Intelligent Design by the PTA

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Please! Make yourself comfortable. Would you like a cup of hot tea?

On our agenda today is a quick item of old business. In yesterday's post I suggested that an eternity in a certain bookstore would be more punishment than even Adolf Hitler deserved. We at "The Gods Are Bored" go on record as feeling that Hitler deserves punishment, maggot that he was. At a later date we'll invite "Mr. Applegate" to come brainstorm with us about what we would do with the Fuhrer.

Agenda item: New business. You Julian Calendar addicts will like this one. Tomorrow, April 5, stop what you're doing at two minutes and three seconds past one o'clock. You will then experience a cosmic moment:
01/02/03/04/05/06.
This applies only to those who follow the Julian Calendar. Frankly, Queen Brighid the Bright has jars of jam older than the Julian Calendar.

Today's topic: Intelligent Design.

We haven't talked about Intelligent Design for awhile, but it's always a hot button issue around here. With spring blooming all about, once again we're tempted into wondering if the earth was made, or just happened.

From Huckleberry Finn:

"It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could 'a' laid them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done."

Oh, what magnificent eloquence! I love Mark Twain. Don't you?

There's a core of common sense here that is hard to assail. Huck thinks the moon could have birthed the stars because he saw a frog lay almost as many eggs. Solid logic.

We here at "The Gods Are Bored" are all about sensible solutions to difficult cosmic conundrums. Therefore, in the grand tradition of Huckleberry Finn, we offer the following scenario for the Intelligent Design of the Universe:

"It's lovely to live in a suburb. Sometimes I hear the traffic roaring by, or the distant bleat of a car siren, and I wonder if the world was made, or if it just happened. I'm tempted to think it just happened. I judge it would just be too complicated to make something like this. But I've seen an earnest group of PTA Moms get their heads together and pull off an elaborate school fair with moon walks, and bake sales, and silent auctions, and beanbag tosses, and hair braiding, and prizes, and five different kids of pizza, and a DJ, and crafts, and a flower booth, and a little kiddie train chugging through the whole joyous romp. So of course, if you've got a committee of PTA Moms on the job, an intelligent universe could be designed in a jiffy."

And just a reminder: If you have a child in elementary school, this is the time of year when you dare not pick up the telephone. That PTA Mom is on the prowl, and she'll want you to take charge of a whole solar system.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS