Sometimes my irreverence gets the best of me.

The man spoke first: “Hi! I’m John, and this is Mary.”

Mary: “Hi! We’re here to invite you to come kiss Hank’s ass with us.”

Me: “Pardon me?! What are you talking about? Who’s Hank, and why would I want to kiss his ass?”

John: “If you kiss Hank’s ass, he’ll give you a million dollars; and if you don’t, he’ll kick the shit out of you.”

Me: “What? Is this some sort of bizarre mob shake-down?”

John: “Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank owns this town. He can do what ever he wants, and what he wants is to give you a million dollars, but he can’t until you kiss his ass.”

Me: “That doesn’t make any sense. Why…”

Mary: “Who are you to question Hank’s gift? Don’t you want a million dollars? Isn’t it worth a little kiss on the ass?”

Me: “Well maybe, if it’s legit, but…”

John: “Then come kiss Hank’s ass with us.”

Me: “Do you kiss Hank’s ass often?”

Mary: “Oh yes, all the time…”

Me: “And has he given you a million dollars?”

John: “Well no, you don’t actually get the money until you leave town.”

Me: “So why don’t you just leave town now?”

Mary: “You can’t leave until Hank tells you to, or you don’t get the money, and he kicks the shit out of you.”

Me: “Do you know anyone who kissed Hank’s ass, left town, and got the million dollars?”

John: “My mother kissed Hank’s ass for years. She left town last year, and I’m sure she got the money.”

Me: “Haven’t you talked to her since then?”

John: “Of course not, Hank doesn’t allow it.”

Me: “So what makes you think he’ll actually give you the money if you’ve never talked to anyone who got the money?”

Mary: “Well, he gives you a little bit before you leave. Maybe you’ll get a raise; maybe you’ll win a small lotto; maybe you’ll just find a twenty dollar bill on the street.”

Me: “What’s that got to do with Hank?”

John: “Hank has certain connections.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but this sounds like some sort of bizarre con game.”

John: “But it’s a million dollars, can you really take the chance? And remember, if you don’t kiss Hank’s ass he’ll kick the shit of you.”

Me: “Maybe if I could see Hank, talk to him, get the details straight from him…”

Mary: “No one sees Hank, no one talks to Hank.”

Me: “Then how do you kiss his ass?”

John: “Sometimes we just blow him a kiss, and think of his ass. Other times we kiss Karl’s ass, and he passes it on.”

Me: “Who’s Karl?”

Mary: “A friend of ours. He’s the one who taught us all about kissing Hank’s ass. All we had to do was take him out to dinner a few times.”

Me: “And you just took his word for it when he said there was a Hank, that Hank wanted you to kiss his ass, and that Hank would reward you?”

John: “Oh no! Karl’s got a letter Hank sent him years ago explaining the whole thing. Here’s a copy; see for yourself.”

John handed me a photocopy of a handwritten memo on “From the desk of Karl” letterhead. There were eleven items listed:

01. Kiss Hank’s ass and he’ll give you a million dollars when you leave town.
02. Use alcohol in moderation.
03. Kick the shit out of people who aren’t like you.
04. Eat right.
05. Hank dictated this list himself.
06. The moon is made of green cheese.
07. Everything Hank says is right.
08. Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
09. Don’t drink.
10. Eat your wieners on buns, no condiments.
11. Kiss Hank’s ass or he’ll kick the shit out of you.

Me: “This would appear to be written on Karl’s letterhead.”

Mary: “Hank didn’t have any paper.”

Me: “I have a hunch that if we checked we’d find this is Karl’s handwriting.”

John: “Of course, Hank dictated it.”

Me: “I thought you said no one gets to see Hank?”

Mary: “Not now, but years ago he would talk to some people.”

Me: “I thought you said he was a philanthropist. What sort of philanthropist kicks the shit out of people just because they’re different?”

Mary: “It’s what Hank wants, and Hank’s always right.”

Me: “How do you figure that?”

Mary: “Item 7 says Everything Hanks says is right.’ That’s good enough for me!”

Me: “Maybe your friend Karl just made the whole thing up.”

John: “No way! Item 5 says ‘Hank dictated this list himself.’ Besides, item 2 says ‘Use alcohol in moderation,’ item 4 says ‘Eat right,’ and item 8 says ‘Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.’ Everyone knows those things are right, so the rest must be true, too.”

Me: “But #9 says ‘Don’t Drink,’ which doesn’t quite go with #2. And #6 says ‘The moon is made of green cheese,’ which is just plain wrong.”

John: “There’s no contradiction between 9 and 2; 9 just clarifies 2. As to 6, you’ve never been to the moon, so you can’t say for sure.”

Me: “Scientists have pretty firmly established that the moon is made of rock…”

Mary: “But they don’t know if the rock came from the Earth, or from out of space, so it could just as easily be green cheese.”

Me: “I’m not really an expert, but I think the theory that the Moon came from the Earth has been discounted. Besides, not knowing where the rock came from doesn’t make it cheese.”

John: “Aha! You just admitted that scientists make mistakes, but we know Hank is always right!”

Me: “We do?”

Mary: “Of course we do, Item 5 says so.”

Me: “You’re saying Hank’s always right because the list says so, the list is right because Hank dictated it, and we know that Hank dictated it because the list says so. That’s circular logic, no different than saying ‘Hank’s right because he says he’s right.’”

John: “Now you’re getting it! It’s so rewarding to see someone come around to Hank’s way of thinking.”

Me: “But…oh, never mind. What’s the deal with wieners?”

Mary blushes. John says: “Wieners, in buns, no condiments. It’s Hank’s way. Anything else is wrong.”

Me: “What if I don’t have a bun?”

John: “No bun, no wiener. A wiener without a bun is wrong.”

Me: “No relish? No Mustard?”

Mary looks positively stricken. John shouts: “There’s no need for such language! Condiments of any kind are wrong!”

Me: “So a big pile of sauerkraut with some wieners chopped up in it would be out of the question?”

Mary sticks her fingers in her ears: “I am not listening to this. La la la, la la, la la la.”

John: “That’s disgusting. Only some sort of evil deviant would eat that…”

Me: “It’s good! I eat it all the time.”

Mary faints. John catches her: “Well, if I’d known you where one of those I wouldn’t have wasted my time. When Hank kicks the shit out of you I’ll be there, counting my money and laughing. I’ll kiss Hank’s ass for you, you bunless cut-wienered kraut-eater.”

With this, John dragged Mary to their waiting car, and sped off.

All my adult life, which is about as long as I’ve been paying attention, I’ve been presented with, subjected with, pestered with prophecy in one form or another. It’s like the drip drip drip of the fabled Asian water torture. From Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth to the Left Behind Series with brief stops touching on UFOs and alien abduction, the discussion has been non-stop. First the speculation rested on Roman emperor Nero, then skipped throughout the centuries, across the lake of fire, touching on one bastard or son of a bitch after another, shining a spotlight on Napoleon and Hitler and Stalin, then kind of going into a holding pattern, like a plane waiting for clearance to land. So now faced with something so totally inconceivable as the election of a black man to the White House some folks have focused their Bible decoding and prophet rereading on Barack Obama or Barack Hussein Obama for those of you who cannot feel completely justified in your bigoted paranoid outrage without pointing out his middle name. Well I tuned out this stuff a while back because from my reading we’re not going to know the exact time and all the speculation was wasting my time. But recently I read another email trying to wedge Obama between the lines of Daniel or Jeremiah or Ezekiel and I just snapped. Fine. If Obama is Antichrist then so be it. At least we’ll finally have a name and a face to put to it and we can quit talking about and hearing about the bogeyman of the end times. You can’t keep scaring people. It does not matter whether the thing you’re throwing at them is real or not. At some point they are going to stop running and face you. I do not believe Obama is Antichrist. However it does not matter what I think, seeing that there are others in this country who do. I just pray that someone keeps a cautious eye on those folks.

When asked by NBC television presenter Brian Williams whether an abortion clinic bomber was a terrorist, Palin heaved a sigh and, at first, circumvented the question.

“There’s no question that Bill Ayers by his own admittance was one who sought to destroy our US Capitol and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist,” Palin said, referring to a 1960s leftist who founded a radical violent gang dubbed the “Weathermen” – and who years later supported Obama’s first run for public office in the state of Illinois.

“Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that it would be unacceptable to … I don’t know if you’re gonna use the word ‘terrorist’ there,” the ardently pro-life running mate of John McCain said.

Link: World News Australia
Hat Tip: Red Wolf

It’s terrorism. It is a use of terror as a tactic to get a message across, namely that abortion is murder. One might be led to think that Gov. Palin is giving tacit approval of the actions of the clinic bombers by tap dancing around the question. If she were going to be consistent with her talk about Ayers, she should condemn the acts of those people as well. So who’s palling around with whom?

There’s evil in the world. People all over are rising up to fight it. Christians sit in a WWII pillbox and want to point fingers at everyone and say, “Okay God has raised us up to fight evil so first become one of us. Then join the fight.”

Narrow perspective. Bad strategy.

I see God raising up people all over the world to fight the evil. Christians are part of that process. All this infighting amongst those dedicated to preserving good is doing nothing but ensuring lost battle after lost battle.