GOD'S REVENGE

I reckon that the the final phase of the apocalypse actually began after eleven on the last night of January this year, when sixty year old Jan David Clark of 3547 North Ferguson, perceived that a demon had occupied the body of his wife, fifty-nine year old Susan Kay Clark, thus superseding his oath to “love and honor her…as long as you both shall live.” Jan David confronted the demon and chased it/her into the master bathroom where he sat on her, holding her face into the carpet, while attempting to perform an exorcism, something for which he had no formal training. At some point the unnamed demon entered Mr. Clark’s body and made him suffocate his wife, thus absolving him of all responsibility for her demise. Of course, being possessed, she was also blameless, making her death just damn bad luck for her. The demon then inexplicably left Mr. Clark’s body, freeing him of the need to exorcise him self. Mr. Clark then reverently wrapped his wife’s corpse in a bed sheet and placed atop it a sword and a cross, two items every Christian in Odessa, Texas evidently have readily at hand.
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Jan David then called a friend to tell her the good news that he had banished his wife’s demon. The cops, notified by the friend, showed up a few minutes after seven in the morning and Jan David shared the good tidings with them too. He was then admitted to the Ector County Detention Center under a charge of First Degree Murder. He later told a reporter that he was sharing his cell with 10 demons and that the “vice-president” of the demons was haunting him. A step-granddaughter of the decedent said, “I always thought David was nice but sometimes I thought he was almost too nice.” But Jan David’s cousin who lives in Dallas was less ambiguous. She hasn’t spoken with Jan David for years and said, “It’s much safer to not associate with David. He was very scary and dangerous, I always felt.” Meanwhile the extended family indicated they would have little trouble meeting the $300,000 bail and affording an attorney, so Jan David will likely soon be free to seek out other demons in and around Odessa, if he isn’t out already. Score at the end of round one in Odessa, Texas; God zero, lawyers, one.
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In the Indian state of Jharkhand a judge recently placed a legal notice in newspapers notifying the monkey gods Ram and Hanuman that they must appear in his courtroom to answer contempt charges. It was a secular court’s latest desperate attempt to settle a 20 year old legal standoff between a village and temple monks. The village says the monks owe taxes on 1 ½ acres of land connecting temples dedicated to Ram and Hanuman and the monks say the land is owned by the two mischievous gods, who don’t pay taxes. And then, miraculously, a monkey was seen sitting atop the statue in Hanuman’s temple (which could not have been unusual since monkeys have free rein around the place). Still the monks declared the wayward primate was the reincarnation of Hanuman, restraining him in the temple so the faithful could pay him tribute. The village government countered by backing an animal rights lawsuit claiming the monkey was being held against his will, and the court agreed. But a faithful veterinarian declared the simian happy and healthy and remaining in the temple of his own free will, and thousands of devotees showered him with fruit and money. The massed throngs of faithful prevented the police from removing or even examining the born again monkey god. The very next day the healthy reincarnated monkey god Hanuman dropped dead and was immediately, reverently, cremated. In India, the score is; courts, zero, monkey god monks, two, and I'd have to say, Monkey Gods, zero as well.
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As one scientific publication puts it, “The Middle East is one of the few regions on Earth where (human) documentation of earthquake activity extends back over 4000 years”. And independently, according to cores drilled into the bottom of the Dead Sea, there have been significant earthquakes (of a magnitude of 5.5 or greater) along the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley faults in the years 64 and 31 B.C.E., and in the Current Era in the years 33, 363, 749, 858, (a magnitude 7.5 on 20 May) 1202, and other significant quakes in the years 1212, 1293, 1759, 1808, 1827, 1834, 1837, 1872, 1927 and February 11, 2004. And still, after four more quakes shook Israel and Jordan in November and December of last year, Shlomo Benizri, an ultra orthodox party member in the Israeli Knesset professed to see those particular shakers as a punishment from God. “Why do earthquakes happen?” asked Shlomo, and he answered himself that they happened because the Knesset has been “…passing legislation on how to encourage homosexual activity in the state of Israel, which anyway brings about earthquakes.” Thank goodness Shlomo wasn’t confused with all that plate tectonics mish-mash. But…
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I don’t mean to nit pick with religious fanatics, but I was under the impression that during most of those years (like between 67 CE and 1948 CE) there was no Israel. So was God pissed that eventually there would be an Israel which would recognize foreign same-sex marriages, which is what Slomo was so exorcised about, and that was why he threw in all those other earthquakes? And besides, according to the evangelicals in the United States, the earthquakes in the Holy Land are a good thing because, as the evangelical web site “prophecy.iblog.co.za” prophesies, eventually the “…final earthquake that will hit the Holy Land will …rip the Mount of Olives in two, providing a means of escape for the Jewish people to flee from the onslaught of the Antichrist.” The count in Israel is now, Good government zero, religious fanatics, 4,000 years and conting, the God of peace, yet again, zero.
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And how will God recognize the antichrist and his minions? Well, according to Hollywood he will have “666” tattooed on the top of his head. And how will God recognize his chosen people? Well, if they are the male off spring of 32 year old Johnny Eric Marlowe, of Kings Creek, Texas, they will be known by the rather blunt surgery Johnny performed on at least two of his sons…that we know of. It seems that Johnny has fathered 11 or 12 children – that the authorities know of – ranging from 11 years old to two years old, all born at home and none of whom have ever been enrolled in a public school. Yet another crime covered up by Home Schooling. And in this regard Johnny reminds me of those cat ladies who end up living in one large little box. But all of the members of this litter were conceived with just two women – that the authorities know of - one of them being Sarah Fleming and the other Amber Marlow, Johnny's legal wife.
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The story came to light because last October after Johnny threatened a neighbor, who called the cops. When the Dallas police went to his home Johnny got into a shoving match with the cops and was charged with resisting arrest, assault on his wife and multiple counts of child neglect. At the moment Johnny is serving jail time on those charges after telling the judge, "I'd rather just take the maximum and let it go." Ah, but opting not to clog the justice system may not help Jonny, since the prosecutors plan on hitting Johnny withn two additional counts of child abuse for the half assed circumcision he preformed on the two boys when they were each just eight days old with a pocket knife. In Dallas, Texas the score is now; legal authority zero, home schooling, two, and God, yet again, another goose egg.
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What with the myriad ways and titles Yawah’s name has been taken in vain over the past 10,000 years plus, what is the Catholic Church worried about? The AntiChrist? Lucifer? Predatory Piests? According to L’Osservatore Romano, (The Rome Observer), the official newspaper for the Vatican, the great threat to the Church remains, “Harry Potter”, the fictional boy wizard. It seems Harry is a concern because of “…the grave and destructive consequences” of magic. We’re not talking raising people from the dead, here, or turning water into wine or conjuiring a staff into a snake, or speaking mystical incantations or sacred words, we’re talking magic, which is different, I guess, because the Vatican isn’t getting a cut of the sales. Harry, says the Vatican, shows a “pale disregard for the ‘muggles’ “…who do not have magic.” Huh?

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Now, I am not a Potter fanatic, but it does seem to me that a part of Potter plot lines is the struggle between the “pure bred” villains and the half- muggle heroes who are Harry’s friends and allies. And besides the bible sells about 25 million copies every year in America alone, to the tune of half a billion dollars. (And just why are bibles so expensive?) While the seven Potter books have sold a paltry 412 million copies. So why does the church feel so threatened by Harry? Well, J.K. Rowling, Harry's mum, has all those ancilary contracts for everything from capes to wands to press on forehead scars, not to mention the movies ($4.7 billion through the first five) and a Florida theme park yet to come. While the bible just has those damn parables and the Christ bobble head dolls. In this case I would have to say the score is Harry Potter two, The Catholic Church zero, and God him 0r herself, naught three.
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Maybe the problem is that God has to work through all these idiot surrogates. As an atheist I, of course, I probably should not offer an opinion. But if I did believe in God, and if there actually were a God, I would suggest that God should get some new surrogates.

SIMPLY SHOCKING

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GIVING HUMANS THE BIRD

I have a horrible feeling that somehow we’ve gotten this whole endangered species thing backward. Yes, we continue to carelessly destroy habitats, introduce alien species, and randomly dump industrial waste, and that’s all bad and we should stop it. But I’ve been eating dolphin safe tuna for almost forty years now and the darn dolphins are still not safe. I thought these guys were supposed to be so smart! Meanwhile, nobody is trying to protect the Northern Pike of Lake Davis, California: Quite the opposite.

Some idiot released a couple of Esox Lucius Linaeus – Northern Pike - into the small and now very un-placid Lake Davis back in 1991 because they thought Pike would be fun to catch. Unfortunately the lake already had a stocked population of game fish, Onocorhynchus clarki – Rainbow Trout - which are not only a popular game fish amongst tourists but are also an easy meal for the voracious Northern Pike.
To the California Fish and Game Department the worry was that once these piscatorial carnivores had finished off the Trout they would swim downstream on the Feather River, into the Sacramento and then upstream to devour the Delta Salmon fry populations, which Fish and Game had just spent tens of millions of dollars re-introducing. So, since 1997 the California Fish and Game Department has spent something in excess of $24 million trying to kill off these finned invaders, and that effort hasn’t proven to be fun for anybody, except possibly the Pike.

The Northern Pike of Lake Davis have been poisoned. They have been electrocuted. They have been shot, netted, hooked, cornered, dynamited, starved and suffocated. The state even drained the lake. For over a year the nearby human population couldn’t drink the water, it was so full of piperonyl butoxide. The pike barely noticed the stuff.

Sometimes it seemed that the "experts" were hunting down the pike individually, one at a time, to beat them to death with sticks and clubs. It was like trying to control flys with a fly swatter. It seems to have just ticked them off.These Franken-Pike refused to die. They weren't on any endangered species list, they’re on the ten most wanted list. They’ve had more people gunning for them than Osama bin Laden, and with about as much luck. When nothing else worked Fish and Game tried stocking Lake Davis with oversized Trout fry, thinking they would be too big for the young Pike fry to eat and the Pike would then starve to death or be eaten by the giganto-trout. But in response the Pike began growing nine to fourteen times faster than normal. They became super-pike fry-enators: big nasty Pike that had no trouble swallowing the Trout of unusual size.

Six hundred Pike were caught in Fish and Game sample nets the year after the lake was poisoned. In 2004 the catch was 17,635. In all, something over 65,000 Pike have been pulled from Lake Davis since humans began trying to eradicating them, and God knows how many sacrificial Trout. But however many it was, it wasn't enough.

In May of 2005 the Pike Fry were caught trying to find a way around the Pike screens on the spillway. And in 2006, after a winter of heavy snow pack and spring rains, Lake Davis came within inches of overflowing the spillway entirely, releasing the Pike directly into the Sacramento River system. Still, not willing to admit he has been beaten by a mere fish, Steve Martarano of California Fish and Game gamely insisted, “We’ve gotten better at knowing where the Pike are.” Yeah, Steve: they’re in the water.

Well, in January, 2007, Fish and Game announced plans to try it one more time. In the fall of 2007, as part of yet another $12 million "new" program, about 48,000 acre feet of “rotenone”, a commonly used and “safe” pesticide, were dumped into the lake and, this time, upstream in the lake's tributaries. And this, The Department of Fish and Game assured everyone, would finally kill off "the-Pike-that- wouldn't-die" without killing the people or the local economy...again. We wouldn't know for certain if it worked this time until spring. The ice over Lake Davis was still 12 to 24 inches thick, but under the ice 31,ooo new Eagle Lake Trout have been re-stocked, ranging in size from 8 oz.to 3 lbs. And down there, in the dark water, unseen by human eyes, the battles are occuring that will decide the fate of many a naturalist at Fish & Game. As spring approached they poured in another 1 million Trout. And everybody in California had their fingers crossed. But I've got to tell you, that to me the tale of Lake Davis reads more like Mary Shelly's monster story.

Meanwhile biologists raising endangered California condor chicks use hand puppets to feed the baby vultures, so they have no positive human interaction before they are released. But despite these efforts about a half dozen of the first juvenile Condors freed in the wild chose to hang out at the Pine Mountain Club, a condo resort village down the road from Fraser Park, at the Western end of the Tehachapi mountain range between Central and Southern California, where it seems the birds figured out on their own that their razor sharp beaks and talons designed to rip open animal carcasses worked even better on plastic trash bags and kitchen window screens.

The “naturalist” studying the Condor-condo interaction returned home after a hard day of remote Condor observing via powerful binoculars to discover three of the 30 pound birds and their 10’ wingspans, gallivanting about his bedroom, using it as a sort of playroom and free toilet. They had entered via a slit they made in his window screen. One was in his underwear drawer shredding his shorts while the other two were slowly dissecting his mattress with all the abandon of adolescences free from parental oversight. Still, it almost looked as if the birds had picked out this guy personally to deliver a message, and maybe they had; "Stop watching us, you eco-papparazi!" And the average citizen, like say maybe Russel Crowe, would have gone into that room with a broom and defended his privacy, and he would driven those feathered gangbangers out the way they had come in!

But this guy was a “naturalist”; to avoid human interaction with the feathered truants he retreated until the birds got bored and left on their own. The “naturalists” then convinced local politicians to require all trash to be held inside until the morning of collection, and then placed only in locking containers. And at the landfill the garbage bags would be immediately covered with dirt.

The thinking was that without an easy food supply the condors would leave. Instead the Condor youth gangs’ response was to loom about on the roof of a local restaurant, depressing the hell out of potential customers. The condors were actually waiting for the trash trucks to arrive. They would then use their extraordinary skills at gliding to follow behind the trucks all way to the dump, where they quickly descended on the leftover meat and soup cans and macaroni and cheese containers if they were a dieing wooly mammoth. The front loaders couldn’t cover the trash bags without the risk of burying a condor at the same time, so the meals could now be eaten at leisure in a sort of Condor olfactory buffet. Game, set, and match to the Condors.

The biologists and naturalists were horrified because it didn’t fit their image of noble Condors sailing in an empty sky above an untouched wilderness - which is where the Condors almost became extinct in the first place. Need I point out that not a single condor died at the Pine Mountain Club? They ate too many french fries but none of them died!

The happy ending to this story of rebellious Condors is that once they matured and mated the adult condors didn’t want their offspring growing up in an urban environment anymore than Republicans do. Today, the Pine Mountain Club is condor free, except for a few weeks every summer when the newly adolescent vultures fly in for a sort of avian spring break, a condor rumsringa. They eat spicy food, taunt the humans and stage panty raids on the naturalists. And then they leave.

Now, I’m not suggesting we try protecting endangered species with dynamite or by raising their cholesterol levels, but it does seem that the animals we’re protecting are all in trouble while the ones we’re trying to exterminate are experiencing population booms. What can we learn from this? Well, that there are six billion humans on this planet at present and baring a natural disaster or WMD we are not going anywhere. And if we do, so are the Condors and most of the Pike and Trout. Modern Condors, searching for dinner while soaring above the wilderness are going to see a lot more humans than dead deer. And Pike and Trout are going to meet a lot of little fish with hooks in them. So why not “humanize” them, teach them what every mentally retarded pigeon already knows; the fries are better at Burger King, don’t drink the yellow water, never trust a politician in an election year and don’t go swimming in Lake Davis unless you want your talons bitten off.

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UFO, AND YOU'RE MOMMA, TOO.

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