BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I am old enough to remember when “Mister President” wasn’t just an honorific from days long past for Jimmy Carter. What I mean by that is I was not only alive, but I was also functioning and capable of rational thought that went beyond strained green beans and pooping. In fact, I was in high school,  so I was more interested in irrational thought about the “little red haired girl” in the second row of my 5th hour creative writing class. Or was she a blonde? Brunette?

Well… We just won’t go there…

The thing is, I remember Jimmy Carter’s presidency, and oddly enough this blog has next to nothing to do with that. Then why mention it, you ask? Well, I said “next to nothing” not “absolutely nothing.” Confused yet?

You see, back when the smooth talking peanut farmer from Georgia was in office, lusting in his heart after beautiful women; and trying his damndest to get his brother to stop taking a leak on the tarmac at the airport in plain view of TV cameras – (after drinking two cases of his self-named signature beer, of course); and making concessions to save hostages, but that would undoubtedly guarantee him being only a 1 term president; and touring a nuclear facility that narrowly avoided a core meltdown; and having the White House mail room re-package and send back the red, white, and blue chainsaw a company had shipped to his daughter because she wanted one for Christmas…

Well, I think you get the point. As is usually the case with anyone occupying the oval office, the man couldn’t sneeze without it being on the evening news – and, on Saturday Night Live. Of course, this was back in the day when SNL was worth looking at, and Aykroyd did a great Carter.

So, where am I going with this?

Simple. Dave Barry.

Now you’re REALLY confused, right? Good…

You see, Dave Barry wrote a great column about having a colonoscopy. He took a somewhat gross topic and made it funny. I know, I know, you are still reeling and trying to figure out what this has to do with Jimmy Carter. Well, I’m not going to talk about a colonscopy. I’m still a year or so off before the insurance company will pay for my alien anal probe, so stop hurting yourself trying to make the connection. I am, however, going to talk about hemorrhoids. President Carter had himself a nasty case of them while in office and the news media jumped all over it. Of course, that simply led to SNL bending it over the desk and getting to know it in the biblical sense.

Thus far, my ‘roids have not made it to the news. Nor has any improvisational comedy troupe performed a skit around said affliction as it relates to a mid-list suspense-thriller author living in Saint Louis. I did, however, make an innocuous and roundabout comment about them on Facebook – the gist of that being that I needed something stronger than Preparation H.  No graphic details or descriptions. Not even a mention of the word “hemorrhoid”… Just, I need some Preparation I or J ’cause H ain’t cuttin’ it…

What did that get me? A whole lot of “TMI, DUDE!” comments.

Well, I’m not embarrassed to tell you that I’m a bit inflamed by this. I mean, it pretty much tells me that people don’t believe my ass is anywhere near as funny as Jimmy Carter’s, and that’s just constipated thinking. It also says that my ass isn’t as funny as Dave Barry’s, which sort of  pains me. Now, while I am willing to concede that Dave’s ass is pretty damned funny, my blog has actually been compared to his – and his column – so I would think my ass should be bleedin’ funny too. Trust me, I don’t have a swollen head about this. It just burns me a little. I know that it’s uncomfortable to sit here and talk about this, but as you can tell I’m itching to say something. Yes, I suppose a story like this is bothersome, but don’t shrink away from it and leave me dangling. That’s not soothing in the least.

You know, maybe it’s all just a matter of marketing. I think I’ll have my publicist contact the media when I schedule my hemorrhoid-ectomy. Maybe The Early Show will want to broadcast it live on TV, just like they did for Harry Smith’s colonoscopy…

I just hope the cameras don’t make my ass look too big.

More to come…

Murv

Or, Koran Burning For Dummies…

Both work, but I have a fondness for the word idiot.

And, for the record, Koran should actually be Qur’an, however since we here in the United States are so fond of dictating how others should act, believe, and otherwise exist, it stands to reason we would want to dictate how people should spell – even if they created the word and not us. Well, aren’t we special…

Hence, I have used Koran in the title of this post in order to make it easier for the illiterate hate mongers to find via search engines, because they are certainly the folks who will be looking for instructions of the sort.

That said…

Every day, unless I’m on a manuscript deadline, I try to give myself a bit of a break from the “Lackey Do” list E K has for me – not to mention the “Also Gotta Do” list I have for myself. During said break, I eat my lunch. However, instead of consuming it over the sink, I park myself in my rocking chair and watch 15 minutes of The 700 Club / CBN News. Why? Because it amuses me.

Why, just the other day I heard Pat Robertson tell everyone that the Muslims have taken over France, and are coming for us next. Then, they ran a special report on the blight of “gay marriage” and “judicial power grabbing.” You see, it seems that the courts have no business being involved in the laws of the land. Apparently they are just there for traffic tickets and the like, because by doing something as heinous as declaring a clearly unconstitutional law unconstitutional, they have overstepped their authority. In fact, simply by declaring a ban on gay marriage unconstitutional the courts have taken away one of your civil liberties. I’m not entirely sure which one that would be, unless it is now a civil liberty to deny someone else their civil liberties. Thinking about it sort of makes my head hurt, but then “God Logic” has always given me a headache. Doesn’t matter which God(dess) either. Not that I’m an atheist – but I’ve already stated my view on religion vs. spirituality, so I won’t go down that path.

Today, I tuned in Pat, ready for yet another laugh, and wasn’t disappointed. He and his Robertsonites prayed for folks and received divine messages from God – or possibly Jesus… I’m not really sure. You see, sometimes  he uses God/Jesus/Lord interchangeably, and other times he draws clear and distinct lines of delineation between them. Don’t ask me where the ghost comes in. I’m pretty sure he’s over in the corner playing craps with Satan or something. After all, you know they’ve got to talk sometime. But, back to the funny – Pat and his crew basically engaged in psychic divination, something they call the “work of the devil” if a Pagan does it – or anyone else for that matter.

So, see what I mean by amusing?

Anyway, a couple of hours later I jumped in my truck to run and pick up the o-spring from school.  NPR was doing a quick news blurb on a religious zealot. No, it wasn’t Pat Robertson, although, given the things that come out of that man’s mouth, it could just as easily be him. However, in this case it is some preacher out of Florida who has his congregation all fired up, and has announced that they are going to burn copies of the Qur’an (Quran, Koran) on September 11th.

Why?

Because the terrorists who crashed the planes into the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11 were Muslim.

Once again, we have a big ol’ nasty case of “God Logic” going on here, and it’s sitting in a big steaming pile of “God Envy.” By that, I mean, we have ourselves a bunch of people screaming “My God is better than your God.” I saw a quote on Facebook the other day that defined “Holy War” as people arguing over whose imaginary friend is better. I think that pretty much sums it up.

But let’s think about this for a minute. Why stop with burning the Qur’an (Quran, Koran)? I mean, if it’s all about associating terrorists and muderers with religion, we should be able to have ourselves a regular old down home book burning…

Timothy McVeigh – Killed 168, injured 450. 19 of those killed were children – He started out Catholic and claimed to maintain “core beliefs” but then also professed that “Science” was his “religion.”

Okay, then let’s put all books dealing with science on the bonfire too.

John Wayne Gacy – 33 victims – He was a Roman Catholic.

Okay, let’s toss the Catholic Bible on the fire. Oh… While you are at it, take all of your NIV’s, KJV’s, ad nauseum and rip out the New Testament, because – and you might be unaware of this but – it belongs to the Catholics too.

Theodore “Ted” Bundy – Confessed to 30 murders, but it is believed that he was responsible for more than 100 – He was a Mormon.

Toss the Book of Mormon on there… Stoke that baby up!

Albert Fish – Killed and ate children. Possibly 100 or more – Christian. Some would even say fanatical Christian. (But, don’t let a little word like fanatical deter you. After all, someone being a fanatic doesn’t matter, does it? Just their religion.)

Good old Uncle Albert was devout in his beliefs that were driven by the Old Testament.

Hmmm… Looks like we need to round up the rest of the Holy Bibles and chuck them onto the bonfire too…

Adolf Hitler – Let’s just say it was in the high millions and leave it at that. I’m not here to argue the exact numbers. – Depending upon who you ask, Catholic, Christian, Occultist.

Okee-Dokee, we’ve already covered Catholics and Christians, but this bolsters that a bit, don’t you think? But, just to be on the safe side, let’s burn any books dealing with the occult too.

Joel Rifkin – Killed 17 women – Jewish (David Berkowitz too, although he converted to Christianity of all things, right before he started killing.) Doesn’t matter that they were adopted. We’re talking religion here, not lineage.

Well, hmmm… We’ve already tossed the Old Testament onto the flames for all of the dyed-in-the-wool Christians out there, even though it was actually written by Jewish folk (fancy that)… So, guess we need to toss the Talmud, Torah… well… how about the whole shooting match… just toss the Tanakh on there too.

Okay, we haven’t quite cleaned out the religion section of the library just yet, but we’ve made a big dent. Obviously we need to burn any books that have anything to do with any of the aforementioned religious texts. Plus, we’ve cleared out all of the science books.

I’m sure it wouldn’t take much for us to connect all of the other world religions, big and small, to something that is worthy of hatred. That goes for Atheism and Agnosticism too. So why keep screwing around? Just throw all of those onto the fire as well.

There! Are we feeling better now? Turns out nobody’s imaginary friend – or even imaginary void – is all that cool after all.

You know, just the other day when folks were in the thick of the argument over the Islamic Cultural Center plans, I posted a Facebook status update that read something like, “I think everyone needs to get in touch with their inner Atticus Finch…”

If you don’t know who that is, or what that means, pick up a book and read it. Specifically, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. If you don’t like reading, then go to the library or video store and check out the movie. It’s about as close to the book as a movie can get and still be only two hours long.

A dear friend and mentor told me that the statement would make a good blog topic. I agreed, but by the same token offered it to her because normally I do funny. And, while I find Pat Robertson and his band of purse snatchers amusing in a sad way, there’s nothing at all funny about hatred.

Okay, so now you really need to pay attention, because here are the promised instructions:

Muslims are NOT terrorists/murderers…

Catholics are NOT terrorists/murderers…

Christians are NOT terrorists/murderers…

*Jews are NOT terrorists/murderers…

Pagans are NOT terrorists/murderers…

It’s simple. Don’t burn their book unless you are willing to burn your own. We are individuals and we define ourselves. We don’t define others.

Unfortunately, the people who need to get my point, won’t. And the people who don’t need to get the point already know it without need of this illustration.

Next time I’ll try to find something funny to write about.

More to come…

Murv

* The original version of this blog stated “Jewish” are not terrorists, an intentional grammatical error in order to avoid offending folks who seem to find the word “Jew” to be offensive in and of itself. Since the error has been pointed out I have elected to change it, and we’ll hope that no offense is taken.