The Short Con, The Long Con, The Eternal Con: Judgement Day 2011

"The priests of the different religious sects... dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight, and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live." ~Thomas Jefferson

  I met a woman in the park on Sunday who said the world was going to end. She was a Christian. I tried to talk some sense into her but it’s sad and maddening talking to religious people. They are hypocrites who barely know their own history and have such a blind and selective view of the bible and the world as to exist in a frightening bubble of delusion.

  She was wearing a sandwich board declaring Judgment Day to be May 21st this year. She had it all worked out since she’d read a couple of pamphlets from the eBible Fellowship and the Family Radio people. I asked her a few questions and discovered she totally actually believed the world was going to end. It was astounding, in this day and age, with so much information available to people… Anyway, rivers of blood are booked in for June. The raising of the dead is scheduled for August, probably to take advantage of the summer weather so it’s not so hard on their decayed bodies to sleep outdoors.

“But what if it doesn’t happen?” I asked.

“It is going to happen,” she said.

“You know it’s been predicted before. A lot actually. By a lot of religious crooks. It’s a con to get you to give the church money and grow the flock.”

“It says it’s going to happen in the Bible.”

“Lady, it says a lot of things in the Bible. Like in Luke, where Jesus says twice that you have to give up and sell everything you own.” My knowledge of the gospel of Luke stunned her a little so I pressed on. “Have you sold everything? Because if J-day is really coming, you’re running out of time.”
She was troubled. “We’re working on it,” she said.

“Are you sure? Have you sold your car?”

“No... I use it to get to my Grand Children,” she said. She was suddenly quite emotional but I wasn’t going to let her off the hook.

“Jesus is very emphatic about it, you must sell everything.”

  It was clearly ringing bells with her, the scumbags from the Cult of Christ were obviously hitting her with this stick already. I began to feel a little sympathetic but then I asked her if she read Hebrew and knew the origins of the man-made Bible and she said she didn’t but that it didn’t matter. Then I asked her about the existence of dinosaurs and she said that dinosaurs were still amongst us. My jaw hit the floor. I looked around, the park was all there, I wasn't dreaming. She really was batshit crazy.

  Get this, the Geckos you see running around would grow as big as the T-Rex but for a global conspiracy of Scientists killing them off before they can reach full size.

   NUTS.

  You live a life and you try your best, to be good, to hold things in perspective, slowly shaking off the monstrous burden of animal appetites and ignorance through the slow evolution of human intelligence. And on most days it all kind of makes sense, and there's hope. And then you meet a woman who not only believes the world is going to end but that there is a global conspiracy by scientists to suppress the existence of dinosaurs. There just aren't enough psych wards and padded cells to deal with the religious. What can you do with people like this? I’m used to debating with all faiths on various sites on the Internet but this was something else. This was sheer bloody-minded imbecility. She's going to get all shes got coming to her. I hope they take her for every last penny.

  Her sign was covered in quotes from the Old Testament.

  “In Leviticus,” I said, “it says: ‘A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning’ clearly, by your own rules you should stone yourself to death for predicting the future.”

  She smiled slyly. “I’m not acting as fortuneteller. What I say comes from God...”

  What can you do with these pricks? The old Son of Sam / God made me do it defense. They pick and choose which bits of the Bible to believe, the small obscure bits condemning gays are true but the clear commands of Jesus telling them to sell all they own are not. The bit about stoning people to death who work on the Sabbath is ignored but Judgment Day is coming. Jesus is all powerful and will answer your prayers and yet the power of prayer does not work at all and they have to create crazy elaborate excuses for the existence of suffering in the world, for example: it’s a test for Christians. It is in such a way that they all quietly slide in step with the congregation from the repulsive Westboro Baptist Church. Acting as a fortuneteller and predicting the end of the world which should get you stoned along with the homosexuals you want to stone is unashamedly sidestepped because it’s not them who’s being a fortune teller, it’s God.

  You point at the paradoxes in their beliefs and they blink like bovine and go right on preaching the faith while fucking up the world. You point out that science delivers where prayer does not and they smile and continue to thank Jesus for the gift of electricity and hummers and the military. Science puts planes in the air and religion flies them into buildings. It’s disgusting.

  And now. In 2011. In one of the most technologically advanced nations that humanity has ever seen. We’ve got the classic replaying of one of the most obvious Short Cons of all time: Judgment Day.

  As you read this, the eBible Fellowship is driving a caravan of buses across the country covered in slogans like: 'awesome news: the end of the world is almost here'. They are gathering in public places, pushing their leaflets and flawed Bible based bullshit onto anyone who gets near.

  It’s just like: 90CE / 500CE / 1000CE / 1284CE (Pope Innocent’s J-day, conjured by adding 666 years onto the foundation date of Islam) / 1669 CE (20,000 Old believers in Russia burned themselves to death to protect themselves from the anti-Christ) 1689CE / 1794 (Charles Wesley’s year) / 1891 (Joseph Smith’s)… all over again. Or, if you’re a Jehovah’s Witness: 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1994…

  This Short Con like this really shouldn’t work in this day and age. The contradictions of the Bible are clear to anyone who has a drop of critical thinking in their heads. But the con is working. The weak and the vulnerable are giving over cash.

  I’ve been in touch with the eBible people and in a bombastic attempt to stand up for the weak of mind, warned them they are going to have to account for every penny next year, when the world hasn’t ended. I got a quick reply back from one of their leading lights, a man called Chris Mccann. He quoted the Bible at me and told me they were a non-profit organization. Their website is pretty slick though, a bet he pays himself a massive fee for running it. ‘Operating Costs’ they call it. Fucking jokers. Why are we not taxing these goons? When can we hold them accountable?

  The Catholic church gained a lot of its wealth with this Short Con in the early years. Now they stick mainly to Long Cons like indulgence selling. You can buy your way into heaven don’t you know. They had stopped doing this after much criticism but have started doing it again in the past couple of years since they have lost so much money paying off the families of the children they’ve raped all over the world, (one billion and counting - oh come all ye faithful drop off your pennies for the pedophiles). It’s a Long Con since the people who are cheated, are dead when they discover the money they gave did not buy them or their friends and relatives out of purgatory.

  The Short Con is much more of a mugging. The victim will know they have been conned when, say, the magic beans do not grow a giant beanstalk or that Judgment Day does not happen. The Short Con should have repercussions on the con artist. They normally have to get out of town and change their name. On May 22nd, these people should be held to account. In November, after they say the world will have definitively ended. We should freeze their bank accounts and repossess their cars.

  I’m a good person and I do not need to invent an imaginary friend to make me be a good person. Nobody does. It’s time, the religious must be held accountable. The Sky Fairy can’t do it, since he doesn’t exist. We need to protect the weak from exploitation.

  Who’s with me? Grab your cyber-pitchforks and let’s storm the castle. If we can deal with this pathetic Short Con we can perhaps go for a bigger one next: The Eternal Con, that is religion itself.

And I Will...

Come to your funeral

In an eye patch

And puffed out winged flying trousers

And your family will not know

If I am taking the piss

As I keep a straight face

And press an iron swastika

Into the soft soil

Of your freshly packed grave.

 

Or maybe,

Instead of a swastika,

It will be a large condom in a gold packet

Or a baby's little boot

And at the wake I will present your next of kin

With the bill for the cleaning of a suit.

 

And I will drink heavily

And attempt to light a fart

And present a rambling toast

Calling you a bloated rapist

In confusing, friendly tones

And describe how you once

Opened a Turkish Baths in Little Armenia

Called 'Ethnic Cleansing'

And I will recall your favorite saying

A motto you lived by:

'If life gives you Aids - Make Lemon Aids'.

And hopefully,

There will be someone,

Angry, red-faced

Eager to defend your honor

Ready to punch

And I will suddenly switch my eye patch

From the right to the left

And adopt a Southpaw stance

Allowing me to land

The first blow.

 

And we will get into

An undignified scuffle

And I will know at least

That you meant something

To someone.

 

As the worms

Eat your brains

Through your eyeballs.

Stolen Food and Rutger Hauer’s Carrots

 Yesterday at the zoo we witnessed a wonderful tussle. It was the first really hot day we’ve had for a while (eighty degrees) and the keepers responded by passing out homemade chunky icicles to the Great Apes.

We’re lucky in San Diego to have a dual species exhibit of Orangutans and Siamangs and watching the different personalities of the two tribes and their interactions is often compulsive viewing.
The Siamangs are incredibly odd looking Gibbons; they have extremely long arms and hands like hooks for effortless swinging. Watching them move from branch to branch is beautiful; they perform high bar moves with a grace that would make Russian gymnastic coaches weep for joy. On the ground however they are ungainly and comic with odd stilt like legs that seem to be different sizes. Out of the trees their extended arms are a liability and they carry them like awkward sticks welded to their bodies.
The Orangutans outnumber and outweigh the Siamangs but they are so calm and chill that they never hurt them even when the Siamangs are getting in their faces and really asking for it. For the most part they seem to live harmoniously.

A couple of years ago both groups had babies and it was a joy to see them all playing together and helping the kids explore their environment safely. On any given day you might also find the Orangutans helping the Siamangs to use sticks to get at the ketchup and chutney the keepers hide in the artificial ant hills hidden around the exhibit. Siamangs don’t have the finger dexterity or the intelligence to master the anthills, advanced tool use seems beyond them. So they see the Great Apes working the hills and then pester the gentle giants for a lick of the stick. I’ve been observing them for over four years now and they still haven’t worked it out for themselves. 

They are like children compared to the Orangutans. They often want whatever the Orangutans have and sometimes resort to hair pulling, screaming and pinching to try and get their way. For the most part it’s harmless but occasionally they take it too far and the Alpha Orangutan, a gentle giant called Clyde, will sit on one of them and hold him to the ground in a sort of pacifying time out. He could rip the thing limb from limb or throw it out of the enclosure completely but he never does, instead he just holds them down, like a hospital worker subduing a maniac having a fit in the psych ward. After a while he lets them go and they climb to the highest point of safety and partake of a long session of comfort grooming.

Yesterday, with the heat, all the Orangutans were not in a sharing mood. The keeper threw in the lunchtime feed, lettuce heads, carrots and fruit and then tried to pass out the popsicles to just the orange hairy denizens of landscaped cage. The Orangutans knew the routine and they fanned out into space, away and above the Siamangs, holding out their arms to the keepers like football receivers finding free space. The Siamangs ignored their food and of course only wanted the red ice the Orangutans had gotten.

The keeper came out of the cage and explained that the Siamangs weren’t being excluded; it was more a case that they never eat the popsicles and only act like they want them. This didn't seem exactly true and for about ten minutes the Siamangs wanted nothing more than the fruit flavored ice and tried everything to get them out of the hands of the Orangutans. At a couple of points they came close to getting swatted off the high bars. The orange apes sucked on their big wedges of frozen fruit with fat lipped glee and the ungainly Siamangs begged and danced around them like devils, trying to steal them out of their hands. On two occasions they came to blows, the Siamangs lashing out in frustration and receiving lazy smacks around the chops in return.

In one corner, near the glass, the two year old Orangutan sucked on its popsicle with serious intent. It’s the smallest of the Orangutans but still three times the size of the Siamangs. It was left alone for quite a while but you could see what was going to happen. Over our shoulder the keeper explained that the Orangutan primarily being accosted by the Siamangs was the female that was most likely to share her frozen fruit flow with them, the softest touch in the cage. But as she wasn’t for sharing they spied the baby and one of them cautiously left the swing bars to stilt walk over to her to attempt to get her treat. The baby turned its back on the Siamang as it approached and the gibbon feinted to the left but rolled to the right and snatched the popsicle out of the young Orangutan’s hand.

It was kind of tragic; candy stolen from a baby. The youngster loped after the Siamang but the beast kept just out of reach and climbed high into the branches of the climbing frame, taking the high ground and eventually reclining in a small rope hammock. The youngster had to content herself with eating the bits of ice that fell onto the ground from the Siamang and the rest of her family.

‘The Orangutans are so much nicer to the Siamangs than they deserve,’ said the keeper over my shoulder as a large group of spectators cooed over the mugging.

A young boy then told the keeper he’d seen a monkey eating another monkey’s poo in another exhibit around the corner. The boy spoke to the keeper as if telling tales on a classmate. The keeper explained that it was OK.

‘It’s natural behavior; they will often search another animal’s excretion for undigested food. It's a survival technique. They don’t need to do it here since we feed them all a perfectly balanced diet but it’s something they would do in the wild...’

         Later we saw Rutgar Hauer pee on some carrots and then eat them slowly, pleasurably, as if marinating them in this way was his preferred method of preparation. Rutgar Hauer the Polar Bear not Rutgar Hauer the actor. Halfway through his meal of urine carrots he walked over to the mesh hole in the wall and sniffed deeply of the children watching him on the other side. With a nostril full of human child he returned to his carrots, his giant silver head shining in the sun.

An Excerpt From the Barnacle Bible

The Barnacle Bible, also known as the Stoner’s Bible, was discovered in a sealed chest in a sea cave in the Aegean Sea off the island of Rhodes. It is written in Akhmimic, a Coptic dialect, and contains numerous gospels and biblical books not found in traditional translations of the Bible. It contains Gnostic tracts, previously lost writings of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero and the eight suppressed Gospels of the life and death of Jesus that the Catholic Church sought to destroy. Scientists have dated the Barnacle Bible to around fifty AD. Historians using text analysis have confirmed the authenticity of the book and assert that these missing texts form the long sought ‘Q Document’, the origin material that much of the existing ‘Bible’ is copied from. The following excerpt comes from the Gospel of Eli. It presents a different view of Jesus but given that Christian communities have long accepted many contradictory views of Jesus in the traditional written Gospels and in the oral fabrications of popes, priests and evangelical preachers it has yet to provoke the schisms that many social commentators were predicting. The Jesus of Eli is a lot closer to the Old Testament God than the hippy poster boy of the New Testament. This ‘Newer’ testament therefore upholds a vengeful ideal of the messiah believed in by many Christians who are often confused by having to reconcile the anti-violence exhortations of Jesus with the opaque nastiness of books like ‘Revelations’ and the murderous needs of their own nation states and hypocritical self-interests.  

Eli 26:1

Jesus was taken to the place of skulls and there he was crucified along with a thief and a seller of the law. The centurions mocked him, saying ‘Here is the King of the Jews’.

A great many women did look on with quiet sadness. Among them was his mother Mary and Mary of Magdala.

Jesus cried out in pain, “Father, paint the sky with their blood.”

Mary of Magdala approached the centurions and asked if she could present Jesus with the herb.

“But what shall you give to us?” asked the centurions.

Mary of Magdala offered them of the herb and they took it but still they would not let Jesus partake of the herb. So Mary offered of herself. They agreed and allowed her to give the herb to Jesus.

And Jesus did smoke the herb and he became calm.

“Where is your goodness now?” asked the thief.

“You shall feel my goodness,” said Jesus. And although his arms were fixed upon the cross he did give of the herb to the thief. And the thief became calm.

One of the centurions named Augustus did see that Jesus had managed to give herb to the thief and tried to raise the alarm but his brothers were busy casting lots over Mary of Magdala and they did not listen.

So Augustus fell at the feet of Jesus. “Forgive me Lord, for I know not what I did.”

“No,” said Jesus, “for you have chosen to deal in death over my promise of life ever-lasting. I will see you die of the warty scrof before I let my father forgive you.”

And Jesus did look away and Augustus was full of sorrow.

“What about me,” cried out the seller of the law who was crucified at Jesus’ right hand.

“You will be welcome in my father’s house,” said Jesus.

“And may I not also have the herb?” asked the seller of the law.

“You will get your reward with me in heaven along with all who follow me,” said Jesus.

“Does your father’s house abide with the herb?” asked the thief.

“Ye,” said Jesus, “My father’s house is rife with the herb.”

“And may I too abide in your father’s house?” asked the thief.

“Ye,” said Jesus, “Just as you are now at my left hand so will it be so in my father’s house.”

“How big is thy father’s house?” asked the seller of the law.

“My father’s house has many rooms,” said Jesus, “and all are richly decorated and rife with the herb.”

“And is there wine in your father’s house?” asked the seller of the law.

“Ye,” said Jesus. “There is wine and oxen and lamb and grain and herb and the pastures flow with milk and with honey. As the birds do not hunger for anything nor shall you want for twigs or seed in the house of my father.”

“You can keep the twigs,” said the thief. “Just so long as there is wine and herb.”

And Jesus sayeth a third time, “Ye, my father’s house is rife with the herb.”

“Birds starved during the famine of Herod,” said the seller of the law. “The birds do hunger, sometimes.”

But Jesus did not respond and instead fell silent.

After some time he pointed towards the horizon where the sun did fall and where the centurions had taken Mary of Magdala behind the bushes and the sky did grow dark and turned blood red.

“Where is your father’s house?” cried out the thief.

But Jesus was silent and his eyes did stare vacantly at the earth for he had gone to his father’s house.

 

Some Hunches

It's Monday, it's raining and although I should be working on a new short story that is percolating in my noggin, I have a number of hunches I am compelled to share with you all.

The Wiki-leaks war reports revealing names of informants who have helped the U.S. happens to include many names of people who are agents for the ISI and Al-Qeada who the U.S. would like to see dead. It's a cunning counter-intelligence sting designed to neutralize certain untouchable players. 

Lovie Smith is going to be fired soon.

Our new apartment manager is regretting the high-handed attempt to reassign everyone new parking spots. The sixth or seventh manager in four years, she will not last more than six months.

Fox News is going to 'uncover' new footage of the JFK assassination proving it was a murder-suicide plot, with Nancy Pelosi being revealed as the second gunman on the grassy knoll. Improbable as it may seem, JFK ordered the hit on himself to discredit republicans. In Fox Newspeak, of course, 'uncover' means 'invent'.

There will be a young avant-garde Jazz trio somewhere called 'Goldman Sax'. They will be practicing making music with antique cash registers and adding machines from the Great Depression. The first album will include the tracks, 'The Bush Recession' and 'Blame it on the Black Guy'. After some brief exposure on NPR the group will separate when two of them go to dental school. Years later they will all begin to vote Republican when they become wealthy and feel threatened by the growing miscegenation of America. 

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

  The Dunning-Kruger effect can clearly be seen at work in American Politics and society. The Tea-party. The shameless elevation of ignorance as a virtue. The shameless elevation of faith over facts. The shameless definition of 'Patriotism' as solely white, Christian and Republican. The vitriol and idiocy of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. The idea that the belief in God and the power of prayer, as imagined by white Christians, trumps Climate Change, the science of Evolution or a woman's right to choose.
  The Tea Party claim to stand for less taxes, less government, more 'Patriotism' and the original Constitution. In reality they are a neo-fascist movement who want to elect a dangerous group of right wing idiots into power who don't understand the constitution and think Glenn Beck's crazy resurrection of John Birch society conspiracy theories are valid. 'I'm self-educated' boasts Beck almost daily, grinding his teeth at anyone who has actually gone to college, read a book or got an education. Would they want a 'self-educated' heart surgeon operating on them? Of course not and yet they want the uneducated to be elected to public office. We did that. George Bush lied and took us into two endless and immensely costly wars, one of which against a former ally his father put into power and armed.
  Look at the Tea party, try and understand them. It defies logic, they are just a bunch of racist shills for the mega-rich. Citibank refers to the U.S. as a plutocracy not a democracy. Because of the Dunning-Kruger effect you can not explain how important this is.
  Try and point out that we are actually paying less taxes than under George Bush and they refuse to listen. Try and point out that the economic depression came about because of Bush and Regan and the right's idea that deregulation of capitalism is good and they blink like dumb bovine. Try to point out that Constitution separates Church and State and they clutch their Bibles and renounce their American citizenship saying they obey a 'higher power'. Tell them the constitution defends the freedom of religion and they still rant and rail about an American Muslim's right to pray. They don't understand the constitution. If you analyze their motives you can only draw the conclusion that they are a bunch of racist hypocritical bigots. American Muslims died in the twin towers. The 'Ground Zero Mosque' which is not at ground zero, should be allowed for a multitude of reason not least because this is supposed to be 'the land of the free' and Muslims should be allowed to go and pray and pay respects to their dead, the workers who died in the twin tower attacks. The tea party want to tackle the deficit but they don't want to cut the billions spent daily on the military, they just want to stop poor people, old people, colored people from having health insurance and other social services like Fire brigades. Sick, twisted idiots.
They fear 'sharia law' and yet think it's OK for them to enforce their own 'law of God' that blocks gay marriage. That sounds like 'sharia law' to me. If they were really out to 'protect marriage' they would ban divorce. Rush Limbaugh is on his fourth wife and was a drug addict and yet they claim moral authority. Of course, it's no surprise, to learn that the highest rates of divorce and domestic abuse take place in the bible thumping red states.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is rampant. It's out of control. 
Last week I watched the buffoon in general, Donald Trump, on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The man admitted that he is thinking about running for President in a couple of years. He boasted about it, saying he would do a good job because there's nobody willing to fire people like he does so well on his TV show. He then went on to talk about OPEC and the fixing of the world's oil prices. It would have been funny but it was serious. You could see his ridiculous mind working, his slim grasp of the world's political situation revealed in his sly chimpish face. He claimed he could solve it by having the balls to stand up to them and tell them no. 'Gas should be $40 a barrel'. That was it. No mention of pressing the car companies to produce clean, gas free cars. No actual thought. Just chutzpah, old fashioned, will to power. Amazing, like we're not in enough wars already. Like all the world needs is an American man to go into negotiations with threats and the refusal to back down. It's outstanding, truly breath-taking and it's not even noticed so much anymore. There are just too many fuckwits out there, clogging up the media with their bullshit. The president bows to a foreign king and he's hounded for days, Limbaugh and Palin can incite racism and they are applauded.
  The Dunning-Kruger Effect has us in its teeth and we are powerless, for the unskilled and incompetent are being funded by corrupt corporations and the mega rich. And so they scream the rational down like a million howler monkeys in every tree. 

Meg Whitman - 300 million to buy an election?

   Meg Whitman. Um. Ah. I don't know. Just what is this Meg Whitman? She's putting a lot of effort into trying to get elected at the moment. Messages on my answerphone. Face all over the television. Her big argument for political competency being she was lucky enough to ride the electronic flea-market of eBay at a time when the home computer was easily turned into a means of commerce. She actually counts every person who has sold something on eBay as an individual job created. Astounding sophistry. She has already spent 200 million trying to convince people to vote for her and there is still a month to go. The big weekend NFL games with all their juicy advertising segments will surely push her over 300 million. Incredible outlay. What an ego. One Hundred Million, saying nasty things about the imbecilic Steve Poizner. One hundred million trying to convince people she should sit on top of a broken and corrupt state legislature. Now another one million saying nasty things about the straight talking skeletor Jerry Brown. Three hundred million. It's baffling. Me thinks the lady doth promote too much. This at a time when the economy is chugging along like a rusty tractor. An obscene waste. Politics is becoming little more than watching a group of rich people lick themselves.
   But what is this Meg Whitman? What drives her? I'm sure I've seen her somewhere before, of course she reeks of Nixon, but that's not it... Wait wasn't she in a film? Didn't she appear with the current governor at some point? Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governator. Total Recall. Yep, that's it I have total recall it was Total Recall:
The creepy thing is when Arnold bursts out from inside her and her head explodes as she says "you're in for a big surprise".