The Inferno

This is from Zap Comix, Issue 0, 1971, 60c.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly, followed by this:

One of the only words in English with two consecutive i’s. Be that as it may, I spent all of the 28th skiing. I’d never been skiing before and it was wonderful. It was exhilarating, I fell more times than I can count, but very satisfying at the end of the day. Once the skis were rented, I was out with all the other newbies, trying hard to learn how to stop and turn and all that stuff. A severe rope burn and many falls later, with lots of help, I managed to get halfway down one of the beginner runs. My friends were vastly more skilled and after watching them watch me bail a million times, I decided to go sip on some hot chocolate in the chalet. What a golorious day. I must make sure I never do anything like it ever again, since skiing is now checked off Life’s ToDo list. Next activity: bungee jumping!

Me: So I was at the Swinger’s Night at Connections at Metrotown with my buddy J and we got mistaken for being the dynamic gay duo.
Stranger: Hahaha, well what do you expect, it’s Swinger’s Night and you show up with a guy.
Me: Hey, in my defence, how was I to know the protocol? I’m not exactly initiated into the origiastic rites of the swinger club.
Stranger: Orgiastic rites of the swinger club, I’ll remember that one.
Me: Yeah, so it was a blast, but we had to leave.
Stranger: Well, that would have been great, you see, I didn’t grow up here. Where I’m from, we don’t have swinger clubs.
Me: Oh yeah? Where was that?
Stranger: Ras Al Khafji, in Saudi Arabia.
Me: Oh, I would have guessed Dubai or Riyadh or something bigger, but sure.
Stranger: Dubai? Are you from Dubai? You must be, since you know it.
Me: No, I know how to read
Stranger: Hi, I’m Patrick
Me: I’m Viren and this is my friend C
Patrick: Cool, are you two dating?
Me: No, I have enough pseudo girlfriends.
C: Patrick, what is that? Scottish?
Me: No, it’s Irish, like Heather.
Patrick: That’s funny that you’d say Heather, it’s my mother’s name.
Me: So are you into politics at all? It must be pretty volatile living there.
Patrick: Yeah *mutters for a while in Arabic* But only the Shia side, you know, *mutters some more*

A standard leftist dialogue ensues for a few minutes, which is interrupted when someone mentions the Holocaust.

Me: The Holocaust? Are you into that at all??
C: Oh boy, here we go. I like purses.
Me: Hey, how can you not discuss mechanized mass murder after a few beers?
Patrick: Sure, sure, but let’s not get into World War 2. After all, it’s a cold Friday morning at 3.10 am outside the Bourbon
Me: Sure, but surely you know that the Holocaust as a generic term also applies to the Armenian holocaust, the Cambodian holocaust, the Rwandan holocaust and so on
Patrick: Don’t go all Black September on me, dude.
Me: Leave Munich 72 out of this, fucker.
Patrick: *leans in to hug me* I love it when someone rambles on a topic they know about.
C: Guys, I like purses. And here’s our cab, let’s go.

And we leave. I really need a new section for these senseless bar conversations I have all the time. And this doesn’t include the lip reader, but that’s a story for another post.

Here is the only sensible way to answer this imbecile.

Pope: Worship God not technology

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) — Pope Benedict said in his Christmas message on Monday that mankind, which has reached other planets and worships technology, cannot live without God or turn its back on the hungry.

Living without God is exactly what this species needs to advance far beyond where we are today.

It was shameful that in “this age of plenty and unbridled consumerism” many remained deaf to the “heart-rending cry” of those dying of hunger, thirst, disease, poverty, war and terrorism.

Agreed, but how does turning to God solve the problem of “unbridled consumerism”? Give us a break, Benedict. Perhaps improving the social fabric, scrapping the plutocratic systems of government and so on would be a better solution than worshipping some deity that counts the fall of every sparrow in the sky.

In his “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message, he made a heartfelt appeal for peace and justice in the Middle East, an end to the “brutal violence” in Iraq and a solution to fratricidal conflicts in Darfur and other parts of Africa.

The “brutal violence” in Iraq caused by religious rivalry between Sunnis and Shias. Fratricidal conflicts in Africa aided by arms sales from the First World that in turn contribute to the coffers of the wealthy by making human lives worth less than Kalashnikov shells. Good one, Benedict.

“Does a ‘Saviour’ still have any value and meaning for the men and women of the third millennium?” he asked in his address to tens of thousands of people in a sunny St. Peter’s Square.

No. And don’t ask the people who’re already there. They’ve already bought your story hook, line and sinker. This is like your friendly professor in University castigating those present in class for poor attendance.

“Is a ‘Saviour’ still needed by a humanity which has reached the moon and Mars and is prepared to conquer the universe; for a humanity which knows no limits in its pursuit of nature’s secrets and which has succeeded even in deciphering the marvelous codes of the human genome?”

No. The day we send an evangelist out into the Universe to spread this insidious claptrap is the day we should nuke ourselves out of motherloving existence.

“Is a Saviour needed by a humanity which has invented interactive communication, which navigates in the virtual ocean of the Internet and, thanks to the most advanced modern communications technologies, has now made the Earth, our great common home, a global village?”

No. Mankind’s advancing, and stop trying to hold us back with your two thousand year old fairytales which in turn are ripped off from older, pagan religions and nicely packaged into one pretty mythos which culminates into an orgasmic frenzy of consumerist spending on the birthday of your saviour. “Unbridled consumerism”, anyone?

The Pope, marking the second Christmas season of his pontificate, said that while 21st century man appeared to be a master of his own destiny, “perhaps he needs a saviour all the more” because much of humanity still suffered.

“People continue to die of hunger and thirst, disease and poverty, in this age of plenty and of unbridled consumerism,” he said from the central balcony of Christendom’s largest church.

“Some people remain enslaved, exploited and stripped of their dignity; others are victims of racial and religious hatred, hampered by intolerance and discrimination, and by political interference and physical or moral coercion with regard to the free profession of their faith,” he said.

The only “saviour” mankind needs is education. Freedom from ignorance, superstition, disease, all these command a heavy price. But it’s not impossible. The key is education without any strings attached. Setting up schools in Central Africa for impoverished kids is great, but not if they have swallow liturgical hogwash on a daily basis.

“Others see their own bodies and those of their dear ones, particularly their children, maimed by weaponry, by terrorism and by all sorts of violence, at a time when everyone invokes and acclaims progress, solidarity and peace for all,” he said.

Yeah, see capitalism and gun running and all those good topics.

In his address, the Pope also made a reference to the controversial case of Piergiorgio Welby, a paralyzed Italian man who was denied a Catholic service because he had asked to die.

“What are we to think of those who choose death in the belief that they are celebrating life?” he said.

Welby, an advocate of euthanasia, died on Wednesday after a doctor gave him sedatives and detached a respirator that had kept the victim of advanced muscular dystrophy alive for years.

Your life is your own. If you feel that you can’t enjoy it, you have every right to snuff it out. Staying alive because of some guilt ridden feelings of epehemeral guilt is no way to enjoy life. It’s a bit like buying a ticket to a movie and realizing halfway through the movie that this movie is utter junk. You can stay and watch the rest, hoping for a few seconds of brilliance, or you can get up and leave and reject the abysmal bilge being forced down your throat. Welby chose to leave the theatre, but the Church is like the bogeyman usher, preventing him from leaving by insisting he sit and watch, after all, he’s paid for the full movie, hasn’t he? Nevermind that he’s blind and in the worst seat in the entire house, this movie is great, Welby, stick it out, you’ll see the magic in it soon. Welby, do us all a favour and burn the entire theatre down.

In his midnight mass for some 10,000 people in St. Peter’s Basilica earlier on Monday, he said the image of the baby Jesus in a manger should remind everyone of the plight of poor, abused and neglected children the world over.

At that mass a member of the congregation read a prayer in Arabic asking God to encourage “a spirit of dialogue, mutual understanding and collaboration” among followers of the three great monotheistic religions — Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

In the beginning, there were carnivores, great hulking beasts that tore man from limb to limb. Then there was disease, that great leveller of life on the Savannah. Then Man advanced to relative safety with his collective living and invented religion. Men bled and died in vast multitudes for gods they had never seen. The real killers are the religions Benedict named above. While it is naive and foolish to blame all mankind’s problems on religion, one can’t deny that it forms a huge part of the pie. With that in mind, Benedict is ultimately guilty of abusing his position of tremendous power. Can you imagine if he advocated sensible rememdies instead of Biblical nonsense? One can only dream. But Benedict is trapped by his profession. After all, a priest says a thing at twelve, and the same thing at ninety.

Taken from here

Today is Day 4 of my attempt at growing sideburns. Perhaps, in five years, I’ll look like the General.

In spite of knowing that luminaries such as Asimov and Vonnegut have spoken about Secular Humanism, I’ve never looked into it very deeply, preferring to not believe in anything at all. However, this is a blueprint on how not to believe, and as such, a mighty fine way to see the world. Well, until you find God and talk in tongues of course, a la

Anyway, blithering idiots aside, here is a short gist of Humanism, taken from the BBC

Most humanists would agree with the ideas below:

* There are no supernatural beings.
* The material universe is the only thing that exists.
* Science provides the only reliable source of knowledge about this universe.
* We only live this life – there is no after-life, and no such thing as reincarnation.
* Human beings can live ethical and fulfilling lives without religious beliefs.
* Human beings derive their moral code from the lessons of history, personal experience, and thought.

Look up Secular Humanism yourself for further detail on Wikipedia, if you care. Note that I don’t necessarily like all the tenets, but it’s an interesting read nevertheless.

The power’s been out for three days. And while this is no excuse to not post more often, my finals for the semester just ended and I’ve been sleeping more than 4 hours a night and boy, it feels good. A huge windstorm put a quarter of a million people in the dark. This makes it clear that wind warfare is the new terrorism. The slightest gust of breeze should be shepherded into Guantanamo bay instantly.

The power went out at 4.20 am on Friday the 15th. After almost freezing in my sleep, I woke up and decided to become a mallrat for one day in the nearest mall. But the mall too was down, and I was forced to seek greener pastures further south, in this hideous temple of capitalism, Metrotown. After some breakfast, I lurked in the library for half the day, surfing the web in 45 minute bursts as I contemplated my next move. A few calls to some of my friends and I spent the rest of the day shopping for Christmas gifts with Heather. Christmas shopping. Could there possibly be a more hideous sentence in the English language, one that combines two things I feel abyssal loathing for, Christmas and shopping? Anyway, it was still a better alternative than going back home to Antarctica.

The next day, after sleeping over at Heather’s place and a suitable brunch, I went back home and packed a few clothes and went to my friend Clio’s place, since we’d planned to go out to another friend’s birthday that night. After a night of intoxicated swaying to music I wouldn’t normally listen to, I spent the night on the couch at Clio’s. The next morning, after checking the utility company’s site quickly, I realized that the power wouldn’t be on until Sunday night. So the previous day’s pattern repeated itself, with me having a huge breakfast and keeping Clio company, while she shopped for Christmas gifts.

After a lazy afternoon spent at Ikea eating 50c hot dogs and trying to decipher Swedish diacritics, I headed home and the power was finally back at 6 pm on Sunday the 17th, after three whole days. Bivouacking at friends’ places is possibly the best way to spend a weekend, par none, even if the power outage made me a consumerist whore for an entire 72 hours.

Boy, was Victor Hugo ever right, albeit belatedly.

…Marius had opened his whole soul to nature, he was thinking of nothing, he was living and breathing, he passed near this bench, the young girl raised her eyes, their glances met.

But what was there now in the glance of the young girl? Marius could not have told. There was nothing, and there was everything. It was a strange flash.
She cast down her eyes, and he continued on his way.
What he had seen was not the simple, artless eye of a child; it was a mysterious abyss, half-opened, then suddenly closed.
There is a time when every young girl looks thus. Woe to him upon she looks!
The first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like the dawn in the sky. It is the awakening of something radiant and unknown. Nothing can express the dangerous chasm of this unlooked-for gleam which suddenly suffuses adorable mysterious, and which is made up of all the innocence of the present, and of all the passion of the future. It is a kind of irresolute lovingness which is revealed by chance, and which is waiting. It is a snare which Innocence unconsciously spreads, and in which she catches hearts without intending to, and without knowing to, and without knowing it. It is a maiden glancing like a woman.

There is some more of this type of flowery prose, followed by this absolute topper:

We remember Marius’ hesitations, his palpitations, his terrors. He remained at his seat and did not approach, which vexed Cosette. One day she said to Jean Valjean: “Father, let us walk a little this way.” Seeing that Marius was not coming to her, she went to him. In such a case, every woman resembles Mahomet. And then, oddly enough, the first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more natural. It is the two sexes tending to unite, and each acquiring the qualities of the other.

And that’s about as maudlin as Hugo gets, which is admirable. One of my favorite books of all time.