Tell Me If You’ve Heard This One – V

Agon (noun) [AH-gahn]
Conflict, especially the dramatic conflict between the main characters in a literary work.
The family feud in “Romeo and Juliette” is a famous agon.

Billow (verb) [BIL-oh]
to swell up, to puff out, as by the action of wind
Held by two men, the flag billowed within their grasp as though it could unfurl any moment.

Clishmaclaver (noun) [klish-muh-kley-ver, kleesh]
Scottish: gossip, idle or foolish talk
There was no way that Robbie Burns Day would be cancelled.  It was utter clishmaclaver.

Ekistics (noun) [ih-kis-tiks]
The scientific study of human settlements, drawing on diverse disciplines, including architecture, city planning, and behavioral science.
(Look out!  Big Brother is watching you.)

Gewgaw (noun) [gyoo-gaw, goo]
Something gaudy and useless, trinket, bauble
The tourist market was filled with nothing but counterfeit handbags and gewgaws – objects that no-one really wanted

Gleek (verb) [gleek]
Archaic: To make a joke, to jest
First recorded 1540 – 50, of uncertain origin  (Let’s Blame the Scots.)
In Shakespearean plays, joking was referred to as gleeking

Impecunious (adjective) [im-pi-kyoo-nee-uh s]
Having little or no money, penniless, poor
The dot-com crash left him impecunious, with not a cent to his name.

Moira (noun) [moy-ruh]
A person’s fate or destiny
She believed that it was her moira to win a gold Olympic medal.

Naissance (noun) [ney-suh ns]
A birth, an organization, or a growth, as that of a person, an organization, an idea, or a movement.
The naissance of the Civil Rights Movement occurred on college campuses.

Pilgarlic (noun) [pil-gahr-lik]
A person regarded with mild or pretended contempt or pity
Chris was a bit of a pilgarlic, untrusted and untrustworthy.

Pyknic (adjective) [pik-nik]
Characterised by shortness of stature, broadness of girth, and powerful musculature
Even though he had a pyknic build – short and stocky – he was well-known for his brute strength.

Remonstrate (verb) [ri-mon-streyt]
To say or plead in protest, objection, or disapproval
The decision to trade the popular player caused many fans to remonstrate.

Shimony – also Simony (noun)  [sehy-muh-nee, sim-uh]
the making of profit out of sacred things.
the sin of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferments, benefices, etc.
1175–1225; Middle English simonie <Late Latin simōnia; so called from Simon Magus, who tried to purchase apostolic powers; see Simon (def. 5), -y³
This is the word which my son, Shimoniac, bases his online identity on.

Whatsis (noun) [hwuhts-iss, hwots-,wuhts-, wots-]
A thing or object whose name one does not know, or cannot recall
Having momentarily forgotten the word for “stapler,” he asked his colleague to bring him the whatsis.

Word is, there’ll be another great post in a couple of days.  See you there.  Don’t be late.  You know how grumpy my ego can get, if it hasn’t been fed.  👿

Higher Learning

Being circumcised, I couldn’t join a fraternity.
Apparently you have to be a complete dick.

***

I went online, and rated the Solar system.
I gave it one star.

***

I was watching porn the other day, but it was terrible. All I could see was some guy sitting on a couch, playing with himself, and crying….then I realized that the TV wasn’t turned on.

***

Man: How do you like your eggs in the morning?
Woman: Unfertilized, go away!

***

A man came home from the Social Security Office.
‘Honey,’ he said to his wife, ‘I finally
convinced them that I’m old enough to collect
Social Security.’

‘How?’ his wife asked. ‘Since the department of
records in the small town you were born in was
flooded, you can’t get a copy of your birth
certificate.’

‘I know,’ the man replied, ‘I just unbuttoned
my shirt and showed them all the gray hairs on my
chest. That convinced them that I’m old enough.’

His wife retorted, ‘Then while you were at it,
why didn’t you whip out your dick and get
disability, too?!’

***

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer.

When asked to define “great” he said, “I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!” He now works for Microsoft, writing error messages.

***

What idiot called it a Sun, when it’s a space heater?

***

Why are all Jewish men circumcised?
Because Jewish women won’t touch anything that isn’t 10% off.

Why do Jewish men watch porno in reverse?
So that they can see the hooker give back the money

***

The elderly Italian man went to his parish priest and asked if the priest would hear his confession.
“Of course, my son,” said the priest.
“Well, Father, at the beginning of World War Two, a beautiful woman knocked on my door and asked me to hide her from the Germans; I hid her in my attic, and they never found her.”
“That’s a wonderful thing, my son, and nothing that you need to confess,” said the priest.
“It’s worse, Father; I was weak, and told her that she had to pay for rent of the attic with her sexual favors.”
“Well, it was a very difficult time, and you took a large risk – you would have suffered terribly at their hands if the Germans had found you hiding her.  I know that God, in his wisdom and mercy, will balance the good and the evil, and judge you kindly.” said the priest.
“Thanks, Father,” said the old man.  “That’s a load off of my mind.  Can I ask another question?”
“Of course, my son,” said the priest.
The old man asked, “Do I need to tell her that the war is over?”

***

 

Forest, Meet Trees

What a damned bunch of hypocrites!

Whenever I read an article which describes a conflict between a branch of religion and the public at large, I’m often struck by the hypocrisy shown. It is difficult to know whether it’s honest, gullible, naïve, ‘have faith and believe what I tell you’, or the more serious, intentional lie to save face and retain control.

Some Bishops have sharply criticized proposed guidelines to help transgender students in schools. The Education Minister says he had a ‘frank conversation’ with Calgary Bishop Fred Henry.  Henry has called the Province ‘totalitarian’, pursuing what he calls ‘narrow-minded, anti-Catholic ideology’.

Imagine the nerve of the Province, telling the Church that they can hate the sin, but have to help the sinner. The very thought of the Catholic Church accusing any other organization of being totalitarian and narrow-minded just has me on the floor.
Kettle….->….Pot!  Pot….->….Kettle!  That one’s gotta show up in the highlight reel on the Comedy Channel.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS

But I’d be willing to bet that, if the government declared abortion illegal, banned the sale of contraceptives, and rescinded the law allowing divorces, the good Bishop would not find that totalitarian and narrow-minded .

***

A letter to the Editor, defending a controversial columnist’s right to an unpopular opinion, recalled the writer’s first-ever letter of complaint about her.

I was so mad I swore I would never read The Record again. The article concerned a young man handing out Christian literature at a local high school.
She thought it was wrong; I thought it was right….
By the way, after 25 years, I still think the kid was doing the right thing at the school.

And I’m also pretty sure that if it had been Jewish tracts, or Muslim literature, or Atheist promotion being handed out, he wouldn’t have thought the kid was doing the right thing at the school.

Oh, those poor beleaguered Catholics/Christians. (Insert sarcasm here.)  Non-Catholics and non-Christians object to being treated poorly.  If our children only get one side of a story, it is not education – we could call that propaganda – or being bullied into one way of thinking. Protestants protested, and separated from the Catholic Church so that they had freedom of thought and worship.  They have no plans to give that up.   😈

Ish Kabibble

During one of my many trips to London, I became
friends with a very wealthy, yet very modest,
Jewish chap named Hyman Goldfarb. On one visit,
Hy told me that because of his large donations to
charities through the years, the queen wanted to
knight him, but he was going to turn it down.

“That’s a great honor,” I said. “Why would you
turn it down?”

“Because during the ceremony you have to say
something in Latin,” he said. “And I don’t wish
to bother studying Latin just for that.”

“So say something in Hebrew. The queen wouldn’t
know the difference.”

“Brilliant,” Hy complimented me, “but what should
I say?”

“Remember that question the son asks the father
on the first night of Passover? … ‘Why is this
night different from all other nights?’ Can you
say that in Hebrew?”

“Of course,” he said. “Ma nishtana ha leila
hazeh. Thank you, old sport, I shall become a
knight.”

At the ceremony Hy waited his turn while several
of the other honorees went before the queen.
Finally they called his name. He knelt before
Her Majesty, she placed her sword on one shoulder
and then on the other, and motioned for Hy to speak.

Out came “Ma nishtana ha leila hazeh.”

The queen turned to her husband and said, “Why is
this knight different from all other knights?”

***

Did you ever stop to think – and forget to start again?

***

Why do men fart more than women?
Because women don’t shut up long enough to build up pressure.

***

A customer walks into a pharmacy and asks an
assistant for an anal deodorant. The assistant
explains that they don’t stock them. The man
insists that he bought his last one from this
store. The assistant refers the man to the
pharmacist, who explains that store has never
stocked such an item. The man explains he bought
his last one from this store only weeks ago and
has done for several years. The pharmacist asks
man to bring in his last purchase and he will try
to match the product.

The following day, the man returns to the
pharmacy and shows the deodorant to the
pharmacist. The pharmacist asks why the customer
thinks this is an anal deodorant, when it is
obviously of the underarm stick variety.

The customer explains that instructions on
the back state, “Push up bottom to use.”

***

I often wonder: What do people mean when they say,
“The computer went down on me?”  😯

 

Ego And Insecurity – Episode 1

Brigham Young is quoted as saying, “He who takes offence when none is offered, is a fool!”  He then added that, “He who takes offence when offence is offered, is also a fool.”  Too many fools wed ego and insecurity to teleology, and not only get upset when it’s not their ox that’s being gored, but blame the wrong thing, or a non-existent thing for the goring.

Negros can refer to each other as niggers, and it’s all in good fun.  Women can refer to each other as bitches, and they’re just joking.  Let a white man refer to a black man as a nigger, even in the same joking manner, and there’s Hell to pay.  If a mere man calls a woman a bitch, a Government Agency will quickly be involved.  Should a white man call a black woman a nigger bitch, he’d better not do it in Utah.  They still have firing squads.

A nephew used to refer to his Negro, high school, best friend as “Nigger.”  I cautioned him against it one day.  “That’s okay.  He knows I’m joking.”  Maybe, but others may not.  My son’s Grade 2 teacher had a bad habit of smacking students in the back of the head with a pen if they didn’t measure up.  It’s not the kind of action that should have been acceptable against anyone.

She’d smacked almost every kid in the room, with no retribution, till the day she smacked the only black kid in class.  The next day, she and the principal were visited by six high-level Black Panthers, including a high-voltage lawyer.  Cease and desist was the least of the threats.

A politician in New York, with a broad vocabulary, bemoaned a low grant for his pet project by calling it a niggardly amount.  It’s not even spelled the same, and it has no connection to Negros, but he was forced to issue an apology.  “I’m sorry you black folks are so busy learning Ebonics, that you don’t speak English.”

An Ontario bureaucrat, referring to some of the Aboriginal problems I mentioned in my Attawapiskat post, said that many of them were caused by do-gooder Whites, and was called a racist by both Indians and other whites.  The comment is not racist.  It’s an acknowledgement of a social/cultural situation.

Oprah Winfrey went into a boutique store in Switzerland and wanted to buy a $38,000 purse.  The clerk shooed her out, saying she couldn’t afford it, not knowing that Oprah could buy the entire country.  Immediately the accusations of racism rang out.  Bullshit!  Classism maybe.

Used to the more sophisticated, urbane European upper-crust, to the clerk, Oprah must have seemed like the typical sweatshirt-and-flip-flops-wearing, ugly-American, “looker.”  She could have been white, black or green.

In Montreal, a young couple who were culturally, but not religiously, Jewish, did not wish to sign a religious document and be married by a rabbi.  Instead, they went to City Hall for a secular ceremony.  The clerk who served them was a headscarf-wearing female.  Not only had they been married by a “religious” person, but one from a religion which debases females, and discriminates against Jews.

The Quebec Premier tried to have an act passed which would prevent anyone serving the public from overtly displaying any religious symbol – and the camel-shit hit the fan.  The loudest howls are from Muslims, claiming that this is racism, ignoring the fact that Muslims come from around the world, and from many different races.  It might be claimed that it is religious discrimination, except that it applies uniformly, to Sikhs, Jews and Christians, as well.

One apparent Muslim, (Abdullah Ahmad – you decide) sent a letter to the Toronto Sun, bitching about, “the ban on religious clothing or gear.”  Again, no such animal!  There is no ban on what you wear, only on what you may or may not do, while being paid by the Province, serving the secular public, when you wear it.

On a discussion page I recently read, a 25-year-old female said that she gets moody and short-tempered from time to time, and takes it out on her live-in boyfriend.  She got in a bad mood, and he sat and tried to talk it out with her for a half an hour, but she snapped at him again.  He rose, pointed a finger at her, told her she was a high-maintenance, drama queen, said he’d had enough, and slammed the door on the way out.  What should she do about it??!

I was amazed that, not only did every commenter, female and male, take her side, but nine out of ten females urged her to dump him for being abusive.  This is not abusive!  There is a legal axiom which states that the truth is the perfect defense.

She may be upset to hear that she is a high-maintenance drama-queen.  If you don’t want to hear it, don’t be it.  The problem may solve itself if he finds somewhere else to live, and only comes back for his stuff.  She wanted, “The right to her own feelings.”  She may get it – alone.

One of the young fellows at the auto plant had a succession of short-term girlfriends.  After five or six months, they each, “Just went crazy.”  I told him one day, after the seventh or eighth time I’d heard this sad song, that the common factor wasn’t the gals going crazy, it was him, but he was too busy bumping into trees, to see the forest.

I’d try handing out some of those Free Thinkers cards, but it wouldn’t work.  People like these always “believe” that it’s somebody else’s fault.

Don’t Be Sad

The Toronto Sun has a regular columnist who writes about a variety of issues.  When he writes about politics or social concerns, he is as clear as crystal.  Occasionally though, he strays off the well-traveled road, and into the religious minefield, where his work immediately resembles Beijing smog.

Several years ago, he wrote of being Jewish.  Six months later, he claimed that he was Catholic.  When called on it by several readers, he “explained” that his family had Jewish ancestry, but he had converted to Catholicism.  Oh good, just what we need, another gung-ho turncoat.

He quickly learned the Catholic method of the straw-man argument, to belittle those who did not agree with him.  Call them names; assign a definition, then make fun of them, to justify making himself feel better.

Just before Christmas, he took a swing at committed atheists.  He called them the most unhappy, lugubrious, neurotic special-interest group he’d ever encountered.  Then he corrected his accusation, and listed feminists and socialists first, truly an all-you-can-offend-buffet bigot.

He has decided to call atheists, Sads.  They must be sad; it’s an atheist’s nightmare, Christmas coming just two weeks after Pope Whasshisname was named Time’s Man of the Year.  He is convinced, that atheists are convinced, that the world is a dark, hateful place, where everyone is against you.

It’s sad that he doesn’t see, that atheists enjoy the commerce and conviviality of the season, without the need for a supernatural crutch.  He says they don’t grasp irony, but it’s ironic that atheists don’t care that the Pope received this honor. (?)  It’s much like Clay Aiken winning the American Idol crown, nobody with a three-digit IQ, and a life of their own, really gives a damn.

People in the past have sent him “misspelt emails” and they really should learn to master the apostrophe.  He’s a master at turning the subject from criticism to punctuation.  He’s heard the one about God being like the Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny, that Hitler was a Christian, that Jesus didn’t exist, bad things happen to good people, and more wars have been fought in the name of religion than anything else – blah, blah, blah.  Doesn’t sound like blah, blah, blah to me, and many others.  It sounds serious.

He has dismissed these claims in, not one, but three, books; not “dealt with”, dismissed!  Yet Hitler was a Catholic, bad things do happen to good people, prayers are unanswered, and religious wars are still fought.  He wants critics to come up with something new, and challenging; religion is a game to be won, to him.  How about admitting to, and dealing with the old problems first?

It apparently makes him feel good to think that those who disagree with him feel bad.  Not exactly a loving Christian outlook, but then, he’s not exactly loving – or loved.  He admits that Easter is more theologically significant, that Christ probably wasn’t born late in December, and that the whole thing has been clumsily commercialized and secularized, but says he cherishes and believes in it because the show supports his “faith.”  That’s it fella, don’t let reality get in the way.

He would be sad to admit that Atheists quietly, happily, productively, co-operatively, are getting on with their lives, and making of them, as much as they can, without a vague promise of a second chance on the other side of the great divide.  He speaks of “all that is the pure, sparkling joy of the season, gloriously plump with giving, loving, forgiving, enjoying, rethinking and celebrating,” but then denies that they are available to any but his Good Christian compatriots.

He thinks nothing of launching attacks like this, but, should anyone have the temerity to express different thoughts, he falls back on another “Definition” defense – Religism.  This is defined as an attack on any or all organized religions, but, in his case, simply means somebody said he might be wrong in his heart and head.

A Protestant New York minister played this game recently.  He raised such a fuss that he was allowed to be on The View, where he railed to Liz Hasselbek that a bookstore had a shelf label on The Bible, showing it as “fiction!”  After his televised furor, he admitted that “it might have been a simple clerical error.”

The Sun columnist is a sad, shrivelled soul!  It is sad that he gains so much twisted happiness in spewing his bigoted hatred, and taking so much joy in his belief in the imagined pain and suffering of others he deems unworthy.  It is sad that he is not unique, and that there are so many more judgmental, condemnatory Christians like him.

I, on the other hand, would be very happy if you drop lots of likes and comments in the collection plate.

 

BTW, FYI – Lugubrious means mournful, dismal, gloomy, sorrowful or melancholy, especially in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner.  Sounding pompous doesn’t make you right.

Out Of Touch

The good little New York, Jewish son called his momma every day while she wintered in Florida.  One day, in the middle of a conversation, he realised he couldn’t hear her.  He began clicking the hang-up button, and shouting, “Momma!  Momma, are you there?  Can you hear me?”  A technician, obviously aware of a problem on the lines, cut in and said to him, “I’m sorry sir.  You’ve been cut off.”  He replied, “I know, but should that affect my hearing?”

I don’t know how you “connected” people do it.  We were cut off from reality for a couple of days, (no smartass comments, please) and I was amazed at what I’ve grown used to, and reliant on.  The third novel of the Jack Reacher series arrived as an e-book, from the library.  The wife downloaded it to her laptop, and proceeded to put it on the son’s old Kobo, so that I could read it at my convenience.

The Kobo accepted the download, and she directed it to present it for reading.  “Restarting,” and then, nothing!   She plugged it back into the computer, but the computer wouldn’t even recognize it.  Took the little pin out, and poked it in the Reset hole in the back, poked it in the hole twice, three times, pushed it in and held it for ten seconds.  Did I mention, Nothing??!

Took it over to the electronics store.  The “Expert,” who was only a fetus last week, did exactly what we had done and then shook his head.  Apparently, the Kobo site mentions, “bricking,” where all the programs, and downloads, and commands, somehow run together, and jam the unit.  Even leaving it for six months for the battery to run down for a cold reboot, might not unjam it.  We decided to buy another one.  We thought of trading up, but decided to take a brand-new copy of the five-year-old tantrum-thrower.

We took it home.  The wife downloaded the Kobo library program to it.  It said, “Restarting,” and froze!  Damn, damn, damn!!!  The wife went to lift her laptop, and couldn’t hear the fan running in the cooling pad.  (See damn, damn, damn, above!)  Back to the electronics store the next day, for a no-charge replacement, and a $25 cooling pad.  Third time’s the charm, and I’m finally reading Reacher.

I took the wife to a Podiatric appointment Monday.  When we got home, she tried to phone the daughter.  No dial tone!  That meant that somebody, whose name is ME, had to ensure that every phone in the house is firmly on the hook.  Sometimes, the cats order pizza, while we’re out.  All phones a-okay, must mean it’s a Bell problem outside, so the wife punched in 611 on her cell phone, to reach Bell.

The home phone is Bell, but her mobile plan is with Telus, so she got the Telus office.  We’ve had problems with Bell services before, so we know the drill.  Again, ME, went around the house and unplugged all the phones except the last one used, (we know that one works!) including the DSL computer modem.  She dialled 310-BELL, and prepared to play the game.  Unplug all phones, including computer feed.  Done!  Plug back in a phone you’re sure works.  Done!   No dial tone.  The problem’s probably outside, but Bell has no other complaint, or work being done in our area.

The computer feed was working, but the phones weren’t.  How, and why unplug it?  Imagine two pipes, coming to a tee, and feeding the same tap.  Okay, then why unplug the computer?  That line may be affecting the phone line.  We need you to be home.  When would it be convenient to send out a tech?

We have appointments Tuesday and Thursday.  Could you come on Wednesday?  Sure, no problem.  The son works midnights, and hopes to sleep all day.   And if the problem’s  outside, why do we need to be home?  Bell might have to enter the house.  Okay, we hope to not see you on Wednesday.

We went to a chiropractor Tuesday morning and Costco in the afternoon.  When the son got up Tuesday evening, he told us that Bell had fixed the problem externally, and then rang the doorbell about 2:00 PM, which set the dog off, which partly woke him up, to hear the one phone ringing.  He trudged down the hall to the computer room, and heard the dog barking on the phone.  The repair tech was still outside.

We asked for a specific day and time, for a specific reason.  It was nice to get our phones and computer back a day early, but, while it was super-efficient, it was bureaucratically unreliable.  Just as we were preparing dinner, the phone rang.  It was Habibi – sorry, “Kevin” – wanting to clean my ducts.  Oh joy!  It’s a good thing we’re on that Do Not Call List.

We don’t Facebook.  We don’t Twitter, and we can live without telemarketers.  I was only without my blog, and the internet, for a little over one day.  No reading others’ posts, no comments, no likes, no online crossword, no definitions, no translation, no MapQuest, no researching arcane trivia.  I was going mad, I tell you, MAD!  For a disconnected old curmudgeon, apparently I need a lot of connecting – but I’m not getting a Bluetooth.  Even Putin thinks they’re gay.

Now that I’m back online, anybody got a comment?  Wanna click my Like button?  Anybody??  I’m feeling very lonely, and unloved, and disconnected over here.

 

 

Losing My Religion

More and more, all over North America, and probably the world, smug, self-assured “Good Christians” are having their unthinking beliefs and systems questioned and rejected.  One of the recent sore spots has been the distribution in Public Schools, of Gideons’ Bibles.  The local school board took its own sweet time, but finally agreed to end the practice, after increasing complaints from Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Atheists, and even some Christians.  Of course, the Christians wanted the Gideons’ Bible out, and their Bible in.

The wife’s Bible, which I have been using as a reference book for years, had started to get a little tattered.  When my brother was placed in the local Catholic hospital for quintuple bypass surgery, and I visited him, he was taken from the room for a few minutes for a test.  While he was gone, I looked inside his bedside drawer, and took the Gideons’ Bible that was placed there.  What?  They hope people take them home.  Brother wouldn’t touch one, even with heart surgery, but I needed a new one.

I live in a suave, sophisticated urban area, and can even say that without giggling too hard.  There are still regions in Southern Ontario which are more Bible-belt than here.  Despite the tourist Mecca/casino aspects, the Niagara Region Board of Education still has not ended the Christian-only handouts.  There’s even a public-funded Mennonite school.  An Atheist couple had refused to sign a consent form for their daughter to receive a Bible, but were particularly incensed when she was expected to distribute them to other Grade five students.

They have officially applied to have a booklet titled Just Pretend: A Free Thought Book for Children and Losing Faith In Faith, distributed to the same students.  A female newspaper columnist doesn’t understand the concept.  She asks, if they object to the Bible being distributed, why would they think it’s acceptable to have this booklet handed out.  This is how the Christian monopoly of the Lord’s Prayer-only in schools was broken.  A local Muslim group offered to distribute Korans, but backed out at the last minute.  Still, it stirred the board to action.

If enough of a fuss is raised, and they are refused the right to give away their literature, they have grounds for legal action.  Jewish and Muslim groups asked to have their prayers said along with the Lord’s Prayer.  The courts rightly decided that it was an all or nothing situation.  Since the “Good Christians” didn’t want their kids exposed to “that heathen crap”, they decided on nothing.  The heathens didn’t take God and the Lord’s Prayer out of school, Christians did.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Jesus’ Court was transferred to a branch office in Kentucky, by his company.  An extension was added to a road up a mountain, out in the boondocks.  He purchased the last, highest lot, and lived in a trailer while he cut trees to clear a site and build a log home.  He thought he was getting along well with the locals, but after several months of the first summer, he realized there was a problem.  He began to hear that the mountain folk wanted something done about him.  Burned at the stake was not specifically mentioned, but there was a lot of, he felt, undeserved antipathy.

Wanting to remain a good neighbor, he began asking those who would speak to him, what the problem was.  It began with the fact that he had brought with him from Yankee-land, two small concrete garden Demons, and had placed them on both sides of the end of his driveway.  These God-fearin’ folks didn’t cotton to no Demon-worshippers.

He protested that he didn’t worship them, or any other Demons.  They were just silly caricatures, for decoration.  Yeah, then why don’t y’all go to church on Sunday mornin’ when we go to church?  Because I thought that was a good time to haul out the chainsaw and cut down a bunch more trees when you weren’t here to be disturbed by the noise.

Sadly, at this point, I lost the story.  Nothing further was published.  He was probably as good a Christian as was necessary in Connecticut, a vague believer, just not a great church attender, and was not ready for the degree of surveillance and intrusion from hyper-Christians.

To be tolerated, he had to fit tightly within these peoples’ religious limits, do exactly as they did, act exactly as they acted.  It was probably a great surprise to him to find these “Good Christians” with no live-and-let-live in their makeup.  Narrow-minded and narrow-social-viewpoint people like these are slowly and reluctantly learning that other people have legal, social and moral rights to act differently, without interference.

There is a tiny poem which reads;

Rebel, heretic, a thing to flout,

He drew a circle to shut us out,

But Love and I had the wit to win.

We drew a circle which took him in.

There are millions of Hyper-Christians who will not enlarge their circle to take in anyone whose beliefs don’t exactly match theirs.  Frighteningly, many of them have advanced to powerful positions within the American government.  It is hoped that, slowly but surely, they will be shown that citizens other than Good Christians have equal rights.