typhoonist

Okay, so I was up all night drinking. Has anyhow noticed that the only area in which the metric system has taken a hold of America is in the liquor industry? Bottles are now in liters. What a waste of time learning the metric system was in the second grade when I wasn't able to purchase a 1.75 liter bottle of Jim Beam.

Anyway, I'm up all night and, while flipping through the channels, come across G4 which is showing old Star Trek episodes. They're also showing Star Wars action figures commercials. with a Millennium Falcon that separates to form two Han Solo and Chewbacca transformer robots, but that's another issue altogether. I thought that Star Wars crap was over and done. Anyway, the episode I"m watching is the Space Hippies episode. This episode makes Mr. Chekov a central character as he once was boning a space hippette before she went space hippie. There are several scenes with Mr. Chekov and this woman. Now, Chekov always looked to me as though he had a sort of early Beatles hairdo -- all plump bangs on the front. But with all the closeups on this episode I can see that his hairdo is all combed forward towards the forehead. Finally, in one extreme closeup it is displayed that he has a horizontal part in the middle of the back of his head and all the hair is combed forward over his forehead from there. Then it hits me -- CHEKOV IS THE ORIGINATOR OF THE HAIRDO THAT DONALD TRUMP SPORTS TODAY!

Shit. I feel like one of those archaeologists on the History Channel.

From a Yahoo news story entitled "Nuisance Beaver Trappers are on the Rise":

"As the beaver population rises in Illinois and across the nation, so-called 'nuisance' trappers are making a decent dime deploying devices that drown the beavers or snap their necks.
'The work that's involved is incredible,' said Ken Staley, a Maryville man who along with his 15-year-old son, Nick, recently earned $3,000 from Illinois' Madison County and a township to remove nuisance beavers at $30 a head...
Clandestine pipes known as 'Beaver Bafflers' or 'Beaver Deceivers' lower a pond's level without disturbing the beaver dam. Beavers frustrated by being unable to raise the water level often will move on...
Still, he said, "there aren't that many places for beavers to go where they're not going to be a nuisance" in Illinois and other states where suburbs are engulfing farmland.
Staley makes no apologies.
'You control termites and insects. Beaver is nothing more than large mice,' he said. 'I like beaver, and I'd never want them to disappear. By trapping them and controlling their numbers, they won't.'"

They can be a nuisance and I'm sure that removing them is a lot of work, what with their attorneys and the ACLU and all, but if it allows a man to go around saying that he builds and installs Beaver Bafflers and Beaver Deceivers, it's well worth the effort.

This from the Yahoo news site:

"Texas Arresting People in Bars for Being Drunk
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.

The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission's Carolyn Beck.

Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness, Beck said.

The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.

"We feel that the only way we're going to get at the drunk driving problem and the problem of people hurting each other while drunk is by crackdowns like this," she said.

"There are a lot of dangerous and stupid things people do when they're intoxicated, other than get behind the wheel of a car," Beck said. "People walk out into traffic and get run over, people jump off of balconies trying to reach a swimming pool and miss."

She said the sting operations would continue throughout the state."

Now, I know that many people will think that my problem with this has to do with my excessive enthusiasm for strong drink, but this is not the case. Consider this:

The TABC spokesperson admits that the purpose is to prevent people from leaving bars and engaging in dangerous activity. The actual legal issue behind the arrests, however, is that "Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness." But why do we have laws against public drunkenness? Because we don't want to see drunks on the street wallowing in a puddle of their own bile and urine. The laws against public intoxication were never intended for the person who is legally drunk but still capable of comporting his/her self in an appropriate fashion in public. You never see police roadblocks on the sidewalk where they force pedestrians to submit to breathalyzer tests. Public intoxication laws are in place to keep the streets clear of out-of-control drunks. So let's not pretend that this is a campaign against public drunkenness. The TABC spokesperson admits that this is all about what the bar patron may do after he/she leaves the bar. So this is actually an attempt to arrest people for what they might do later. And THAT, my friends, is the problem I have with this operation. This is not a nation where people are arrested and incarcerated for things they MIGHT do. The "I thought he was going to hit me so I hit him first" defense is not acceptable in a court of law for the plaintiff or defendant, even if one of them happens to be the state. In a free society, we arrest and try people for acts they commit. Yes, it makes law enforcement more difficult, but the PRIMARY purpose of law in this country is to protect the rights of its citizens, not to make the state's job easier. See the first ten amendments to the Constitution if this concept is unfamiliar to you.

This is all too typical of the way law enforcement in this nation has been going since 9/11, although it goes back much further than that. When the first George Bush was running for the Presidency, the cry of the ignorant I heard every day was, "The courts let criminals off on technicalities." Well, Spanky, I don't happen to consider the Bill of Rights a technicality and I would rather live in a country where I was responsible for my own protection than to live in one where the police turn my home into a jail cell in the name of "protecting" me. "Protective custody" is not a lifestyle most Americans would enjoy. Although if things proceed as they are, they may have a chance to try it.

In this nation the relationship between the people who are governed and the government authorities was never intended to be one where the government is straining to ferret out all your little secrets. Sting operations are nothing more than a trap that is laid to discover activity that is not obvious. In the case of organized crime or terrorist cells, this makes sense. In the case of ordinary citizens drinking more than the state alcohol and tobacco board thinks is good for society, this does not. The criminal statutes in THIS nation are only supposed to be invoked against citizens who have done something wrong, not against citizens who may or may not do something wrong at a later date. And don't drag out that tired old "if it saves the life of just one child, isn't it worth it?" horseshit. How many mothers' children died in the wars this nation has fought to preserve the Bill of Rights? What about THOSE children and their sacrifices? Does it only count if the child is under 18? The right of the people of this nation to be free from concentrated efforts on the part of law enforcement to find them guilty of some crime, no matter how trivial or how hard they have to dig, is more important than the lives of a few children. Or that's the way it's supposed to be. Otherwise, how did this nation come to be and why haven't we turned our backs on freedom long before now in the interest of saving "just one life?"

Make no mistake about it, this is the New McCarthyism. If you speak in favor of the Bill of Rights against the provisions of the Patriot Act, you're unpatriotic. If you speak out against the war you don't support our troops. If you're appalled at the idea of a massive undercover operation to prevent people from having a good time, you're in favor of drunk drivers. It seems that the only thing that is impossible to publicly support these days is the Constitution and the Rights of the Individual. With every day that passes I hear a young Jack Nicholson in "Easy Rider" saying, "You know, this used to be a helluva good country." Are we really a nation that fears freedom this much?

Tonight as I hovered in the land between slumber and waking, eyelids heavy with drink, I slid into slumber to the strains of an Old Navy commercial blaring on the telly. In sleep a vision of an Old Navy came to me: septuagenarians in WWII-vintage blue sailor suits cavorting in a big, Hollywood dance number on the deck of a battleship, their aluminum walker frames flashing in the sun as they listed and stumbled their way through step-step-sidestep-twirl and crashed to the deckplates in a tumble of flailing arms and flying legs, both flesh and aluminum.

This was immediately followed by the Convicted Felons Under House Arrest Chorus, who marched and pivoted in a militarily precise close-order drill formation as they sang a hearty rendition of "Anklets Aweigh."

I was spared the sight of Gene Kelley and a young Frank Sinatra singing the glories of Old Navy fleece-wear. Thank God. Instead I awoke and went to the kitchen to see whether there be any rum in the house.

20 hours now...arms heavy...shoulders burning, burning...fingers cramping along with hands...downy hairs sprouting palms of both hands...like hair on forearms of young blond woman...vision blurring -- can the old wives tales be true? Must seek answers for the good of mankind...

I'm now about 16 hours into my trial of strength and endurance. I began this noble experiment Thursday at midnight with a cable showing of "The Halfway House." It is an R-rated film of the Girls in Prison genre. I'm starting out with soft-core cable porn so as to slowly build up to a level of porn-titillation-intensity that will sustain me over a marathoner's distance. I find that my mind is still sharp, but I am beginning to fail physically. I'm beginning to get some cramping in the hands and burning in the elbows and shoulders. I also failed to anticipate the difficulty in taking nourishment. After 16 hours there is a real danger of forgetting which hand is holding the sandwich. A bite to the contents of the wrong hand would spell disaster. I also failed to anticipate the difficulty of maintaining these updates while typing with only one hand. My enthusiasm for the project remains high, however. I shall persevere!

It's a whole, new month beginning today. Having heard Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" quote all through February, I am inspired to live my own dream here in March. I have decided to masturbate continuously for three days. Why? Like Everest, because it's there. Toward this end I spent the last few days of February doing one-arm curls, push ups, and my usual full-cocktail-glass lifts far into the night in order to have my arms in top condition for this ordeal. As is advisable prior to beginning any strenuous exercise program, I visited my doctor for a checkup and was assured that this was the sickest program for which any patient had ever requested a consultation and that I could treat the open sores soon to appear on my penis without his help.

And so, one man, alone, I prepare to make my dream a reality. I am excited, but resolute. If this effort is to achieve fruition, however, I need YOUR help. I request that anyone who reads this and believes in a man's dreams to send me porn. Any kind of porn. The written word, videos, audio, photos -- anything that you sincerely believe will transform a pink wiggler into a mighty anaconda. Porn of a personal nature will be gratefully accepted for there is nothing like the personal touch to raise a man's spirits. So to speak. Contributions can be sent to thedesignateddrinker@yahoo.com.

I ask for your help and your good wishes. Yes, there is a serious risk of painful chafing and dangerous abrasions, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Himself. I am as ready as a man can make himself for the ordeal ahead. As I bend to my task I declare, "America, I'll see you on the other side! God's mercy upon us all!"

So I've been seeing a lot of television advertising lately about the hybrid cars that run on corn oil. Figuring this is the coming thing, I decided that, for once, I was actually going to prepare for the future (not like my failure to open an IRA or my failure to kill myself when Bush was elected in 2000) so I have just returned from the grocery store and I am proud to announce that I have twenty cases of canned corn in the garage, awaiting the future of automotive transportation! Hah! For once I'm ahead of the curve. I even bought cream style for smoother engine performance with fewer knocks. I am one proud, proud man.

Also, I would like to provide this link to the alleged reader:
http://not-a-finger.diaryland.com

She is one funny gal. Many of her old archives were lost, which is a crime against levity, but she is updating again and is still cracking me up.

I just read a Yahoo news story -- apparently Vice President Dick Cheney was down here over the weekend and, while hunting quail with a shotgun, accidentally shot one of his hunting companions. The guy was wearing a bright orange vest and Cheney shot him. The victim was sprayed with the shot pellets and is in the hospital in stable condition. Cheney returned to Washington D.C. Sunday night and the administration kept a lid on the story until it was uncovered by -- get this -- The Corpus Christi Caller Times, the most inept newspaper I have ever had the pleasure to mock.

Still, I'm pretty pissed. How can they let that mean-spirited, doddering goober loose with a loaded gun and not warn the residents of the afflicted area? I spent the weekend in an upright position without a bullet-proof vest! I could have been killed -- and with Cheney there's always the possibility that it might be just for sport! What the fuck is the Terror Alert Color Code System for, anyway, if not to warn us of danger?

Bastards!

However it is, I suppose, in keeping with the pro-active nature of this administration. They don't sit around waiting for people to take a shot at them like Ford or Reagan -- they get out there and take it to the people by shooting first! This policy should make Election 2007 one for the books.

Okay, I hate to get into this again but I am being swiftly driven towards the land of the disgruntled postal worker and I must leak some steam or lock and load, so here 'tis:

I absolutely defy anyone, anywhere, anytime, to show me the chapter and verse in the Bible where it is stated that the Earth is 5,000 years old. That's because the statement is nowhere to be found within its pages. Seriously, we'll make a wager and if I am wrong you can hook clips to my nipples, attach the clips to the rear bumper of a 1969 Chevelle 427 via braided steel cables, and tear my nipples from my body in a screeching bleach burnout. If I am right I can rip your lying, traitorous tongue from your mouth and fly it from the radio antenna of my car in order to mark it in crowded parking lots. For me, the pisser to piss upon all pissers is that this crap comes from people who want to ban the teaching of science in school because texts on the subject are not a part of the Bible and these luddites insist that anything not mentioned in the Bible cannot be the truth.

This crap pisses me off so badly that I was going to write this entry in Esperanto, but all the Esperanto selection does is put the stuff attached to LiveJournal in the language, not what I type, so another idea is thwarted by lies and deceit.

Now, I surely do wish that I could let old Copernicus rest in peace. He has surely done his part for society already, but I must once again jostle his tired, old bones by dragging out his story. You see, the church clerics who called his idea (earth spinning on axis/rotating around the sun) blasphemy had the idea that the Earth was the center of the Universe. They claimed this came from the Bible. There is, however, no discussion of celestial mechanics therein. I think that there is probably a reason for this, that being that the words are more concerned with the behavior of people on earth than planets in space. No, this was an idea from a Biblical scholar of the day. He took the part about man being created in God's image to mean that we must therefore be the center of the Universe and combined that with the little mention of God halting the passing of the sun through the sky in order th give the Israelites more time to complete the genocide of some people in the promised land to demonstrate that the sun rotated around the Earth. These were all words shoved into the Bible's mouth by a guy in the Vatican basement who meant well, but was wrong. But because this badly conceptualized idea was repeated until it was believed to be an actual part of the Christian faith, the folks who were the most fervent supporters of the God of Mercy and the Prince of Peace were ready to burn Copernicus alive in the town square.

Really, people, if you are going to espouse that words are worth killing or dying for, shouldn't you stick with the actual words and not some second, third, or fourth-hand interpretation of the words?

Now today we have fervent "believers" who claim that the Bible says that the world is 5,000 years old and therefore that paleontology, biology, carbon dating, the Descent of Man, et al., are works of the Devil, the Prince of Liars. And these Goobers are about ready to start burning people in the town square over it, too. This claim makes no more sense than if I were to comb the Scriptures, pulling words out of context to support my theory that God wants me to sit in front of the television all day watching "Girls Gone Wild" videos while drinking myself into a coma. (My manifesto w/footnotes will be on sale in the lobby right next to the contribution plates. Give, and give generously.) It seems that another Biblical scholar took the lists of the ancestors of Moses and the Kings of Israel, estimated their life spans, threw in another 40 days and 40 nights to compensate for the flood, and came up with 5,000 years from the day God created the Earth. And despite all this estimation and guesswork, were I to suggest that "40 days and 40 nights" was a euphemism for "a real long time - nobody knows just how long" I would be condemned for daring to dispute the actual, literal interpretation of the Word. But nowhere does the Word say 5,000 years. Nowhere does the Word say "Do the math." In fact, nowhere does the Word imply that it is the complete story of everything that went on so long ago. The Old Testament is the story of the Jews in ancient times, and we know that they weren't the only people around so how can we use only their history as a yardstick for the whole earth? If Methuselah lived 900-odd years, how do we know that some of the other guys used to measure this span of time didn't also? This 5,000 year theory is so filled with guesswork that I wouldn't accept it as an estimate of the time it will take to repair my automobile -- why then should I accept it as to the age of dinosaur bones and human civilization? Because it's based on the Bible? How many loonies have used the words of the Bible to justify serial killings, torture, and self-mutilation? It's not the Word that I doubt, it's the words that regular, fallible, fatheads read into the Word that are the problem.

For God's sake (literally) if you're going to be a Biblical literalist, then stick to the literal words of the Bible. And if the Bible doesn't say "5,000 years" or "Darwin's a big, pussy-faced liar" don't put those words in yourself. Isn't that the Prince of Liars' domain? Now, will you assholes get a fucking grip or do I have to go door-to-door like a damned Mormon?

I have decided to become a giant. I have been paying far too much attention to the news lately and have decided that I have had enough of all the squabbling, the cover-ups, and the flat-out stupidity of a large portion of the world's population and therefore I have decided to become a giant. Yep. An old-school colossus bestriding the earth and instilling terror in the ant-sized population beneath my enormous feet. And I shall purchase my clothing at Big & Tall shops but shall be constrained from wearing kilts for it shall be too easy for people to look up my kilt and see my huge testes, swinging like castanets of doom above a fiesta of fear. And woe be to he that ticks off my gargantuan ass for I shall crush him into dust and leave the dust lying about like the bits of cockroach exoskeleton that litter my bathroom floor. And lo! There shall be a weeping and a gnashing of teeth and everybody's dentist shall make them wear a mouth guard at night for that gnashing is not good for your dental health. And I shall stride over the earth smiting with furious vengeance those who claim that Jesus rode a dinosaur or that canceling the Bill of Rights in the name of national security is acceptable behavior. And then I shall tire of striding the earth and shall build a car so that I can ride instead, but my mechanical skills are such that it will be a car like the one on Gilligan's Island but I shall not care for pedaling is good exercise. And mighty shall be my arm and swift my sword, and my mighty arm shall be called "Retribution" and my swift sword shall be called "Fuck You, Jack!" And then, at last, there shall be peace over the earth except when I drink too much and play my stereo too loudly. But if thou shouldst not like it, talk to the the sword, pal.

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
"Don't worry. I'll give you a prescription for 'Thisoflex' which should having you doing that in no time. They cost $3.50 per tablet; $3.48 for generic. Take three per day with a glass of Dom Perignon '42 and a blowjob from Uma Thurman. Your problem should clear right up in six to eight months."

Good thing I've got insurance. The champagne arrived earlier and I hear the insurance adjuster has a call in to Ms. Thurman's people. I have a friend who has the same thing and an HMO. They gave him the generic, a six-pack of Mickey's Malt Liquor, and an old photo of Angela Landsbury cut out of a newspaper. Medical science is a wonnerful thang.

It has been doctor appointment time this last week. I went to my eye doctor, the one who put the lenses in the back of my eye back in 2003. I had reached the point where even the extreme Wal-Mart reading glasses, the ones that are so powerful I can see bacteria moving on the printed page, could no longer allow me to read a book. And some days I couldn't make out distance, either. I'd get behind the wheel and tell myself that the ability to see 3 feet past the end of the hood meant that I could stop in plenty of time if any reason to came up. There are no lies more comforting than the ones we tell ourselves, are there?

Anyway, the Doc says that there has been no Macular Degeneration which made me a little giddy with joy. Macular Degeneration means "Just buy yourself a cane and a dog, boy, 'cause you sure gonna need the cane to beat the dog when the frustration of being alone and blind for the rest of your life sets in." It turns out that when he puts the lenses in the back of the eye there is a membrane back there which he is vewy, vewy careful to keep in place while he attaches the lenses. But it now appears that the membrane is fogging up and he'll have to burn a hole in it with a laser in order for me to see clearly again. I am very pleased with this turn of events, but I can't help but wonder why, if the membrane is prone to fogging in many cases, he's so concerned with keeping the damned thing in place to begin with. Now I have to have another round of eye surgery, one eye at a time, costing a couple of thousand dollars, in the new year when I have to start paying on my deductible again. I know, I know: "whine and pule, whine and pule! You could be blind, beayotch!" Which is true. So fuck me anyway and I'll shut up.

I also made a trip to the blood test doctor. His news was so amazing, I still don't quite know what to make of it. Apparently, my cholesterol, both good and bad varieties, is so low that he's cutting down on my medication. How this is possible I have no clue. The arthritis has been so bad for the last month that I have not bought nor prepared fresh vegetables and have existed totally on take-out. Take-out and liquor. I should write a new diet book and get rich. "Get Out of the Kitchen and Drink Your Way to a Healthier Life with Typhoonist and His Drunken Friends." Of course, I still need to lose weight, but I don't know where I'm going to find a high-fat, high-cholesterol, low calorie diet plan. I guess that will be my follow-up book.

And what is more boring than reading about somebody else's health report? Absolutely Nuthin' Say it again! Huh!

Oops! Gotta go. Uma's at the door with my medication. Ta!

Man, I love Jeopardy! I love to play along with Jeopardy and Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Win Ben Stein's Money. I always do better than the contestants on the show and this actually makes me feel good about the fact that I'm watching daytime t.v. and drinking and am only a step away from owning twenty cats and twenty stinking cat-boxes of kitty litter and puffing on a generic cigarette while shouting along with the studio audience "Wheel...of...FORTUNE!" Surely Pride goeth before a fall.

Not that I can watch Wheel of Fortune, even when drunk. The game is pretty goofy what with all the synchronized chanting and wheel-spinning, and Pat Sajak looks sort of like Alex Trebek's severed penis in a suit and tie. Their names even seem to imply some sort of disembodied body part relationship. Trebek/Sajak.

Obviously I've been drinking. The damned arthritis is goading me like the little devil on my shoulder except that he's sitting on my knees and elbows, poking me with the heated pitchfork and saying, "Just take a pill! Come on, it won't hurtcha!" But I frustrated his little red horned head and drank instead. How fortunate for anyone who happens upon this entry -- severed Sajak dicks, Jeopardy and kitty litter. I owe someone an apology.

Having been awoken at 3:48 am this morning by a ripping and jerking in my chest that hurled me out of bed and onto the floor, and having dealt summarily with such impudence on the part of my physical person by consuming several tumblers of bourbon while watching "That's Entertainment" on the telly, I have discovered that I have a far wider knowledge of Hollywood musicals than a heterosexual male really should. And I don't even care for Hollywood musicals. Life sure is a mystical voyage of self-discovery.

Astoundingly, remarkably, we find ourselves again debating the origins of man as fervently as at the turn of the nineteenth century. Once more marching Christian soldiers and rugged individualist evolutionists clash in acrid, noisy combat. One would think that the very fact that the debate has been moved from the pamphlet and radio to the television studio would make the case for the inevitable progress of all things, including humans, but nobody seems to give that much thought. Once again this mighty nation hears ringing throughout the land the most ignorant battle-cry lifted during its history: "Science is the enemy of God because scientists' hope is to disprove God's existence" Anyone who can make such a claim with a straight face, and defend it to the point of physical violence, is not the person I want explaining the origins of anything to me, much less teaching my children how babies are made.

And I believe in God, you understand. I believe that God, whatever He may be, created the universe and everything in it. I fail to see how such a belief prevents me from embracing advances in astrophysics, anthropology, or any other research into how this universe operates. I believe that the people who do have such a problem should re-evaluate their faith in God's creative abilities. Finding a fossil does not negate the existence of God. The problem is not with science, but in the Biblical scholar exceeding the boundaries of his scholarly knowledge.

'Way back in tha day there was no division between secular knowledge and Biblical knowledge. Scientific method was not merely in its infancy, but in its zygote stage. All knowledge came from the Church which made sense.  If God created the world and the Church is the voice of God, answers would appear to be coming straight from the source.  Unfortunately, the Church began to answer questions that were not specifically addressed in the Scriptures. And a man with a Ph.D. in economics doesn't necessarily know how to rebuild a transmission.  So when Copernicus came along and asserted that the Earth revolved around the sun rather than being the center of the Solar System, the church threatened him with torture and excommunication. The infallible voice of God on Earth could not appear fallible and the Church had been teaching the opposite based on some priest's interpretation of Biblical wording that wasn't even concerned with celestial mechanics. So for the purely political reasons of publicity what should have been received as a welcome correction to misguided belief regarding God's work was instead branded blasphemy against the Lord Himself.  The Scripture, God's word as collected and edited by weak, fallible man, was elevated above the observation of God's actual work which was, and is, still there for all to see for themselves.  And when Copernicus finally published his observations, was the jig up for God?   Is there still a Catholic Church? A Pope? Do people still worship God? It doesn't appear that Copernicus' work destroyed our world's faith in God, nor does it appear that to do so was ever his intention. I think that it is also interesting to note that when the Bible does make specific comment on the nature of the universe, it holds up pretty well despite age and mangling by the oral tradition for a thousand or so years.  I think that if a bronze-age savage had the big bang theory of universal creation explained to him by God, and then he had to squat by the fire and explain it to his fellow bronze-age savages, that "Let there be light, and there was light and form in the nothingness."  is a pretty good way to get the idea across.  Even today.

If you believe that God created the universe and everything in it then the study of science is the study of the mind and the works of God.  Isn't a desire to know the mind of God the reason why some men study the Bible?   Scientists study the actual fruits of the Creation. I'd ask how this could possibly make them less holy than a televangelist, but some idiot would answer. And while we're at it, let's use the fruits of that study.  If we discover that God has allowed penicillin or stem cells to heal the bodies of men, isn't that really more God's idea than ours?  I have never heard it suggested that God allowing wood and oxygen to burn still doesn't make it right to sit by the fire.  When it comes to the fruits of the Creation, let's remember Copernicus.  It took him 1500 years from the death of Christ to figure out the orbit of the Earth.  If we're a little late in coming to stem cells or Viagra it doesn't mean that we were never supposed to get here.  Or that God will suffer now that we have.

So please, please let us stop this ridiculous and annoying duel.  If God created man in His own image, is it really any less a miracle if He used 10 million years of evolution to do it instead of pulling man out of a hat?  And if evolution is not mentioned in Genesis, should we be surprised that concepts such as a million or even a year that didn't exist when Genesis was an oral tradition failed to make it to the version written centuries later?  The Bible is not science.  The Origin of the Species is not a religion.  They exist for two very different reasons.  Apples and oranges  Spiritual faith and scientific theory do not serve the same purpose and therefore do not encroach upon each other.  Scientific theory can be proved while faith cannot.  We will never, ever prove or disprove the existence of God by scientific method. There will never be a young theoretical physicist in an MIT classroom chalking up line after line of an equation on chalkboard after chalkboard. He will never finally chalk in the last notation, "...so 'X' equals..." only to have the roof fly away in a burst of light, the choir celestial burst into song, and God himself lean down out of the clouds to boom, "You did it, my son! You have solved the proof of the existence of God and in reward I reveal myself to you! Good job!" Ain't gonna happen. In an infinite universe each question we answer raises stil more questions.I think that this is a drag for children who, despite their fascination with all things magical, are uneasy to find themselves in a world where the important answers can't always be proved. It's up to you and me and all the other individuals imbued by the Creator with free will amongst the other inalienable rights to make the decisioni. You either believe or you don't. Belief or disbelief in a Creator will not alter the functioning of the universe one whit, it will affect only how you view it. And even when you've decided, your decision is always subject to change. That God -- does he have a sense of humor or what?

While not a big fan of children's literature (and yes, it is children's literature. I'm sorry if you think otherwise and are proud that you are now reading books for the first time in your adult life, but they are written for kids. Mommy and Daddy's books have bigger words and more complex emotional depth to the characters.) I find it interesting that reviews indicate that J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is getting "darker" as the characters age. Most authors of children's books don't allow their characters to age at all, so aging and the attendant emotional problems that go with it are an innovation in the field, as well as opening up new subjects that will allow the Potter audience to continue to identify with Harry as the years and series volumes pass:

* Harry Potter and the Painful Erection
* Harry Potter and the Hooker of Amazing Flexibility
* Harry Potter and the Urination of Fire
* Harry Potter and the Miracle of Penicillin
* Harry Potter and the After School Job that became a Career
* Harry Potter and the Realization that Wizardry Don't Pay Shit
* Harry Potter and the Late Night Drunk Dial to an Old Girlfriend
of Humiliation
* Harry Potter and the Viagra of Hope
* Harry Potter and the Return of the Painful Erection of 4 Hours or
More Duration

Potter fans can follow the likely lad's adventures right up until Harry Potter and the Cardiac Care Unit of Doom. Art will imitate life as we see Harry become disillusioned with the results of his life choices, frustrated with his lack of freedom, and fearful in the face of his own mortality -- flying his broom while drunk, using his invisibility cloak to sneak out of work early on Fridays, explaining to Hermione how his owl happened to fly in during breakfast to drop a strip-club matchbook cover with a phone number and "call me" scrawled on it onto the table. Kids of all ages will be able to follow along with Harry as he learns that even the ability to cast a spell won't keep the magic from disappearing from your life.

Richard Pryor -- I won't say that I can't believe that he's dead. In truth, I'm amazed that he lived this long. But it's still a sad, sad thing to know that he's gone even if he hasn't performed in years.

He was the funniest comedian that I ever saw. That's pretty good going up against contemporaries like George Carlin and Robin Williams, that fastest comedian alive. Williams can still make more jokes, more funny jokes, in a single breath than most can pull off in a half-hour television segment. But Pryor's jokes hit deeper. He made you laugh down in the part of you where you laugh when it's laugh or cry. It is the place where laughter comes from when you're frustrated or hurt, the place from whence the laughter arises when the doctor says you need surgery.

In the 1970's, when the nation thought it had managed to get through the riots and anger of the Civil Rights Movement and people were trying to walk softly, Pryor's records were an unending flurry of "Nigger, Nigger, Nigger." People were caught by surprise, to say the least. But even the most low-rent, down-South, redneck crackers (and I knew a few of them, believe me) had to admit that Richard Pryor was damned funny.

So in his own way, despite the multiple marriages, arrests, drug scandals and setting fire to himself - the kinds of publicity that should have made it easy for the crackers to dismiss him - Richard Pryor may have done more for race relations in the country than many a serious political activist. Because if a redneck, cracker racist laughed out loud and said, "That guy is funny!" it meant that he had admitted that a black comedian could be as funny as a white comedian. And if that was the case, couldn't a black doctor be as good as a white doctor? Couldn't a black teacher be as good as a white teacher? Once Richard made 'em laugh, their foot was on the slippery slope to finally realizing that a black man was the equal of a white man. I was there and the crackers I knew were never as blind after they had laughed to Richard Pryor.

I don't usually get emotional over the deaths of people I never met and he didn't perform anymore anyway, but there is a sense of loss that Pryor will never stand on a stage and make us laugh at his humanity and therefore at our own. He took no shit and despite doing it the hard way, remained a funny, funny guy.