Die on the Hill, Just Don't Take Me Along

 Ah, summer is almost over, and a new school year beckons. Even though COVID-19 is almost worse than ever, we are back to full enrollment in our schools.

In the meantime, I know three fully vaccinated adults who caught COVID-19 and were sick for weeks. Granted, they survived. But sick for weeks. All younger than me.

Pandemic does not be over. How silly of me to think so! This is 'Murica, Land of the Idiot and Home of the Moron.

Why are people who have been vaccinated for a half dozen deadly and infectious diseases suddenly unwilling to get a shot? That was a rhetorical question. I know the answer. The answer (no matter what other answer they give) is that Joe Biden encourages everyone to get a shot. If Joe Biden promoted breathing, they would all turn blue and suffocate.

If it was just the anti-shot morons infecting each other, I wouldn't care a bit. Go ahead and die on the hill of your "freedom." But I don't want to go with you. I have done everything -- everything -- the public health experts have told me to do. Everything. A 45-minute visit on Christmas, on the front porch of my daughter's rental? Did it. Quarantine for weeks and weeks? Did it. Wearing a mask everywhere? Did it. Doing it. Will do it. Hand sanitizer? Use it. Avoiding crowded indoor events? Did it. Doing it. Will do it.

I fought to get a date for my vaccination. Now I will need to fight for a booster ... and in the meantime spend my days with a room full of teenagers. There are 100 students on my roster this year. Even if half of them are vaccinated, that'll be a lot of COVID-19 floating in the stagnant classroom air. And I will have to wear a mask all day long, every day. I'll be afraid to take it off any time I'm in the room, including when I'm alone. Shit can hang in the air.

Most of this suffering could have been avoided if we had a citizenry that is less evenly divided between reasonable and ridiculous.

Getting sick from COVID when you've done everything to prevent it is like dying of tobacco-induced lung cancer without ever having smoked a cigarette. I don't want to be that victim!

Yes, I have practiced magic to keep myself safe. But no matter. I'm predicting with confidence that I'll contract this damn plague sometime this fall. Oh, morons. Thank you so much.

Go Directly To Jail, Moron Televangelist

Greetings, my friends, and a hearty virtual hug from Pastor Annie at "The Gods Are Bored!" You know, science is a wonderful thing. So is history. And when you're asked to shelter in place during a highly contagious pandemic, you're relying on science and history as your guides!

Of course, your stone cold moron element -- widely represented in America -- respects neither science nor history.

Hot off the press, here's a little tale of a televangelist inviting people from all over the country to a huge outdoor Easter ceremony. He wants it to be of Woodstock proportions, because Christians sheltering from the pandemic are just "pansies."

There are way too many people out there who think Jesus will protect them from anything, even when proven abundantly wrong, time and again. My dad taught Sunday School for 60 years, and Jesus didn't keep him from getting Parkinson's Disease and breaking his hip and dying of a heart attack. Hey, for a brief period in the 1960s I believed in Jesus healing the sick, but my prayers on my mother's behalf did not yield results ... in fact her condition worsened.

Well. I'm no dummy. Pray and don't get results? Either change the prayer, or change the God. Or both.

The particular pastor inviting a national flock for a shindig hasn't been following the news. There has already been one conservative pastor who has died in the prime of life after suggesting the disease is a hoax. And honestly, I don't mind that guy. He didn't invite a festival's worth of people to hug and kiss in the midst of a killer plague.

Mark my words. On Easter Sunday there is going to be a mighty flood of civil disobedience as the stupider brand of Christian heads out to harp and hosanna in numbers. I would say, have at it ... except that these "Jesus will protect me" morons will disperse into their communities and start killing dear old grannies right and left.

Chew on this, morons: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a noise? Put it another way. Will Jesus still rise from the dead if you don't go hug 300 people in a crowded church?

At least one televangelist has already been arrested, and the Pennsylvania dude in the linked story says he'll gladly go to jail over his big Woodstock Jesus bash. Okay. Lock them up! Menaces to society.

Hey, Christian kids! Are you worried about your granny getting sick if you go to church on Easter? Well, you should be. Let me tell you about religions that respect science and history and would never expect their members to put any human being in the path of a novel coronavirus! Jeez, where should I start? You want the whole list, or just the top 100?

Moron televangelists should go to jail, directly to jail. They should not pass Go. They should not collect $200. Lock. Them. Up.

Friends of the Cherry Hill Library

Oops! I did it again. I volunteered. I broke that most sacred of vows, to never ever volunteer to do anything for anyone. And as usual, I got my bitch slap. Happens every time.

It's hot as Hell here, and muggy as a sauna, so when Mr. J  suggested I help him set up for the semi-annual Friends of the Cherry Hill Library book sale, I said yes. Mr. J has been lugging boxes of books for these Friends for about twelve years. He is a collector, and he does quickly peruse the boxes as he stacks them on the carts ... but he's there to work.

So was I. On a hot day it's good to have a workout with meaning.

We got to the library at about 10:00. I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that there were 40 pallets, each with ten to twelve boxes full of books. Think of a banquet hall filled end-to-end with books, VHS (why?), CDs, and DVDs. The task was to move all of these books out of the storage area into the selling area, which was two long hallways away.

When Mr. J and I arrived, there were five people loading boxes onto carts: a woman about my age who was having back trouble, another lady I recognized from many book sales, an elderly man, and a guy of about 60-65. We all set to work.

I'm very spry for my age, but I know my limits. I lifted whatever I could safely lift. Whenever I had a chance, I opted for the paperbacks. I was moving fast, but I was on the lookout for young adult books that my inner city readers would like. Of which there were nearly naught  -- Cherry Hill is a snowy white suburb of keen snobbery.

About midway through the morning, a woman came up to me and said, "I don't know you." Well, that was true. This is the first time I ever helped Mr. J at a sale. So I said, "I'm Mrs. J," and nodded toward Mr. J, who was laboring like Hercules.

Readers, my hands are numb and my arms are tired. I worked my butt off in there. When I'm tasked with something, I do it to the best of my ability. I took one bathroom break. I found one precious Paul Volponi title. (Ever tried getting a 16-year-old boy who hates to read to actually do it? The author Paul Volponi is one of my go-to guys for this difficult demographic.)

Time passes quickly when you're moving stuff around. It was just before noon when the same lady who said "I don't know you" came back to where we were still stacking books. In 90 minutes we had reduced the number of pallets from 40 to 6. There was little left to do.

Nevertheless, the lady said to us, "You need to stop looking through the boxes and hurry up. I have corporate volunteers out there who are leaving at 12:30."

Mr. J, who never suffers a fool easily, pointed out the obvious. "We're volunteers," he said.

To which she replied: "I know you're volunteers. Hurry up. Stop looking at the books."

Giving Mr. J the props here. He said, "What the fuck?" He put down the box of books in his hands and walked out the door.

I tarried. You see, the Paul Volponi book I found (a library discard) was about inner city boys in a basketball tournament. I had never seen this book before. Darling Amazon does not list it as a "people who like this also liked" under Paul Volponi. And as for looking through the boxes, they've already been sorted. It's easy to find the young adult lit. And of course I fully intended to pay for the book. THE book. The ONLY book I had set aside.

Luckily, the other lady helping load the carts was a good ol' regular. She said I could give her the money for the book, and she would pay for it. So I handed her the ducats and hoofed it with Mr. J, the precious Paul Volponi library discard in my trembling hands.

When I think of being poorly treated as a volunteer, I have to go way back to my days as a United Methodist Church Lady before I find the kind of rudeness I got in spades today.

Free advice to people who are coordinating volunteers: Treat them kindly. After a thorough upper body workout lasting 90 minutes, I just didn't want to hear, "Hurry up." As for the "I don't know you," I've thought of about 25 witty responses that I should have used on her -- and would have, if only I had known she wasn't through cracking the whip.

With friends like Friends of the Cherry Hill Library, who needs enemies? Sermon over, sweet Pagans.

Pity Poor Pastor. Not.

Did you see this story, readers?

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/applebees-waitress-fired-pastor-receipt-193820748.html

A pastor, having received a hefty bill for a largish sup at Applebees, took umbrage with the 18 percent gratuity that had been tacked on, left $0 for a tip, and asked why a waitress should get 18 percent when God only gets 10 percent?

The waitress who leaked the snarky receipt has been canned by the (largely inedible and comprhensively fattening) Applebees chain.

Well, pastor Alois Bell. This is embarrassing to you, or so you say. How do you feel, having deprived a young woman of her job? That's what should be embarrassing! You should be down there at Applebees, trying to get that stripling's job back for her ... and paying the restaurant-issued gratuity.

Furthermore, here's a news flash for Alois Bell and her ilk from the staff of "The Gods Are Bored":

God is rich.

Yes! Moment to moment, Yahweh is richer than even the richest human on the planet! Just look at all the churches! From magnificent cathedrals to humble Methodist nursery schools, those places cost money! Look at how these pastors clothe themselves! Very few of them take the straight-and-narrow Mennonite view of simplicity in attire. After all, parishioners want their pastors to be gilded up. And yes, I know this is not exclusive to Christianity! It's just blatantly visible in Christianity these days. (My sis-in-law told me that one robe for a Vatican Cardinal costs $30,000.)

We at "The Gods Are Bored" think like this: If you're going to make a living off Yahweh, as all pastors do, you ought not be stingy. Judging by your bling, Ma'am, you are living large off the Lord. If you give Him ten percent, that's ten percent of a salary you're earning off Yahweh in the first place! I call that a kickback.

And Applebees! Gracious gateway to Future Alcoholics of America! Why would you fire a waitress for being frustrated at serving a large party and getting snark for her efforts?

Well, once again, we at "The Gods Are Bored" have an answer to this question: It's easy to fire an employee than to re-think an automatic gratuity policy that leaves diners feeling over-charged. Granted, most people are cheap cheap cheap when it comes to tipping, particularly when the feast is well-attended and the tab sky-high. But we at "The Gods Are Bored" think that a paltry tip is better than zero, and a kind recommendation on a menu or bill is better than a mandatory fee.

Back to Applebees. Hate to tell you this, booze-bucket chain, but the publicity over this may sink you deeper than it does poor, sad, embarrassed Alois Bell. Most of us hard-working Americans will feel far more sympathetic towards the undone waitress than the prickly pastor. And most of us are fed up to the gills with big, impersonal garbage restaurant chains.

To summarize:

1. God is rich.
2. Waitresses are not rich.
3. Alois Bell is a poster child for dwindling church enrollment. She's eating into God's bottom line.
4. Applebee's serves calorie-larded food and drinks strong enough to kill flesh-eating bacteria.
5. Workers should have the right to vent their frustration without fear of reprisal, so long as no one gets hurt and the furniture isn't stained.

The word of Vulture for the people of Vulture. Thanks be to Vulture! (Whose tithe is a dead skunk ... how about that?)

Of Morons and Mountains

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where today we're gazing southbound at some top-quality morons at work. You go, morons! It's not my tax dollars you're wasting!

Today's Baltimore Sun had a front-page story about a group of African American legislators from Baltimore who have decided that Negro Mountain in Garrett County should be re-named. I didn't even know there was a Negro Mountain in Maryland, but I do know that there's a Warrior's Ridge. It's the next mountain over from Polish Mountain...

... emmmm ... Polish Mountain. That would be the Polish Mountain where my farm is...

The selfsame Polish Mountain that is now "under study" for a name change as well.

I kid you not, readers. A committee led by two Maryland lawmakers named Nathanial Oaks and Lisa Gladden has decided to look into dubious mountain names with the hopes of changing them to something more politically correct.

EXHIBIT A: MOUNTAIN TO BE NAMED LATER

I'll go out on a politically-incorrect limb here and say that I don't find "Negro Mountain" to be particularly offensive. But it's not my right to say. I don't live on Negro Mountain, and I'm not African American.

However, I do own property on Polish Mountain (at least for now), and I'm extremely affronted by Ms. Gladden and Mr. Oaks' sudden attention to its name.

Maryland's state anthem has pro-Confederate lyrics that are so offensive no one ever dares sing it in public. If the state's black lawmakers want a cause celebre, they could certainly begin with that song. Or they could re-name the statue dedicated to Confederate mothers in north Baltimore. Right in their own back yard.

But to suggest that the name of Polish Mountain is "under study" for a change is, to me, the finest waste of taxpayer dollars and hot air in the history of the Free State.

There's a whole scene in the Penn-Faulkner Award-winning novel, The Chaneysville Incident, that takes place on Polish Mountain. The author uses the name Polish Mountain. Just like everyone has since before any data was recorded on paper. No one really knows how the mountain got its name. It certainly didn't have to do with anyone of Polish ancestry. And it certainly wasn't a stab at Polish people. It's a beautiful mountain. Any Pole would be proud to live on it.

I have of course fired off a blistering email to Sens. Gladden and Oaks, telling them to get about some more important and relevant business. The time they spend studying Polish Mountain's name could be better spent ... oh, I dunno ... blocking development along the Chesapeake Bay? Improving the quality of Baltimore's public schools? Curbing irrational exurban development projects? Blocking the pending plans to drill for gas underneath the doggone mountains, with possible environmental devastation?

Oh, but it's so much easier to re-name the mountains! We'll just let the natural gas people in on the changes, so they can plan accordingly.

This is not the first time that I have noticed the preponderance of morons in politics. Where do we find these people?

I can't speak for Negro Mountain, but I think with Polish Mountain, my mountain, the crusading legislators may have met their match. You see, Polish Mountain begins at the Potomac River and runs due north into Pennsylvania. Yes, this name change would have to go through not one but two state legislatures. Who would have to approve sign changes, and map changes. And who would have to explain to the African American author of The Chaneysville Incident why his novel would no longer be geographically accurate.

I'm glad my mother-in-law alerted me to this pending legislation in Maryland. I have plenty of time to go home to Polish Mountain and speak to each and every one of its 376 residents. We will no doubt decide to secede from the state and the nation and form our own country. We'll name it the Democratic Republic of Polish Mountain. And we'll pick a better anthem, something meaningful like "Rocky Top."

If they re-name my mountain, I'm going to be so offended that I'll insist that they also re-name Druid Hill Park (in Baltimore). As a Druid, I STRONGLY OBJECT to having an urban park named after my religion!

The Making of a Thug

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We passed exhaustion about 50 miles back. Literally can hardly hold my arms up to type.

But here's a story from my sister's neck of the woods, and Sis stories are always worth a read!

About a month ago, Sis and her spouse took in a Korean exchange student who was having issues with his host family. The young man in question does not speak English very well.

At first I thought the student was just a public school invitee, but it turns out that he's being hosted by a horrifically conservative Christian private school inconveniently located in a backwater redneck enclave near the Mason-Dixon Line. Sis has to drive him to and from this school every day, an hour round-trip.

I don't know the details, but the young man pulled a Saturday detention. Sis dropped him off at noon. When she picked him up, they had shaved his head. He was limping from all the running they made him do. He had additionally been made to do sit-ups and push-ups and yard work.

The big thing, of course, is the hair. Someone at that school shaved the kid's head.

The Facebook pictures tell it all. In the "before" pictures the little dude looks something like an Asian Justin Bieber, with one of those shaggy, combed-to-the-front, Beatles-style mops. Now? Now he looks like a thug. All he needs is a do-rag, and he could pledge a gang faster than you can say, "Some Christians are a menace to civilized society."

I guess the morons at the B******** Christian Academy don't keep up with trends. If they did, they would never shave a kid's head to the dome. I'm not sure of the legality of this in the first place, but the kid's family is in Korea. Sis is his only advocate, and she is maximum pissed. But what can she do? If the school dumps the kid, he'll have to go home.

Mind you, this young Christian Korean chappie is no blood kin to me, but if he's under my sister's roof, that makes him family. As a proud Pagan auntie, I intend to take steps.

First, I will research and call upon the bored deities sacred to the Korean people prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries. To these deities I will carry the grievances of a boy who -- whatever he did to deserve detention -- did not deserve to be shaved. I will ask the deities to speak to this young man and pull him back to their ways.

Then Ima gon' inna Philly and buy that dude a ghetto hoodie with badass graphix in a non-affiliated color. Got the hair, get the threads.


A cheerful thought to end this post: The person who shaved that poor boy's head goes into a voting booth and casts a ballot. Sweet dreams, reader!

OxyMORONS

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," day-before-school-opens edition! Teacher Annie is going back to the Vo-Tech smack in the midst of a Mercury retrograde for the ages!

Whoa. Are you having as much trouble with this retrograde as me? I just had to chase a red-tailed hawk (joovy) off Decibel's bird cage! So much for the front porch, Decibel my dear. When the hawk's looking for a picnic supper, it's time to bring the parrot inside.

Today's sermon: Hawks in Dove Clothing

When I'm wrong, I'll admit it. I was wrong when I said that the people who wanted to build an Islamic community center near Ground Zero ought to build it elsewhere, just to be on the safe side.

There is no safe side.

This week, on September 11, our nation's finest morons will be protesting at mosques near and far. So my troll was right, there's no point in moving your building plans, because the morons will find you and blame the bunch of you for the deeds of a few on the lunatic fringe.

On Saturday, a place that gives Oxymoron a whole new depth of meaning, the Dove World Outreach Center  http://www.doveworld.org/ is going to have a good old-fashioned Koran Burning. Yes, 21st Century America, holy books will be burned. And not out of hate, according to the fine young morons at this place, but because "Islam is Evil."

The Dove World Outreach Center is in Gainesville, Florida. That little town is quite a distance from Ground Zero. It's even a haul to get to Miami from there.

Hey, Gainesville! Are you gonna let this happen? Would you rather be famous for your Gators, or this abomination? Prove Glenn Beck right about universities being "reeducation camps." Use your reeducation to counter protest this moron douchebag book-burning into the ground!

Talk about ironic. The Spare is cramming on her summer reading project, which was 1984. Whenever I hear about any books being burnt, be they the Koran or Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets, my blood just boils! Big Brother burns books. Not citizens of an educated democracy.

But what really sticks in my craw is the name of this bunch of book-burning bastards. The Dove World Outreach Center! When did doves become symbolic for one religion's hatred of another? Even more despicable ... both religions pay homage to the same busy god!

Oh, Mr. YHWH! Excuse me, but your followers are behaving stupidly again. Can you take five from the gazillion prayers you have to answer and deal with this? I don't believe you can pass the buck on this one, even to Jesus. You've got to deal with it yourself. Oh, wait. Didn't deal with it in 1099, not gonna deal with it now. (I sure would like to see this deity's schedule. He's way past "gym, tan, laundry.")

I'm afraid my friend Hecate might actually be right. Wingnut morons who heave Islam's holy book into the fire would gladly heave people (including Pagans) into a blaze ... or at least a jail. All they need is enough support amongst themselves and a couple of ballot boxes.

Dove World Outreach Center ... change your name to reflect your true nature. I humbly suggest Napalm in the Morning World Center of Shame Heaped upon Your Savior. I know it's a mouthful, especially for your high-grade brand of moron, but work on it. Fits you like gloves. Cuz you sure as hell ain't doves.

The World According to John McCain

Too late, Johnny. You've painted your opponent as a scary terrorist. Now you have to live with the consequences. The moron portion of America believed you. And now that's all you have to show for yourself: the moron vote.

"Gods Are Bored" Iowa Endorsement

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored" on Iowa Caucus day! It's time for us to endorse a candidate! And ah, it's so difficult. So many fine morons from which to choose. So many wealthy and influential folks with big, fat war chests for commercials in which they sell themselves like breakfast cereals. How can we separate the wheat from the chaff?

Can't. So, with no further ado, we at "The Gods Are Bored" endorse Mike Huckabee as the next president of the United States of America.

Mike is the only candidate who exhibits the same low level brain activity as our current sitting president. If elected, he would certainly continue the ridiculously wasteful and ill-conceived war in Iraq. We might ambitiously expect that he would be braver than the current administration and just shove our nation's aggression into Iran.

Mike's domestic agenda is simple enough. White men own things, women stay barefoot and pregnant, and everybody must go to Christian church (preferably not one of those mushy churches like the Methodists, and certainly nothing as radical as the UUs). Dust off that Bible, because the government will be coming to your house to make sure you're reading it to your kids every night at dinnertime.

If you vote for Mike, which I hope you will, you'll also be saving yourself from melanoma. Because you'll want to stay out of the sunshine, so that no one will confuse you with those brown people who will be deported. You'll want your skin to be lily white. Except if you're black. But if you're black, you'll be okay if you go to church and work for the Man.

Mike Huckabee will rid this nation of all the nasty, mentally ill homosexuals who choose to live a dirty, unnatural lifestyle. Well, okay. If you're gay you can stay, as long as you choose to be celibate, or if you marry someone of the other gender and have a healthy, normal, Christian family. If you don't think this can be done, you don't listen to Focus on the Family.

Finally -- and vitally important to us at "The Gods Are Bored" -- Mike Huckabee will shut down these pesky labor unions once and for all. Just look how daintily he crossed a picket line to be on Jay Leno's show last night! Striking workers should be deported along with the brown people! Then America would get back all the jobs the Chinese are doing for 14 cents an hour, because Americans would be willing to work for 14 cents an hour.

Oh, and I almost forgot. As president, Mike Huckabee will pardon all convicted rapists. After all, these men are just doing the human race a favor, trying to create more little humans inside the bodies of the inferior gender.

Only a moron of epic magnitude could compare with George W. Bush. We at "The Gods Are Bored" are convinced that Mike Huckabee is that moron. So vote for him, because things in this country won't begin to change until times become so desperate that desperate measures will be taken. The French Revolution springs to mind.

Huckabee in '08. Stay the disastrous course!