Category Archives: Religion

You are not alone: surprise!

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The planet...as seen from Washington and Middle America (is that what they mean by the Mideast?)

According to this National Geographic article, most Americans may be vaguely or acutely aware that illegal immigrants exist, but they have no fucking clue where these people are coming from.

Take Iraq, for example. Despite nearly constant news coverage since the war there began in 2003, 63 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 failed to correctly locate the country on a map of the Middle East. Seventy percent could not find Iran or Israel.

Nine in ten couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map of Asia.

Who’s with me in thinking the remaining ten percent have served over there? I mean, I’m sure some of the soldiers come back, right? Alive?

Anyway, looking at it from a totally selfish perspective, it’s a good thing. Not only will it eventually bring to a halt American Imperialist expansion, once the (miniscule) current generation of geography-erati die out, but it also effectively prevents them from invading Alberta for oil or Vancouver for drugs. As Rick Mercer said, just take our name off the map index and they’ll NEVER FIND US!

Transcript of late-night phonecall to an anonymous geographer:

Yes, Mister President. No, no, I was awake anyway. What? Uh…yes sir. Yes sir. Ummmmmm…well maybe not, sir. No sir, I’m sorry but I can’t give you the coordinates. Yes sir, I’m aware that it’s rich in natural resources. Yes sir, I’m aware that the people there do not recognize Our Lord, Jesus Christ as the savior. Well sir, it’s just that Y’ha-nthlei is a fictional construct. Pretend, sir. It’s pretend.

Quiz: What Book Are You?

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I'm not sure I like this. I mean, I'm not disputing it; no, not in the least. But I'm still not sure I like this. At least I'm a literary best-seller!


You're The Poisonwood Bible!
by Barbara Kingsolver
Deeply rooted in a religious background, you have since become both isolated and schizophrenic. You were naively sure that your actions would help people, but of course they were resistant to your message and ultimately disaster ensued. Since you can see so many sides of the same issue, you are both wise beyond your years and tied to worthless perspectives. If you were a type of waffle, it would be Belgian.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

Working Out Your Own Salvation With Xena: Warrior Princess Or, The Renewing of Ego Ideals in Syndication

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Whodathunk a scholarly paper on Xena: Warrior Princess Xena is watching. And that bitch will cut you!existed? But, knowing that as you now do, is it any surprise it's written by a raving Xeniac?

Author's Note: Watching Xena religiously has helped to keep me relatively sane over the past four years while I have been working towards my Ph.D. in Religion and Personality at Vanderbilt. This paper started life as a term paper on the first season episode TIES THAT BIND (20/120) for a course on Freud and religion in 1996. It was radically condensed and reorganized last Fall (with the help of this fine, on-line publication) in order to be included in a panel on "Women and Religion in Popular Culture" at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion on November 21, 1998. Prof. Sheila Briggs did not present her paper on "Xena Crucified: Christology and Post-Colonial Theory" until two days later, so I had the unexpected pleasure of delivering the first Xena research paper at the A.A.R. Since I was writing for Xenite and non-Xenite members of the academy, please forgive those portions that seem to be preaching to the converted, or belaboring the obvious.

Okay, now, to a certain extent I understand the desire to, upon realizing just how many hours you've wasted watching cartoon T&A Sapphic dramady, get something out of it, if only a scholarly paper for Vanderbilt. When I had cancer I'd watch Hercules four times a day, but then the chemo I was on was so strong that, by the time the last episode came on I'd have forgotten I'd seen it at 10 that morning, and enjoyed it all over again in a happy, chemically-induced stupor.

But there's fans and then there's fans. Behold, the horror that is Working Out Your Own Salvation With Xena: Warrior Princess Or, The Renewing of Ego Ideals in Syndication

Introduction (01-05)
A Trojan Horse Opera (06-13)
The Iliad and Theodicy (14-19)
Xena, the Bezerker (20-29)
If You Killed Your Friends and Family, Who Would Bring You Casseroles? (30-31)
Humanizing the Enemy (32-38)
Working Out Your Own Salvation (39-41)
Notes
Bibliography
Biography

Xena Sees You; Xena Sees All!

Classical Criticism: Football Edition

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The OdysseyThere are some few things in this world that remind me of the late Hunter S. Thompson. There are very few things indeed in this world that remind me both of Hunter S. Thompson and Homer's Odyssey. There is only ONE thing in this world that reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson, Homer's Odyssey, and that 300-pound bundle of muscle, fat, tattoos and leather who got on the bus and sat his wide, Harley-ridin' ass down beside my English professor, who happened to be reading The Iliad at the time and expecting the worst from his new seatmate, poked a chubby, dirty finger into my prof's Penguin paperback and chuckled, "Da Iliad! I love dat book! Rumble in Troy! Ah, man, war's all about chicks, eh? Fuckin' chicks, man."

This is that thing.

Carroll apologizes to Poseidon with burnt offering, three flocks of cattle, Reggie Bush shaped golden idol
May 1st, 2006

Los Angeles, Calif. – Taking his cue from Homer's Odyssey, University of Southern California head football coach Pete Carroll attempted to appease the legendary anger of Poseidon with an offer of burnt lamb, approximately seventy heads of cattle and an 8 ft. high statue of USC running back Reggie Bush made entirely from gold…

Few critics, however, are willing to predict what will happen even if Poseidon is satisfied.

"I am of the opinion that Carroll will eventually succeed in metaphorically returning home and triumphing over adversary," Addison said. "Much like [Alfred Lord] Tennyson's Ulysses, I see in him a man whose passion for life and exploration will never allow him full rest – and though he may now appear to be 'an idle king' he will inevitably seek to 'sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars' by recruiting a class of twenty Scout and Rivals rated five star players. It seems obvious even to these British eyes that [Carroll] is a man determined 'to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'"

"Then again, much like Odysseus, he could opt to shoot everyone who so much as looked at Penelope the wrong way. I would probably expect a mixture of 'one equal temper of heroic hearts' and good old fashioned fairly indiscriminate slaying."

Homer...standup

PSA: May Day

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May Day! May Day! I'm Not Sure What Constitutes a Proper Celebration of Beltane Anymore!In memory of John Kenneth Galbraith, I suggest that everyone wear black on May 1, May Day, International Worker's Day.

If you want to hold ribbons and dance around a maypole too I suppose that's okay, but try to look dour while doing it, all right? And make them black ribbons, grosgrain if you have it, something matte. I'm really feeling the matte. And maybe you could sing something from the Bruce Cockburn songbook? "they call it democracy" would be perfect!

Here are the lyrics, ideal for happy, full-mourning maypole dancing on International Worker's Day, to commemorate the death of John Kenneth Galbraith:

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poorWho rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament —
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
Idolatry of ideology

North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt