Burning Man

I know; it seems like I’m never going to blog again, doesn’t it? I did not realize I had been so lax, not even opening WordPress at all this week, figuring I still had several days to get my apparently now weekly report in, only to find out I’m as overdue as those bad books your evil library supplies you with that might put Ideas in your head that would actually make you Think — and we certainly can’t have that in this new nation of Big Guvmint where one party (I heard an independent yesterday refer to it as less a party and more a “fan club”) doesn’t want straight white men to be squelched, or even made to feel bad (you know how delicate they can be) no matter who else we have to suppress to maintain the charade that once upon a time life really was like this and if only we click our manly cowboy-boot heels together we can get back there, no problem.

As you can see, there are things I’m thinking about, thinking (because I have always been able — and encouraged — to read whatever I want) to the point of massive run-on sentences because on the days I feel like blogging I seem to run out of time, and on the days I have time, I don’t seem to feel like blogging.

The culture wars are wearing me down, right as I ought to be revving up, and I can’t help but feel depressed at how very many stupid people there are in the world. And don’t tell me there aren’t stupid people abounding when at least one member of congress doesn’t know the difference between cold soup and the coldest Nazis. Nor does she even begin to grasp what those Nazis really did to their fellow human beings.

(In case you missed it, Marjorie Taylor Greene, among the cadre of “lawmakers” who don’t know the first thing about their jobs but have discovered they can gain a lot of money simply by yelling about things they know nothing about, which appeals to their stupid followers, somehow managed to confuse “gazpacho” with “Gestapo.” Warning: this is what comes of not reading. You might be richer, but you’re still stupid.)

But when the book challenges get started in earnest here in my part of the world, I will be ready: there is a book I feel should be banned, not only from children but from impressionable stupid people everywhere.

It’s got sex in it, lots, some of it adulterous, much of it polyamory, which is crap since everyone knows perfection is achieved with one man, one woman servilely behind him. Plenty of violence, although I think violence is generally a good thing in this new ethos —

[I do recall, back in the day, when the Christian Broadcasting Network changed its name to the Family Channel and started airing reruns of some shows I liked. Every little “damn” was bleeped out of the dialogue, but gunshots, murders and orange fireballs were in ample supply. So, violence, okay, as long as we excise curse words.]

— and violence directed at husbands standing in the way of some good adultery. There aren’t very many women, and no mention of lesbianism, although some of the few women might seem a tad overly devoted, if you know what I mean, to those of us reading carefully.

And, like most people who would ban books, I haven’t actually read the entire book, but I scarcely think that matters. I know what’s bad when I see the title, and I want the Bible banned.

I did once set out to read the Bible, beginning to end, starting with a children’s version that did thoughtfully ban lots of the sex on my behalf, and rearranged much of the rest of the text. Realizing I had been led astray, I progressed to an adult version all laden with sex and sin. I got as far as Judges 19 when the violence overcame me, and I set it down.

It was violence perpetrated against nameless women, so I don’t know why I’m complaining, and it was done to protect men from the evils of wanton men with the wrong sort of lust in their hearts, and the end always justifies the means, so why am I complaining, but I am.

It was awful and offensive and now if other people want to dictate what books can and can’t be on shelves, then I want to join in and save people from having to read such crap for themselves. They should just take my word on it — the Bible is a bad, bad book, and it must be banned. Maybe even burned, because in this day and age of computers, I’m pretty sure burning paper will keep books out of the hands of the masses. And help keep the planet warm, which we certainly need more of.

So I am here, simmering, stewing about the state of the world, but not sharing most of my half-baked thoughts with the rest of you because I hardly belong in the kitchen, but that’s where I am, cooking up thoughts that for whatever reasons haven’t boiled over until today. At which point I note I am once again late for work and I must be off now, if I wasn’t before.

(I’m pretty sure I wasn’t: we need to leave books on library shelves, especially libraries in schools. Except the Bible, which ought to be banned because I said so.)