— Roethke

Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion.

-Samuel James Ervin Jr., lawyer, judge, and senator
(1896-1985)

I went to a wake today. A life celebration party for the mother of an old friend. I’ve known my friend since 5th grade, the fall of 1971. 34 years. That’s quite a long time. And in 1971, my friend’s mom was 34 years old.

She was a kind, soft-spoken, intelligent woman, a teacher. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) 15 years ago, in her early 50s. Not fair, huh? Not fair that my friend has lost his mom, and certainly not fair that his two children have never known their grandma as we did in 1971.

All of which leads us to Tau. Not The Way, the protein in the brain which supports the structure of neuron microtubules. The brain’s communication fiberoptics, I guess. I don’t really understand it, except that in AD, Tau gets tangled up by bonding wrong, and the microtubules collapse. What we have here is a failure to communicate.

What I do understand is that there are people out there who do understand AD a lot better than me, and they’re trying to find a cure. Which costs money. And I understand that our congress has just thrown another $50 Billion down Bush’s War on Terr’r commode. I wonder how much closer that money would have brought those researchers to a cure for AD. And diabetes, heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, Multiple Sclerosis. Hell, galloping dandruff and global warming for that matter.

We, as a species, need new priorities. Can’t get those without new leadership. Otherwise, I can’t bear to think of my friend’s kids, and my nephew, facing these same terrible, wasting, abjectly sad, diseases.

Let us, please, stop electing myopic fear-mongering monkeyminds like George Bush, and find people who can help us plant good and beautiful trees, in the shade of which we will not sit.

I was down in my garage this afternoon, putting some stuff away. In one of my private storage closets — to which I should mention only I have a key — I found this thing.

What the heck is it? Is it a heater? ‘Cause it looks like a heater, but it doesn’t look like one I’ve ever owned. Where did it come from? Who put it in my closet, and when and how?

Hmm. It looks vaguely familiar, but it ain’t mine. Mighty floggin’ curious, you ask me.

Anybody else have a Logitech Wireless Optical Mouse?

Mine isn’t black, it’s silver and black with blue around the wheel, but I couldn’t find a photo. Guess I could take a photo, but … no. Anyway, it eats batteries like no mouse I’ve had before. I do a lot of mousing around, but wow.

I Googled Burger King, because I was going to blog about that character they’ve been showing on the TV lately. He sneaks up on people, appearing at their windows and behind trees, presenting them with sandwiches. To me, that guy is positively frightening. If he appeared in front of me with that insipid grin, I’d look for something to beat him to death.

Of course, I’m kidding about that. There are times when one has to rise to the defense of good and that’s not one of them. And I couldn’t find a photo of the King, which made posting on it pretty weak. But what I found instead is nothing short of the most compelling news to reach my computer in a lustrum.

Behold this story from Scotland . Apparently, this pious man has discerned that if you look at the lid of a BK in the UK ice cream dessert and turn it a certain way, it looks like the name of God. So, seeing the offense to people of his faith, he has declared a jihad. Amazing. Not just the insensate evil that lurks in thousands of little disks of molded plastic, but the clarity of this man’s vision – it’s just … well, something.

Don’t you see, people? This man must be so perfect, so pure, so righteous, that the Almighty has chosen him to be the protector of God’s good name and reputation on earth. How close he must be to paradise! And how mighty he must be, as we all know that God needs men of strength to fight His battles.

How proud his family must be, that this mere mortal, 27-year-old paper pusher from a small, haggis-loving Scot town has clenched his indignant fist and smote – I say SMOTE – the scuttling demons of heretical ice cream packaging. I know that I’m always proud when my fellow Christians have the crystal vision to spot the icons of Heaven in water stains on concrete, in pancakes and cheese sandwiches, etc.

I was driving past a house across town today, and I noticed it has a door like this:

See the cross in the middle? It’s upside down! That’s satanic, maybe, I think. Oh sacrilege! Oh great jumping and heaving evil! Inspired by this holy hero in Scotland, I’m going over there and pitch some lamb’s blood on it. That’ll teach those heretics to hang a door properly or else. Actually, I think I’m right out of blood. But I’ll stop at the store and pick up a quart of Ragu pasta sauce. That’s got holiness, right? Yeah, it’s in there.

I just think it’s great this guy is doing this for God. Because with thousands of people of his faith dying for nothing but lies, with God knows (literally) how many of this man’s spiritual breathren in illegal and immoral Occupation prisions like Guantanamo, God’s got a lot on his plate besides greasy burgers and freedom fries. Somebody’s got to pick up the slack.

So yeah, it’s good that this jihad may put a dent in the profits of Burger King. I’m sure that the people flipping the burgers and working the drive-through windows will understand if they get laid off. Their children will understand if there’s no steaming bowl of haggis on the table next month. It’s really important that somebody stand up for God when God can’t stand up for Himself.

And here in America, we can support the cause not only by boycotting BK, but by continuing to elect moralistic, self-righteous, neo-con extremists. They will carry the message just like this man in Scotland, that those whom God has chosen must have their day, and the rest of us just have to tow the line. Forget learning to live together in peace and dignity. Forget having a world where every person has the right to go about his/her life and work and play, and pray, with any semblance of serenity. Because a world in which each person is free to worship is a world in which no one has the right not to be offended. And the right to be free from trivial offense is paramount, or the planet will never be safe from ice cream blasphemy.

Baghdad Burning:

“Rights and freedoms have become minor concerns compared to the possibility of civil war, the reality of ethnic displacement and cleansing, and the daily certainty of bloodshed and death. “

God help us, what have we done?

At last report, I’d lost 15 pounds since changing my lifestyle, the middle of August. I’ve lost 35 now. By this time next year, I will be gone completely, ceasing to have a corporeal existence at all. I will exist only as pure blog, subsumed into the network like Max Headroom. I’ll have a Cisco router fitted out with leather seating and an attractive heat sink with antique porcelain fittings. Come visit.

downtown

Tasha loved to go to town with me and my Dad when we’d get coffee. She’d sit and watch the people, and bark at other dogs. One of our favorite places was a bench in front of my bank and insurance agent’s office. This was taken there on 8.14.03.

Only two days left to celebrate Banned Books Week with the American Library Association.

In the tentacled shadow of the Patriot Act, color-coded DefCons and perpetual war, let us stand –shoulder to shoulder or with just a tacit nod to personal space — in unrelenting defense of intellectual freedom.