Shorter Don Surber
Posted on March 24th, 2008 by Gavin M.
Above: Our Pepys of the Pocatalico
- An environmentally conscious reader asks, Would I want a coal-fired power plant upwind of my children’s school? Ha ha! How do you like me now, sucka? There is a coal-fired power plant upwind of my children’s school! [victory dance]
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
One wonders how much coal Surber’s kids are obliged to shovel each day.
Ahh, the Surbhuman. What a way to start the week.
It’s not like his kids can get any worse with toxins or pollutants, when they eat from the same trough as this fine specimen does. Surber’s stupid grants him some sort of superimmunity. They say that, when hunting, Surber dips his arrowheads in his own blood, rendering them even deadlierer.
Don’t hyphenate after adverbs ending in “-ly.”
thank you, Cheeto Jesus!
Stop being a dumn-dumn would also work as advice for Mr. Surber.
Another reader asks if I would feed my children surplus Guatemalan Army bacon. Funny you should ask…
Wind power is the volkswagen of liberal fascism.
Hmph. Gruh.
So that explains chin deficiency syndrome in West Virginia. Who knew?
[…] by Sadly No, whose electricity is generated by hamsters in […]
Don’t hyphenate after adverbs ending in “-ly.”
On a related note, the flame was lit and began its journey today.
“Ha ha! Mah kids breave ‘at thar coal smoke ever day, and ain’t nobody in my famly dumb as even one Demcrat!”
– Surber?
It is slowly dawning on me that the more Republicans fuck up the environment, the more Republicans there will be.
There is still no commercially-proven, viable means of carbon sequestration.
Yet the Canadian government is spending 240 million taxpayer dollars “studying” this notion as a way of not asking coal plant operators and tar sands producers to reduce their carbon output.
Don Surber’s got nothin’ on the residents of Fort McMurray, Alberta. They actually chose to live next to this continent’s biggest environmental travesty.
And I thought I couldn’t get any more afraid of global warming. In the words of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, “It’s all… part of the plan.”
“It is slowly dawning on me that the more Republicans fuck up the environment, the more Republicans there will be.”
I don’t think that GOP fucked up-edness creates more GOPers, but rather GOPers tend to fuck up more where they excericise more control, i.e. in poorer states where the population is more welcoming of anything that resembles a job-producing operation – like coal plants.
In theory, GOP policies actually diminish their constituencies through steady poisoning.
We’re soaking in it.
Aren’t those nuclear-plant-type cooling towers you’ve Photoshopped? Or do coal plants use the same type of tower?
Coal dust is good for the kids. It’s all -natural, right?
Surber’s update:
It’s nice to know he’s a fan and keeps up on the site’s inner workings, but he unfortunately left out the all-important modifier. Almost don’t count except for horseshoes, hand grenades, and coal plants.
There is a coal-fired power plant upwind of my children’s school!
This explains so much. There’s probably a lead factory there, as well.
Coal dust is good for the kids. It’s all -natural, right?
Well, it IS carbon, and it helps filters out impurities in cigarettes, so I imagine if his kids are smokers, it’s probably a good thing.
That thumb’s toupee is terrible.
Or do coal plants use the same type of tower?
Not photoshopped. Check the links at Surber’s blog.
Uh…the answer to your question? I guess sometimes they do, although the one across the street from my kids school uses your standard-issue 150-ft. smokestacks.
Legalize, I think the point is Republicans, by poisoning the well and shitting where we sleep and eat, and fill the air with as much brain killing, mind numbing toxins as possible, are causing a lot of brian damage. Hence more Republicans. Did I get that right?
Aren’t those nuclear-plant-type cooling towers you’ve Photoshopped? Or do coal plants use the same type of tower?
The cooling towers for both look pretty much the same. The smoke stacks for older coal plants are the tall (about 600 to 700 ft) skinny ones.
Pictures of both on this page (scroll down for the cooling towers).
Don Surber’s got nothin’ on the residents of Fort McMurray, Alberta. They actually chose to live next to this continent’s biggest environmental travesty.
My sister’s working up there right now, finishing her last contract (office support). She takes pictures of the desolation. They are terrifyingly alien.
Yeah that’s what I was going for PeeJ (although in all seriousness I think that poverty is the bigger problem when it comes to downward cycles that will destroy a democracy)
The worst infectious diseases are not the ones that kill quickly, but the ones that take time to manifest themselves while spreading to other hosts.
Wikipedia has nary a word on any environmental hazards around Fort McMurray, although this
should be enough to scare anyone away. Isn’t Alberta considered to be the Texas of Canada?
Oh snap! You got told!
Yes, but at the current rate of regression they’re two generations away from being fat bloated sacks of protoplasm that can only twitch and grunt. Think of it. The hamsters will feel safe enough to leave their wheels because they won’t be afraid Donald will stick them up his smoke stack.
Hey, D.N., gay hamsters are a fabulously clean energy source.
He’s got nothing to worry about. Given the genes they got from daddy, the incremental effects of coal emissions on his kids’ cognitive development won’t reach detectable thresholds.
…fat bloated sacks of protoplasm…
Steeeeeeempy!
those arent smoke stacks, theyre cooling towers and what comes out of them is steam. the smoke stacks are usually really tall so the majority of pollution carries downwind 100s of miles while spreading out as well. causing wide spread damage like ruined watersheds via acid rain and global warming. surber probably doesnt get any bigger dose of toxins than anyone else.
of course the way they mine coal is probably even worse for the environment.
The reductio ad retardum followed by the victory dance is just so sad. The argument from surber seems to be something along the lines of: since wind or solar don’t produce unhead of levels of power for less than $0.00001 per killowatt hour, we have to stick with coal, or else the terrorists win! Don’t look into it, don’t do research, just keep burning this garbage because it makes liberals mad!
The cost of coal for making energy isn’t the true cost. As wwew pointed out, coal mining is
probablyan environmental disaster in itself.Now, I seem to recall, way back when, that people in close proximity to coal fired power plants are exposed to considerably more radiation than those in similar proximity to N plants. But I’m too lazy to research it so I’ll just play republican and state it as fact.
It’s Surber for the win! (Even if he did steal that from News Busted … who got it from Chris Muir … who got it from Mallard Fillmore … who got it from a homeless guy who lives in an abandoned refrigerator under the 101.)
His kids will thank him during their next asthma attack
I might not mind living upwind from a coal fired power plant… living DOWNwind, however…
There is some pretty baffling “logic” being applied to renewable energy sources: because such sources don’t produce X percentage of all currently utlized sources, they are not a “viable, practical, serious,” et al alternative on a going-forward basis.
These people, who fancy themselves “grownups,” can’t imagine a world 5 feet from their own noses. It’s crazy that smart, innovative types – those who come up with impractical things like telephones, computers, and various medical advances are treated with such scorn by the alleged “grown ups,” while all the while the U.S. continues to regress.
Innovate or die, knuckle-draggers.
I think the picture *is* photoshopped. Otherwise his teeth would be green, being from W. Va. and all. I’m just sayin.
God gave us enough resources to last until the Rapture.
If you don’t have faith, then you will be Left Behind.
And, as a Good Christian, I will laugh at your misfortunes in the End Times.
Liberals. Hmf.
Linked by Sadly No, whose electricity is generated by hamsters in wheels.
Ooooh–devastating counter attack.
Of course, I’m on wind power, so I win! Take that, Surberus!
(When I get home, I might have to pull out the emissions monitoring manual from the electric company contract a few years back…the procedures for coal plants were pretty frightening compared to the plants burning various levels of fuel oil. The guys that worked there hated the coal plants, and I give them a whole lot of credit for climbing all kinds of stacks for 10-20 years.)
From a Surber Commenter :
“To assume that bird-killing wind farms are the answer is “pie in the sky” dreaming.”
I’m wondering, if the birds were spotted owls if it would be ok?.Or is bird killing only ok when building a parking lot, strip mall, business park, timber mill or when Dick Cheney needs something canned to shoot besides a face?
The schoolchildren inhaling all of the CO2 will counteract the plant’s carbon footprint. Brilliant! We should build schools at the top of smoke stacks.
got a righteous circuit rider camping out in the previous thread.
I can’t stand feeling like a repub/wingnut/moonbat so I looked it up.
Them’s Oak Ridge folks talking so you decide how much to credit it.
…just keep burning this garbage because it makes liberals mad!
A conservative (though not conservatard) friend of mine is rapidly approaching his John Cole-type epiphany about his fellow Redoublechins, I think. Recently he mentioned to me that he’d noticed that, for a lot of the righties he knows, pissing liberals off is enough of a reason to do a thing, even if that thing is really stupid. The particular issue he’d noticed this about was being wasteful of things – gasoline, electricity, and material goods.
I’ve always wondered just why environmentalism has anything to do with politics. Well, no, I haven’t – if your politics require that businesses get to do whatever they want at minimum cost to themselves and damn the consequences for everyone else, I guess it’s political.
…because such sources don’t produce X percentage of all currently utlized sources, they are not a “viable, practical, serious,” et al alternative…
Bingo. That argument annoys the hell out of me. If alternative energy source X produces “only” 10% of our current needs, and source Y another 10% – it adds up. The part of the discussion that’s taboo to even mention, though, is that our current usage could stand to go down quite a bit with little impact on our lives.
Yes, don’t even dare suggest to the average winger that perhaps they should actually practice the “conserve” part of “conservative.” I mean, aren’t conservatives allegedly supposed to be in favor of like wisely using resources to maximize benefit, above all else? Aren’t “teh taxpayers” supposed to know how to use resources better than “big government”?
Is the modern conservative movement so childish and petty, as to be based solely on pissing off liberals no matter if their kids get sick? ‘Cause that’s what I’m reading.
Recently he mentioned to me that he’d noticed that, for a lot of the righties he knows, pissing liberals off is enough of a reason to do a thing, even if that thing is really stupid.
That seems to be the beginning and end of the argument of anyone who is vehemently opposed to energy conservation.
When my family lived out in the boondocks, with no electricity, we got our hot water in the summer via solar – using a state-of-the-art sophisticated high-tech system known as 40 feet of garden-hose & a 1/2 dozen jumbo black garbage-bags, held down with rocks. If you didn’t mix cold in with it, that water would scald you.
Live somewhere sunny, have a backyard, & want to curb-stomp your hot-water bill? Go for it.
Wind IS erratic – but geothermal is just the opposite. Unless someone knows of the planet’s imminant cooling & is just keeping it secret. Also a massive source of VERY reliable energy is tidal power.
Strange how we have ready access to all of these very clean & abundant energy sources … all being steadfastly ignored for decades on end, while we ever more rapidly burn away a shrinking supply of black glop made from rotted ferns & brontosaurus-poop, in spite of knowing its toxic & politically deadly spin-offs.
Scoffing at solar power will be a Demonstration event at the 2014 Olympics, at this rate … & they’ll have to hold those Games underground to avoid extreme weather & toxic UV, thus causing the entire IOC Executive Board to spontaneously combust, due to a lethal overdose of irony.
Solar skeptics always assume that the farms have to be down here, under the cloud-cover, but it’s not 1960 anymore. If the electricity harvested by solar “farming” is collected via satellite, the old “the sun doesn’t always shine” punchline becomes a mite psychotic. Orbital solar has a high front-end cost but truly enormous potential as an energy source, since it not only winds up paying for itself but eventually produces de-facto FREE power in abundance … for entire centuries at a time … golly, I wonder why it keeps getting spiked?
*COUGH (Exxon) COUGH (OPEC) COUGH*
It also reminds me of my ex-girlfriend’s father, who once told me he was considering buying a hummer to “piss off the save the whales crowd”
It also reminds me of my ex-girlfriend’s father, who once told me he was considering buying a hummer to “piss off the save the whales crowd”
Funny, isn’t it? Think of how much of his money he’ll burn up, just for the satisfaction of…..well, actually, of thinking people are noticing him when in fact they’re totally unaware of him.
More anecdotal evidence needed?
Overheard in Lancaster
Scroll down to the Taco Bell entry.
Hey if he wants to fill up a hummer at 4 bucks a gallon to piss off liberals, good luck to him – because I bet he’s not laughing much now.
What Sam said.
If we can squeeze out 5% of our needs from wind, 5% from solar, 5% from conservation, 5% from appliance efficiency & reduced usage via expedients like CFL or LED lighting, there’s 20% right there. By any measure, that’s low-hanging fruit, just waiting to be picked.
With incremental steps like that, I see no reason why we couldn’t manage to wring out 25%-30% of our electricity needs via sources *other* than fossil or nuclear fuels in the next 10-15 years.
…40 feet of garden-hose & a 1/2 dozen jumbo black garbage-bags, held down with rocks…
That’s the kind of solution I really like. Sometimes I even cook my dinner using nothing but tinfoil and cardboard. Takes a sunny day and a bit of planning ahead, but the energy cost is zero.
Though that sort of thing might make you appear poor, and the fRighties can’t be with that.
From hoosier’s link – “I say ‘Merry Christmas’ because I know it offends people.”
Perfect isn’t it? And particularly when you consider that it’s supposed to be a message of Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men.
I was going to say…Nice one, Bluey.
From hoosier’s link – “I say ‘Merry Christmas’ because I know it offends people.”
Perfect isn’t it? And particularly when you consider that it’s supposed to be a message of Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men.
Yep. That’s the way they use it, as a cudgel to blugeon you.
True scene. Me at store, Xmas time, long lines, fifteen year old son in tow:
Chubby rosy-cheeked College Republican checker (I know this because we trade at that store all the time, and I’ve seen his bumper stickers): Hello
Me: Hi
CRCCRC: Do you celebrate Christmas?
Me: What?
CRCCRC: Do you celebrate Christmas?
Me: No. We’re atheists. And right now I’m really happy about that.
CRCCRC: Um . . . oh . . .
I wish I could have had video of the change of expression from smug, self-satisfied, idiotic superiority to flushed, stumbling, rage. Was he embarrassed? Nope. He was sure pissed off. Especially when the bagger snickered.
My son: Mom, that was so cool!
But amusing aspects aside, it was infuriating. What right had he to question my fucking religious views, so he could smugly wish me Merry Christmas. Fuck him and the idiotmobile he rode in on.
When Don’s children begin to suffer serious health issues, which do you think they’ll do first: sue the power plant or dismember their father?
What right had he to question my fucking religious views, so he could smugly wish me Merry Christmas.
You’re right, but sadly, the fact that he asked before assuming it puts him a cut above a lot of them.
“Perfect isn’t it? And particularly when you consider that it’s supposed to be a message of Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men.”
Nah, no contradiction. Jesus didn’t have LIEbruls who hate America, teh troops, free markets and God, in mind when he talked about the whole peace and goodwill stuff.
Sam, I’m quite sure, since I know the people who run this store and we live in a very liberal neighborhood, that he was told not to wish people “Merry Christmas.” Hell, a lot of the people who work at that store are Bosnian Muslims. I’m sure he thought he’d seen a way around it. This kid is young, but he’s growing up to be a right a-hole.
I mean, aren’t conservatives allegedly supposed to be in favor of like wisely using resources to maximize benefit, above all else? Aren’t “teh taxpayers” supposed to know how to use resources better than “big government”?
You are thinking of the glorious era that wingnuts love to gush about, when conservatives were “liberals” and liberals were socialists. Classic conservatism was premised on a stable, landed aristocracy. The old gentry really were good at conserving, since they knew just how much land they had, how many people could be expected to work it, and exactly what returns they could expect on it, essentially generation after generation unless they ran out of heirs or were conquered militarily.
The industrialists and the classical economists were the ones who gutted the old system on the grounds that it was unproductive and inefficient, which it was. But the virtue that they made of burning up anything that might be worth a cent as quickly as possible is a historically radical idea, and it never has been quite as successful as it was supposed to be. I’m not saying that we should go back to the ancien regime, but at least then we wouldn’t be talking about whether the world would still be here in fifty years. The people who brought us the South Sea Bubble and Bear Stearns can claim to be many things, especially horribly wrong, but “conservative” doesn’t fit.
This kid is young, but he’s growing up to be a right a-hole.
Urgh. Good luck with the little bastard, then. May he catch a clue, or failing that, move far away from you.
Ah, I just avoid him, and he avoids me. It’s kind of funny: He’s got the kind of complexion (as I do myself in my extreme whiteness, I must admit) that flushes bright red with any emotion. Everytime he sees me he looks like freshly decanted chianti. I feel kind of mean but I feel a secret inner hilarity every time.
Here in the squarest of states you can sign up to get your power from the monopoly utility’s wind farms. When the program first started, it cost more for wind than for nat gas-generated power, but when nat gas prices went up the folks on the wind power program were actually paying LESS per kwhr for their power than everyone else. Funny how that didn’t get a whole lot of attention.
I’ve often thought that the biggest obstacle to alternative power self sufficiency is that each area of the country needs a set of solutions tailored specifically to that region, not a one size fits all solution. Since our economy seems to understand only one size fits all, inb the past perfectly good technologies were applied in areas where they aren’t the best choice, and all the pro-carbonites then pointed fingers and said “See!?!?! It doesn’t work well enough therefore we should ignore this idea entirely!” Intellectually lazy, vision-free, head in the sand cobags, all of them.
I’ve also noticed that more and more, the arguments from conservatives boil down to:
“Won’t THAT piss off the liberals? Shut UP, that’s why!!”
To be fair, my only reason for having gay sex and performing abortions in church is to piss of the conservatives.
Well gee, I too do the abortions to piss off the conservatives but the buttseks is a cause in its own self. I’m doing that in church only because that’s where the boys are.
“Wheeeeeeeeeeere
The boys arrrrrrre,
Someone waits for me!”
My best friend at the moment has gotten more conservative politically through college (which is really how long I’ve known her), is a truly devout Christian (the fundies embarrass the hell out of her) but she’s the thriftiest person I know. She makes her own laundry detergent and discovered that baking soda and vinegar are cheap substitute for shampoo (her hair practically glows now). Our other best friend is an atheist. They both recycle more than me and survived three of the past six months without a light in the kitchen.
Heh. To all the would-be fundies out there, a warning, from my own personal experience:
If the only book that you allow your child to read is the Bible, and the Bible has lots of illustrations of blushing, muscular, nearly naked patriarchs and angels being tortured and wrestling with each other, your baby is going to be jerking off to the Bible. If porn can’t be your Bible, the Bible will be your porn.
ALSO: It may or may not be conducive to your little darlings morals to keep him or her in church as much as possible. However, there is also a strong positive correlation between the percentage of time an adolescent spends in church and the liklihood that said adolescent will be having sex in church.
This has been another edition of Facts for Fundies.
Is the modern conservative movement so childish and petty, as to be based solely on pissing off liberals?
Otherwise known as Adolescent Adjustment Disorder. They need us and are psychologically dependent on us. So they act out expecting harsh punishment from Father but they don’t get that. Which only feeds their rage.
My point is, not all righties are assholes. Most, not all.
ohhh, facts.
Pedestrian, fundies have no use for facts.
Well billy pilgrim, that may not always be a bad thing. There is the whole knowledge vs. experience debate. I think I did alright with experience. Kinky, altar-propped, holy-oil-lubricated exprience. Luck + instinct will get you pretty far.
I will say that if you are only going to teach your kids one thing about sex, it shouldn’t be “condoms are evil”.
I might not mind living upwind from a coal fired power plant… living DOWNwind, however…
The whole of Northern Europe is living downwind from a coal-fired power plant called “Great Britain”, and you don’t hear them complaining about it. Apart from the times when they’re complaining about it.
Don Surber’s children playing ring around the lump of coal.
Indeed. I had a close friend who grew up in a devout Catholic family (Mom couldn’t divorce abusive alcoholic Dad, she just waited until he disappeared and replaced him with a series of identical abusive alcoholic “uncles.”) He was obsessed with naked and near-naked depictions of Jesus. Felt so guilty about it he almost drank himself to death by age 30. Well, to be fair, he also felt guilty about all those priests who fondled him — he must have been doing something wrong to tempt them, right?
And I have it on very good authority that every time the Jeffrey Hunter version of “King of Kings” airs on TV, the gay male population of the United States wins a veritable tsunami of new converts.
It’s a shame we can’t use republicans in giant wheels to generate power. We could kill two birds with one stone; power Sadly, No! and simultaneously run some of that obesity off of them.
“Ride on, Coal Dust Woman, take your coally spoon, and dig your grave!” –Stevie Nicks
It’s a shame we can’t use republicans in giant wheels to generate power.
We need to harness the energy from the high-fives they give each other after they think they’ve “burned” us.
I’m all for alternative energy use and especially conservation. That said, it has become clear to me that anything we do on a global scale is going to cause environmental problems.
Cases in point just off the top of my head:
Nickel mining to make the NiMH batteries for hybrids.
Pollution from a Chinese solar panel factory.
Bird kills from wind farms. Okay, I just looked that one up and the wind farms, at least the more recent ones, aren’t as bad as I had understood. OTOH, power lines appear to be a pretty major bird killer.
My point is that nothing we do besides conserve is going to be good for the environment. Industrial scale anything is brutally hard on the environment.
/soapbox
If the only book that you allow your child to read is the Bible, and the Bible has lots of illustrations of blushing, muscular, nearly naked patriarchs and angels being tortured and wrestling with each other, your baby is going to be jerking off to the Bible. If porn can’t be your Bible, the Bible will be your porn.
I agree, and that’s why I keep my teenage son away from the Bible. Instead, I encourage him to learn all he can about the lives of our saints. I’m quite pleased with the results — he’s very fond of St. Sebastian. My son will sit for 15 to 30 minutes alone in his room meditating on paintings of Sebastian’s martyrdom. I’ll often overhear him praying to God at the end of these sessions which must be really strenuous because he’s usually so tired that he has to take a nap afterwards.
To give you an idea of what type of people we’re dealing with, here’s a short story which explained a lot to me. Between Huntington & Point Pleasant, WV there is a place called Hillbilly Hotdogs. The place looks like a dump and I wouldn’t dream of stepping foot in it. From what I’ve heard, the place is a local favorite. I asked my former boss, who is from West By God Virginia, what a Hillbilly Hotdog was, and he said it is a Hotdog with Chili sauce on it. I told him around here we call those chili dogs. He just grinned. He also has a receding chin.
My point is that nothing we do besides conserve is going to be good for the environment.
You’re right. It’s a pity conservation is such a hard sell – it’s not all high-tech, meaning that we don’t get to buy new toys to do it. Even a lot of supporters of alternative energy get all pouty when they find out that technology isn’t the (best) answer.
I usually go “Zen master” (since I do get into Buddhist/Taoist philosophy, I have a lot of source to draw from) on door-to-door religious salesmen… it drive them nuts. I wind up talking to them for about 10-15 minutes, until they finally realize they’re wasting time, and they run off to somewhere else.
It’s been a while since I did have one knock on my door, so I’m sorta out of practice. The last time I had religious salesmen was when some Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door and said, “Oh hi! You don’t speak French?”
“Ummm… no”
“Oh, okay. We’re JW’s, and we’re looking for French speaking people.”
“Yeah, sorry. Can’t speak French.”
“Well, have a nice day then.”
I live in a somewhat ethnic neighborhood, so I’m guessing they were looking for Haitians or West Africans.
Blue Buddha, I once got a door buzz on a Saturday morning for my partner, who has a Spanish surname. I went down for him, thinking it was a package, only to find two grinning people, she in a frilly house frock, he in a cheap suit with a briefcase in hand. I could just smell the missionary on them. They pushed literature in my hands and expressed dismay that Alberto wasn’t at home. After scanning it for a few seconds I realized that they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Ah well, at least someone is welcoming the immigrants to the US.
Which are the ones with “Teh Watchtower”?
Those are the ones I get. I’m usually quite offensive, and they go away.
One morning they came a-knocking. I answered the door and they asked me if I wanted some “uplifting reading”.
I told them, quite loudly, “No, I don’t want Uplifting Reading. I like SMUT! You got any SMUT??!”.
They ran for their lives.
Cracked me up…
mikey
Those are the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I used to be willing to take their crap and give it the once over before recycling it, then one guy hit me up for a donation to cover “printing costs”… he wanted to proselytize me with his dumb ass tracts and me to pay for it!
I used to be willing to take their crap and give it the once over
There’s one illustration I’ll never forget involving the representation of heaven. It had a log cabin in the mountains and pandas.
My ex was raised JW, and her extended family still practices. Meh, I never had any issue with them. They never once tried to proselytize me. They answered questions when I asked them, and generally had a good sense of humor about pretty much everything, including *being* JWs. That’s my only experience with the folks. Certainly, nothing I learned about their sect seemed any goofier than any other faith.
There’s one illustration I’ll never forget involving the representation of heaven. It had a log cabin in the mountains and pandas.
I think Heaven must look like one giant Bob Ross painting with a zillion happy little trees. I wouldn’t have expected pandas, but why not?
What a sad, dumb little man.
My idea of heaven looks like the Lisa Frank universe and involves tripping on acid and eating rainbow sherbert until you vomit.
I really don’t want to go to heaven.
Yikes! I hadn’t seen Lisa Frank’s stuff before. It does look like what you’d get if you mixed LSD and Skittles and threw in some Element X for that Powerpuff Girls touch.
I could give that heaven a miss too. I’ll stick with Bob Ross.
I’ll bet Bob Ross knew some good weed.
I’ll bet Bob Ross knew some good weed.
I’ve always thought “happy little tree” wasn’t meant to be taken literally.
I won’t have you maligning Natasha Henstridge that way.
Let’s hope there weren’t any Republicans in that Log Cabin.
Hmmm. Pandas … panda bears. Bears …
And that is central to my point.
However, there is also a strong positive correlation between the percentage of time an adolescent spends in church and the liklihood that said adolescent will be having sex in church
Joe Strummer knew this in 1980:
I believe in this
And it’s been tested by research
He who fucks nuns
Will later join the church
I believe that garnered The Clash a warning sticker, way before Tipper Gore and her censorious crew.
Henry.
Ever read Robbins’ “Fierce Invalids”?
It’s got some gorgeously outrageous nun-fucking…
mikey
So does The Decameron, at least for its time. A repository of filthy jokes.
HH, THEY even tried to pull the plugs.
Candy, they tend not to ask your religion, or if you celebrate Xmas back in the Old World. However, when I was working in Calgary, I was flying down to Texas for a meeting, and the cheery X-tain sitting next to me asked me what church I went to. It was early and i was hungover, so replied ‘None, I’m a pagan’, boy that didn’t go down well, but at least she didn’t try to convert me.
lobbey, I’d so love to go live in the Old World, for this and many other reasons.
I’ll bet that lady’s expression was an essay in shock. I love that expression.
My ex was raised JW, and her extended family still practices. Meh, I never had any issue with them. They never once tried to proselytize me. They answered questions when I asked them, and generally had a good sense of humor about pretty much everything, including *being* JWs. That’s my only experience with the folks. Certainly, nothing I learned about their sect seemed any goofier than any other faith.
That’s been my experience too. My partner’s dad loves a beer and is pretty laid back. Give him a Negra Modelo or three and he can tell stories about his wild youth that will even curl my hair.
Witnesses are kind of interesting. They are opposed to school prayer and saying the pledge of allegiance, which is all good in my book. They don’t celebrate any holidays so they don’t bug you with that Merry Xmas crap. They don’t believe in going to war.They don’t believe in hell. They’re an end times cult but they aren’t fundamentalist. They were persecuted by Hitler and some died in the camps. They don’t really believe in heaven, exactly, or at least not for everyone. Some are apparently gonna go and others are just gonna die. I don’t get the point of the faith in that regard. But I may just not be understanding the fine points of the theology. Anyway, no, they are no goofier than any other bunch.
That being said, one very amusing memoy is of two fine young Witnesses – now that I think about it though, they might have been Mormons (Mormen?) – coming around my fenced patio when I was sunbathing topless. That was really funny. They backed away slowly. For some reason, they didn’t stick around to discuss.
My first boss, the manager of a coffee shop, was JW. She was living with her boyfriend, who was not a “saint”, so her parents did the whole Bible bit where you are given three warnings, the last one before the church as a whole, and then you are dead to them. After her last warning her parents said their goodbyes and that was that. She told me that she still believed in most of the theology, she just realized that she wasn’t a saint.
I’m sure not all Jehovah’s Witnesses are like that. People of any faith or no faith can be like that. My parents are like that. Still, it always tears me up a little when people choose water over blood.
Back in the mid-80s, we had a friend who was JW. Really likable, actually frequently snarky. Never proselytized, really, although she performed regular “witnessings” (or something like that) with folks she knew on a sort of monthly rotation. When it was “our turn”, she’d check with us a couple days in advance, then come over for coffee and talk about the environment for an hour or two. She was a serious, dedicated conservationist and environmentalist. Of course, she always tied it back to “God’s Will for us to be good stewards of the planet”, etc. OTOH, she was the first person to sit and explain to us the Theory of Global Warming, back in 1985 or thereabouts.
Unfortunate but true: Jehovah’s Witnesses, due to some bible passage about blood, reject blood transfusions. They reject blood transfusions for their minor children. Even lifesaving blood transfusions. Various courts have found their arguments compelling and allowed them to withhold medical care; others haven’t, I believe, leaving the law in flux and the decisions case-by-case.
Heard a heartbreaking story about a kid whose aunt talked him into Witnesshood during his illness and convinced him to reject the lifesaving therapy. The parents were beside themselves, but the kid was allowed to reject medical care.
That is close to murder if you ask me.
Whups…sorry, aunt did not convert him during the illness, but was his legal guardian and supported his decision.
Parents were still beside themselves, though no indication why they weren’t the ones in charge.
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Yeah, Shell, that blood thing is BAD. It’s one thing if you’re an adult, but to deny your kids is flat out murder in my opinion.
I think though that other than blood transfusions, they don’t fight other methods of treatment. That’s where the Christian Scientists come in high on the batshit crazy scale. I think Scientologists are bad about med care for the kids too.
Witnesses aren’t real big on forgiveness either. That shunning thing is ugly.
Scientologists are bad about med care for everybody.