World Domination Update
“Lost in Otter Space”
vol. VI, iss. v
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness”
—Matthew 3:3
Quote of the Moment: “The reason my violin always sounds out of
tune is because with a fretless instrument, the Doppler Effect causes the sound
to change between what I hear and what the audience hears.” — Lady Die
Secret Word of the Day: Tautology
Site of the Week:The
Many Faces of Michael Jackson
Barbecue Sauce of the Month: Cactus Jack’s Tonsil-tinglin’
medium Acidic
Well,
we’re
exactly a year into the (official) War Against Terrorism, so
it’s time to
take stock of the situation and see where we stand in this vast morass.
The chief villain, Osama Bin
Laden, is still
,
as is his Taliban henchman, former Afghan major domo Mullah
Omar. Al Qaida is still in business, and its ability to stand up to The
Great Satan all but unscathed continues to get it supporters and new
recruits. Also, Baghdad is still a big bankroller behind the scenes, and Dubya’s
plan to topple Saddam keeps hitting hard walls in that every time Bush makes an
overt gesture to invade Iraq, Hussein simply sends another slew of suicide
bombers into Israel to distract everyone from the Iraqi issue.
In other words, we haven’t
really done
squat except to look moderately incompetent and get a bunch of innocent bystanders
killed. Granted, we managed to topple Afghanistan, but it was mostly
Northern Alliance forces who did so, and I think this accounts for the majority
of Taliban/Al Qaida forces slipping away.
Bush was actually correct (for
once!) in calling this “a new kind of war,” in that taking on a
fungible organization (as opposed to a sovereign nation with defined borders and
government infrastructure) is a trying task at best. Still, I think most
will agree: we had our best shot back in Tora Bora Afghanistan last December, and
we blew it.
Although our armed forces are
largely at fault en masse in that, Bush, as Commander in Chief, should
bear the lion’s share of this Blame Game. I will be generous and grade his
(military) performance as mediocre at best.
Of course, conspiracy theorists
to the right of even my paranoid mind will—indeed are—saying that this was
largely his plan all along. Not that I necessarily agree with that, but
they do make a good case, even if they are confusing intention
with end result. First, he learned a lesson from his dad: wrap
a war up too quickly, and the attention-deficit masses quickly forget this and you
can still lose re-election. More to the point, a protracted war helps set up a
(Brain) Police State, robbing
us of our Civil Rights, and conveniently distracting everyone from the economic mashuguna
we’re in.
Bush’s Big Daddy actually bears
the brunt of that blame burden, of course, as it was his administration
ten years ago that did the
most deregulation of Big Business, allowing them to cook books freely without
the government looking over their shoulder. And, of course, we also have
Bush Senior to thank for allowing Hussein to remain in power even after handing
him his ass on a platter during Desert Storm, inheriting the problem we now
face.
This just goes to show that incompetence
is apparently a genetic trait.
...in other news...
The Latest from Waco
In mid August, President Bush held
an economic summit in Waco designed to instill confidence in American investors
as to the financial fiasco running amok among us.
Since our economy is close to a
crash and burn, it seems fitting that GWB chose Waco for his summit.
Afterwards, Bush commented of his
conference was “a good show.” This was certainly true: it was a
good show. In fact, all it was was a show, designed
to give the impression that he is doing something about the sorry state
of affairs. And hopefully distract people from the fact that he and his
V.P. have direct ties to several of the corporations crashing in book-cooking
scandals.
Reno be-gone
Florida continues its electile
dysfunction with Primary Incompetence. Last time, it was elderlies confused
with punch-ballots; now they were befuddled by touch-sensitive screens.
Granted, a large chunk of the g.u.i. ballots didn’t
work anyway, but many of the voter aides weren’t trained properly in
using them, or just didn’t bother to show up at the polls to instruct the geritol
generation on complex instructions like “touch
the screen appropriately for who you want to vote for.”
Still, Branch Floridians can at
least take comfort that Janet Reno lost her bid to become the gubernatorial
candidate for that state. Otherwise, it would have been Reno vs. Bush
on the ballot. Personally, if I hadn’t
already migrated to BadAss, Arizona, I would pack my bags and do so if presented
with a choice like that in November.
reader feedback
Yo. As always, I dig the updates, but
have a couple of comments:
1) Isn't it Eisenhower
on the dime, and not Roosevelt? That's
why he's bald. Not that one's any better than the other...
2) I'm not sure I filled
you in on this at the time, but when I was living in Athens, there was
this lady who lived on a farm just outside of Conyers, GA (a suburb of
Atlanta, just 50 miles from Athens) who claimed that the Virgin Mary visisted
her on the 13th of each month, and gave her messages for the world.
After a few months, literally thousands of people were trampling her farm
on the 13th of each month, many of them having taken bus tours to get
there, waiting to see the VM and hear the messages. Good journalist
that I was, one 13th, I trekked down there to see everything for myself.
It was quite a sight. Really, thousands of people in lawn chairs
surrounding this little farm house, busses lined up and parked on
the grass, everyone sweating in the August heat (I remember one hispanic
family pouring cups of water on a baby that was suffering from the heat),
nuns and priests everywhere. The vision lady stayed in her farm
house with a few priests, and when she announced that the VM was near
(a priest made this announcement over a loud speaker to the folks outside)
they all started singing the 'Fatima Song' (a song about the Fatima 3
with what must have been 100 verses—it went on forever, but all I remember
is the 'Fatima, Fatima' chorus). Finally, they all started looking
up at the sun, and people called out that they could see the VM (or her
presence anyways) coming earthward. Some people took pictures, and
showed them to me: polaroids of the sun with weird rays (I tried
explaining, as a photographer, that taking pictures of the sun without
a filter results in streaks and spots, as most people know, but they were
convinced the pics were of the VM). Finally, the Vision Lady made
her announcement of what the VM had announced to her: a long, rambling
speech about how the world is corrupt and people aren't taking care of
each other, but they should for the end is near--your basic VM message,
I would think. After a long day, I drove back to Athens, and counted
at least 5 little roadside stands and shops that sold Virgin Mary memorabilia.
I stopped at one and bought a 'VM in Conyers' pin--I think it's in
our guest room. Anyhow, your article on the Fatima
prophesies brought all these memories back. Incidentally, the
Vision Lady announced about 6 months after I visited that the VM had told
her she'd stop coming after the following month, so I'm guessing she gave
up.
—
shade’s peshar
I
double-checked, and yes, that is indeed FDR on the dime, not
Ike, who is
on pre-Susan B. Anthony dollar
coins. FDR replaced Mercury in 1946, the
year after he died. (FDR, not Mercury.) The choice of the dime for
him was somewhat appropriate, as FDR initiated the “March of Dimes” to
fight polio, the disease which crippled him. Coincidentally—or not—they
stopped making dimes out of silver shortly thereafter; given the horror of FDR’s New
Deal, it seemed fitting to change the metal to an essentially worthless one (a
copper/nickel alloy) in
his honor...
I
remember Conyers, and La Flambeau and I actually did a drive-through there back in
’92 while on the way to root around Atlanta. Conyers has the highest Virgin Mary
Visitation rate in America, and contemporary with our drive-thru, the current
rage was a claim that Jesus’s face appeared in a bowl of spaghetti on a Pizza
Hut billboard. Unfortunately, La Flambeau didn’t feel like driving around
to find it.
In recent years, the Virgin Mary
seemed to be spending quite a good deal of time in Bayside, New York, appearing
regularly to housewife Veronica Leuken. Despite Mrs. Leuken’s espousal of an
ultra-conservative Catholicism even more extreme than the infamous Archbishop
Lefebvre, the Archdiocese of New York officially
disavowed her experiences in 1986, saying they “lack
authenticity.” Despite this, Mary continued to visit, and even be
channeled in on request. Among oracles passed on via Mrs.
Leuken are that God is greatly upset that the Catholic Mass is no longer in
Latin (and is planning plagues if this is not rectified,) UFOs
are actually demons who sexually molest children, and that AIDS was specifically
engineered by Jesus himself as punishment for homosexuals (and as it is a Divine
Virus, mankind will never find a cure for it.) Alas, Mrs. Leuken died in
1995, effectively stopping visitations, unless you wish to think of it as it is
now Mrs. Leuken who is visiting the Virgin Mary instead of the other way
around. Still, a handful of followers continue to
maintain a website devoted to the
subject.
reader
feedback
Nice Update,
as always. I was really surprised at your not ranting about the
baseball all-star game, though. Seeing as how you hate sports, it
was right up your alley. The game got called a tie because both
sides were out of pitchers, and no one had the cajones to step up and say
'put me on the mound, coach!" The last pitcher, Padilla, threw
a whopping 25 pitches, and then decided he was too tired to
continue. I guess steroids don't increase endurance. The
decision to call the game proof that it's not about fans any more.
—
shade’s peshar
Good
call. The 1961 All-Star game was declared a tie in the 9th
inning due to rain, which I can see, but ending it in a stalemate as they did
merely because they didn’t have any players with stamina is, as you say, just
plain dumb, and yet another proof that Sports are
Bullshit. Then again, the nearly-averted strike proved that, as if more
proof were needed at this point, and I
think its safe to say that the main reason the players caved was the realization
of the degree of outrage among the fans. With a median income of a million
apiece, the average player earns in one year more than any of us will see in a lifetime,
yet they still didn’t think they made enough.
I was delighted at the negative backlash at this, for finally some fans began to
open their eyes to the con going on. Alas, with games under way again, the
fans have re-greased their butts and bent over once more...
Reader Feedback
[Subject: liver]
I think you're right about the
Gemstone File
being a brain tumor by-product. The "liver" motif is a bit
much. Besides, where are the fava beans and nice chianti?
—
shade’s peshar
I agree.
But perhaps we now know what the Black Sabbath song ‘Zero the
Hero’ is really
about:
“Never ever gonna get down there, with the heroes sitting by the river with
the magic in their music as they eat raw liver.”
As Evil Matt once opined, “Chop
that rock a little more, guys, you’re not
quite there yet.”
Barbecue Sauce with a Bang?!?
Smith & Wesson is now making
their own barbecue sauce.
Yeah, I
wouldn’t have believed it either, but here’s part of an actual article from the August 2nd ArizonaRepublic.
So far, saint and I have been
unable to track any down to try some, but if we can (and it’s any good,)
we’ll be
sure to post it on the “Barbecue Sauce of the Month” section at
the top of the next Update.
Makes ya wonder what
varieties they
have — like instead of Hickory Smoke, it’s Gunsmoke. Or they could also put
in some of that “bean-o” stuff in (the liquid that prevents farting from
eating beans) and call it “the silencer.”
I also wonder if
there’s a seven day
waiting period before you can buy some. And what about a background check?
“Sorry, son, but we
can’t
let you have this. Our records show you really burned some ribs at a
cookout back in 1997...”
Countdown
to the Second Coming
Bruddah Max passed this my way: a
“rapture watch” that helps you to count down the time until the Christ’s return.
You’ll notice
the absence of 1 through 12 markers for tracking specific time; I guess this is in keeping with Matthew 24:36’s “No man knows the hour...”
Available in men’s and women’s styles; lemmings can
click here to get one.
Entertainment Morass
It’s no secret to Branch Floridians
that the Brain Police have been behind the “entertainment” industry since its
inception. Hell, who do you think started it? I see the
Orwell approach here—Big
Brother also ran the Underground, so of course the Brain Police would
get in on the ground floor to determine what passes for entertainment among
the masses. The proof of the pudding is the low quality of the crap that
gets churned out. Unfortunately, most people still gulp down that wretched
pudding and even ask for a second serving.
Now normally I would avoid a rant
on this subject as being too “obvious,” but time and again I keep meeting people
(non-B.F.ers, of course) who haven’t put two and two together
yet. Even then, the few marginally enlightened gentiles who have an inkling
of the con being fostered on them mistakenly dismiss the bilge being passed
off as merely corporate greed.
Not so! The Brain Police
have cunningly, calculatedly crafted that as camouflage to conceal their real
agenda: the numbing of your mind.
Specifically, their goals are the
castration of the creative element and (especially) the reduction of the average
attention span. The end results of such a pogrom are obvious: with no
creativity, people become complacent and are unable to think of unorthodox ways
to overthrow or reform the system. With no attention span, these same
lemmings quickly forget how bad the bullshit being dumped on them really is.
The three most obvious examples
of this conspiracy are television, movies, and music.
I’ll specifically skip books, by
the way, even though I as a writer feel especially qualified to comment on it.
However, I will make two generalized comments that should suffice to prove my
point. First, because of the B.P. activity in movies and television,
people just don’t read any more. It’s that attention span thing I mentioned:
most books take at least a couple of days to get through, which the attention-deficit
lemmings seem increasingly unwilling to invest: why read for a couple of days
when a movie accomplishes the same thing in a few hours? Worse in that
aspect, books require some imagination on the part of the reader. No matter
how much description is written by the author, it is still up to the reader
to form a mental image of those words. Different readers get different
things out of this, but visual products (movies and television) remove that
personal experience by forcing the director’s vision upon us. Second,
the “popular” books today are pulp crap designed for minimal mental
stimulation. Fortunately we no longer have Oprah around to pummel us with
her opinion on what “good” literature is (that is, after someone has
explained the book to her) but even then, here’s a revealing fact. A relatively
recent survey asked a fairly broad spectrum of the American population “what
book has had the most influence on your life?” Not surprisingly, The Bible
won hands down, but the second and third were the horrific monstrosities AtlasShrugged and TheFountainhead, both by my “literary” arch
nemesis Ayn Rand. Number Four, by the way, was Dianetics by hack
sci-fi writer turned self-help guru L. Ron Hubbard.
’Nuff said?
Good, let’s analyze the “popular”
stuff.
Television.
When it comes to the death of the attention span, this one-eyed monster has had
more influence than anything else. Television has been raising our kids
since the ’50s, and we increasingly see the negative effects. Based on the
predictable pattern of the typical t.v. show, we now have a society that expects
everything (including “real life”) to have a tidy wrap-up with a happy ending in a span of
thirty to sixty minutes—the lengths of the average shows. How’s that for
“cultural programming”? The overwhelming majority of
shows out there are clichéd
and predictable, tautological variations on one of maybe four themes, and the only reason I can see for their popularity is the
painful lack of any alternative programming that offers up meaningful content.
Pink Floyd said it best: “I got thirteen channels of shit on the t.v. to
choose from.” The increasing popularity of “reality shows” can only be the death
knell of the creative process. These shows are perfect network fodder: dirt cheap to produce, and
no scripts are required—just get some mismatched idiots in an enclosed
environment, and (in theory) the show writes itself.
saint’s aside
I actually have a neat idea for a reality show: “MacGyver
Island” (hosted by Richard Dean Anderson, of
course.)
Contestants are put on a remote island with nothing but a Swiss army
knife, some bubble gum, and a map of the currents; they have to build a
contraption (with no less than ten moving parts) to get off the island first.
Or they can also sabotage each others efforts. But back to
shade...
Even among “educational” programming we have a drastic
lack of
education. The worst offender in this respect is the (alleged) History
Channel. Much of what is on there is thinly-disguised militaristic
propaganda; a recent show on “Modern Marvels” was merely Defense Department advertisement for how cool the M-1 Abrams tank is.
Even then, that network
should be more appropriately called The World War II Channel, as documentaries
on various facets of that admittedly major period of the 20th
century comprise the bulk
of its programming.
saint’s
second aside
Although I again I agree with shade here,
I kind of like the History Channel, though I am tired of the jingoistic
military propaganda that makes up the majority of its programming.
Still, I have come to an unorthodox conclusion about World War 2 from
all this. From all the shows I’ve seen, there’s literally a ton
of propaganda footage of Hitler at meetings and rallies, plus various
lackeys polishing his boots or such. Basically trivial stuff, and
it’s all on film. The vast quantity of this film suggests that there
was a huge camera corps documenting all this, plus developing, cataloguing,
and archiving it. At least a battalion’s worth of men. These
people could have been of much more use on the front line rather than
filming Goebbels having breakfast. But I digress, so again back
to shade...
The increasing
popularity of commercials clinches the conspiracy. I actually know people (hello,
Sisbooomba!) that actually talk over the program but shut up to watch the
ads! Ads are designed to sell you things, so ultimately viewers are “buying” into this consumeristic mentality, all the while being
limited to a focus of fewer than thirty seconds. Ads are becoming
increasingly indistinguishable from music videos, but that’s getting ahead of
myself—see below in the music rant.
Movies.
Here we truly see the death of the creative element. Most movies these
days are either sequels or cannibalizations (ie: remakes) of previous ideas,
usually a t.v. show that no one watched or books that no one read. There’s very little originality coming out of Hollywood these days.
Even “good” films suffer from this: although A Beautiful Mind was
an excellent movie, it was not “original” but a true story (a
biography of schizophrenic Nobel-laureate John Nash.) Although it had good
content, it was technically nothing new. Movies today (hell, for the past
20 years) have become vehicles for special effects and mindless violence, with
very little to challenge the viewer and provoke them to think for themselves. There is a very subtle effect behind all this: don’t expect
the unexpected, but get used to redundancy. The outcome is that people are
afraid to try new things, but stick with the comfort of the familiar.
Music.
If one force is phuqing up society these days, it’s music, for here we have the
synthesis of the previous two problems: short attention span and lack of
creativity. I tend to think of 1993 as the Year Music Died, as that was
when Frank Zappa passed on. I have heard very little originality since
then, and almost none of that has been good. Hell, I’ve heard very little originality since the mid
’80s, but the ’90s are when things went truly down-hill, with Nirvana and Soul Coughing being
the last “new” sounds to come along. Here in the 21st
Century we
are mired in a marsh of redundancy and uninspired bilge. If I could sum up
the death of modern music in one word, it would be “rap.” In a
nutshell,
has ruined music. Hip Hop dominates music; it’s the second-most
popular form out there, and much of the rest is crossover incorporating hip-hop
elements. I’m hesitant to even call it “music,” as “structured noise” seems
more appropriate. There is very little creativity in it: they don’t even
write the tunes, but instead steal (aka “sample”) someone else’s composition
and merely babble over it. The stolen music is monotonously looped in a
one-measure pattern. With that attention-deficit thing, I can only assume
that if anything went on for more than one measure, the listeners would get confused
and think a new song had started. There are no instruments in rap, with
the exception of the deejay doing scratching (with someone else’s records, of
course,) so creativity is truly plunged to its nadir here. The only thing
worse than the music is the accompanying lifestyle. I find it amusingly
ironic that in order for rich suburban white boys to look like they come from
the hip hop ’hood they have to spend several hundred dollars at Urban Outfitters.
All the bravado bullshit baggage that accompanies it is pretension at its highest.
Look at Eminem, flashing gang signs and going “Yo! Whuzzup homey?!?” I’d
like to put him in Cabrini Green or Harlem Avenue at 3 in the morning and see
how far that gets him. And don’t even get me started on Ebonics.
Anyway, before I stray too far
off topic, I’d like to close with an anecdote that epitomizes the death of creativity
in modern music. Obviously, there is some good, original music
out there, but almost none of it reaches the masses. A kindred spirit
(Scott Fiend) plays bass in a local band in Phoenix, and was recently in a “Battle
of the Bands” to get a record deal with a local label. At the end, he
was told that his band had the most talent, but there sound was a little
too original: the guy wanted something cookie-cuttered in a recognizable
format that could be handed to a radio station with “here, play this in your
‘rock’ segment.”
With a mentality like that, it’s
no wonder that people have become conditioned to expect only the expected.
In that spirit, I am reminded of
a line from the Unibomber
Manifesto, which I appreciate but dare not endorse:
The mass media are mostly under
the control of large organizations that are integrated into the system.
Anyone who has a little money can have something printed, or can distribute
it on the Internet or in some such way, but what he has to say will be
swamped by the vast volume of material put out by the media, hence it
will have no practical effect. To make an impression on society with words
is therefore almost impossible for most individuals and small groups.
Take us (FC) for example. If we had never done anything violent and had
submitted the present writings to a publisher, they probably would not
have been accepted. If they had been accepted and published, they probably
would not have attracted many readers, because it's more fun to watch
the entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay. Even
if these writings had had many readers, most of these readers would soon
have forgotten what they had read as their minds were flooded by the mass
of material to which the media expose them. In order to get our message
before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we've
had to kill people.
saint’s Second Commandment
sermon
by
(well, duh!)
1) Context
Check
With little argument, the Ten
Commandments are the most well known and influential corpus of laws on
Earth. Three of the major religions in the world (Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam) all acknowledge the import and influence of the Commandments, and (ideally) do their dandiest to uphold and
follow them.
Technically, the Ten are a part of a broader spectrum: there
are actually 716 Commandments, spread (with much redundancy) across Exodus,
Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Aside from the Ten famous ones, there are some other
well-known Commandments, such as don’t eat pork (Leviticus 11:7) and circumcise
your sons (Leviticus 12:3); plus some downright obscure ones: don’t interbreed
cattle (Leviticus 19:19) and menstruating women are impure and thus must be separated from the
community (Leviticus 15:19-24).
While most people focus on the
Top Ten, the New Testament says that all the Laws
are important, and if you break one you’ve broken them all. (James 2:10 —
Intrigued
readers are referred to my sermon on this.)
Still, there is little argument that even if all 716 Commandments are important, the
most important among them are the first Ten. And with good reason. I
don’t think anyone would deny that if everybody actually followed just
these Ten Laws, the world would be a better place.
Unfortunately
that’s not the case anyway, but even among people who do strive to uphold them,
there seems to be a lot of leeway in interpretation over just what
those 10 Laws mean. An obvious example is the Fourth Commandment (Exodus
20:8-11, essentially “keep the Sabbath.”) Although there is no
question that the Sabbath is Saturday, most Christians observe it on Sunday,
thus brazenly violating it. A slightly more obscure semantical example
of this is the Sixth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” (Exodus 20:13)
The problem here is just what the Hebrew word
(retzach) means. By way of comparison,
in English there are over a dozen words expressing distinct modes of “killing”:
suicide, euthanasia, and execution are all types of killing,
but are vastly different in nuance. So too with retzach. In modern
Hebrew, retzach means “murder,” but unfortunately “murder,” like “insanity,”
is more of a legal term than a social one whose meaning even
in a courtroom can get fuzzy. God obviously had no problem with Hebrews
killing certain people: David killed Goliath, Samson killed a thousand Philistines,
etc. All these people enjoyed God’s blessing even after killing.
Also, many of those 716 commandments themselves carry the death penalty if they
are broken: adultery (Leviticus 20:10), working on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2)
etc. all require transgressors to be stoned to death. So I suggest
that the better translation of retzach is “kill without The Lord’s
approval” —obviously not a
literal translation, but that seems to be the spirit of it.
Unfortunately, many people think they have the Lord’s approval when they go
commit what is otherwise considered homicide; this applies to Christian fundamentalists
who blow up abortion clinics and Islamic extremists who crash jumbo jets into
World Trade Centers. Others, such as the Amish, hedge their bet by striving
not to kill anyone, regardless of circumstances.
So you can see, even if the
Commandments are literally set in stone, followers strive—often at
absurd lengths—to find wiggle room within the words to best fit their needs or
agendas.
And probably the most brazen case
of this is the
.
2) Sermon
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down
and serve them, for I YHWH your God am a
jealous God.
—Exodus 20:4-5
Oversimplified, this has passed
down in Sunday School as “Thou shalt not worship idols.”
Unfortunately, that’s the
problem: people only know the oversimplified version of this (if they even know
it at all) and are unfamiliar
with the actual wording here. Because of that, this is probably the most
broken Commandment there is.
Some quick semantics: “graven image”
refers to a stone statue carving (as in “engraved”), but the concept is expanded
in Ex. 20:23 to include gold and silver idols of gods—which
are “molten.” Although not specifically mentioned to my knowledge,
idols constructed in other mediums of the day (iron, wood, clay) would have
fallen under the same forbidden category, and doubtless modern items (plastic,
rubber, play-doh) would, too. It is curious to notice that drawings and
paintings of are not mentioned. Whether these were exempt, or
would have been considered part of the broader spectrum of verboten is, well,
sketchy, though I suspect if they were okay, there would be a comment
saying so. Idols of animals etc. are prohibited in Deut. 4:16-18, 23,
28. Here it gets a bit murky: although not specifically stated, most interpret
this with an implication: the understanding that these are not
to be worshiped; apparently it’s okay to make a small statue of your
favorite cat as a memento, just don’t bow down to it. However, that interpretation
is just that: an opinion. Several extreme sects of Islam take it at face
value, and even include photographs on their banned list.
Where almost everyone falls
astray in following this commandment is a failure to realize that the injunction prohibits idols to “false” gods AND the
“real” one! Consider the wording:
You shall not make for yourself
a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heavenabove...
God is in Heaven, of
course. So are angels. So are the saints. And so is Jesus.
However, look around: graven images of all of the above
abound. This is both true in the modern world, and the ancient one.
Let’s do a quick historical survey.
Ironically, the Jews themselves
broke this law with the design of the very vessel that carried the Commandments:
the Ark of the Covenant. Per Ex. 25:18-20, on the lid of the Ark were
two golden Cherubs facing each other, with wings outspread so the tips touched.
Again: angels (of which Cherubim are included as a sub-set) are in heaven, yet
here is a molten image of them. The most obvious rebuttal to this would
be that if God had a problem with it, he would have done something about it!
The outstretched wingspan was literally considered to be God’s throne: it was
assumed that The Lord
would sit there atop the cherubs while the Ark was in the Holy of Holies in
either the Tent of Meeting or later in the Temple of Jerusalem (see Ex. 25:22
and Numbers 7:89.) This feature became known as “the Mercy Seat” due to
Martin Luther’s German translation of the applicable passage. Again, we
must wonder at the making of golden images of the Heavenly Host in light that
this is specifically prohibited. Of course, it was not the Mercy Seat
that was worshiped, but Who was understood to have sat upon it, and if YHWH
were displeased with this, He wouldn’t have assumed that as His throne.
Christians continue the tradition
of making images of things in Heaven, despite the blatant ban on this
practice. Behind the altar of every Catholic Church is a crucifix with a
suffering Jesus nailed to it. Again, Jesus is in Heaven, if the Bible is
to be believed, so this is a violation of the Commandment. Protestants, incidentally, usually have
a barren cross as a backdrop, preferring to emphasize the risen Christ as
opposed to the suffering. But lest ye think I merely pick on Catholics,
lets look at other Christian denominations. Atop the highest spire of the
Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City is a golden statue of the angel Moroni.
Making images of angels, of course, is specifically singled out in the Exodus
passage. Greek Orthodox churches are filled with statues and icons
of not only angels but various saints and other Heavenly Host.
This saint veneration, especially
in iconic form, is perhaps the greatest violation of the Second Commandment.
The practice is largely limited to Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy, though a
few other, smaller denominations (eg: Armenian Orthodoxy) practice it
as well. Let’s look at it for a second.
There was a time when almost every
Catholic motorist had either a little medallion or plastic statue of Saint Christopher
in his car, believing that since Christopher had been appointed ‘patron saint
of travelers’ that this would protect them from motorway harm. Many would
even pray to Saint Christopher to protect their cars. Granted, Christopher
(as of 1969) is no longer a saint, when the Catholic Church was forced to admit
that not only was the story absurd, but blatantly plagiarized from a pre-BC
Slavic myth. Still, there are other examples. According to the Guinness
Book of World Records, the longest bout of hiccups (70 years!) was cured with
a prayer to Saint Jude (patron of hopeless causes.)
The immediate reply given by practitioners
of this is that it is not the saint who performs the miracle (safe travel,
hiccup cure, etc) but Jesus; saints are merely the intermediary.
But if that’s the case, then why pray to the saint or carry an idol of him/her
in the first place?
The second reply to this is that
it is not an idol per sé but a metaphorical representation of that person.
This too falls through as bullshit when we realize that ancient idols were also
understood to be metaphors for the gods they represented. There were some
notable exceptions to this, but on the whole, each village’s idol of Ba’al (for
instance) was made by the local village craftsman; it did not appear miraculously
nor did it in itself perform tangible miracles. It was understood that
this was a metaphor, in the same way present-day icons and such are metaphors
for the objects in Heaven.
This is idolatry, pure and
simple. Strictly speaking, anyone with a necklace cross with Jesus on it
around their neck is an idolater, as they have an image of something in Heaven.
If you’re like me, then you love
overly-complicated crap. Your favorite cars are German (they use twenty
intricately interconnected parts where two cogs will do), your favorite author
is Faulkner (who writes four paragraphs even though one sentence conveys the
same sentiment), and your favorite musician is Yngwie Malmstein (this Swedish
Meatball has what Evil Matt describes as “diarrhea of the fingers”: squeezing
thirty superfluous notes in when one will suffice.)
If that’s the case, then
your idol, like mine, is that soopah geeenius, Wile E. Coyote.
With me so far? Good: here’s
something you’ll appreciate.
Bugs suck; especially the
biting/stinging kind, right? Some serve a purpose; bees are cool (even
if they won’t stop buzzing) but others, like wasps, hornets, and especially
yellowjackets are a step short of evil. So what’s a man do?
Well, you could be a lemming and
simply go get a bug bomb or a can or Raid... but where’s the fun in that???
Too easy.
Try this:
You will need...
a piece of fish
a string
something to attach the string
to the fish (ie: a hook)
a bucket
water to fill the above item
some soap or detergent
Now, here’s the plan...
1) fill the bucket with water
2) add a fair amount of detergent
to the water
3) suspend the fish above the bucket
via the hook and string
You need to make sure you do this
up-wind from the nest. Also, get the Hell away from it once it’s in motion.
Wasps, Hornets, and especially
yellowjackets seem to love fish. Go figure. Anyway, they will smell
the fish, and zip right to it, thinking “dinner is served!”
But wait!
Yellowjackets are greedy
little guys, and will always carve off more than they can carry back
to the nest. Said slab of fish will always fall down, because its too
heavy to fly back to the nest with.
Normally, the ’jackets would simply
carve a smaller piece, eventually whittling it down to something they can carry...
but unfortunately (for them) there is a bucket of water directly beneath the
fish.
Water is bug bane anyway,
but this has detergent in it, which will cause all items hitting it to promptly
sink to the bottom. They will be unable to escape, and drown.
Done properly, you have an excellent
chance of taking out the entire nest this way.
Nice, huh?
(This tip was
passed on by FallenFire
a few years ago. If you use this, it is requested that you pay him one
pound of flax as royalties.)
The Evil One fields your queries, as channeled by Sister Ob’dewlla ‘X’.
Q:
I am wondering if the person asking about the last
word in the English Language was referring to the last word that was INTRODUCED
to the English language? What would that be, hmmmm??
A:Interesting perspective, but the question was originally asked verbally
by DK to shade as part of a conversation on the subject; shade’s guess was that
it was “zygote” but he decided to Ask Evil Matt to be sure. Anyway, per
shade, the context of the question was specific: what’s the last word in
the Dictionary. As for your variant, I do not think there is a way
to tell what the last word introduced was, as evolving slang changes
that on an almost daily basis.
Q: hey there evilmatt,
a quick question
who lit the fuse for the big bang?
A: “Science” has yet to definitively answer
that question, though a popular theory floating around is that the Big Bang
was caused by the final collapse of the previous Universe on itself.
In other words, we are in a repeating, infinite cycles, and although our current
universe is expanding out, it will eventually contract back in, and when all
that mass converges on itself it will “Big Bang” out again. Still, this
is just a theory; remember, we’ve known about the Big Bang for less than 100
years, so study in Cosmology is still comparatively infantile. Ask me
again in a few hundred years, when we have more information.
Still, saint, with his penchant for mixing Science with Scripture,
alternatively offers this answer to your specifically-worded question of “who
lit the fuse” — God, when he said “let there be light.” (Genesis 1:3.)
Q:Did Machu Pichu
exist, or is that just a legend?
A: Machu Pichu certainly did exist; its ruins were discovered
in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, and can be visited to this day.
Hidden high (8,000+ feet) atop a mountain in the Andes of southern Peru, “Machu Pichu” means “Old Peak” in the Quechua dialect. It was built ca. 1470AD
by Incan ruler Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui as either a royal estate or possibly
a religious monastery; it also served as an astronomical observatory.
The mini-city is estimated to have had a population of about 1,200 — most of which was decimated by smallpox brought by
the Conquistadors in 1527. Pizarro and his marauding hoard never actually
saw the city, though they were vaguely aware of it. Legends of Machu Pichu
were frequently confused with those of Coronado, the fabled Incan city of solid
gold. I suspect this is what you were thinking of when you asked
the question. Scholars and archaeologists are in general agreement
that Coronado was a legend started as misinformation/bullshit by the Incas to
get the Conquistadors to go away, though a few hopeful treasure hunters continue
to scour Chile and Peru in search of it.
Q:
Where does the word CANNIBAL come from?
A: Anglicized version of the Spanish, canibal,
itself a variant of Caribal, the Spanish name for the Arawak tribe of the West
Indies. Conquistadors believed the Arawaks ate human flesh—I have found
no evidence that this is actually true—and the term eventually became
a catch-all describing anyone who practiced the act.
A: Cash was in jail (not prison) for three days
in 1965 when he was caught at the Mexican border smuggling speed in his guitar
case; otherwise the incident resulted in a suspended sentence and a stiff fine.
The idea that “Folsom Prison Blues” is autobiographical is a popular legend,
but untrue. However, if you have proof to the contrary, please submit
it and I will humbly print an errata.
Q: What
can you tell me about the Doppler Effect?
A: Named for its discoverer (Christian Doppler)
in 1842, the Doppler Effect is the shift in frequency of a sound particle in
relation to a moving object. Example: the pitch of a car horn from
a car in the other lane as it passes by: it seems to rise as it approaches and
drop as it moves further away. The actual formula is this:
where:
f ´ = the perceived frequency f0 = the actual frequency v = the speed of the medium (usually 750 mph, the speed of sound) vo = the relative speed of the observer/receiver vs = the relative speed of the source
± = whether the source is moving toward (+) or away from (-) the observer
Variations of this apply to particles and waves other than
sound. Probably the most celebrated example is the Doppler Shift, where
objects moving at the speed of light cause things ahead of them to appear blue
and objects behind to appear red. So obviously the Effect works with any
wave, such as light, though it has its most practical application to sound.
A sonic boom is caused by the Doppler Effect.
Now, being Evil Matt, I happen to know why you are
asking this (Lady Di’s “Quote of the Moment” about violin
tuning.) Whether the source is fretless or not is irrelevant.
All that matters for the Doppler Effect to alter perceived tuning is that one
(or both) sources are in motion. In this case, she is essentially stationary
on a stage, and the audience is stationary at their seats. Even if she
were moving around on stage, her violin has a pickup mic, so the source is effectively
the p.a. soundspeaker. I can thus say that her tuning difficulties are
more a result of Guinness Extra Stout than the Doppler Effect.
But you already knew that, didn’t you...
Q: What
is taurine?
A: A beta amino acid (C2H7No3S)
usually produced in bile. It increases mental alertness, which is why
it is a popular additive in such “energy drinks” like Red Bull or Liquid X.
Cats can actually die from a deficiency in taurine.
Q: Know
anything about jackalopes?
I saw a tourist trap store in Sky Harbor that was selling stuffed jackalope
dolls, and they even had a pic of one. It said they were a hybrid of rabbits
and antelope grown as food in the 1800s but some got loose. How can a
rabbit be crossed with an antelope?
A: Variants on the jackalope myth actually go
back to pre-BC southeast Asia. However, it is just that: a legend,
albeit one that taxonomists and other biology types have adopted with seemingly
straight-faced mirth, in the same spirit that Branch Floridians insist you can
travel time with a spinning cat and piece of buttered
toast. Douglas, Wyoming claims to be the “home of the jackalope” and
you can even get jackalope hunting licenses there, dated effective June 31st.
Most of the picture “evidence” is cleverly-constructed using Photoshop.
In all fairness, however, there is a condition among cottontail rabbits
known as Shope’s Palinoma, essentially a tic-borne virus that causes
tumors on the skull that look suspiciously like small pointy horns that often
reach five inches in length. The few “authentic” pictures of jackalopes
are invariably of poor bunnies stricken with this.
Got a question?
.
And finally,,,
The Hedgehog Corner
By Harriet the Hedgehog
Reader Feedback
Tell your cousin congratulations on
the Japanese commercial gig. But tell
him to be careful; it's only a short scuttle from the sponge ad to Hedgehog
porn! (Did he call the sponge in the morning?)
—
Harriet’s Peshar:
Hedgehog Porn
The good Reverend is apparently
unaware of the burgeoning Adult Film Industry among the hedgehog community.
Notable “quill flicks” include:
Hedgie does Dallas
Deep Chuff
The Hedgehog in Miss
Jones
Quilligula (directed
by Hog Guccioni)
John Wayne Bobbhog —
Uncut
Behind the Green Burrow
The Story of H
Ride my Hog all night
long
On all fours
Hogjammin’
Lady Hedgehogersly’s
Lovers
Hedgemaster 8 — Hog Wild
in Amsterdam
Sex on the Hedge
Jenna Loves Hedgehog
The Hedgehogging of Savanah
The Happy Hedgehog in
D.C.
Hedgeward Penisquills
Where the Hedgehogs Aren’t
The Hog Hedges Both Ways
The Hedgehog of Ecstacy
Amateur Hedgehogs #48
— Toledo
It should also be remembered that
one of the most famous porn stars in the human community, Ron Jeremy, is affectionately
called The Hedgehog.
(retzach) means. By way of comparison,
in English there are over a dozen words expressing distinct modes of “killing”:
suicide, euthanasia, and execution are all types of killing,
but are vastly different in nuance. So too with retzach. In modern
Hebrew, retzach means “murder,” but unfortunately “murder,” like “insanity,”
is more of a legal term than a social one whose meaning even
in a courtroom can get fuzzy. God obviously had no problem with Hebrews
killing certain people: David killed Goliath, Samson killed a thousand Philistines,
etc. All these people enjoyed God’s blessing even after killing.
Also, many of those 716 commandments themselves carry the death penalty if they
are broken: adultery (Leviticus 20:10), working on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2)
etc. all require transgressors to be stoned to death. So I suggest
that the better translation of retzach is “kill without The Lord’s
approval” —obviously not a
literal translation, but that seems to be the spirit of it.
Unfortunately, many people think they have the Lord’s approval when they go
commit what is otherwise considered homicide; this applies to Christian fundamentalists
who blow up abortion clinics and Islamic extremists who crash jumbo jets into
World Trade Centers. Others, such as the Amish, hedge their bet by striving
not to kill anyone, regardless of circumstances.
