Wow! Has it really been almost a full year since my last post? Yes, apparently is has. Well, I’m posting again, but for the moment only to mention that I’m moving everything on this domain to a new host environment so there might be some disruptions over the next few days. If all goes well, everything else about the move should be transparent.
So a couple of days ago Pat Robertson made the claim that gay men in San Francisco wear special rings they use to spread AIDS when shaking hands. One would presume there’s some kind of hidden disease-ridden needle involved. This story stuck in my head because I had a nagging feeling that there was some other story about a ring with special nefarious powers, but I couldn’t quite figure it out… until I remembered that I’m a huge Tolkien geek. With that realization, parallels had to be drawn, comparisons done, and a horrendous mash-up parody created.
So without further ado, I bring you:
What if Pat Robertson was a Lord of the Rings Fan?
Three rings for the lez-beings, tongues all a-sway,
Seven for the “bi” people, swinging both ways,
Nine for the guys who sing YMCA,
One for the drag queen on his gay throne
in the land of ‘Frisco where the homos play.
One ring to prick them all,
Immunity deny them,
One ring to turn them queer,
And then slip in behind them
in the land of ‘Frisco where the heteros die.
“But wait!” you blurt dismissively, “A real Tolkien fan would have written it in Tengwar scipt!”
Oh yeah? I got’cher Tengwar right here, buddy! (I would have tried for the Sindarin translation as well but I don’t think the wood-elves had a word for YMCA.)
(Yes, I’m aware I haven’t posted anything since sometime in approximately the late Cretaceous. I’ll try to do better.)
(And no, I did not have to look up the ring poem before writing this. The original was burned into my brain during my preteen years, and I keep it in a spot where I can still see it in spite of all the clutter that’s accumulated since.)
More Vegetables Evolving Chocolate-Sauce-Filled Centers As Evolutionary Imperative
or
Roman Catholic church’s paedophile investigator jailed for possessing thousands of child porn images
Which of these belongs in a satirical fake newspaper? If you answered “both”, you’d be right if we were living in a slightly saner world. But we’re not. And given that hint, I’m sure that anyone who’s made it this far can easily make the distinction between the the humorous, made-up story:
A similar phenomenon was observed last year when Danish fishermen discovered a species of scallop that appeared to have perpetuated itself by growing a thick layer of bacon around its body.
… and the sad reality:
A Catholic Church child safety co-ordinator who was in charge of investigating sexual abuse allegations was jailed for 12 months today for internet peadophile offences.
Christopher Jarvis, 49, a married father-of-four, investigated historic claims of child abuse, interviewing the victims when they were adults.
He was responsible for child protection at 120 churches and parish community groups for nine years.
He also, as a member of the Devon and Cornwall Multi-Agency Safeguarding Team, had access to police and social services information about victims of child abuse.
…
Police officers who traced him to his home in Plymouth, Devon, found more than 4,000 child porn images, mainly of boys aged 10 to 12, on his church-supplied computer and a memory stick when they raided the house in Penrose Road.
The good news here is that he was caught and convicted, so, increasingly, someone is watching the watchmen.
Serial adulterer, censured-as-speaker-of-the-house, many-questionable-financial deals, fake twitter follower generating presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said at a recent debate, “How can you have judgment if you have no faith? How can I trust you with power if you don’t pray?”
I’d ask the exact opposite question: how can I trust someone with power who does pray? How can I rely on someone who expects futile, empty gestures to produce real-world results? I wouldn’t want a president who relied on goat-entrail divinations to predict unemployment figures; why should I want one who drops to his knees, hands clasped, and begs the sky for rain while cutting emergency services that would help fight drought-induced wildfires.
The pieces have fallen too neatly into place for mere coincidence. I’m convinced.
What are the chances that, the day after writing about another failed end-of-the-world and looking forward to the next one, I should finish the book I was reading, and decide to take a break from catching up on my stack of unread books to do a little catching up on my stack of unread magazines? And what are the chances that an issue of the Skeptical Enquirer would be the one I randomly selected from the pile, and, further, that the specific issue I chose should contain an article (based on a blog post by Robert Sheaffer) about cosmic events in 2012? It boggles the mind.
Think about it. On the day after I joked about 2012, I accidentally read an article about 2012! Clearly, this is the work of [Attention, believers! Insert the name of your favorite unseen entity here for a mere $250 donation!]!
Now that my eyes have been opened, I need to learn more about this person named Peter Gersten. This UFOlogist isn’t some Mayan Calendar whacko; no, he has hard astronomical evidence that at 11:11:11 on December 21st, 2012 (winter solstice – another highly unlikely coincidence, so it must be true!), an energy vortex will open in Sedona, Arizona. So sure of this prediction is Gersten that he plans to leap into this vortex off a cliff to move on to the next phase of his existence:
But I believe that some type of cosmic portal will be opening at that time and place and that an opportunity will present itself. I fully expect that it will either lead to the next level of this cosmic program; freedom from an imprisoning time-loop; a magical Martian-like bubble; or something equally as exotic. In March 2012 I will reach 70 years of age and nine months later we arrive at the cosmic coordinate. I think it will then be time for me to move on – in one form or another. I’d like to see what else our Cosmic Computer has to offer.
Uh, one question, though – what happens if his next form is also a corporeal one in a world with gravity, and there’s nobody waiting on the other side with a nice, cushy mattress for him to land on?
Well, maybe not “fine” – I’m tired, fighting some kind of cold/flu thing, and the “stuff in my life that really, really, sucks right now” list is long and varied – but “fine” in the sense that the world hasn’t ended.
Because, of course, it’s supposed to do just that today. When God couldn’t make the May 29th Doomsday earlier this year, he rescheduled for October 21st (presumably the almighty has a busy schedule and just couldn’t squeeze Armageddon in any earlier).
As of this writing there are still a little under 12 hours left of today in this time zone and lots more for those closer to the other side of the International Date Line, so of course it’s entirely possible that the end is yet to come. But I’m going to go ahead and make a prediction anyway: today’s End of the World will be a big disappointment, just like all the others have been; I guess I’ll just have to hold out for the 2012 Mayan Calendar thing and see if that one’s any more interesting.
It’s only a matter of time:
The clip-clop! clip-clop! of a passing black horse-drawn buggy was so familiar that Jacob didn’t even think to turn his gaze away from pruning a cluster of unacceptably colorful wildflowers from along the fence bordering his tobacco field. It wasn’t until the wagon ground to an abrupt halt a few feet away that Jacob turned to look – and by then it was too late.
“Visitors?” he’d wondered. “On a Thursday, when everyone knows I have butchering to do to get ready for market tomorrow?”
But when he finally saw the buggy, he knew right away that something was wrong. Its windows were dark-tinted glass, the spokes of its over-sized wheels chromed, and an elaborate stained-glass-and-candles apparatus cast an eerie blue-violet light from its underside.
The doors popped open, and three bearded men in dark glasses sprung out and charged at Jacob; before he could overcome the initial shock, he found himself pinned against the fence by two of the men while the other stood before him brandishing an ominous-looking pair of shears.
“Hold him steady, Jacob and Jacob!” ordered the scissor-wielder.
“Sure thing, Jacob,” replied Jacob.
(Fun fact: All Amish people are named Jacob, even the women. This is a constant source of frustration for police investigating Amish crime scenes, and is also the reason so few people are brave enough to write stories about them.)
“Now, Jacob, you learn what happens to people who mess with the Bergholz Clan!” said Jacob to Jacob.
Snip! Snip! Snip!
The strangers rushed back aboard their vehicle and trotted away, leaving the still-stunned Jacob gazing down in shock at the scatted locks of his new-shorn beard, some already drafting away on the breeze.
To all my Amish readers who might view this cautionary tale and think, “that could never happen here”, I can only say: don’t be so sure.
The host move is complete and all the blog data seems to have made it here intact. Now I’m playing with WordPress themes and plugins with mixed success and trying to learn the ins & outs of the new hosting service. Actual new content coming soon!
I’m back again… again. Maybe for real this time – who knows?
I’ve been meaning to get back into blogging a bit, but somehow got so into the habit of not blogging that I just couldn’t bring myself to get re-started. But driven by the combined inspirations of watching FreeThoughtBlogs come together, the desire to get myself writing again in general, and the nagging feeling that the monthly hosting fee I pay for this site is going to waste if I don’t actually use it for something, I’ve decided to blow the dust off this place and start spewing forth more collections of words onto the Interwebz. So now that I’ve publicly said I’m going to do it, I have to come up with at least one post with a little more content than “I’m going to post something.”
There are a few unrelated internet-based projects that have been bouncing around in my head for a while that I’m going to force myself to start working on as well, and to facilitate those I’m in the process of looking for a different hosting setup. That means this blog will be moving soon, to a new host, a more recent version of the WordPress software, and maybe even a new theme if I get really crazy. This will be done as transparently as I can manage – hopefully any links to existing material here will continue to work.
I’ve lost track of the number of times in the last 24 hours I’ve heard or seen some variation of the phrase “these things always happen in threes” in relation to the recent spate of celebrity deaths, usually referring to Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.
NO, people, these things do not happen in threes. They only seem to happen in threes because you keep resetting the counter when it reaches three! If the saying was “these things always happen in sevens”, everyone would be counting a few deaths further back and wondering who number 7 would be, and then when someone famous passes away, you’d shout, “Aha! Seven again!” and reset the counter.
Now there is, perhaps, something interesting in the common choice of three as the number in which groups of related “things” happen. Two is just coincidence, but three makes a pattern, which might just fire off a few extra neurons in the pattern-matching hardware we call our minds…