Can Humankind Avoid Its Biological Destiny?

Don’t like the sound of that. I know what my biological destiny is. Why would I avoid it?

I’m 28. Have not fulfilled my biological destiny yet. Came close twice but one time I said something stupid and the other time the girl’s dad banged on the wall.

What’s wrong with my destiny I ask you that. I hold no brief against those other destiny types in our time but mine is still the most popular ain’t it? It always was in my neighborhood growing up. All my mates did their destiny before they were proper adults didn’t they? In the proper way. On top I mean.

Father Sean don’t agree but he would disagree would he not? His destiny ain’t getting fulfilled any more than my own unless he would take up something like Father Jules has done devil take him.

I took a vow after getting knocked about in the destiny department by girls I fancied and there were many. I took a vow solemn as my soul that I would never pay for it. That was to be my destiny. Do not explain bloody humankind to me or the world’s oldest profession. My biological destiny is waiting for me at The Crown and Pig and I will not avoid her God willing.

Pi’s Message

The value of pi has now been calculated out to a couple craxillion digits or more (The First One Million Digits of Pi). Supercomputers churn away 24×7, pushing farther and farther into the innards of the number on a voyage to infinity. And beyond. Shoutout to Buzz.

Various algorithms have been designed which, when applied to the string of pi digits, convert the numbers into the letters of any alphabet. The strings of letters can be scanned for words in any language. Since the string of numbers is infinite and in some sense random, we can conceive of pi as a room full of monkeys at their typewriters.

For example, 3.14159265359 has been shown, using one algorithm, to be “Watson, come he…”

Professor R. Squared at UNLV has discovered, way out there, the King James Version of the Bible, up to halfway through Lamentations, where the word “poo” is suddenly encountered.

This led to a rush of searches for other sacred texts, complete ones, the discovery of which could be taken as a sign from God, or the gods. However, the first complete text of a book, fact or fiction, to be found, turned out to be “The Bourne Identity” (Robert Ludlum).

In my own modest search efforts, I’ve found a recipe for clam chowder that I rather like.

Guest Post: My Angels (Anne P.)

I’ve always seen angels. Hallucinations or schizophrenia, they’re real to me. They walk beside me and talk to me. Not always, but sometimes. One at a time.

Usually a  girl, although once in college and once when I was coaching a male lacrosse team for the company, they were uncertain boys.

All were my age, until I approached forty. Then they began to get younger as I got older.

The girls preferred the diaphanous. The boys preferred leather. They all stayed buttoned up, so some simple questions about them remained unanswered.

None were beautiful or ugly, but they were all attractive to me, and intriguing. At some point I learned that the Persians invented angels and for a while all my visitors had black curly hair and black curly beards, male and female alike.

We never discussed religious matters. Being old immortal Persians, they might have tried to convert me to a belief in Ahura-Mazda or another of their gods. Instead, we strolled along talking about whatever came into our heads.

What I discovered about angels:

• They’re a lot like me.
• They don’t ask questions.
• Their strongest response to my confessions was “Oh. Huh.”
• I never met one I didn’t like.

The Spice That Hooked Medieval Nuns

(The Atlantic)

Hang on, Atlantic. There is a big difference between having a habit and being hooked.

The medieval nuns had habits and the habits were boring affairs. Monochromatic. Itchy.

Don’t get me wrong. Living in a secure nunnery was vastly preferable to being stuck outside its walls, where life was nasty, brutish, and short, to coin a phrase. In the nunnery, the sisters made due with less: less mud, fewer fleas, and zero monks. Still, they could have done with something more, or so they told themselves. More less but also a little bit more more.

That’s when the wimple was invented, to spice up their habits. Each nun made herself two wimpli, one for the six quiet days and one for Sunday. In countries where the everpresent mud could be made to extract a dye, wimpli would be found of varying hues (they started out white but had to be washed in muddy water).

The monks answered with the invention of the cowl, but cowli just made the monks creepier than before. Why spend so much time on your tonsure if it were only to be covered with a hood? Nobody trusted a monk in a hoodie. In some neighborhoods, it was worth your life to beg for alms (or peanuts), especially if your robes were black.

Today, some nuns take their wimpli for granted. They want yet more. Some are wearing hats.

God’s Family: The Children

I have commented previously on God’s wife (here, here, and here) and dog (here and here). What about His children?

Of course we’re all God’s children. Jesus is the best and Satan is the worst. George Washington never told a lie but he’s the only U.S. president and God’s child who can say that. (I’d credit the wag who wrote the line about Washington but can’t remember his name.)

All of God’s children have got wings, robes, harps, shoes (some debate about this one), rhythm, swing, and trouble. They may not have money and they may have the blues.

So what about the kids still up there, living at home with God, who we never hear about?

God has three kids in the house: Bud, Randi, and Claude. Bud is a Buddhist who climbed a tree in God’s backyard a long time ago and never came down again. Randi is a two-billion-year-old teenager who lives in the basement and has a problem with the size of her wings. Claude… I’ve got nothing negative to say about Claude. Claude’s an angry young dude.

So nothing newsworthy about the stay-at-homes. Don’t call them Millennials! The Creator keeps it real up there in the Fields of Bethesda… or no, that’s a housing development in Maryland I’m thinking of.

There are stories about God’s special children, but I’ll save them for later.  I don’t want the next missile scare to be worse than the last one.

What Would Jesus Do? #526

Dear WWJD, my daughter, who is only twelve, wants to wear a “training Wonder Bra.” These things are designed to accomplish one thing and one thing only and should definitely be banned and illegal. I told my daughter N O spells NO and now we aren’t speaking. How would Jesus handle this situation? #AngryWorriedMom

Dear AngryWorriedMom, in Jesus’ time, women wore an outer tunic over an inner tunic. The woman’s outer tunic was somewhat longer than the man’s (Isaiah 47:2; Jeremiah 13:2). Nothing was worn beneath the inner tunic (the coordinated bra-and-panties set had not yet been invented).

So we would need to explain to Jesus what the training Wonder Bra is. Also, we would need to explain to Him that a girl of twelve, these days, is not already married and starting a family. These days, attracting a husband has more to do with dress, makeup, and jewelry that with presenting a goodly dowry of sheep and goats.

Sadly, we would also have to make Jesus understand that today, the average tween girl  looks like a tart on the best of days.

Once He had learned all this, I believe, Jesus would seek out the factory where the training Wonder Bras are made and, growing wroth, would drive all the workers to without the structure (which is located in Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, China, 19.1 km from our Christ the Lord Christian Church, congregation 129, in that same city).

Dog’s Butt Looks Like Jesus (Huffington Post)

Many thanks to The Huffington Post for the publicity. Praise Jesus.

If you find yourself passing through Backtoe, Georgia, do stop by our Jesus Museum. Bring this article with you for 10% off your ticket price. Glory to God.

When you enter the museum, you will find the mongrel Bubba chained to a post next to the front door. If he’s sleeping, press the button on the wall next to him to activate the air horn. At the blat, Bubba will jump up and run in circles around the post, yapping in fear. We’ve docked his tail so you can get a great view of our Savior every time Bubba runs past. Hallelujah.

Other museum highlights:

– A devil’s root in the shape of the male member.

– A set of Farmer’s Chew Jesus collectible cards (missing #18, Spear in the Side,  and #24, Vinegar Sponge to the Mouth).

– A small piece of the True Cross (Georgia white pine).

– Your future, as forecast by the suspected witch Mabelly Roosevelt Lincoln ($5.00)

Our most precious item is located at the back of the museum just before you exit. Stop to meditate upon the embalmed remains of my Aunt Flora. She was a mannish woman and I always thought she looked like Jesus.

Ya’ll come back, hear?

could the anti-christ be china?

“could the anti-christ be china?”

This is a search question that was used to reach my blog today. I think that it deserves an answer.

First of all, I know a Chinaman. He serves me a plate of pan-fried noodles every Friday evening at Woo’s. I don’t know whether he speaks English or not. All I’ve heard him say is “You likee?” He wears a short-sleeved white shirt and black trousers. Could he be the Anti-Christ? Perhaps. I can’t just come out and ask him, because the Anti-Christ is apt to lie. Let’s keep this guy in the back of our minds for now.

There are one billion Chinese in China. That’s 1,000 million. We can deal with them million by million and then we’ll only have to do it 1,000 times. Half are female, so we can eliminate them. Or, wait. Has it ever been proven for sure that Christ was a guy? Maybe we better not rule out the females just yet. And anyway, with all the transgender, sex-changing activity going on (End of Days!), it’s a moving target anyway.

So, first of all, the Anti-Christ will come all friendly like. The checkout woman over at Pay And Go did not get the memo. Very crabby. Maybe she’s Japanese. I read an article where a whole crowd of folks, white, brown, yellow, and black, were given a test: they were all shown pictures of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. Nobody could tell the difference. So that checkout woman, if the Anti-Christ is Chinese, is not Chinese. She failed the friendly test. That’s how we know that the Japanese are not the Anti-Christ. Pearl Harbor.

What about all those different Chinese languages? You could get 20 Chinese in a room and none might know what any of the others are talking about. Is the Anti-Christ that tricky? What about Taiwan? Is everybody on the island just pretending to dislike the mainland?

If the Chinese are the Anti-Christ, they sure fooled Pearl Buck. And they’ve wasted a humongous amount of time, incense, and gongs on Buddist ceremonies.

Wait a minute! Lucy Liu. I love Lucy Liu. No way she’s the Anti-Christ. But she’s seductive, so seductive. Could she come to me sometime, like a thief in the night? No, that’s Jesus who will do that. It’ll be spooky when he does, too.

My time as a monk

When I was in my 20s, I renounced the materialism of the Western world. I got a job on a freighter after obtaining my seaman’s ticket, and worked on the high seas until taking my accumulated pay and debarking for good at the port of Chittagong. I could have lived like a king for a year in Bangladesh but instead I secreted my money on my person and made my way north on foot, depending upon the kindness of strangers for my biryani and llish.

In time, I passed through the hills of Meghalaya (the Scotland of India) and crossed into Assam. I endured rain, sat and watched the one-horned Indian rhinoceros, and eventually progressed into Bhutan. Here, in the deep valleys, as I approached the mighty Himalayas, I began sitting with the Vajrayana monks whom I encountered. Finally, in the company of these monks, I began the long, long tramp to Cona in Tibet, at 14,000 feet, and eventually, as the seasons passed,  to Gonggar. I was tempted to apply for membership in the Sakyapa school of Tibetan Buddhism at the Gonggar Dzong or the Gonggar Choede Monastery, but I craved to leave the valleys and trek up into the wild and rocky Himalaya hinterlands, which I did, feet wrapped in burlap. I could feel myself leaving the world behind and approaching true understanding on the edge of the great voids of thin air that fill the spaces between the mountain peaks up there.

I arrived finally in a small and nameless village on the stoney gray flank of a gigantic mountain. A woman, Chomo-Lung-Ma (Godess Mother of the Universe), took me in. There were no monks in the village but she explained by gesture that this was a good thing – that I could best advance my own personal monkhood in solitary fashion.

It developed that she had six children. She kept me busy with chores, which seemed good for a newbie monk. I never figured out where the village’s food came from. The goats would wander off over the flinty slopes; they must have found something to eat somewhere back there because they came back sated. Chomo-Lung-Ma gave me sustenance sufficient to keep me alive and able to work, no more.

When Spring arrived, she gathered the family’s meager belongings and the kids and prodded me out onto the track through the village. It seemed as if we walked for months after that. Walked and walked. In fact, we did walk for months. We walked until we arrived on the ocean shore at the harbor of Beihai in Guangxi province. Chomo-Lung-Ma took my money stash, which had remained intact since my final day on the freighter, and she and I and her children crossed the Pacific and were smuggled ashore south of L.A. We caught a succession of buses north to a furnished bungalow in Canoga Park. Five bedrooms, three baths, red-tile roof, full landscaping. We took up residence as a happy, middle-class married couple. She worked with a gang smuggling Far Eastern drugs; I was in charge of the kids, the pets we acquired, and the Escalade. Two housemaids came in on Tuesdays and Fridays.

I would have done some yard work, but a Mexican crew showed up every Thursday to take care of that.

Taxing the Rich: WWJD

Jesus hates taxes, but that’s not the end of the story. Jesus loves tithes. “The tithe is that tenth of our income that we give to God, which enables Him to move on our behalf in the area of blessings.” Satan would never cough up one tenth of his ill-gotten gains, not for Jesus or the IRS or anybody, except possibly for some really hot chick that he just couldn’t resist; but even then, he wouldn’t pay her until he’d sampled the goods. So if your tithing contributions are up to date, Jesus knows that you aren’t one of Satan’s minions. This may seem like taxation, but it’s a good thing, in terms of your health.

Jesus himself could be rich if he wanted. He could turn water into gold, never mind wine. So when you’re taxing the rich, it’s like you’re taxing Jesus Himself. This is a good way to get yourself  struck with leprosy or something even worse. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. You don’t want to be taxed, do you? So why would you tax someone else, even someone filthy rich and undeserving of the luxurious life he or she is living on the backs of the rest of us?

Polls show us that more than 61% of rich people are skunks. They’re stuck up, they’re rude, their kids are running wild, and most of their money is just sitting there doing nothing. Jesus would take that money and give it to those of us who are spreading the gospel over radio and TV. Jesus would give the rich a choice: donate or burn in Hell. But he’s say it better than that, talking about lambs and His Father’s Kingdom and so forth.

Jesus has always been about small government. You’ve got God, you’ve got The Holy Ghost, you’ve got Christ. That’s the three branches of Heaven’s government right there, and it consists of only three individuals, if you count The Ghost as a person. Any government with more than three people in it is heresy. Those thousands or millions of Hindu gods? That’s the type of government you want to avoid. The cost of salaries and rental office furniture alone will kill you.

Bottom line: If you’re rich, be a nice guy. Be pleasant at all times. Say “Ola” to your gardeners. Say “Buenas dias” to your maids and try to keep your dirty paws off them, unless they seem genuinely interested. Contribute to Ron Paul. Maintain a large compound in a third-would country in case Obama is reelected and finally starts to show a little backbone.