I Guess We Need a Telethon For Fail

I’ve started, stopped, and started this post over again about a dozen times so far, and if this were a movie we could establish that fact with a single shot of a wastebasket overflowing with crumpled paper, and the sound of another sheet being ripped from a typewriter platen and wadded up to join its fellow failures. Or, depending on the period, you could go with the less static visual of a hurled inkwell exploding against the wall in a black starburst, then dripping slowly down the yellow wallpaper while the frustrated author weeps, and clutches at his Byronic locks.

But you can’t get away with that anymore, because nobody’s going to sit still for a ten minute scene of some guy pursing his lips and holding down the Backspace key. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that this is proving to be a painfully difficult post to write, in no small part because it may be my last for awhile – not that I’m planning to leave in a huff, but because I suspect the huff is planning to leave without me.

Okay, this may be the absolute worst set-up for a clip ever. Let me start over again. Again.

As most of you guys know, things have been on an inclined plane around here for the past few months, with both Mary’s and Riley’s health deteriorating simultaneously (which I referred to as the “Elliott and E.T. Effect,” to the amusement of neither one). Not surprisingly, the rate of southward descent seems to have increased since Riley passed away in September, which makes me think that she was our own little household goddess, warding off evil spirits and keeping the wolf from the door with the searing power of her sidelong glance.

Mary's surgery solved the one major health problem we knew about (and the one lurking issue we were afraid of; yay for Early Detection). But she's in constant pain from the neuralgia in her jaw, making it an ordeal for her to eat, and often impossible for her to talk (we basically communicate through pheromones, Clan of the Cave Bear-style gestures, and text messages); which is a bit of a handicap for a teacher, or would be if the school district hadn't informed her that she was out of a job.

She's planning to appeal, but it will probably be 60 days -- at earliest -- before she gets a hearing, and in the meantime, she's on unpaid suspension (with loss of benefits -- we're so lucky they didn't pull this before the surgery).  

Moondoggie tried to help with the mound of paperwork the District sent by laying on it, but the legalese sent him into a fugue state.

I wasn't overly panicked, since I had an assignment lined up that was supposed to start on November 28 and would have picked up some of the slack, but it kept getting postponed, and tonight I was told it's been pushed to the end of January. Which means we facing eviction at the end of the month -- and where we'll go, I honestly don't know. Also, AT&T is turning off the internet service tomorrow, but with all my kvetching and wheedling, that may come as a relief to some people.

So things are, frankly, desperate, and we're forced to come hat in hand and beg for help. Even worse, the only hat I could find is a mesh trucker cap with felt moose antlers from Bullwinkle's Family Fun Center in Tukwila, WA, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. 

I'm very sorry about this; I know we couldn't have picked a worse time of year, and if you're not in any position to help, I completely understand, please don't worry about it. If you can help -- with anything at all -- it would be a life saver. You can click the button on the top left, or, if you're not Pals with Mr. Pay, drop me an email at scott.clevenger - at - gmail.com and I'll send you our snail mail address.

Thanks for listening.

It's A Marshmallow World in the Wintertime and a Rainbow World in the Litter Box

Remember Christmas of 2011, when our innocence was only slightly soiled by Doggie Doo? Those were good days, weren't they? Too bad they didn't last. Nope. This holiday season, pumping your pets for plastic poop is no longer a game, now it's a lifestyle, and for our first entry in the World O' Crap Wishbook, we present the Moxie Girlz and their Poopsy Pets!
 

Leaving aside the questionable assumption that all tween girls are squealing coprophiles, the match of species to feces seems reasonably appropriate. Take Moxie Girl Kellan and her pet unicorn...

...a unicorn that proudly declares, "I poop RAINBOWS!"

Then there's Avery and her Panda:

A panda that poops bamboo shoots.  You are what you eat (I just hope it doesn't shoot bamboo shoots, because I don't think I could deal with projectile diarrhea, no matter how magical it is).

Lexa's elephant poops peanuts, while her pink bunny evacuates glitter from its bowels. All well and good. But Avery also has an aquamarine koala that craps jewels, which I think is stretching the premise.  Not as much, however, as Kellan's tiger...

...which craps eggs.  Eggs!  So tigers are monotremes now? (Perhaps we can get Helmut Monotreme to weigh in here with an expert opinion).

So anyway, the trend this year seems to be products which alienate our young daughters from their previously beloved kitties and puppies in favor of cryptids with theme feces.  But it's all very empowering, because Moxie Girlz'z motto, seen at the bottom of each package is:

be true!...be you!

Enjoy poo.

Sunday Sermonette: A Hank O' Swank!

First published April 13, 2009. Original comments below the fold.

Mad About The Boy

I see Pastor Swank has deigned to favor us with his Bull Connor impression today.  You may recall that during the late campaign, many of our old friends in the right blogosphere struggled to depict Senator Obama as a Teleprompter-addicted dullard who would comically turn white with fear at the first whiff of an Islamofascist; but they still stopped short of addressing him the way a harried traveler might query a shoeshine provider on the whereabouts of the Chattanooga Choo-choo.  The one exception to this conspiracy of restraint was Pastor Swank, a man who considers it his God-given right to use the English language in any way he sees fit — as a chamois for his golf clubs, say, or a furnace filter, cock ring, or doily — and who fervently believes that “grammar” is just another word for “tyranny.”  So it came as little surprise last fall when he began referring to Obama as “the Boy.”  What did shock me, however, was the speed with which he dropped it in the face of criticism, almost as if he were self-aware, perhaps even evolving toward sentience.   As it turns out — not so much.

Socialist ‘The Boy’ will lay low America, by Grant Swank

Mob hysteria rushed The Boy where he is today.
Liberal media worked alongside mob hysteria.

I find this reassuring.  Even though a majority of Americans are in a mob, and enraged or suicidal enough to rush the President, our hysteria is apparently friendly and cooperative and works well with others.

Now The Boy sits in the White House, surrounded by the crooks he has known during his so-called career mired in Illinois.

Okay, show of hands.  Which is worse — Mired in Illinois, or Stuck in Lodi?

What is so frightening is that the socialist Marxist Muslim B. H. Obama is the brainwashed child of Jeremiah Wright.

Wait, I thought he was the secret love child of Malcom X.  Come on, can’t we stick with that story?  Because then we can dissolve to “Twenty Years Later” and end with a big, score-settling confrontation between a grown Malia Obama and a cyborg Louis Farrakhan, climaxing in a shoot-out with lasers at the Audubon Business and Technology Center.

Though not much is said these days about Wright, he is right there in the Oval Office.

And, one presumes, in the woodpile.

He is implanted in the thought patterns of both Michelle and B. H.

Just like Spock’s katra was implanted in McCoy at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  So I guess the lesson here is, if you want to grow up to be President of the United States one day, never let your pastor touch your head when he’s dying of radiation poisoning.

They are just beneath the skin anti-white, anti-Jew, pro-Muslim and ready to crush any semblance of a Christian nation.

Fortunately, Swank stumbled into a church where they happen to have boxes of these special X-Ray specs that can see beneath the skin of the First Couple…

N.B.  The pastor is all out of bubblegum, bitchez!

The Boy and wife have no regard whatsoever for the Christian heritage to this country. They play out their church membership in the most liberal denomination in the United States. But behind that act out is their allegiance to the Koran, Allah and Islam World Rule.

Why do you think Michelle Obama is always going around sleeveless in public?  It’s her only chance to flash the guns, since at home she has to wear a burka.

As The Boy has traipsed across the planet recently, he has acted out in body language and spoken word his admiration for Muslims wherever he went.

Not since Lillian Gish in the 1928 classic The Wind have we seen this kind of vivid pantomime.

He bent over backwards to befriend the very coalition out to destroy this Republic.

Having drained our nation of its economic security, The Boy will march forth under Allah’s banner. Those Muslim cells planted in America are waiting for their chance to join The Boy in usurping every office in the nation.

Oh no — Muslim stem cells are going to unite like Voltron to create a giant Lion Force Caliph who will make Barack Obama the Mayor, City Clerk, Animal Control officer and Library Services Administrator of every city in America!

The Boy is Marxist. He is Muslim. He is therefore not what we have always defined in the generic sense as “American.”

Generic humans are a little pastier, and taste more like mayonnaise.

If the hysteriacs had only known who they were pushing into the presidency, they would have never elected The Boy. Even now most of them do not see his destructive agenda. They are still blinded by his charisma.

Quick — We need more magic sunglasses!  And some wrestlers!

That in itself is so frightening for it reminds thinking citizens of every despot who ever bobbed to the political and powerful top.

And do we really want to be ruled by iron-fisted flotsam?

Now the United States is victim to “one of them.”

Oh…so that’s what McCain meant by “That One.”

The Benefits of a Classical Education

You may remember the PolitiChicks as "The Voice of the Conservative Woman," and also as a kind of collective wingman for the "Hottest Conservative Supermen in America," talking up the sexual prowess of ubermenschen such as Jonah Goldberg, Hugh Hewitt, and Louis Gohmert.

But it's not all about intensely blonde women catcalling intensely white men, because some of the Politichicks are actually PolitiDicks, such as Dr. J.P. Sloane, who takes a subject -- occasions and events appropriate for the National Cathedral -- which in lesser hands might prove rather bland, and spices it up for the holidays with a dry rub of parochial panic:

Our Nation's Cathedral-Mosque-the Abomination of Desecration Has Begun!

Judging by the title, Dr. Sloane appears to have a gift for light verse in the vein of Ogden Nash, if Nash had spent less time writing poems about baseball and animals and more time scribbling couplets about holy war.  Otherwise, his work is new to World O' Crap, so let's skip to the bottom of the article and check his c.v.:

Dr. Sloane graduated from: Purdue University, The Institute of Charismatic Studies at Oral Roberts University, The Moody Bible Institute, and The Institute of Jewish-Christian Studies.

Dr. Sloane is also the World's Leading Wayne Newton Impersonator...

...so you can see why he chose to take an advanced degree in Charisma.

He earned a B.A., Summa Cum Laude, from The Master’s College where he studied at their IBEX campus in Israel and earned an M.A. in Counseling.

The Master's College is not, surprisingly, where all those negligee-wearing co-eds in Manos, The Hands of Fate matriculated, but a Bible school in suburban L.A. County (with a satellite campus in Israel staffed by a faculty of wild goats). Their mission statement calls for "Intellectual growth, as evidenced by," among other things, "Willingness to defend the inerrancy, authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures."

Anyway, the sheer number of schools he's attended is Palinesque, and we're not even done, because Dr. (or should I say "Dr."? I probably should) Sloane "earned two doctorates" from Trinity Theological Seminary, which is an unaccredited correspondence school in Indiana.  And all this while cultivating a PTL-worthy pompadour and a pencil mustache!

So let's see what's caused "Dr." Sloane's consternation about the abomination desecration. I'm gonna guess it's religious desegregation, leading to Muslim indoctrination.

America was founded on the premise that we are the second Israel because—like Israel—we were founded to honor the God of the Bible and His Laws.

I guess I missed that Article in the Constitution, but I'll admit I started skimming about halfway through, and then just skipped to the end to see who did it.  However, assuming, arguendo, that we were founded to be the "second Israel," this raises the question of whether we're a good sequel, like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, or a bad sequel, like Highlander II: The Quickening.  Or perhaps Israel is just a really crappy prequel, like Episode One: The Phantom Menace.

 In 1607 the very first act of the first English speaking settlers was to plant a huge Cross on Cape Henry at Virginia Beach dedicating America and the new continent to Christ. 

Their second act was to promptly begin starving to death.

This act was followed by the Pilgrims arrival in 1620 who made a covenant (Mayflower Compact) with God between themselves and their new land. Our Constitution is based on that covenant.

That explains why the Preamble to the Constitution spends so much ink kissing the king's ass. Anyway, I'm sure the Iroquois are relieved to be off the hook for an alleged compendium of civil rights that can't even manage to prohibit torture. At least not according to Justice Scalia.

The discoverer of this new land by Europeans was Christopher (means “Christ-bearer”) Columbus. One of the main purposes of his adventure was to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathens.

He did this primarily through slavery, disease, and murder, since televangelism hadn't been invented yet.

On 9/11 God sent a harbinger (sign of warning) to Israel in the form of attacks by Assyria when they began turning their backs on God and seeking other supernatural sources (Isaiah 8-9). 

Sadly, ancient Israel missed this sign of warning through a clerical error; since the Gregorian calendar hadn't been invented yet, they actually got the September 11 harbinger on 16 Elul. Also, let's face it, Isaiah is a pretty action-packed book, and they could easily have been distracted by all the satyrs and dragons in chapter 13 (h/t to Yastreblyansky)

In England the Muslims are buying up all the abandoned Christian churches and making them their mosques. By doing so, Muslims hope to establish in the minds of others the superiority of Islam.

Their actions makes a mockery of the Christian faith, whose strength is symbolized by its many abandoned churches!

In non-Muslim countries where they build mosques, the minarets are taller than the church steeples.

But "minaret" doesn't rhyme with "people," so muslims can't do that finger-wiggling thing to amuse bored kids on the way to Easter mass.

In the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., which took 83 years to build, the unthinkable has occurred in only 24 years after the cathedral’s completion. On November 14, 2014—two months after the anniversary of 9/11—on the Muslim Sabbath—the first of many planned Islamic worship services began on the eve of our nation’s day of Thanksgiving to the biblical God and the ushering in of the Christmas season. 

If you look to this paragraph to provide what most do -- thoughts, meaning, and impressions conveyed through the medium of the English language -- you're likely to be disappointed. But if you add up all those superfluous figures and dates you'll have enough numbers to play Lotto Pick Six.

America has murdered millions of its own sons and daughters in the womb—America has prevented prayers in school (except for Muslim prayers that are required by Shari Law)—America has sanctified homosexual marriage between men with men and women with women—and America has removed Crosses from our public view and nativity displays at Christmas from the public square in complete defiance of the First Amendment which clearly states: Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise of religion; or abridging the freedom of speech….

Ah, so "Dr." Sloane believes it's against the First Amendment to not have a creche on the courthouse steps.  KWillow was right.

The history of our National Cathedral began when the corner stone was laid under the supervision of President Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 and completed under President George W. Bush in 1990. 

Okay, it may have taken 83 years to build, which seems dilatory, but I think some credit should go to George W. Bush for bringing his Presidency in ten years ahead of schedule.

Now the powers that be in Washington—in compliance with the presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church—committed the final ABOMINATION to the God of the Bible by having a Muslim offer up Islamic prayers—in that Christian Sanctuary—to the Moon God Allah, resulting in an unforgivable DESECRATION of that Christian altar. This action brings further shame to America in the face of God’s harbinger that warns of America of its impending doom if Americans don’t repent!

Anyway, Bingo at 7:30 PM on Wednesday. Bring a dish to pass.

The War on Christmas and Commas

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone who did something for #GivingTuesday - your good deeds will not go unnoticed by Santa, probably.  If they do, you can sue. 

And I specially wanted to thank Jim Donahue, acrannymint, and the irreplaceable Anti for their donations to Four Paws.  I am fostering the 5 little kittens thanks to their generosity.  Here's a bad photo taken with my laptop of one of them.  Thanks, folks!

Secondly, I wanted to warn you of a threat to your very way of life that you probably aren't aware of, but will be now, thanks to Kevin Fobbs.  So be aware.  Be very aware!

Has the war for Christmas been lost to atheists and the ACLU this season?

It is that time of year when you and your family have an opportunity to share in Christmas cheer with family and friends.

Oooh, that is scary - you and your family meeting your other family!
No, wait, I think the threat comes in the next sentence.

But what you may not be aware of is the insidious War on Christmas that is occurring and unfortunately is nothing new in Obama's America.

Yeah, it's nothing new, but you probably never heard of it before, since you're pretty stupid.

The weapons that are being used to wage war on Christmas are lawsuits, mainstream media attacks and willing liberal politicians who degrade and denounce Christmas celebrations

And surprise.  And an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.

Last year there were several hundred attacks on Christmas celebrations and only one news organization,

We will pause for a moment while you guess which new organization was the only one to report on this very important and totally real war,

... Fox News spent time focusing on the growing number of incidents which deprive children of celebrating Christmas in schools and families being able to celebrate and share Nativity Scenes in many public places.

It is sad that families are being deprived of making children in many public places, or whatever it was Kevin was talking about - commas are apparently another thing that children are being deprived of.

Many detractors have worked tirelessly throughout the year to undermine Christian beliefs, be it the president's drive to deprive military training academies the passing out of bibles to even expressions of faith by soldiers.

And let's give those folks a hand for their tireless efforts, for apparently their punctuation eradication efforts are achieving great success.  But who should we blame for the lack of "Merry Christmas's" ringing through the land?  Why President Obama, of course!

According to The Week,'s information from the Public Religion Research Institute last year, its study showed that now 49 percent of Americans accept the belief that Merry Christmas should be replaced with the saying, "Happy Holidays." This is not coincidental. After all President Obama who has been neutral on the vilification of Christmas nativity scenes which have increased being under attack since he took office. Obama himself appears to be more comfortable reciting and participating in Muslim observances than Christian. Now, as time passes with him in office the abandonment of Christian Christmas celebration and the traditional greeting of "Merry Christmas" that goes along with it has plummeted.

So, yeah - if the President is neutral on crèche vilification, it's not coincidental that Merry Christmases would plummet.  It's just not!

Only Fox News has done the heavy lifting when the president has decided to go golfing when it comes to reminding Americans about where the War on Christmas continues to be waged.

I'm going to have to let you decode that one.  Does Kevin mean that only Fox News helps carry the President's heavy golf bags, or that only Fox news keeps reminding us about where the war is being waged on the President playing golf (at Fox News central)?  I give up.

Millennials are a hundred percent of America's future and the message of a Holy Christmas season is a miracle that God will continue to bestow upon a believing nation

Yes millenials are 100% of America's future and everybody else should just die or move to Russia and they are also the message of Christmas which is a miracle that God bestows on good nations but doesn't give to nations with younger or older people or Presidents who don't defend nativity scenes from CNN watchers who wish people Happy Holidays or who celebrate Kwanza which is a totally made-up holiday by somebody who wasn't God.

Join in with Fox News and millions of others in towns, cities, neighborhoods and homes and continue to share the reasons why Christ was born.

To save Fox News and millions of other news's from their sins.

And Merry Christmas from Kevin, who also wishes you a Happy Terri Schiavo day.  Seriously.

Holiday Trolling

Well, this Christmas season, it seems "Elf on a Shelf" is all the rage!  There are entire Pinterest Boards devoted to ways of cleverly hiding the elf wherever it may strike the most fear in a child's heart. 

Allow me to turn into Old Man McCain for a moment and say "Pah! I spit on your Elf on a Shelf and introduce you to what WE had to deal with back in the day:  Gnome in Your Home! (And get off my lawn while you're at it!)":

"Can't decide if I should steal her and replace her with a piece of
wood or just eat her!"

Strong Enough For a Man, But Made For a Really Insecure Man

Excellent news! If there's one thing that's always spoiled the Bible for me, it's the nagging awareness that chicks were also allowed to read it. But now at last we men have got the brawny, brotastic, He-Man Women Haters translation we've all been waiting for, filled no doubt with psalms about the musky joys of the locker room, and Old Testament wisdom about a towel-snap for a towel-snap.

Why we helped create a Bible just for men: It tackles marriage, pornography, friendship

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that someone is finally marketing the Scriptures like Just For Men mustache dye, and I won't deny that the Bible is a remarkably flexible text (note, for instance, the ease with which every side in every war in the history of Christendom has claimed its support). But while it does contain some randy anecdotes, it wouldn't be my first choice when looking for porn. Nevertheless, Rule 34 applies here, and I'm sure there's a sizable minority of masturbators out there who can only get off if someone is reciting a long list of begats.  I'm less confident that Scripture has much to teach us about friendship, however, since the lesson of the Gospels seems to be that even your best buds will sell you out to the cops, or suddenly pretend they don't know you.

Still, the two authors of this piece come with unimpeachable credentials. Col. Art Pace (Ret.) was a chaplain, and Dr. Robert Lewis runs "Men's Fraternity Classic," which I assumed was a golf tournament where rohypnol and GHB are served in the gin rickeys at the 19th Hole. But no, it's actually a video series teaching hapless moral hermaphrodites how to get their Authentic Manhood on.

As two men with extensive backgrounds in men’s ministry service, we were not surprised when American Bible Society’s 2014 State of the Bible survey found that men fall below the national averages of both Bible ownership and readership.

But we're still well above the average in Bible thumpership.

In our day-to-day work interacting with men, it is common to hear of their frustration about reading the Bible—they don’t know where to start, what it means, or how to apply it

Interestingly, many men voice the same frustrations about the clitoris, which is probably where the Bible porn comes in.

Men often find themselves struggling in their marriages, with friendships and with pornography. 

Sometimes all at once, which is usually a sign that you're not a strawman in a Foxnews.com article, but actually a character in a telenovela.

(A 2014 Barna Group survey found that nearly two-thirds of Christian men view porn monthly.)

This proves that despite the often bitter partisan divide between liberal and conservative, secular and religious, we're really not so different, and if fundamentalists only tried a bit harder to live up to their principles I'd enjoy better load times on Pornhub.

Many feel helpless without mentors to turn to and do not realize the Bible has the answers they seek.

This is the most depressing theological argument I've ever read, because if the Bible isn't a compendium of Holy Writ, but is actually a mentor, that means our entire lives are just one long internship, enlivened only by the occasional blowjob for which we'll either be condemned to Hell, or subpoenaed by Ken Starr.

They don’t know what their roles are supposed to be as men—

I think I'm playing the butler with the furtive manner who you're supposed to think is the killer until the end of the second act, when I'm discovered floating in the cistern, a Malay kris in my back.

Even for Christian men, the Bible can be an extremely intimidating book to tackle. After all, it is the Word of God. It contains some pretty heavy stuff. And if you happen to pick up a translation and come across words like satyr, concupiscence and phylacteries, you can forget about reading more than two verses before you’re ready to go throw a football around or make a mess in the garage.

So the Bible turns men into toddlers? That's a surprising, and heretofore unknown to me, effect of the King James translation, but I'm sure it's a claim backed up by rigorous experimentation. Nevertheless, I'd like to verify the ministers' findings with the kind assistance of my audience. Gentlemen? I'm going to say the words "bulrush," "firkin," and "cockatrice," and you tell me at what point you start smearing your poop on the baseboards.

So really, it’s no surprise that men—generally visual learners known for our short attention spans and occasional selective listening—are not particularly excited about reading and owning Bibles.

Men sound like morons. It's a wonder people let us rule the world.

We routinely receive the following questions from men about the Bible: 

1. The Bible was written so many years ago. Is it still really relevant today? Can it really help me with all that I’m struggling with?

Unfortunately not, since you seem to be struggling with a violent reaction to polysyllabic words. Just wait until you get to "ambassage" or "euroclydon" -- your garage is gonna look like a tornado hit an outhouse.

2. Can’t you just give me the highlights? It takes so long for me to read it and my eyes begin to glaze over.

I have the same problem with Atlas Shrugged.

3. When I do want to open my Bible, I don’t know where to go or what to do. Is there an app for that?

Based on your questions so far, it sounds like you might enjoy iFart Mobile - #1 iPhone App - The Premier Fart Application

The problem is, when men go to the local chain or Christian bookstore, the product line-up consists of multiple Bibles for kids, teens and women. Are there some for men? Sure, maybe one or two, but nothing comparable to the selections for the other demographics. 

It appears that retailers know their Bible-buying demographic well, and it isn’t men. But when men do decide to make that purchase, they need something clearly, visibly for them.

Perhaps an action shot of Onan on the cover.