. We grew out of the planet; there’s no doubt about it to a bio teacher. The wellbeing of all future life depends powerfully on how well we understand the cosmos and planet from which we arose abiogenetically (without parents) and evolved.
Now nearly fifty years after Lake Willoughby, Carl Sagan urges a new religion based on our perception of the cosmos as revealed by science. Instead of the writings of ancient goat-herders and fishermen, we need a religion based on information revealed by telescopes and microscopes, computers and spacecraft sent to the outer reaches of the solar system.
I dreamed of a new religion when I fantasized about scolding the truck driver. Weed can be our holy eucharist. Instead of each person mutely receiving a sterile wafer, people of a New Age religion will pass around a joint and rap about philosophy, science and art, instead of humiliating silence with simulated piety. They’ll actively participate; they’ll be the religion because they are real. Instead of making sacrifices, they’ll share a peace pipe and have fun listening to music, perhaps enjoying views of nature by a pristine mountain lake.
How about John Lennon for the hippie religion’s first martyr and saint?
James Dean could be John the Baptist, urging the young not to repent but rebel. How wrong it is for professional clerics to teach kids that they are born in sin; how ungrateful to the serendipity of evolution to inculcate students with the belief that sex and their naked bodies are shameful and dirty.
Bob Dylan could be the first prophet.
Okay, maybe Dean shouldn’t be John the Baptist and John Lennon the first voice in the wilderness. Imagine there’s no religion at all. What difference does it make? It’ll be a disorganized religion. Some days we’ll meet on Wednesdays at 10 am, some nights Tuesday at 11 pm. Who needs dogma and rituals? A disorganized religion belongs in a free country.
Churches and synagogues could be converted into community centers where lovers of the human condition congregate to have fun and get to know one another. Let’s produce plays and bring back poetry instead of watching TV. Let’s play our own game of baseball instead watching overpaid cheaters. Enjoying educational and humanistic activities is more beneficial to the community than listening to the same tiresome sermon week after week.
(Please note: I’m not talking of any seizure of property. I’m speaking about the legal sale of church property due to lack of interest by the public—or when the churches are asked to pay their fair share of taxes.)
A 1960s song title: They called for a war and nobody volunteered. They called for a mass and nobody was interested.
Visionaries don’t care how unpopular or farfetched their ideas. I know humanity can not go on worshipping plastic idols forever: we are reproducing exponentially as millions starve every year. Every religion exhorts its following to spawn as many babies as possible. The planet is at its carrying capacity right now. It’s certain Gaia eventually will have enough of this nonsense and refuse to take any more abuse from the apish bipeds. If unbridled reproduction continues, Gaia will punish mankind’s imagined self importance and contemptible arrogance. Most of the world’s religionists have the delusion that we have some privilege in this vast cosmos other than our humble and limited consciousness.
As far as the slippery-slope argument goes, people don’t become homeless winos from a sip of burgundy. THC isn’t chemically related to the hard drugs. It’s not even close in composition. Legal oxycodone and its derivatives like Oxycortin and Percocet are chemically closer to heroin than marijuana. They are addictive and scientifically documented depressants to the central nervous system. Plus there are terrible side effects like constipation and lethargy. With grass you can’t even overdose because you’ll pass out and wake up in the morning without even a hangover.
Denis Miller asserts in one of his gigs, “If Prozac and marijuana went head to head as the drug of choice, Prozac would lose.” Pot is illegal because Big Pharma wants it that way and wastes millions on bogus organizations like Partnership for a Drug-free America and DARE. Money that could have been used fixing up inner city schools or sheltering the homeless.
To present evidence that marijuana is not a source of disease, I end this post with a link to an interview last year with my friends Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard and radio host, Lynn Thompson.
http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/living-purpose/episode-127-lester-grinspoon-md
As far as psychological addiction goes, I’m reminded of the late comedian Bill Hicks’ comment about Art Linkletter’s kid who jumped out the window. “Dork, why did she have to ruin it for everybody?” (Ironically, toxicology tests confirmed there was no evidence of LSD usage.) Just because something is good doesn’t mean you have the right to abuse it. We recommend responsible use. I’ve been smoking nearly 50 years but only on special occasions like parties or an opera. I don’t even like the sight of needles.
Perhaps President Obama at the 2012 Democratic Convention will repeat the words of FDR in ’32: "This convention wants repeal. Your candidate wants repeal.
And I am confident that the United States of America wants repeal."
But he’ll be talking about grass instead of booze. Just ask the eighty millions Americans who have tried grass with zesty inhales.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
WHY I BECAME A MILITANT NON-BELIEVER
There’s been much debate about trying to deprogram religious people, as opposed to ignoring them and letting them adore and worship any divinity they please. Live and let live, it’s a free country and what harm are they doing. In fact, religion can be a good thing because, like music, it soothes the wild beast.
Religion was fine with me most of my life. Religious people felt sorry for me, I’m losing my soul; I felt sorry for them, they’re losing much of the joy of life in anticipation of heaven. As long as we keep the laws of the state and try to be good people, everything was copasetic.
That was before President George W. Bush came along. Religious people broke state laws (a cleric cannot endorse a candidate from the pulpit) and the spirit of American democracy by voting as a block. Rev. Jody Hice of Atlanta even called for a coalition of preachers to form a union to promote Christian ideals. If Sarah Palin and/or Mike Huckabee ever win it’ll be against the law to engage in non-reproductive sex. Hice spends his time arguing for the right to hang the Ten Commandments on public buildings. How about the Eight Beatitudes, Reverend? How about “Blessed are the merciful” in back of the judges bench? Maybe there wouldn’t be over two million souls wasting away in jail.
Imagine the power this man is trying to seize. A political coalition of Christian ministers would be formidable and ominous. They already worked their miracles in getting W elected—the man whose arrogance and incompetence will curse this country for generations to come. We are in a Middle East quagmire that is completely unwinnable. The country is bankrupt from supporting a billion-dollars-a-day war habit. The corporate stooge winked at conspicuous mischief. There never has been just a transfer of wealth from one country to others (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, etc) in the history of the world.
Worst of all, he devastated the reputation and pride of the nation. Operation Shock and Awe murdered thousands of innocent people. Americans will have to live with this ignominy as long as people pledge allegiance to the flag.
Then there’s Opus Dei. Where does the pope come off influencing and determining the outcome of the American presidential election? In 2004, W sent an emissary to the Vatican to inform the pope that he was losing and needed help. He advocated a faith-based platform, especially on the abortion issue, and merited the pope’s support. Pope John Paul II agreed and handed the matter over to the clandestine organization headed by the present-day pope, Cardinal Ratzinger. Letters were sent to every American bishop ordering them to exhort President Bush’s election in Sunday’s sermon. The rest is history. The pope pulled strings like a Godfather (pun intended) and changed the history of the world. No wonder W broke all protocol and met the pope at the airport.
Then there’s the “endmeme.”
To be continued. Please refer to www.mirrorreversal.com for a definition. Or search Youtude on “endmeme".
Religion was fine with me most of my life. Religious people felt sorry for me, I’m losing my soul; I felt sorry for them, they’re losing much of the joy of life in anticipation of heaven. As long as we keep the laws of the state and try to be good people, everything was copasetic.
That was before President George W. Bush came along. Religious people broke state laws (a cleric cannot endorse a candidate from the pulpit) and the spirit of American democracy by voting as a block. Rev. Jody Hice of Atlanta even called for a coalition of preachers to form a union to promote Christian ideals. If Sarah Palin and/or Mike Huckabee ever win it’ll be against the law to engage in non-reproductive sex. Hice spends his time arguing for the right to hang the Ten Commandments on public buildings. How about the Eight Beatitudes, Reverend? How about “Blessed are the merciful” in back of the judges bench? Maybe there wouldn’t be over two million souls wasting away in jail.
Imagine the power this man is trying to seize. A political coalition of Christian ministers would be formidable and ominous. They already worked their miracles in getting W elected—the man whose arrogance and incompetence will curse this country for generations to come. We are in a Middle East quagmire that is completely unwinnable. The country is bankrupt from supporting a billion-dollars-a-day war habit. The corporate stooge winked at conspicuous mischief. There never has been just a transfer of wealth from one country to others (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, etc) in the history of the world.
Worst of all, he devastated the reputation and pride of the nation. Operation Shock and Awe murdered thousands of innocent people. Americans will have to live with this ignominy as long as people pledge allegiance to the flag.
Then there’s Opus Dei. Where does the pope come off influencing and determining the outcome of the American presidential election? In 2004, W sent an emissary to the Vatican to inform the pope that he was losing and needed help. He advocated a faith-based platform, especially on the abortion issue, and merited the pope’s support. Pope John Paul II agreed and handed the matter over to the clandestine organization headed by the present-day pope, Cardinal Ratzinger. Letters were sent to every American bishop ordering them to exhort President Bush’s election in Sunday’s sermon. The rest is history. The pope pulled strings like a Godfather (pun intended) and changed the history of the world. No wonder W broke all protocol and met the pope at the airport.
Then there’s the “endmeme.”
To be continued. Please refer to www.mirrorreversal.com for a definition. Or search Youtude on “endmeme".
Friday, February 13, 2009
PROVERBS, MAXIMS AND PITHY WORDS OF WISDOM
A friend in weed is a friend indeed.
Everything is a trade-off. (From MR)
If politicians are so religious, why are they so corrupt?
I know that God would never send me to hell for refusing to abandon reason.
When we’re young we seek to spread our genes; when we’re old we seek to spread our memes.
The only time politicians tell the truth is when they’re insulting one another in a negative campaign.
“C’mon, do I have to write you a memo? What can I say? We evolved from oversexed primates; that’s not my fault. Let’s make the best of it.” (From MR)
We remain in the Dark Ages. But maybe some day, scholars, writers, artists and teachers in the local schools will be respected more than warriors, athletes, and egotistic pop-culture celebrities. (From MR, after Sir Edward Gibbon)
With religion and superstition so powerful here, it’ll take centuries before humanity can evolve into a spiritual entity. (From MR)
If a shop has two barbers, always go to the messy, disheveled one. It’s obvious they do each other’s hair.
Most people look at war, crime and corruption and say, “Its human nature and it’ll never change.” A few say, “That’s the way it is because the political, corporate and religious alphas want it that way and it’s got to change.”
The very pillars of society – the judgment of right and wrong -- are decayed and corrupt. (From MR)
God isn’t an underachiever; He’s a complete dropout. (After a line by Woody Allen)
We have to stop being sheep.
The endmeme is real and threatens the future of all life on the planet.
Getting old ain’t for wimps. (From Bette Davis)
The greatest spectacle of Nature is the Cosmos itself.
Right wing people are pro-life all right — pro-afterlife.
Everything is a trade-off. (From MR)
If politicians are so religious, why are they so corrupt?
I know that God would never send me to hell for refusing to abandon reason.
When we’re young we seek to spread our genes; when we’re old we seek to spread our memes.
The only time politicians tell the truth is when they’re insulting one another in a negative campaign.
“C’mon, do I have to write you a memo? What can I say? We evolved from oversexed primates; that’s not my fault. Let’s make the best of it.” (From MR)
We remain in the Dark Ages. But maybe some day, scholars, writers, artists and teachers in the local schools will be respected more than warriors, athletes, and egotistic pop-culture celebrities. (From MR, after Sir Edward Gibbon)
With religion and superstition so powerful here, it’ll take centuries before humanity can evolve into a spiritual entity. (From MR)
If a shop has two barbers, always go to the messy, disheveled one. It’s obvious they do each other’s hair.
Most people look at war, crime and corruption and say, “Its human nature and it’ll never change.” A few say, “That’s the way it is because the political, corporate and religious alphas want it that way and it’s got to change.”
The very pillars of society – the judgment of right and wrong -- are decayed and corrupt. (From MR)
God isn’t an underachiever; He’s a complete dropout. (After a line by Woody Allen)
We have to stop being sheep.
The endmeme is real and threatens the future of all life on the planet.
Getting old ain’t for wimps. (From Bette Davis)
The greatest spectacle of Nature is the Cosmos itself.
Right wing people are pro-life all right — pro-afterlife.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Mirror Reversal
Definitive Proof that God Exists
From Mirror Reversal, it was fun to read the responses from readers who took the following seriously. You'll enjoy this one, believers and non-. The misspellings and malapropisms are intentional.
Wayne pulled his chair around to face Josh. “Gimme that ole time religion, right Josh” sang Wayne, with a forced smile. “He can keep all that evolution garbage. I mean…” he paused to think of a good rubric to help explain things to his less educated employee. “Let’s say you’re walking in the middle of the Arizona Desert. You’re just walking along daydreamin’, and all of a sudden you come across this elegant, diamond-studded wristwatch – one of those Malvados or Carters. So you pick it up and look at it. Inspect it, sort of… It’s pretty evident that it didn’t get there by itself, right? I mean… the sand and rocks couldn’t just conglomerate and form this beautiful object dart all by itself. Somebody had to put it there. Somebody had to make the fuckin’ thing, right? It’s the same way with human beans. There has to be a Great Designer.”
He smiled again, this time pleased with the eloquence of his argumentation. He thought of another example, a better one to explain to Josh, because it dealt with the birds and the bees.
“Or take sex. Here’s another good example: Let’s say you meet this chick. And you really dig ‘er. And you fall in love with the bitch. So you decide to get married and have a family, like the Good Book says you should. So you stick your dick in, and it feels real good in there, right? And you wiggle it all about in there. And the more you wiggle it, the better it feels. And then… nine months later a baby plops out! I mean… what more proof d’ya need there’s a God. That’s literally a fuckin’ miracle!”.
Josh nodded in complete agreement. Rev. Passwater couldn’t have explained it better.
So c'mon everybody, dig into your pockets and help out those eight tiny miracles in California. Remember the more voices lifted in prayer, the more pleasing it is to the Lord.
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