Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We welcome any and all gods and goddesses of the past and present to this site with open arms and a red rubber bathmat! Carpeting is beyond our means, and do you see how fast it gets stained?
There's a certain maxim in the Appalachians. If you haven't grown up there, you might not find it convincing.
That maxim is: No politician can be trusted.
Yup, sorry.
Your average braces-clad teenager will swear by God Above that she won't eat gummi bears, they're so bad for her teeth, and she wants to look great when these metal horrors come off. But when you send her into the candy shop to find out what time it is, she'll come out unable to tell you because of all the gummi bears bonding to her braces.
Politicians are like that. And if I can remember Eisenhower, and tell you all about the Three Edwards of England, do you want to disagree with me?
Now to the point that may lose me my legions of readers.
That would be Al Gore.
No one stands ahead of me in concern about global warming. I don't need a fancy movie or a famous politician to tell me that we've put the earth on the stove to simmer like a pot of bean soup. I'm concerned to the point of altering my lifestyle.
Please forgive me, kind readers, for thinking that Al Gore's sudden plea to pay attention to this problem rings hollow.
"Well, Anne, why would you feel that way? He's calling attention to a major problem! (And paving the way to a presidential nomination, of course.)"
In 1997 the United Nations convened an international forum to deal with the threat of global warming. From that forum sprang the Kyoto Protocol, a bold document that called for drastic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, worldwide.
At that time, as now, the United States led the world in CO2 emissions.
The United States did not sign the Kyoto Protocol.
Quick, kids! Who was the sitting vice president when the UN drafted the Kyoto Protocol?
Emmmmm ... Spiro T. Agnew?
Sorry. It was Al Gore.
And what was Al Gore doing in those years when he could have been crusading boldly against Big Business and Big Government and Fat Cat Lobbyists on behalf of our steamy little planet?
He was the headliner at Democratic Party fundraisers.
If memory serves me, he did attend Princess Diana's funeral.
It's not that I don't applaud Mr. Gore for his film and his genuine worry about the future of the earth. But from where this hillbilly is sitting, he's standing in the barnyard with a key in his pocket, and the horse is galloping away into the steamy sunset.
So you say, "Well, if he had become a national spokesman for reducing CO2 emissions, he might not have been the Democratic nominee in 2000." So? The election got stolen anyway, it would have been stolen from any Democrat who ran, and Mr. Gore's credibility would be a lot higher, at least in this goat pasture.
So let's add to the list of Inconvenient Truths the sad fact that the Clinton Administration ignored global warming and then turned the reins of power over to a horde of barbarous cretins who ignore everything except stuffing their pockets with cash.
So, hate me if you want to, but this hillbilly says "An Inconvenient Truth" is coming to a theatre near you ten years after it should have been made by the same dude.
Ah, but he did generate a lot of cash for all those Demopublican candidates, now, din he?
Now watch this, I'll show you how smart I am:
"Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me."
(If you give me another chance, we'll return to religion tomorrow.)
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
STAR 14 APPALACHIAN
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
What Is This Doggone 21st Century, Anyway?
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your highway to the heavens. Lots of them.
I remember sitting on my dad's shoulders, watching Dwight D. Eisenhower give a speech. I remember when there were only 6 or 7 t.v. channels, and you had to get up and turn a knob to change them.
I remember when Kennedy died, my mom said, "See how Caroline wears her nice little socks?" I didn't like nice little socks.
I remember rotary dials, talking on the phone while standing next to it, dropping a coin in a pay phone in a glass booth.
I remember the "Summer of Love," bracelets with POW/MIA names on them, Nixon coining the term "Peace with Honor" (soon to be trotted out again, mark my word).
I remember how happy my mom was when Nixon went down. Her whole family voted Democrat because Lincoln won the war. Some time I'll explain that.
I remember being at a big shot university when the technicians rolled in the very first Word Processor. I remember how all the professors trooped in to look at it and try it out.
I remember one of my colleagues having to quit her job because Ronald Reagan shut the federally-funded day care centers.
I remember being the first in my office to be brave enough to do my work on a computer. I remember my first personal computer. It did not have a color monitor. It was more sophisticated than the computers in my home office, I had to save everything in an older program.
I remember having a baby. And then another one.
And then BOOM BOOM BOOM! The fireworks go off, and the 21st century is underway!
I detest cell phones.
I detest HD TV and 700 channels with nothing I care to watch.
I detest hardwired smoke detectors that start chirping at 3 a.m. and I don't know how to get the damned things to shut up.
I detest Wal-Marts and Wegmans and right wing radio commenters.
I detest ex-urban housing developments.
I detest a discrepancy between the rich and poor that seemed much less polarized in my youth.
In short, roll back the clock. Declare me a geezer. Laugh at my ineptitude with modern technology. I can hate the 21st century if I want to. The bored gods tell me so.
If you'll now excuse me, I'm going off to read a book.
FROM ANNE
CLUELESS GEEZER OF YESTERYEAR
I remember sitting on my dad's shoulders, watching Dwight D. Eisenhower give a speech. I remember when there were only 6 or 7 t.v. channels, and you had to get up and turn a knob to change them.
I remember when Kennedy died, my mom said, "See how Caroline wears her nice little socks?" I didn't like nice little socks.
I remember rotary dials, talking on the phone while standing next to it, dropping a coin in a pay phone in a glass booth.
I remember the "Summer of Love," bracelets with POW/MIA names on them, Nixon coining the term "Peace with Honor" (soon to be trotted out again, mark my word).
I remember how happy my mom was when Nixon went down. Her whole family voted Democrat because Lincoln won the war. Some time I'll explain that.
I remember being at a big shot university when the technicians rolled in the very first Word Processor. I remember how all the professors trooped in to look at it and try it out.
I remember one of my colleagues having to quit her job because Ronald Reagan shut the federally-funded day care centers.
I remember being the first in my office to be brave enough to do my work on a computer. I remember my first personal computer. It did not have a color monitor. It was more sophisticated than the computers in my home office, I had to save everything in an older program.
I remember having a baby. And then another one.
And then BOOM BOOM BOOM! The fireworks go off, and the 21st century is underway!
I detest cell phones.
I detest HD TV and 700 channels with nothing I care to watch.
I detest hardwired smoke detectors that start chirping at 3 a.m. and I don't know how to get the damned things to shut up.
I detest Wal-Marts and Wegmans and right wing radio commenters.
I detest ex-urban housing developments.
I detest a discrepancy between the rich and poor that seemed much less polarized in my youth.
In short, roll back the clock. Declare me a geezer. Laugh at my ineptitude with modern technology. I can hate the 21st century if I want to. The bored gods tell me so.
If you'll now excuse me, I'm going off to read a book.
FROM ANNE
CLUELESS GEEZER OF YESTERYEAR
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Rush, Aimee. Aimee, Rush.
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we mourn the loss of so much history that would enrich our lives if only we knew. Ancient history, modern history, it doesn't matter. When you stomp in and trample someone's god or goddess, how smart is that? You might miss an opportunity to learn something new.
For the sake of argument, let's pretend you're Rush Limbaugh.
Rush must not know the strange, twisted tale of Aimee Semple McPherson, even though it happened just 80 years ago.
For about a decade, Aimee Semple McPherson was one of the most popular voices on the radio. Radio was just finding its audience in the 1920s, and Aimee was a Christian evangelist. She performed healings and occasionally made prophecies.
Aimee preached before huge live audiences from her base in California and sometimes made national tours. Everyone who loved evangelists loved this gal.
Suddenly she up and disappears. She's gone for weeks. The local police, and then the state police, and then the FBI (I'm not sure it was the "Find Bold Insurgents" back then) poured out to search for her.
They finally found her. With money, booze, and a boyfriend, holed up in a luv nest.
Remarkably, her popularity tanked.
I ponder Aimee's predicament today after having read that Mr. Limbaugh was detained at the Miami airport for toting prescription pills in a bottle with someone else's name on it.
The pills were for ... emm ... err ... oh, we are so delicate here at "The Gods Are Bored" that we can't go into more detail! And why should we? You already know all about Rush and his little problem.
What we objected to here at "The Gods Are Bored" was Mr. Limbaugh's jokes about the pills on his popular radio show. First he said he got them at the Clinton Library (nasty), where he was told they were blue M&Ms. (Right. And OxyContin would be white M&Ms.)
But we were astounded to learn that Mr. Limbaugh added: "I had fun in the Dominican Republic. I wish I could tell you about it, but I can't."
We at "The Gods Are Bored" do not recall seeing anything in the news about a Mrs. Limbaugh accompanying Mr. Limbaugh on his vacation to the Dominican Republic.
Is it therefore safe to assume that he jetted to one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, where he purchased the services of the female citizenry for behavior requiring a certain kind of pharmaceutical?
We at "The Gods Are Bored" find that appalling. Especially the fact that Mr. Limbaugh joked about it on the air. We took a poll of gods and goddesses today, and all but Zeus condemned Mr. Limbaugh soundly.
I even polled You-Know-Who. Yes, even God Almighty thinks Rush has strayed too far from the fold. In You-Know-Who's case it wasn't so much the concubines as the bragging about it. These things should be done discreetly unless you're King Solomon.
To make a long post shorter, we here at "The Gods Are Bored" hope that this egregious faux pas on Mr. Limbaugh's part alienates his Christian following, who, if they truly practice what they preach, should be equally as affronted as they were over Monica's stained dress.
Is this Rush Limbaugh's "Aimee Semple McPherson Moment?" It should damn well be. Boasting about sexual escapades with impoverished women doesn't recommend him to us as a role model.
We won't even tell you what Chonganda wants to do with him. Or Tiki. Or Negafook. Or Chalchiuhtotolin, the Aztec God of Vomit.
On the other hand, Zeus wants a scrip.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
AREA 14, STAR 14
For the sake of argument, let's pretend you're Rush Limbaugh.
Rush must not know the strange, twisted tale of Aimee Semple McPherson, even though it happened just 80 years ago.
For about a decade, Aimee Semple McPherson was one of the most popular voices on the radio. Radio was just finding its audience in the 1920s, and Aimee was a Christian evangelist. She performed healings and occasionally made prophecies.
Aimee preached before huge live audiences from her base in California and sometimes made national tours. Everyone who loved evangelists loved this gal.
Suddenly she up and disappears. She's gone for weeks. The local police, and then the state police, and then the FBI (I'm not sure it was the "Find Bold Insurgents" back then) poured out to search for her.
They finally found her. With money, booze, and a boyfriend, holed up in a luv nest.
Remarkably, her popularity tanked.
I ponder Aimee's predicament today after having read that Mr. Limbaugh was detained at the Miami airport for toting prescription pills in a bottle with someone else's name on it.
The pills were for ... emm ... err ... oh, we are so delicate here at "The Gods Are Bored" that we can't go into more detail! And why should we? You already know all about Rush and his little problem.
What we objected to here at "The Gods Are Bored" was Mr. Limbaugh's jokes about the pills on his popular radio show. First he said he got them at the Clinton Library (nasty), where he was told they were blue M&Ms. (Right. And OxyContin would be white M&Ms.)
But we were astounded to learn that Mr. Limbaugh added: "I had fun in the Dominican Republic. I wish I could tell you about it, but I can't."
We at "The Gods Are Bored" do not recall seeing anything in the news about a Mrs. Limbaugh accompanying Mr. Limbaugh on his vacation to the Dominican Republic.
Is it therefore safe to assume that he jetted to one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, where he purchased the services of the female citizenry for behavior requiring a certain kind of pharmaceutical?
We at "The Gods Are Bored" find that appalling. Especially the fact that Mr. Limbaugh joked about it on the air. We took a poll of gods and goddesses today, and all but Zeus condemned Mr. Limbaugh soundly.
I even polled You-Know-Who. Yes, even God Almighty thinks Rush has strayed too far from the fold. In You-Know-Who's case it wasn't so much the concubines as the bragging about it. These things should be done discreetly unless you're King Solomon.
To make a long post shorter, we here at "The Gods Are Bored" hope that this egregious faux pas on Mr. Limbaugh's part alienates his Christian following, who, if they truly practice what they preach, should be equally as affronted as they were over Monica's stained dress.
Is this Rush Limbaugh's "Aimee Semple McPherson Moment?" It should damn well be. Boasting about sexual escapades with impoverished women doesn't recommend him to us as a role model.
We won't even tell you what Chonganda wants to do with him. Or Tiki. Or Negafook. Or Chalchiuhtotolin, the Aztec God of Vomit.
On the other hand, Zeus wants a scrip.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
AREA 14, STAR 14
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Laughing, Crying, Cheering, Working Magick
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Did you know that scholars have counted more than 350 Celtic deities alone? Some of them were highly localized. Why don't you adopt one for your backyard? I did, and I'm a better person for it!
Our operators are standing by to take your call.
A little navel-gazing today.
1. Last night my younger daughter, The Spare, and I did a short ceremony in our Gnomehenge, honoring the dark of the moon. My sister gave The Spare a Native American flute. (Sis can play them like she was born to them, and fortunately they don't adapt to Judeo-Christian hymnals.) The Spare played some tunes. Then, out of the blue she just started warbling James Taylor. Except she sang:
"Shower the people you love with money,
Show them your Visa Card,
They are gonna love you better
If you spend real hard."
Of course we both cracked up, and I asked her if that was a "Weird Al Yankovick" song, and she said no, she made it up. It's classic Spare.
A firefly landed on my pinkie, rested a moment, and launched into the sky. Something told me to go check my email.
Ah, readers, goat judging! Goat judging! I've gotten a small offer from a brand new customer, Classic Feta of Pickering, Ontario! That's the second small contract from a new customer this year! Hooray!
I seriously thought I was going to have to call the janitor at the Vo-Tech about painting the classrooms.
(To Rick Santorum: Have you ever heard of a woman who would willingly part from her kids to paint schoolrooms all day, just for the sheer joy of being away from the brats? PS - You're a moron.)
Okay, on to the crying portion. My oldest daughter, The Heir, took her first driving lesson this morning. She was gone three hours, during which time she and her teacher (a lovely old gent) geared up and toured the entire county.
When I learned to drive, the first road I took was the Sharpsburg Pike. In those days it ran through farm fields dotted with battle monuments and tour signs. I doubt if more than three cars passed me in thirty minutes.
My daughter's first lesson encompassed one of the most congested counties in America, a mere 8 miles from Philly, and crammed to the plimsol line with irritable drivers who live to ply the horn. But up she drove to our house, at 11 o'clock on the dot, got out of the car like a strutting peacock, grinning from ear to ear.
Readers, I wept. My best friend has changed from a chubby little tot to a superb young woman with a job, and no bad habits, and consistent individual interests. How will I bear it when she goes away to college? How did this happen before my eyes?
(Again to Rick Santorum: Don't you dare tell me I spent too much time away goat-judging. I didn't. Mostly I take my daughters with me in the summertime. And both of them are well-nourished, and they've learned that in the real world you need two incomes to make ends meet. PS - You're a moron.)
Last but not least. I'm still after Wegman's, The Posh Pit Food Emporium of the Rich and Idle.
Wegman's (see below) just opened up not far from here. They sent me a coupon book to entice me to try their posh little shop. Thanks to "Joe Sixpack," famous international beer expert, I learned that Wegmans brand eggs come from brutally tortured chickens. Hardly what you'd expect from a company that bills itself as posh and chic, eh?
Today I happened to leaf through the coupon book. The Super Offer for Week 6 was a dozen Wegmans eggs, absolutely free and extra large to boot!
Out comes the coupon from the posh little booklet. I write on it, "I'm going to tell all my friends you torture chickens." Then I stroll to the post office (same Zip as Posh) and have them hand-cancel the envelope.
The faeries loved it! Can one customer, properly demographically located, change a posh store's poultry policies? I doubt it, but you never know. So that's my "glamor bomb" for the day (others might call it magick).
May a firefly land on your finger, may a local deity take residence in your yard. (Bring the deity inside when the weather turns cold.)
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
GAINFULLY, IF NOT LAVISHLY, EMPLOYED!
Our operators are standing by to take your call.
A little navel-gazing today.
1. Last night my younger daughter, The Spare, and I did a short ceremony in our Gnomehenge, honoring the dark of the moon. My sister gave The Spare a Native American flute. (Sis can play them like she was born to them, and fortunately they don't adapt to Judeo-Christian hymnals.) The Spare played some tunes. Then, out of the blue she just started warbling James Taylor. Except she sang:
"Shower the people you love with money,
Show them your Visa Card,
They are gonna love you better
If you spend real hard."
Of course we both cracked up, and I asked her if that was a "Weird Al Yankovick" song, and she said no, she made it up. It's classic Spare.
A firefly landed on my pinkie, rested a moment, and launched into the sky. Something told me to go check my email.
Ah, readers, goat judging! Goat judging! I've gotten a small offer from a brand new customer, Classic Feta of Pickering, Ontario! That's the second small contract from a new customer this year! Hooray!
I seriously thought I was going to have to call the janitor at the Vo-Tech about painting the classrooms.
(To Rick Santorum: Have you ever heard of a woman who would willingly part from her kids to paint schoolrooms all day, just for the sheer joy of being away from the brats? PS - You're a moron.)
Okay, on to the crying portion. My oldest daughter, The Heir, took her first driving lesson this morning. She was gone three hours, during which time she and her teacher (a lovely old gent) geared up and toured the entire county.
When I learned to drive, the first road I took was the Sharpsburg Pike. In those days it ran through farm fields dotted with battle monuments and tour signs. I doubt if more than three cars passed me in thirty minutes.
My daughter's first lesson encompassed one of the most congested counties in America, a mere 8 miles from Philly, and crammed to the plimsol line with irritable drivers who live to ply the horn. But up she drove to our house, at 11 o'clock on the dot, got out of the car like a strutting peacock, grinning from ear to ear.
Readers, I wept. My best friend has changed from a chubby little tot to a superb young woman with a job, and no bad habits, and consistent individual interests. How will I bear it when she goes away to college? How did this happen before my eyes?
(Again to Rick Santorum: Don't you dare tell me I spent too much time away goat-judging. I didn't. Mostly I take my daughters with me in the summertime. And both of them are well-nourished, and they've learned that in the real world you need two incomes to make ends meet. PS - You're a moron.)
Last but not least. I'm still after Wegman's, The Posh Pit Food Emporium of the Rich and Idle.
Wegman's (see below) just opened up not far from here. They sent me a coupon book to entice me to try their posh little shop. Thanks to "Joe Sixpack," famous international beer expert, I learned that Wegmans brand eggs come from brutally tortured chickens. Hardly what you'd expect from a company that bills itself as posh and chic, eh?
Today I happened to leaf through the coupon book. The Super Offer for Week 6 was a dozen Wegmans eggs, absolutely free and extra large to boot!
Out comes the coupon from the posh little booklet. I write on it, "I'm going to tell all my friends you torture chickens." Then I stroll to the post office (same Zip as Posh) and have them hand-cancel the envelope.
The faeries loved it! Can one customer, properly demographically located, change a posh store's poultry policies? I doubt it, but you never know. So that's my "glamor bomb" for the day (others might call it magick).
May a firefly land on your finger, may a local deity take residence in your yard. (Bring the deity inside when the weather turns cold.)
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
GAINFULLY, IF NOT LAVISHLY, EMPLOYED!
Monday, June 26, 2006
Sun Strength
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we think one is no fun and many are dandy!
Some enterprising culture dragged huge stones hundreds of miles, carved them carefully, fitted them together, and made Stonehenge, the awesome calendar monument that has spanned cultures and millennia.
Are the creators of Stonehenge in hell? Gosh, how doggone fair would that be?
We won't bog this entry down with multiple examples.
The Johnson family conducted a simple Solstice ceremony in our backyard. We created a henge from lawn gnomes. We've done it before. We call it "Gnomehenge." I'll try to get a picture before the gnomes disappear back into the underbrush.
I was rather bummed by Summer Solstice, because it marks the beginning of shorter days. But yesterday I attended a helpful service of Llyn Hydd Grove, where the leader reminded us that the sun now begins to be at its most powerful and shines its beneficial rays onto the crops that sustain us.
And boy oh boy, did I need to hear the message that this is a good time to harness that sun-power and begin new projects! I hope that fact, coupled with tonight's dark of the moon, works some good karma, goat-judging wise.
County Fair season is nigh upon us, and I wanna judge goats! How long can the international conglomerate Amalgamated Goat, LLC. extend its iron grip on the goat-judging business? When will little 4-Hers long for the personal touch again?
One more word about Llyn Hydd Grove. The first time I went there, it seemed to take an eternity. This time I had a companion in the car, and the drive breezed by. I'm sure you can understand that concept.
Back to Gnomehenge.
Virtually the very moment my family assembled within its sacred, grinning concrete boundaries and begun saluting the Gods and Goddesses of the Four Corners, my next-door-neighbor came outside to water her tomato plants. The look on her face was American Express priceless.
As these little family ceremonies are often infused with mirth, we all cracked up. You see, the bored gods and goddesses don't expect you to be serious all the time, or to just politely chuckle at some sermon joke. They want you to immerse yourself in joy, so that when you fly off West you're ready for the good times!
In the name of Danu and Bile, I wish you the power of the essential sunshine!
Our operators are standing by to take your call.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Ditch That Heaven Where There Is No Beer
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your polytheistic rest stop on the crowded Turnpike of Life! Stretch your legs! Have a Cinnabon! And don't forget to patronize our God and Goddess Gift Emporium!
Today is one of those fun days when a deity has dropped by for a chat. We always enjoy that. Please give a great big round of applause to Goibhniu, Ancient Celtic God of This and That!
Goibhniu: This and that? Anne. For the love of ducks. Don't be such a wishy-washy whitewasher. I'm the god of steel weaponry, forger of swords, and as a sideline, God of beer.
Anne: I'm no fan of swords. Beer is another matter. Did you have something in particular you wanted to discuss?
Goibhniu: Just an observation. Did you know that your most recent commenter is a big-city journalist with a fascinating column about all things cheery and beery?
Anne: My soul! I had no idea! You mean this guy gets to write about beer all the time?
Goibhniu: I'm a God, and even I'm jealous.
Anne: That makes two of us. I never thought I'd hear of a job more rewarding than goat judging, but I just did.
Goibhniu: He has a web site too. It's here.
Anne: By all that's holy, I say wow-eeee! We here at "The Gods Are Bored" have an official astrologer, but we're sorely in need of an expert on The Liquid Without Which Life Would Be Intolerable.
Goibhniu: What's your favorite brand?
Anne: I like it from the tap. Otherwise, anything goes, even if I have to lap it out of a feed sack.
Goibhniu: I'd like to watch that.
Anne: So, honored deity. There's a song that goes: "In heaven there is no beer, that's why we drink it here." Is that true?
Goibhniu: Depends entirely upon the pantheon you choose to worship. The ancient Egyptians took it with them. And we Celtic deities would never dream of throwing a party without it.
Anne: I guess the best part about drinking in the Afterworld is that you don't need a designated driver.
Goibhniu: Absolutely correct. Although sometimes the pixies get all tangled together and stay that way until they're sobered up.
Anne: So if I were to be a member of the Druid praise and worship team, for instance, I could look forward to a heavenly keg party now and then?
Goibhniu: How could it be heaven without beer?
Anne: Point taken. Thank you, Goibhniu, for joining us today at "The Gods Are Bored!" I'll pray to you the next time I hoist a brimming tankard!
Goibhniu: Just don't drink and drive.
Anne: Spoken like a God who loves and cares for me! All hail Goibhniu, all hail beer!
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
AREA 14, STAR 14
Today is one of those fun days when a deity has dropped by for a chat. We always enjoy that. Please give a great big round of applause to Goibhniu, Ancient Celtic God of This and That!
Goibhniu: This and that? Anne. For the love of ducks. Don't be such a wishy-washy whitewasher. I'm the god of steel weaponry, forger of swords, and as a sideline, God of beer.
Anne: I'm no fan of swords. Beer is another matter. Did you have something in particular you wanted to discuss?
Goibhniu: Just an observation. Did you know that your most recent commenter is a big-city journalist with a fascinating column about all things cheery and beery?
Anne: My soul! I had no idea! You mean this guy gets to write about beer all the time?
Goibhniu: I'm a God, and even I'm jealous.
Anne: That makes two of us. I never thought I'd hear of a job more rewarding than goat judging, but I just did.
Goibhniu: He has a web site too. It's here.
Anne: By all that's holy, I say wow-eeee! We here at "The Gods Are Bored" have an official astrologer, but we're sorely in need of an expert on The Liquid Without Which Life Would Be Intolerable.
Goibhniu: What's your favorite brand?
Anne: I like it from the tap. Otherwise, anything goes, even if I have to lap it out of a feed sack.
Goibhniu: I'd like to watch that.
Anne: So, honored deity. There's a song that goes: "In heaven there is no beer, that's why we drink it here." Is that true?
Goibhniu: Depends entirely upon the pantheon you choose to worship. The ancient Egyptians took it with them. And we Celtic deities would never dream of throwing a party without it.
Anne: I guess the best part about drinking in the Afterworld is that you don't need a designated driver.
Goibhniu: Absolutely correct. Although sometimes the pixies get all tangled together and stay that way until they're sobered up.
Anne: So if I were to be a member of the Druid praise and worship team, for instance, I could look forward to a heavenly keg party now and then?
Goibhniu: How could it be heaven without beer?
Anne: Point taken. Thank you, Goibhniu, for joining us today at "The Gods Are Bored!" I'll pray to you the next time I hoist a brimming tankard!
Goibhniu: Just don't drink and drive.
Anne: Spoken like a God who loves and cares for me! All hail Goibhniu, all hail beer!
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
AREA 14, STAR 14
Friday, June 23, 2006
Anne vs. Wegmans - The Knockout Blow
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we, as goat judges, recognize that all food-producing animals receive inhumane treatment at some point in their lives.
Gosh, goats will wander a square mile of barbed wire fence, looking for that one little hole they can squeeze through. A big part of goat-judging is finding the holes before the goats do.
But I was horrified to learn, from one of my legions of commenters in the previous post on Wegmans, that Wegmans stands soundly in the KFC ("Killing Friendly Chickens") camp when it comes to production of their store-bought eggs. Check my comments below and follow "Joe Sixpack's" links.
I just sent Wegmans a strongly-worded email, and when they see my Zip code, they're gonna perk up and stop ripping beaks off their electric-caged hens.
And, if you recall, I did purchase a dozen eggs there. I was just getting ready to feed the goats and the foster kitten and then make breakfast. If those eggs are Wegmans brand, they go into the garbage and we have goat feed instead.
FROM ANNE
FOOL ME ONCE, WEGMANS, SHAME ON YOU
FOOL ME ... UHHHHH ... UHHHHH ... UMMMM
(Assist by George W. Bush)
Gosh, goats will wander a square mile of barbed wire fence, looking for that one little hole they can squeeze through. A big part of goat-judging is finding the holes before the goats do.
But I was horrified to learn, from one of my legions of commenters in the previous post on Wegmans, that Wegmans stands soundly in the KFC ("Killing Friendly Chickens") camp when it comes to production of their store-bought eggs. Check my comments below and follow "Joe Sixpack's" links.
I just sent Wegmans a strongly-worded email, and when they see my Zip code, they're gonna perk up and stop ripping beaks off their electric-caged hens.
And, if you recall, I did purchase a dozen eggs there. I was just getting ready to feed the goats and the foster kitten and then make breakfast. If those eggs are Wegmans brand, they go into the garbage and we have goat feed instead.
FROM ANNE
FOOL ME ONCE, WEGMANS, SHAME ON YOU
FOOL ME ... UHHHHH ... UHHHHH ... UMMMM
(Assist by George W. Bush)
Thursday, June 22, 2006
On Tonight's Card: Anne vs. Wegmans
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we just witnessed the final day of school at the Vo-Tech where Anne substitutes!
Wouldn't it be dull and lifeless if only one student had come out of the building, cheered into the echoing stillness, got into his or her car, and drove away honking?
Think of the Class of 2006 as a bunch of bored gods! Enough for a party, for a caravan of honking, cheering, hugging, kissing, paper-flinging -- and overjoyed -- students! Adopt a pantheon today! One is the loneliest number.
With much fanfare, a Wegmans super duper market has opened in my neighborhood. Maybe you've heard of this phenomenon. They have a huge cafe, a coffee shop, cases and cases of prepared food that you can take home, chefs doing cooking demonstrations. Then they have oodles and oodles of fresh organic produce (a dozen varieties of apples alone), and all the conventional produce. Little kiosks sell fresh-baked cookies. It took them a month to get the brick oven properly fired up so it can spit out designer bread. You can buy morels at $40 a pound and shrimp so large you only get 4 to a pound. Yep, a quarter pounder shrimp.
Cheese? Have they got cheese! I counted seven different brands of goat cheese (my particular interest of course).
Then they have a humongous specialty section with Japanese soft drinks, German pickled beets, English cookies, Israeli crackers, whole kosher aisles, organic canned goods, and organic cosmetics, etc. etc. etc. After you've slogged through this, you come to a more or less conventional, albeit humongous, grocery store.
If by conventional you include a freezer holding six different varieties of Klondike bars.
All of this presented to you in a dimly-lit, cavernous complex with a burnt-orange steel ceiling that admits no light. As in a casino, you can't tell if it's daytime or nighttime outside.
Still, I was curious.
I decided to make a list of items that a snobby mega-store like Wegmans ought to have, then put this behemouth to the test. It was a short list:
1. Sour cherries. AKA pie cherries.
2. Tab Cola. Not "Tab Energy."
3. (Bonus item - automatic A-plus)
4. Antipodes Sparkling Water, product of New Zealand.
The results of my Wegmans test:
1. The nice guy in Produce said I was the second person to ask for pie cherries in a week, but they did not have any fresh ones, only frozen ones. This is peak pie cherry season. (Score= 0)
2. Three different kinds of Dr. Pepper and three varieties of Sprite. No Tab cola. Not a single six-pack. (Score= 0)
3. Okay, all right, they aren't gonna have this item, the 2006 Gold Medal-winner at the Berkeley Springs Water Tasting Festival. But considering the fact that the Antipodes company sent two representatives to Berkeley Springs just in the hope of winning a medal and increasing the brand's exposure in America, you'd think a top-class shopping experience like Wegmans would stock it. (Score= 0)
There you have it. Wegmans flunks the Anne test!
Ooooops! I forgot the worst of it!
A nice lady was handing out little paper cup samples containing a melange of prime cured olives, sun-dried marinated tomatoes, and feta cheese. Had to try that one. A registered goat judge knows her feta like a NASCAR driver knows his racer.
"What is in this feta?" I asked, as a peculiar sensation developed on my tastebuds.
"Oh, that's a very special cheese," the lady purred. "It's half goat cheese and half sheep cheese."
AAAAAAAUUUUUUUGHHH! Sacrilage! Blasphemy! Armageddon Has Arrived!
A mixture of goat and sheep? Well hell, why don't we just go get a bottle of Chardonnay and stir it into a bottle of Shiraz? Bet that'll taste swell.
Ack. I'm still tasting that cloned disaster of a cheese.
So, the million dollar question in this lengthy entry:
Did I buy anything?
Well, readers, I was there. You know how it is.
I bought eggs, a quart of Breyer's vanilla ice cream, Berry Berry Kix cereal, and Schwepps tonic water. All items needed immediately at Chateau Johnson. And, I might note, all items that I can purchase at the little grocery store within walking distance, the dear little Acme, crammed into a former Quaker meetinghouse and staffed with union labor.
Wegmans: A monument to conspicuous consumption, a symbol of American excess, the newest hangout for those rich people who got George Bush's tax breaks. By aisle 132 you have vertigo, by checkout you're pledging the flag.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF ACME MARKETS
Wouldn't it be dull and lifeless if only one student had come out of the building, cheered into the echoing stillness, got into his or her car, and drove away honking?
Think of the Class of 2006 as a bunch of bored gods! Enough for a party, for a caravan of honking, cheering, hugging, kissing, paper-flinging -- and overjoyed -- students! Adopt a pantheon today! One is the loneliest number.
With much fanfare, a Wegmans super duper market has opened in my neighborhood. Maybe you've heard of this phenomenon. They have a huge cafe, a coffee shop, cases and cases of prepared food that you can take home, chefs doing cooking demonstrations. Then they have oodles and oodles of fresh organic produce (a dozen varieties of apples alone), and all the conventional produce. Little kiosks sell fresh-baked cookies. It took them a month to get the brick oven properly fired up so it can spit out designer bread. You can buy morels at $40 a pound and shrimp so large you only get 4 to a pound. Yep, a quarter pounder shrimp.
Cheese? Have they got cheese! I counted seven different brands of goat cheese (my particular interest of course).
Then they have a humongous specialty section with Japanese soft drinks, German pickled beets, English cookies, Israeli crackers, whole kosher aisles, organic canned goods, and organic cosmetics, etc. etc. etc. After you've slogged through this, you come to a more or less conventional, albeit humongous, grocery store.
If by conventional you include a freezer holding six different varieties of Klondike bars.
All of this presented to you in a dimly-lit, cavernous complex with a burnt-orange steel ceiling that admits no light. As in a casino, you can't tell if it's daytime or nighttime outside.
Still, I was curious.
I decided to make a list of items that a snobby mega-store like Wegmans ought to have, then put this behemouth to the test. It was a short list:
1. Sour cherries. AKA pie cherries.
2. Tab Cola. Not "Tab Energy."
3. (Bonus item - automatic A-plus)
4. Antipodes Sparkling Water, product of New Zealand.
The results of my Wegmans test:
1. The nice guy in Produce said I was the second person to ask for pie cherries in a week, but they did not have any fresh ones, only frozen ones. This is peak pie cherry season. (Score= 0)
2. Three different kinds of Dr. Pepper and three varieties of Sprite. No Tab cola. Not a single six-pack. (Score= 0)
3. Okay, all right, they aren't gonna have this item, the 2006 Gold Medal-winner at the Berkeley Springs Water Tasting Festival. But considering the fact that the Antipodes company sent two representatives to Berkeley Springs just in the hope of winning a medal and increasing the brand's exposure in America, you'd think a top-class shopping experience like Wegmans would stock it. (Score= 0)
There you have it. Wegmans flunks the Anne test!
Ooooops! I forgot the worst of it!
A nice lady was handing out little paper cup samples containing a melange of prime cured olives, sun-dried marinated tomatoes, and feta cheese. Had to try that one. A registered goat judge knows her feta like a NASCAR driver knows his racer.
"What is in this feta?" I asked, as a peculiar sensation developed on my tastebuds.
"Oh, that's a very special cheese," the lady purred. "It's half goat cheese and half sheep cheese."
AAAAAAAUUUUUUUGHHH! Sacrilage! Blasphemy! Armageddon Has Arrived!
A mixture of goat and sheep? Well hell, why don't we just go get a bottle of Chardonnay and stir it into a bottle of Shiraz? Bet that'll taste swell.
Ack. I'm still tasting that cloned disaster of a cheese.
So, the million dollar question in this lengthy entry:
Did I buy anything?
Well, readers, I was there. You know how it is.
I bought eggs, a quart of Breyer's vanilla ice cream, Berry Berry Kix cereal, and Schwepps tonic water. All items needed immediately at Chateau Johnson. And, I might note, all items that I can purchase at the little grocery store within walking distance, the dear little Acme, crammed into a former Quaker meetinghouse and staffed with union labor.
Wegmans: A monument to conspicuous consumption, a symbol of American excess, the newest hangout for those rich people who got George Bush's tax breaks. By aisle 132 you have vertigo, by checkout you're pledging the flag.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF ACME MARKETS
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Solstice Greetings
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we welcome the many thousands of gods and goddesses, most forgotten, who have inspired and protected the human race since its ancestors crawled onto the savannah.
Today is Summer Solstice, a bittersweet day if you crave sunlight. For now the days will begin to grow shorter, even as the weather warms. But mindful of my legions of readers Down Under, I'm sure you've been anticipating this moment, so now you get the rays!
Here is a lovely Solstice prayer, courtesy of a neat website with the fabulous name of Mything Links:.
"...I, Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Nation, humblely ask that the spirit of great Nations help us to heal our sacred Mother Earth (Unci Maka). I call upon other Spiritual Leaders and Ancient Storytellers to work together on this urgent effort!"
So might it be.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
AREA 14, STAR 14
Monday, June 19, 2006
Pre-Solstice Faeries for Your Viewing Pleasure!
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" A picture paints a thousand words, don't you agree?
Someone wanted to peek at Seitou's artwork. Here's a nice solstice sampling. Remember, these pictures belong to Seitou, and she can be reached through my email on my profile page. Seitou is just a young whippersnapper starting out in the world and needs your support!
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S FAERIE FEAST
This is Faye.
This is Patience.
With her mask, Kitsune_no_Kamen.
Waiting.
These are just the "quickies." Seitou is creating faerie posters too! May she be led to the source of all enlightenment!
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
Someone wanted to peek at Seitou's artwork. Here's a nice solstice sampling. Remember, these pictures belong to Seitou, and she can be reached through my email on my profile page. Seitou is just a young whippersnapper starting out in the world and needs your support!
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S FAERIE FEAST
This is Faye.
This is Patience.With her mask, Kitsune_no_Kamen.
Waiting.
These are just the "quickies." Seitou is creating faerie posters too! May she be led to the source of all enlightenment!
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
Saturday, June 17, 2006
My Loss Is Captain Hook's Gain
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," and Happy Father's Day!
If you're just joining us, we celebrate all that is various and wonderful in the universe of religious beliefs.
For instance, some people pray to God the Father, and some people pray to God the Mother. In our book, whatever floats your boat and gets it over the falls is A-OK. Even God the Buzzard.
My dad was a wonderful dad. His dad was a wonderful granddad. If they had hooked arms and started strolling across the Potomac, right on top of the water like Jesus, I wouldn't have blinked an eye.
Dad died in 2004.
When my dad was dying, he told me he saw Peter Pan standing in the doorway of his hospital room.
That's how I know that Dad went to Neverland to fight pirates. He must love it there.
I didn't argue with the mega-church sister when she insisted on the big evangelical funeral and burial of Dad's ashes in Mom's plot in the Cemetery of the Confederate Dead. Because Dad's doing the aerial thing with Tinker Bell, and no amount of promising that he's gone to The Lord (and I won't) will change that.
I asked for a fistful of Dad's ashes. I took them to the cemetery where Granddad is buried. If you've ever tried to dig a hole in the Allegheny Mountains with a plastic spoon, you'll know that I wasn't very successful at interring Dad's ashes atop Granddad's grave.
Nevertheless, I do hop on by that cemetery sometimes and heave a pretty bouquet of silk flowers on the spot. It's purely a ceremonial gesture. I know Dad's putting it to Captain Hook and flirting with Tiger Lily.
Granddad's probably not in Neverland. He'd be happier fixing something that was broken, especially if he had to look into a microscope to do it.
I've never been a great beauty, or had money I didn't have to budget. I've never been the best at anything I tried. But when it came to a father and a grandfather, I top the heap, I lap the field, I help the other breathless climbers to the summit.
My dad and my granddad were superior human beings, treasure of the rarest form. Nothing Captain Hook has squirreled away in the hold of his ship can compare to them.
In fact, I'd bet the most recent foster kitten that Hook's got his hands full with the new kid in Neverland. Second star to the right. Straight through till morning.
Love you, Dad.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
Friday, June 16, 2006
Muck About a Bit!
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we promise pure promotion of polytheism! Come and see us for all your deity needs! Same-day delivery available.
You know, Americans worry about the environment, all that pollution and stuff. But the fact is that, individual for individual, we are cleaner today than ever in the course of history.
I don't have to drag a bunch of bored gods in here to report on how fragrant their praise and worship teams were in the past, do I? As opposed to your Sunday services these days, when folks show up freshly showered and only reluctantly shake hands with the greeters.
Look at this. I just pulled it off the Yahoo wire:
WASHINGTON - Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick.
You know what makes me sick? The fact that scientists are being paid to prove that scummy wild rats have healthier immune systems than squeaky clean lab rats. I could have told you that off the top of my head. And I'm unemployed. Where's my doggone grant money?
I can't ever get this guy's name spelled right, but Nietzsche is famous for saying, "That which does not kill me only makes me stronger." Take it from someone who watched the flies in her grandparents' outhouse and then came inside to see them feasting on the shoo-fly pie: Your immune system needs a workout.
Sure, the antibacterial soap works great, and the laundry detergent, and the Bactine. But let's get real. Our ancestors survived long enough to have children, and they lived in the same house as their farm animals (at least mine did).
Maybe if we didn't medicate every grippe and spend our hard-earned money avoiding the grippe, we'd be better prepared internally when bird flu arrived at our door.
So now I have two reasons not to swat the fly buzzing around my head: Right to Life for Flies, and Strengthened Immune System for Anne.
For those of you looking for a religious viewpoint, consider this: Vultures live to be 100 years old. All hail the Sacred Thunderbird! Amen.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
You know, Americans worry about the environment, all that pollution and stuff. But the fact is that, individual for individual, we are cleaner today than ever in the course of history.
I don't have to drag a bunch of bored gods in here to report on how fragrant their praise and worship teams were in the past, do I? As opposed to your Sunday services these days, when folks show up freshly showered and only reluctantly shake hands with the greeters.
Look at this. I just pulled it off the Yahoo wire:
WASHINGTON - Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick.
You know what makes me sick? The fact that scientists are being paid to prove that scummy wild rats have healthier immune systems than squeaky clean lab rats. I could have told you that off the top of my head. And I'm unemployed. Where's my doggone grant money?
I can't ever get this guy's name spelled right, but Nietzsche is famous for saying, "That which does not kill me only makes me stronger." Take it from someone who watched the flies in her grandparents' outhouse and then came inside to see them feasting on the shoo-fly pie: Your immune system needs a workout.
Sure, the antibacterial soap works great, and the laundry detergent, and the Bactine. But let's get real. Our ancestors survived long enough to have children, and they lived in the same house as their farm animals (at least mine did).
Maybe if we didn't medicate every grippe and spend our hard-earned money avoiding the grippe, we'd be better prepared internally when bird flu arrived at our door.
So now I have two reasons not to swat the fly buzzing around my head: Right to Life for Flies, and Strengthened Immune System for Anne.
For those of you looking for a religious viewpoint, consider this: Vultures live to be 100 years old. All hail the Sacred Thunderbird! Amen.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Introducing Our Astrologer!
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," polytheistic pandemonium on a parsimonious paycheck! We hope you like beans and cornbread.
Remember, corn as we know it is a gift of the bored gods of the Western Hemisphere. So thank them and not that other guy, if you catch my drift.
What would a multi-pantheon web site be without a certified astrologer?
Well, now we have one, and she's a whopper.
Her name is Jeanne Mozier. She lives in (big surprise here) Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Jeanne has many and various talents, one of them being the finest laugh south of the Potomac. She has written two books, Way Out in West Virginia and Wonders of West Virginia. The latter is a perfectly stunning coffee table book. Way Out is a fun tourist guide to all the state's weird stuff. (Well, some of it anyway. No publisher is gonna print a book with 1000 pages.)
Jeanne also owns the Star Theatre in Berkeley Springs. It's a fabulous old-timey movie house, small and fun, with a popcorn machine from the 1940s, cheap ticket prices, and first-run movies on the weekends. I wanted to post a photo of this charmer, but I couldn't get one to load.
Anyway, Jeanne has gained some national notice for her charts, a talent we at "The Gods Are Bored" do not possess and are not particularly keen to learn. So if you want a two-week horoscope at a glance, go to Jeanne. She will be in my sidebar permanently.
Some of you might want to know why Dick Cheney has bad aim, or why Emperor George W. acts the way he does. Well, voila! Jeanne also does a national horoscope so that you can truly predict the unpredictable!
Her full site is here.
So, Jeanne, welcome to the comfy, cozy environs of "The Gods Are Bored!" We can't compete with those soft sofas in the Star (50 cents extra on your $3.25 ticket). So if you can't beat 'em, or even play in their league, you sign 'em up.
You'd like her. Trust me.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
AREA 14, STAR 14
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Prince and Beggar Alike
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We support the deities of old and their marvelous afterworlds, some of which are separated into "good folks" and "bad folks."
Yesterday I learned of the death of Ken Thomson, the richest man in Canada, chief stockholder of International Thomson, Inc. Mr. Thomson's net worth is estimated at $19.2 billion dollars. He had a loving children and has a son who is carrying on the good ol' family business. Also he donated his lavish art collection, estimated at more than $30 million, to a Canadian museum.
Mr. Thomson was 82.
Now he's trying to shove his skinny CEO butt through the eye of a needle. Astride a camel.
Mr. Thomson bought the mid-sized, family-owned business I worked for. He accelerated production schedules, laid off full-time salaried workers in favor of "independent contractors" (no benefits), and cared far less about quality than quantity. The product now sold by the Thomson subsidiary I used to work for is a shadow of its former self, a cubic zircon demoted from a diamond. And every day the product grows shoddier and shoddier, its standards lowered and its "independent contractors," even the trained ones, unable to meet the ever-increasing demands while dealing with the ever-dwindling fees for service.
In the 1980s, several hundred people earned a good living proudly producing a quality product. Today a skeleton staff depends on outside producers to create an item so inferior it's embarrassing. International Thomson has squeezed at least one business for every last drop of blood.
Is my experience the exception to the rule? Oh, I think not. Thomson owns so many different kinds of companies, and chances are every one of them has been similarly milked dry in the pursuit of that $19.6 BILLION.
But Death comes to us all, right kind readers? A day may come when wealthy people like Ken Thomson can get their organs cloned and live to be 400, but it's not here yet. So, just like the poor, innocent Black guy strapped to a gurney for a lethal injection, or the poor little old lady who can't afford her heart pills, Ken's toast.
If he was a Christian, he'd better hope he got to the Pearly Gates as thin as a sewing thread. Because otherwise, all the ordinary little folks like me who've gotten downsized in "revised head counts" will show up on his Celestial Resume.
In fact, the bored gods tell me you can't buy your way into any pleasant afterlife, no matter how well-heeled you are. That went out with the Egyptians and has never returned.
Bon Voyage, Ken. Nice camel.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
REVISED HEAD COUNT VICTIM, 2004
Yesterday I learned of the death of Ken Thomson, the richest man in Canada, chief stockholder of International Thomson, Inc. Mr. Thomson's net worth is estimated at $19.2 billion dollars. He had a loving children and has a son who is carrying on the good ol' family business. Also he donated his lavish art collection, estimated at more than $30 million, to a Canadian museum.
Mr. Thomson was 82.
Now he's trying to shove his skinny CEO butt through the eye of a needle. Astride a camel.
Mr. Thomson bought the mid-sized, family-owned business I worked for. He accelerated production schedules, laid off full-time salaried workers in favor of "independent contractors" (no benefits), and cared far less about quality than quantity. The product now sold by the Thomson subsidiary I used to work for is a shadow of its former self, a cubic zircon demoted from a diamond. And every day the product grows shoddier and shoddier, its standards lowered and its "independent contractors," even the trained ones, unable to meet the ever-increasing demands while dealing with the ever-dwindling fees for service.
In the 1980s, several hundred people earned a good living proudly producing a quality product. Today a skeleton staff depends on outside producers to create an item so inferior it's embarrassing. International Thomson has squeezed at least one business for every last drop of blood.
Is my experience the exception to the rule? Oh, I think not. Thomson owns so many different kinds of companies, and chances are every one of them has been similarly milked dry in the pursuit of that $19.6 BILLION.
But Death comes to us all, right kind readers? A day may come when wealthy people like Ken Thomson can get their organs cloned and live to be 400, but it's not here yet. So, just like the poor, innocent Black guy strapped to a gurney for a lethal injection, or the poor little old lady who can't afford her heart pills, Ken's toast.
If he was a Christian, he'd better hope he got to the Pearly Gates as thin as a sewing thread. Because otherwise, all the ordinary little folks like me who've gotten downsized in "revised head counts" will show up on his Celestial Resume.
In fact, the bored gods tell me you can't buy your way into any pleasant afterlife, no matter how well-heeled you are. That went out with the Egyptians and has never returned.
Bon Voyage, Ken. Nice camel.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
REVISED HEAD COUNT VICTIM, 2004
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
New Video Game: Convert or Be Crushed!
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," the world's ultimate stroll down Ancient Gods and Goddesses Boulevard! And today we're going to dine at Cathar Cafe.Join us if you dare.
Perhaps you've heard of the Cathars. They were a Medieval sect of Christians who had very weird beliefs (including a loathing for the corporeal that probably would have done them in Shaker-style).
One of the aspects of the Medieval church that the Cathars rejected was the papacy.
Uh oh.
Besieged, tortured, crushed, mangled, exterminated to a man and woman. The basic message sent to these folks by the pope, via his armed forces the Knights Templar, was "get back in the fold, or die."
Hey, the Jews got this all the time in the Middle Ages. Convert or die. Later it was the Protestants. Hugenots. Etc. etc. etc. Lists are boring, right?
Well, there's good news for all of you out there who would grab the flaming torch and set the Cathars a-burnin! "Convert or Die" is back in style!
I'm some months late on this news, but here it is:
Tyndale House, publisher of the Left Behind series, will soon release a video game called Left Behind: Eternal Forces.
The game was created to appeal to the crowd that surged to "Passion of the Christ" to see Jesus get all bloodied up.
The plot and goals are simple enough: It's Post-Rapture, all the Black Bumper Mennonites have been scooped up bodily, leaving behind their sensible cars and their tidy churches and their verdant farms. Everyone else is "Left Behind" to fight the Great Beast. Emmmm. I mean, "Mr. Applegate" and his Forces of Evil. The gamer, as hero, needs to convert new followers to Christianity to help stem this tide of Celestial Villainy.
Yes, you are allowed to snuff the enemy, using your advanced weaponry. However, you earn a better score if you convert heathens to Christianity.
An illustration from the game:
A quote from its creator:
Left Behind Games CEO Troy Lyndon, whose company went public in February, says the game's Christian themes will grab the audience that didn't mind gore in "The Passion of the Christ." "We've thought through how the Christian right and the liberal left will slam us," says Lyndon. "But megachurches are very likely to embrace this game." Though it will be marketed directly to congregations, Forces will also have a secular ad campaign in gaming magazines.
So there you have it, folks! Heil Jesus! Convert or die! Why deny the poor little megachurch youngsters their version of Grand Theft Auto? Let 'em blast away at those sinners! Holy warfare!
We at "The Gods Are Bored" have one question about Left Behind: Eternal Forces.
How many points do you get for slamming a jet plane into a high rise full of sinners?
FROM ANNE
HOPING TO BE CHANGING THE CAR OIL DURING RAPTURE
Monday, June 12, 2006
On Mission in West Virginia
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," serving the large community of under-utilized deities since 2005! I'm Anne Johnson, the Chief Missionary, and today I'm submitting a nice little report about my activities. Afterwards the ushers will pass the plate, and I hope you're inspired to help me continue my good works!
1. My daughter The Heir and I went to West Virginia to participate in a faerie weekend, culminating at a ball in a real castle. The Heir is my diamond, my forever love, my best friend and soulmate. (And of course, when you're doing missionary work, you need to have such a partner, or it's stressful.)
2. I purchased a costume for the Faerie Parade at the local thrift store. While I was there, I saw an adorable toy starfish that matched the costume. So I bought the starfish too, figuring it would be a nice prop in Berkeley Springs, where the whole town is built around a Sacred Spring.
3. Some time back, I purchased a riotously loud blue tye-dye hooded sweatshirt that would be perfect for a Grateful Dead concert but was less than a hit with the old spouse. None too subtly, I was told to slap the sweatshirt on a catapult and heave it as far as it could travel with the wind at its back.
4. At the Beltane festival of Llyn Hydd Grove, I received a polished stone. The instructions were to throw it into the sea.
MISSIONARY TASKS COMPLETED IN THE NAME OF THE GREAT GENTRY OF SIDHE:
1. During the Faerie Parade, I gave the stuffed toy starfish to an adorable little 3-year-old girl standing on the sidewalk with her parents. I told her it was a gift from her "personal faerie." She hugged the heck out of me, and that's the first toddler hug I've gotten in awhile, my tots being at the "take me to the mall" phase.
The girl's parents thanked me, and I said, "Oh, don't thank me. Thank the fae."
Converts to the True Religion, this sweet young family? Possibly.
2. Next morning, off to visit the mega-church sister. Her soulless subdivision has a neighborhood-wide yard sale every year. I must admit it's a good place to pick up pots and pans, and I got a tablecloth that can be used as faerie wear. The Heir loves yard sales and flea markets, so she was blissfully happy.
Sis treated us to lunch. She had two other guests: her friend and friend's daughter who go to the mega-church. Chillingly, when The Heir asked the girl where she attended high school, the girl said "Faith Christian Academy." FCA is notorious for its Literal Biblical Interpretation Teaching. Meaning you ain't gonna hear the word "Australopithecus" in that educational institution.
After a lengthy lunchtime prayer to Father God, delivered by sis, we tucked into pizza. The FCA girl looked over at me, and guess what I was wearing? The neon blue tie-dyed hoodie! FCA girl says, "Oh, I love your sweatshirt!" And I said, "You do?" I promptly removed it and handed it right over to her. I explained to the bland mom that my husband had asked me to jettison it, and what better way than to give it to someone who will use it?
That FCA teenager was so wordlessly thrilled with the sweatshirt that it filled this druid's heart with love and joy! Perhaps, the shirt having come from Woodstock Trading Company (in sidebar), it will channel the gentle spirit of Jerry Garcia into this girl's life in time to save her from submission to the barking dogma in her school.
3. Last, but not least. On a cloudless and cool mountain morning, with no one else about, I committed my Llyn Hydd Grove pebble to the little dry run branch I'm trying to save, Terrapin Run. (See "Save Terrapin Run" in sidebar)
You might be thinking, "Hey. That's not the ocean. That's a little streambed that's dry in the summer months and barely flowing right now."
O ye of little faith! Do you not know that a little pebble can lie dormant in a dry branch in the mountains, until suddenly a flash flood comes along and rolls the pebble into a bigger stream, and from there another flood carries it to the Potomac, and from there in the fullness of time, it will seek the salt and the world where the water flows uphill.
Patience and the feeling of being connected to the Millennial Rhythms of Nature is a hallmark of some of the most ancient of the bored gods.
A little girl will love faeries because one of them gave her a toy.
A teenaged girl will begin to question the answers because she's suddenly wearing a Jerry Garcia hoodie.
A mountain stream will continue to run, unpolluted, because a believer casts her prayers into it and trusts the Gentry to protect it.
So, Missionary Annie says, spread a little goodness about and see if it sprouts here and there. The stream you save may be your own.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
On Mission to Appalachia
1. My daughter The Heir and I went to West Virginia to participate in a faerie weekend, culminating at a ball in a real castle. The Heir is my diamond, my forever love, my best friend and soulmate. (And of course, when you're doing missionary work, you need to have such a partner, or it's stressful.)
2. I purchased a costume for the Faerie Parade at the local thrift store. While I was there, I saw an adorable toy starfish that matched the costume. So I bought the starfish too, figuring it would be a nice prop in Berkeley Springs, where the whole town is built around a Sacred Spring.
3. Some time back, I purchased a riotously loud blue tye-dye hooded sweatshirt that would be perfect for a Grateful Dead concert but was less than a hit with the old spouse. None too subtly, I was told to slap the sweatshirt on a catapult and heave it as far as it could travel with the wind at its back.
4. At the Beltane festival of Llyn Hydd Grove, I received a polished stone. The instructions were to throw it into the sea.
MISSIONARY TASKS COMPLETED IN THE NAME OF THE GREAT GENTRY OF SIDHE:
1. During the Faerie Parade, I gave the stuffed toy starfish to an adorable little 3-year-old girl standing on the sidewalk with her parents. I told her it was a gift from her "personal faerie." She hugged the heck out of me, and that's the first toddler hug I've gotten in awhile, my tots being at the "take me to the mall" phase.
The girl's parents thanked me, and I said, "Oh, don't thank me. Thank the fae."
Converts to the True Religion, this sweet young family? Possibly.
2. Next morning, off to visit the mega-church sister. Her soulless subdivision has a neighborhood-wide yard sale every year. I must admit it's a good place to pick up pots and pans, and I got a tablecloth that can be used as faerie wear. The Heir loves yard sales and flea markets, so she was blissfully happy.
Sis treated us to lunch. She had two other guests: her friend and friend's daughter who go to the mega-church. Chillingly, when The Heir asked the girl where she attended high school, the girl said "Faith Christian Academy." FCA is notorious for its Literal Biblical Interpretation Teaching. Meaning you ain't gonna hear the word "Australopithecus" in that educational institution.
After a lengthy lunchtime prayer to Father God, delivered by sis, we tucked into pizza. The FCA girl looked over at me, and guess what I was wearing? The neon blue tie-dyed hoodie! FCA girl says, "Oh, I love your sweatshirt!" And I said, "You do?" I promptly removed it and handed it right over to her. I explained to the bland mom that my husband had asked me to jettison it, and what better way than to give it to someone who will use it?
That FCA teenager was so wordlessly thrilled with the sweatshirt that it filled this druid's heart with love and joy! Perhaps, the shirt having come from Woodstock Trading Company (in sidebar), it will channel the gentle spirit of Jerry Garcia into this girl's life in time to save her from submission to the barking dogma in her school.
3. Last, but not least. On a cloudless and cool mountain morning, with no one else about, I committed my Llyn Hydd Grove pebble to the little dry run branch I'm trying to save, Terrapin Run. (See "Save Terrapin Run" in sidebar)
You might be thinking, "Hey. That's not the ocean. That's a little streambed that's dry in the summer months and barely flowing right now."
O ye of little faith! Do you not know that a little pebble can lie dormant in a dry branch in the mountains, until suddenly a flash flood comes along and rolls the pebble into a bigger stream, and from there another flood carries it to the Potomac, and from there in the fullness of time, it will seek the salt and the world where the water flows uphill.
Patience and the feeling of being connected to the Millennial Rhythms of Nature is a hallmark of some of the most ancient of the bored gods.
A little girl will love faeries because one of them gave her a toy.
A teenaged girl will begin to question the answers because she's suddenly wearing a Jerry Garcia hoodie.
A mountain stream will continue to run, unpolluted, because a believer casts her prayers into it and trusts the Gentry to protect it.
So, Missionary Annie says, spread a little goodness about and see if it sprouts here and there. The stream you save may be your own.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
On Mission to Appalachia
What's Up, Pope?
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" This is a pagan site, dedicated to rounding up millions of Jews and killing them, in preparation for rounding up even more Christians and killing them.
We here at "The Gods Are Bored" are grateful to His Holiness, Pope Benedict Whatever, for explaining that the Holocaust was engineered and carried out by "neo-pagans." Since "neo" means "new," that must mean anyone who has newly become a pagan. So that includes moi!
So. Fair warning. The next time you see people in flowing robes, dancing around a Maypole and saying prayers to goddesses and stuff, please be aware that they are merely plotting their next Final Solution.
Yeah, it works like this. Anne can't even pull baby oak trees up in her garden, but she'd have no problem shoving Pat Robertson and all his followers into gas chambers and bulldozing the bodies into mountainous piles.
Oh PLEEEEEEEEEEEZE!
Pat, you're safe in my house, you can eat my good country cookin', you can go out into the barnyard and chat up my ram John Henry, you can sleep in my fold-out bed, and you can use my water closet. The same goes for all you Roman Catholics out there. My two best friends are Roman Catholic, my in-laws are all Roman Catholic (husband lapsed, not my fault), and I have even been known to come to the defense of Roman Catholic priests on this very site.
So, Pat and Pope, I guess I'm a thorn in your sides, but you sure ain't no big fat problem to me. I figure it like this: You keep making these idiot statements, you'll give us pagans a real good name in comparison.
Can't speak for a single other person in the whole wide world, but if I saw Osama bin Laden sneaking through my backyard, I couldn't kill him any more than I can these sweet little baby oak trees.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
AREA 14, STAR 14
We here at "The Gods Are Bored" are grateful to His Holiness, Pope Benedict Whatever, for explaining that the Holocaust was engineered and carried out by "neo-pagans." Since "neo" means "new," that must mean anyone who has newly become a pagan. So that includes moi!
So. Fair warning. The next time you see people in flowing robes, dancing around a Maypole and saying prayers to goddesses and stuff, please be aware that they are merely plotting their next Final Solution.
Yeah, it works like this. Anne can't even pull baby oak trees up in her garden, but she'd have no problem shoving Pat Robertson and all his followers into gas chambers and bulldozing the bodies into mountainous piles.
Oh PLEEEEEEEEEEEZE!
Pat, you're safe in my house, you can eat my good country cookin', you can go out into the barnyard and chat up my ram John Henry, you can sleep in my fold-out bed, and you can use my water closet. The same goes for all you Roman Catholics out there. My two best friends are Roman Catholic, my in-laws are all Roman Catholic (husband lapsed, not my fault), and I have even been known to come to the defense of Roman Catholic priests on this very site.
So, Pat and Pope, I guess I'm a thorn in your sides, but you sure ain't no big fat problem to me. I figure it like this: You keep making these idiot statements, you'll give us pagans a real good name in comparison.
Can't speak for a single other person in the whole wide world, but if I saw Osama bin Laden sneaking through my backyard, I couldn't kill him any more than I can these sweet little baby oak trees.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
AREA 14, STAR 14
Thursday, June 08, 2006
That's Anne with an "E"
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Contrary to the opinons of a certain bestselling author, we are both liberal and God-filled! Godless? Us? Heavens to Betsy, no no NO! How many gods or goddesses do you need? We can fill your order, under budget and by your deadline, no matter how demanding it is! Gods R Us, People!
It's hard being named "Anne Johnson." There's so many of us. (Famously, once at a PTA meeting, the other Anne Johnson on my block came up to me in front of everyone and thanked me for her diaphragm. Apparently my insurance had paid for her prophylactic. We howled. If only she took Vicodin, eh?)
I can take one consolation in this oh-so-common name. I read in the newspaper a few years back that women who spell "Anne" with an "e" on the end have more confidence and live longer than women who spell Ann without the "e." Apparently the "e" business originated with Queens (not drag), and the commoners stuck to the old "Ann."
I guess you know where this is heading. I'm fixing to disrespect a certain unqueenly Ann, the one who dares call me Godless while posing on a book cover in a dress that would earn her three grand a night in Vegas.
Point of fact, Ann dearie, Zeus just cabled his intention of donning his swan suit and paying you a visit.
Just caught the Lou Dobbs report in which Missie Ann Coulter compared herself to H. L. Mencken and Mark Twain. Even my 12-year-old, The Spare, was hurling Corn Pops at the t.v. screen.
H. L. Mencken would have one word for Missie Ann, and it would cover two bases: BOOB.
The bored gods hate Ann Coulter to such an extent that they have convinced Anne with a queenly "e" never to purchase another Random House book at point of sale. This will take money out of the pockets of Toni Morrison and John Updike and other serious authors who should not want their names associated with a publisher who would put hate between hard covers and celebrate it as a bestseller.
And now, gentle folk, Anne and her daughter The Heir are off to the Event of the Year: The Fairy Ball at the Castle in Berkeley Springs! We are so excited to visit the Sacred Spring, to conduct a protective prayer at our precious dry branch, Terrapin Run, and to commune with all the gods and goddesses of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water!
Remember, this artwork is the property of Seitou, and you must ask us before you use it.
Godless. We like that here at "The Gods Are Bored." And sad to say, the text of "Godless" goes downhill from the title.
Alas, alas for you, Lawyers and Pharisees, hypocrites to an Ann! Our gods have too much dignity to smite you with boils, but mark my words, they are sorely tempted.
FROM ANNE -- E -- E -- E
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
HOMEWARD BOUND, TO A FABULOUS BALL!
It's hard being named "Anne Johnson." There's so many of us. (Famously, once at a PTA meeting, the other Anne Johnson on my block came up to me in front of everyone and thanked me for her diaphragm. Apparently my insurance had paid for her prophylactic. We howled. If only she took Vicodin, eh?)
I can take one consolation in this oh-so-common name. I read in the newspaper a few years back that women who spell "Anne" with an "e" on the end have more confidence and live longer than women who spell Ann without the "e." Apparently the "e" business originated with Queens (not drag), and the commoners stuck to the old "Ann."
I guess you know where this is heading. I'm fixing to disrespect a certain unqueenly Ann, the one who dares call me Godless while posing on a book cover in a dress that would earn her three grand a night in Vegas.
Point of fact, Ann dearie, Zeus just cabled his intention of donning his swan suit and paying you a visit.
Just caught the Lou Dobbs report in which Missie Ann Coulter compared herself to H. L. Mencken and Mark Twain. Even my 12-year-old, The Spare, was hurling Corn Pops at the t.v. screen.
H. L. Mencken would have one word for Missie Ann, and it would cover two bases: BOOB.
The bored gods hate Ann Coulter to such an extent that they have convinced Anne with a queenly "e" never to purchase another Random House book at point of sale. This will take money out of the pockets of Toni Morrison and John Updike and other serious authors who should not want their names associated with a publisher who would put hate between hard covers and celebrate it as a bestseller.
And now, gentle folk, Anne and her daughter The Heir are off to the Event of the Year: The Fairy Ball at the Castle in Berkeley Springs! We are so excited to visit the Sacred Spring, to conduct a protective prayer at our precious dry branch, Terrapin Run, and to commune with all the gods and goddesses of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water!
Remember, this artwork is the property of Seitou, and you must ask us before you use it.
Godless. We like that here at "The Gods Are Bored." And sad to say, the text of "Godless" goes downhill from the title.
Alas, alas for you, Lawyers and Pharisees, hypocrites to an Ann! Our gods have too much dignity to smite you with boils, but mark my words, they are sorely tempted.
FROM ANNE -- E -- E -- E
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
HOMEWARD BOUND, TO A FABULOUS BALL!
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Applegate on 06-06-06
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" I'm your host today: Mr. Applegate. Please don't call me The Great Beast. It hurts my feelings.
Anne was making rather merry at "Allen Ginsberg Night," Pizza and Poetry with the Monkey Man. Prizes were given out to the person who acted the most like a Beat Poet, and that has resulted in numerous hangovers this morning.
Thank goodness, because I need a place to hide out. And I'm in my honest-to-goodness clothes, too.
The trouble with working in a hierarchical enterprise is that you never know what the CEO is thinking. Sometimes you have to tiptoe around and not answer your beeper. You know what I mean. A day like 06-06-06 only comes every 100 years. I tiptoed last time, too. Except beepers and text messaging hadn't been invented, so it was easier.
Why do I want to be incognito today?
Do you have any idea what it would do to my reputation in the Intergalactic God Community if I were to act like the dude in Revelations? I swear the head deity of the universe (better known as Thing 1) would bust me down to mortal, and make me a maggot at that.
So I'm ducking Armaggedon any way I can, even if it means scaring a trio of foster kittens and sending two resident cats fleeing for the nearby woods.
Any day, I mean Any day, the boss could come calling with an Executive Order setting this whole End Times gambit into motion. And I have a contract, signed and sealed. I would have to honor it.
So, please pray with me that Armageddon is more than 5, 996 years away, so some other poor devil will have to deal with it, not me. (I signed for 10,000 years.)
And frankly, my boss is going to have a really hard time replacing me. Not because I'm good at my job, but because your species is such a dud that no other self-respecting god will want the post.
The boss might be able to get an intern straight out of the Intergalactic God and Goddess Academy (IGGA), but I'll bet that's the best he'll do.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to settle down in Anne's basement, behind the water heater, and sort some socks.
See you soon,
MR. APPLEGATE
Anne was making rather merry at "Allen Ginsberg Night," Pizza and Poetry with the Monkey Man. Prizes were given out to the person who acted the most like a Beat Poet, and that has resulted in numerous hangovers this morning.
Thank goodness, because I need a place to hide out. And I'm in my honest-to-goodness clothes, too.
The trouble with working in a hierarchical enterprise is that you never know what the CEO is thinking. Sometimes you have to tiptoe around and not answer your beeper. You know what I mean. A day like 06-06-06 only comes every 100 years. I tiptoed last time, too. Except beepers and text messaging hadn't been invented, so it was easier.
Why do I want to be incognito today?
Do you have any idea what it would do to my reputation in the Intergalactic God Community if I were to act like the dude in Revelations? I swear the head deity of the universe (better known as Thing 1) would bust me down to mortal, and make me a maggot at that.
So I'm ducking Armaggedon any way I can, even if it means scaring a trio of foster kittens and sending two resident cats fleeing for the nearby woods.
Any day, I mean Any day, the boss could come calling with an Executive Order setting this whole End Times gambit into motion. And I have a contract, signed and sealed. I would have to honor it.
So, please pray with me that Armageddon is more than 5, 996 years away, so some other poor devil will have to deal with it, not me. (I signed for 10,000 years.)
And frankly, my boss is going to have a really hard time replacing me. Not because I'm good at my job, but because your species is such a dud that no other self-respecting god will want the post.
The boss might be able to get an intern straight out of the Intergalactic God and Goddess Academy (IGGA), but I'll bet that's the best he'll do.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to settle down in Anne's basement, behind the water heater, and sort some socks.
See you soon,
MR. APPLEGATE
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Sweet Home New Jersey
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your premiere portal for Remembrance of Things Past. God-wise, that is. If you want a crash course on Deity Diversity Training, you've found the right spot!
Reading today in the newspaper that Alabama has a ballot question for its state constitution. Voters will soon be able to decide whether or not they want Alabama to be a state where marriage can only exist between a man and a woman. Those pushing for the amendment want their victory to be even more resounding than neighboring Texas, where 70 percent of voters favored having the government define marriage for them.
The newspaper article bemoaned the fact that Alabama has such a wonderful record on civil rights for African Americans and women, how could this happen?
Say Whaaaaaat? If ever a state had to be dragged kicking and screaming into treating black people at least as good as its farm animals, it is Alabama.
Let's do a little Clarence Darrowing on this gay marriage business, okay?
If you tell gays they cannot legalize their unions, then the next step is making them wear white armbands with rainbows on them. The next step after that is torching their houses, lynching them, and depriving them of their livelihoods. After that, you herd them into boxcars and take them off to camp.
Take heart, o you Rainbow Alabamians! (Is that what it is, Alabamians?)
New Jersey wants you.
Come on up, drop on by, grab a carpet and fly!
New Jersey has liberal partnership laws and is benefitting from them in a veritable Queer Pilgrimage. Our state values your work ethic, your higher-than-average intelligence, your aesthetics, your tax dollars, and your tourist revenue.
And guess what? When you grow old and die, we're not gonna let your Alpha Moo second-cousin-twice-removed come and grab your estate out from under the beloved partner who stood side-by-side with you for life.
You have family in Alabama you'd hate to leave? Well, it's just a plane flight from Mobile to Philly International. And we here in the Asphalt State guarantee that neither you nor your loved ones have ever had great Italian food, unless you've already enriched us with your tourist dollars.
So, all you gay Southern folks, vote with your feet. Load your cars, moving vans, whatever, and find yourself a more hospitable environment in which to live your lives.
New Jersey and You. Perfect Together.
"Sweet Home, Alabama
Where the guys are so Red.
Sweet Home, Alabama
Keep Your Nose out of My Bed.
Git it said.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF NEW JERSEY
AREA 14, STAR 14
Reading today in the newspaper that Alabama has a ballot question for its state constitution. Voters will soon be able to decide whether or not they want Alabama to be a state where marriage can only exist between a man and a woman. Those pushing for the amendment want their victory to be even more resounding than neighboring Texas, where 70 percent of voters favored having the government define marriage for them.
The newspaper article bemoaned the fact that Alabama has such a wonderful record on civil rights for African Americans and women, how could this happen?
Say Whaaaaaat? If ever a state had to be dragged kicking and screaming into treating black people at least as good as its farm animals, it is Alabama.
Let's do a little Clarence Darrowing on this gay marriage business, okay?
If you tell gays they cannot legalize their unions, then the next step is making them wear white armbands with rainbows on them. The next step after that is torching their houses, lynching them, and depriving them of their livelihoods. After that, you herd them into boxcars and take them off to camp.
Take heart, o you Rainbow Alabamians! (Is that what it is, Alabamians?)
New Jersey wants you.
Come on up, drop on by, grab a carpet and fly!
New Jersey has liberal partnership laws and is benefitting from them in a veritable Queer Pilgrimage. Our state values your work ethic, your higher-than-average intelligence, your aesthetics, your tax dollars, and your tourist revenue.
And guess what? When you grow old and die, we're not gonna let your Alpha Moo second-cousin-twice-removed come and grab your estate out from under the beloved partner who stood side-by-side with you for life.
You have family in Alabama you'd hate to leave? Well, it's just a plane flight from Mobile to Philly International. And we here in the Asphalt State guarantee that neither you nor your loved ones have ever had great Italian food, unless you've already enriched us with your tourist dollars.
So, all you gay Southern folks, vote with your feet. Load your cars, moving vans, whatever, and find yourself a more hospitable environment in which to live your lives.
New Jersey and You. Perfect Together.
"Sweet Home, Alabama
Where the guys are so Red.
Sweet Home, Alabama
Keep Your Nose out of My Bed.
Git it said.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF NEW JERSEY
AREA 14, STAR 14
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Shameless Boasting on Saturday Night
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Teach your children well! Feed them on your dreams! The one they pick's the one you'll know by!
Ah, Geezer Annie again. Revealing, day by day, that she can remember where she was when J.F. Kennedy was shot.
(In the interest of clarity: Anne calls her daughters The Heir and The Spare because that was what English queens were supposed to supply in the way of progeny for the Throne.)
Another school year goes into the tank in two weeks. It was a momentous year. Anne's daughter The Spare began that special hell called Middle School. And The Heir, Anne's oldest, undertook "American Literature College Prep," 10th grade.
This is no slouch of a school that The Heir attends. Look at this list of books her class read this year:
1. Huckleberry Finn
2. The Scarlet Letter
3. The Great Gatsby
4. The Color Purple
5. Death of a Salesman
6. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
7. The Catcher in the Rye
8. The Old Man and the Sea
9. Reader's Choice 10 Short Stories (Heir chose Flannery O'Connor)
Okay, it's Saturday night, so I'm tossing the humble pie out the window. My daughter The Heir loved 8 out of 9 books on this list. The only one she didn't like was The Catcher in the Rye. Readers, my daughter loved The Scarlet Letter! And she was so thrilled with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that it's all she talked about for weeks.
And between you and me, does it not take a strong stomach to deal with Flannery O'Connor? The Heir loved her work too.
Hey, it went both ways. The authors loved The Heir too. She's carried a high A average in English all year.
The Heir has a friend named Bam Bam (not his real name). Bam Bam was in her English class. Bam Bam wants to go to Johns Hopkins University to study English.
Bam Bam hated every book on the above list. He said they were boring and meaningless. He was particularly vehement about Cuckoo's Nest, saying that it was "way over the line," and mental hospitals "never work like that." He couldn't find a point to Cuckoo's Nest at all. Nor could he see why Huckleberry Finn is considered such a classic of literature.
This week, having finished their reading list for the year, the students in The Heir's English class have been watching the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire. The Heir has never seen that movie before, and she has watched her some big time movies.
She bounded home the other day frothing at the mouth about how good Streetcar is, did that author write other plays as well? Oh, don't tell her how it ends! She can't wait to see the rest! But ... emmm ... is Blanche mentally ill?
Bam Bam's verdict on Streetcar: utter rot. He prefers CSI and American Idol.
I am totally not making this up.
We at "The Gods Are Bored" have neither the ambition nor the funds to send The Heir to Johns Hopkins University. So we wish Bam Bam the best of luck there, and we hope he enjoys his course of study.
FROM ANNE THE GOAT JUDGE
PROUD OF HER KID, THE BOOK JUDGE
Ah, Geezer Annie again. Revealing, day by day, that she can remember where she was when J.F. Kennedy was shot.
(In the interest of clarity: Anne calls her daughters The Heir and The Spare because that was what English queens were supposed to supply in the way of progeny for the Throne.)
Another school year goes into the tank in two weeks. It was a momentous year. Anne's daughter The Spare began that special hell called Middle School. And The Heir, Anne's oldest, undertook "American Literature College Prep," 10th grade.
This is no slouch of a school that The Heir attends. Look at this list of books her class read this year:
1. Huckleberry Finn
2. The Scarlet Letter
3. The Great Gatsby
4. The Color Purple
5. Death of a Salesman
6. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
7. The Catcher in the Rye
8. The Old Man and the Sea
9. Reader's Choice 10 Short Stories (Heir chose Flannery O'Connor)
Okay, it's Saturday night, so I'm tossing the humble pie out the window. My daughter The Heir loved 8 out of 9 books on this list. The only one she didn't like was The Catcher in the Rye. Readers, my daughter loved The Scarlet Letter! And she was so thrilled with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that it's all she talked about for weeks.
And between you and me, does it not take a strong stomach to deal with Flannery O'Connor? The Heir loved her work too.
Hey, it went both ways. The authors loved The Heir too. She's carried a high A average in English all year.
The Heir has a friend named Bam Bam (not his real name). Bam Bam was in her English class. Bam Bam wants to go to Johns Hopkins University to study English.
Bam Bam hated every book on the above list. He said they were boring and meaningless. He was particularly vehement about Cuckoo's Nest, saying that it was "way over the line," and mental hospitals "never work like that." He couldn't find a point to Cuckoo's Nest at all. Nor could he see why Huckleberry Finn is considered such a classic of literature.
This week, having finished their reading list for the year, the students in The Heir's English class have been watching the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire. The Heir has never seen that movie before, and she has watched her some big time movies.
She bounded home the other day frothing at the mouth about how good Streetcar is, did that author write other plays as well? Oh, don't tell her how it ends! She can't wait to see the rest! But ... emmm ... is Blanche mentally ill?
Bam Bam's verdict on Streetcar: utter rot. He prefers CSI and American Idol.
I am totally not making this up.
We at "The Gods Are Bored" have neither the ambition nor the funds to send The Heir to Johns Hopkins University. So we wish Bam Bam the best of luck there, and we hope he enjoys his course of study.
FROM ANNE THE GOAT JUDGE
PROUD OF HER KID, THE BOOK JUDGE
Friday, June 02, 2006
Yeah, but What Else Did He Say?
"Gods Are Bored" artwork by Seitou, property of Seitou, email us!
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" If you are just joining us for the first time, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with all the safety features on this web site. In case of a sudden plunge in atmospheric pressure, an ancient god or goddess will drop to your aid. Place the god or goddess close to your heart.
If you have children or disabled folks traveling with you, please engage your god or goddess first before helping them.
Are we ready? Okay! Fasten your seatbelts, and no smoking please!
Who said the following?
"I am the light that is before all things; I am all things; all things come forth from me; all things return to me. Split a piece of wood, and I am there; lift up a rock, and you will find me there."
Whoa. Heavy stuff. The kind of tricky memory verse some six-year-old would be assigned at a Pentecostal Sunday School. Except that whoever said the quotation above suggests that a spark of the divine inhabits everyone and everything, right down to wood and rocks!
Mmmmmmmm. Vaguely Native American, vaguely vain in the Timothy Leary mode. Definitely pantheistic. We like pantheism here at "The Gods Are Bored."
Give up on the memory verse? It comes from The Gospel of Thomas and is credited to Jesus Christ.
In case you've been looking for Jesus under a rock yourself, you're aware that a great deal was written about Jesus that didn't make the cut, Bible-wise. The above pithy quote is one intriguing example. Another is the Birth of Jesus story where he came to life from a lump of clay by the Jordan River. And we'll pass over the tired old Dan Brown stuff. Way too much press on that already.
In 1945 an Egyptian farmer dug up a jar with old writings in it. The writings included stories of Jesus with quotes. These alternate Gospels were dismissed as heretical by some early church leaders. But you know how travel was in those days. Local pockets of Christians kept looking for Jesus under rocks for hundreds of years.
Kind of makes you wonder what Jesus really said. I mean, can you go by the Good Book when you're worshipping a deity who never wrote anything down himself, preferring oral transmission through preaching?
Today we could just watch the video, or read the TelePrompter. But we just simply don't have a Gospel According to Me, by Jesus Christ. And so it could very well be true that his vision of the world was circular in a fetching, goddess-like way, and that he believed everything contains a divine spark in a fetching, Native American way.
We at "The Gods Are Bored" think these Egyptian farmers should keep on digging. They're bound to come up with The Gospel According to Me one of these days. Or at least a fabulous statue of Isis. We're fine with that.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
ASSISTED BY PURRING FOSTER KITTEN
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" If you are just joining us for the first time, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with all the safety features on this web site. In case of a sudden plunge in atmospheric pressure, an ancient god or goddess will drop to your aid. Place the god or goddess close to your heart.
If you have children or disabled folks traveling with you, please engage your god or goddess first before helping them.
Are we ready? Okay! Fasten your seatbelts, and no smoking please!
Who said the following?
"I am the light that is before all things; I am all things; all things come forth from me; all things return to me. Split a piece of wood, and I am there; lift up a rock, and you will find me there."
Whoa. Heavy stuff. The kind of tricky memory verse some six-year-old would be assigned at a Pentecostal Sunday School. Except that whoever said the quotation above suggests that a spark of the divine inhabits everyone and everything, right down to wood and rocks!
Mmmmmmmm. Vaguely Native American, vaguely vain in the Timothy Leary mode. Definitely pantheistic. We like pantheism here at "The Gods Are Bored."
Give up on the memory verse? It comes from The Gospel of Thomas and is credited to Jesus Christ.
In case you've been looking for Jesus under a rock yourself, you're aware that a great deal was written about Jesus that didn't make the cut, Bible-wise. The above pithy quote is one intriguing example. Another is the Birth of Jesus story where he came to life from a lump of clay by the Jordan River. And we'll pass over the tired old Dan Brown stuff. Way too much press on that already.
In 1945 an Egyptian farmer dug up a jar with old writings in it. The writings included stories of Jesus with quotes. These alternate Gospels were dismissed as heretical by some early church leaders. But you know how travel was in those days. Local pockets of Christians kept looking for Jesus under rocks for hundreds of years.
Kind of makes you wonder what Jesus really said. I mean, can you go by the Good Book when you're worshipping a deity who never wrote anything down himself, preferring oral transmission through preaching?
Today we could just watch the video, or read the TelePrompter. But we just simply don't have a Gospel According to Me, by Jesus Christ. And so it could very well be true that his vision of the world was circular in a fetching, goddess-like way, and that he believed everything contains a divine spark in a fetching, Native American way.
We at "The Gods Are Bored" think these Egyptian farmers should keep on digging. They're bound to come up with The Gospel According to Me one of these days. Or at least a fabulous statue of Isis. We're fine with that.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
ASSISTED BY PURRING FOSTER KITTEN
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Quarantine Wal-Mart
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your official home of the amazing Eyeball Vulture! Remember, vultures have been revered by many cultures, from ancient Egypt to pre-Catholic California. So we here at "The Gods Are Bored" don't have many co-worshippers now, but we would have been on solid ground 4000 years ago!
Tomorrow a group called Jobs with Justice will hold a "Quarantine Wal-Mart" action. In keeping with my vow to help organized labor, I will attend. I will not shout at patrons of Wal-Mart. I will leave if others do. The target should be the few at the top of Wal-Mart, growing fat on low-cost labor all over the globe.
Today it is impossible to concentrate here. Cy (artist above) and The Heir (my daughter) are downstairs sampling the latest in ultra-weird music. It's time to take a walk.
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
United We Bargain, Divided We Beg
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