Quick Hitts

This story, which appeared in the Santa Fe Craig’s List but has since been removed, is even funnier if you know that JW’s are very, very afraid of  Smurf dolls.  Although they’re not banned by official doctrine, Witnesses have several urban legends about Smurf dolls walking into Kingdom Halls and swearing, magically re-appearing in shopping carts after being removed, and demonizing their kids.

The poor fools in this story didn’t realize their cats were smarter than they are, and were trying to save them from a life of misery.

Date: 2009-03-07, 11:10AM MST

My husband and I adopted two wonderful kittens from our local animal shelter a little over a year ago. They developed into truly beautiful and loving cats that are sweet and love attention. Both cats never gave us a bit of trouble until sometime around three months ago when they found a little blue smurf toy outside somewhere and brought it into our house. They loved playing with this toy and soon both cats were taking turns carrying it around and sleeping at night with it. We didn’t really think anything strange about this until a week or two later when some Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on our door and offered us a free Bible Study. During their visit, both cats were both running around the house, visibly upset and whining. While we had never observed this before, we figured they somehow were having a bad hairball day and just wrote it off as such.

The following week, when the Jehovah’s Witnesses returned to teach us the rules and regulations of their church, the cats were even more upset and naughty. Mamasan, the dark stripped short hair snuck inside the ministers open briefcase while he was here and shit in it. Our other cat, Squirt went right up to him when he was sitting at the table and bit him hard on his ankle. When he yelped from the pain, Squirt went over and scratched the other JW fellow on the leg and ran off. We had to put both cats in the bedroom because they were growling and making hissing sounds at them. We have never seen this type of behavior from our cats as they normally enjoy the company of people and are very friendly.

We saw no further incidents in bad kitty behavior until the following day when they climbed up on the bookshelf during the night and pulled out the Watchtower literature and knocked it on the floor. I noticed teeth marks on the JW Bible and a few torn pages from their claws. A few days later, I noticed the Watchtower magazine left with us was missing off the coffee table and I discovered it in one of the cat litter boxes, torn and smeared with dung.

The following week, when the two JW’s returned for the Bible Study, we told them about what our cats had done and they explained that our cats were demonized and that we should immediately give them away. My husband told them that this was ridiculous and that we had no intention of giving them to anyone but we would make sure they stayed in the bedroom when the JW’s visited. This was acceptable to the JW’s but they asked God during the prayer to keep the cats away from them.

As we put any JW literature in a closed section of the bookcase so the cats couldn’t get at it, we had no further problems except loud meowing when the JW’s came by for a visit. One of the JW’s asked us if the cats had been mistreated by someone or if anything unusual had happened and the only thing we could think of was their little Blue Smurf doll that the cats loved to play with and told the JW’s about it. Well, they told us this unbelievable story about a toy Smurf that walked right into their Kingdom Hall one day and was screaming insults at everyone present. They said someone actually ran into their storage room and got a shovel and repeatedly hit the Smurf until it stopped. They said that Smurfs are tools of the Devil and that we must find and destroy the Smurf toy our cats love so dearly.

Well, my husband took away their Smurf doll and both cats were very upset and wouldn’t eat their food and constantly wandered around the house meowing for the rest of the day. That weekend we decided to accept the invitation of the JW’s to attend their public meeting on Sunday afternoon. While we were getting ready to leave, both cats rolled on their backs, stuck all four feet in the air, and played dead!

When we got back from the meeting that Sunday, we couldn’t find the cats in the house and figured they must be outside playing. Our doorbell rang soon afterwards as some of the JW’s we met at the meeting had stopped by to take us to a pot-luck dinner. On the way out to the car, we watched in horror as both our cats jumped out of the bushes and attacked this JW man. He was yelling for us to get the cats off his leg, as they both had stuck their claws in. The cats ran off when I went out to help and it was weird to hear him say, “No Blood Transfusions, No Blood Transfusions!” as he hobbled back to his car.

All Jehovah’s Witnesses now live in fear of coming to our house and gave us an ultimatum of losing our cats or getting ourselves killed by God when Armageddon comes (it is supposed to be any day now) because they refuse to go to our house with demonized cats. My husband thinks they are the real pussies in this story but tossed the decision to me, only adding we didn’t want any lawsuits coming our way from the cats attacking JW’s. So, with a heavy heart, I think it would be better to find a new home for these cats.

I’m thinking the ideal candidate for adoption will be an atheist or agnostic or maybe a Buddhist. I wouldn’t recommend our cats for Mormon’s, fundamental Christians or anyone else who makes a big deal of religion. Both cats are litter box trained and I have two cat boxes that go with them to their new owner. Both cats have their shots and are ID chipped. Somehow they found the Blue Smurf toy again so you got to consider this comes as a package deal. One cat is orange with white patches and the other black and gray stripped.

If you decide to send us hate mail, go for it and we will print them out and sent them along with our story to the Watchtower Headquarters so they can alert everyone not to buy Smurf toys for their cats. We do ask that when the article does come out in their magazine, that you let our cats read it so they can piss on it…

He had you right up until the last line, didn’t he?  (I know the author – a very creative ex-JW, and yes, he’s a he.)

BTW, if you dislike Jehovah’s Witnesses as much as these fictional cats did, and are a fan of horror or vampire novels, you’ll probably enjoy Blood Witness.

A nine year old Brazilian girl who has been repeatedly raped by her stepfather since she was six was taken to the doctor with stomach pains.  Doctors discovered she was pregnant with twins. 

Her mother arranged an abortion, probably knowing that giving birth to twins at her age could be fatal.  The Catholic Church demonstrated their compassion by excommunicating the mother and the doctor who performed the abortion.  

A senior spokesperson for the Vatican justified the excommunication, saying it was an unjustifiable attack on the Brazilian church. 

What about the unjustified attack on on the child?  She was nine, you sick fucks!  Your love for pedophilia makes any moral person want to puke in your pointy hats.  While you’re wearing them. You are just. Fucking.  Disgusting. 

Up until a few minutes ago my favorite headline of all time was the NY Posts “Headless Body In Topless Bar.”  But while catching up on blog posts in The Agitator, one of the comments on this post pointed out the best headline ever. 

I’m finding so many stupid things believers do I was thinking of starting a separate blog – Things Atheists Didn’t Do – to list them.  But the last thing I need is another blog, so I’ve just made it a category on this one.

The only difference between Kosher salt and regular salt is the grind.  Kosher salt is coarser, which makes it better for dry rubs and other uses.  I use it to make fresh garlic paste.  Chop the garlic up as finely as possible, sprinkle kosher salt over it, and then mash it with the side of your knife to turn it into a paste.  Regular salt doesn’t work nearly as well.

Religiously, all pure salt is kosher.  Kosher salt gets its name from the practice of using it to process meat – its greater surface area lets it do a better job of drawing blood from meat.

But retired barber Joe Godlewski was upset about how many TV chiefs recommend kosher salt, so he’s countering it with Blessed Christian Salt.  It’s blessed by a priest, you see, so that makes it Christian.  (Kosher food isn’t blessed by anyone.  Kosher means it was examined by a Rabbi to make sure it was processed according to Jewish dietary laws.)  Joe says “This is about keeping Christianity in front of the public so that it doesn’t die.”  Because that’s such a big problem.

The salt is sold by The Ingredients Corporation of America, who spent approximately twelve seconds coming up with their business name.  The second line on their home page says “All our ingredients are Kosher Certified and FDA approved,” so anyone looking to avoid that nasty Jew salt is going to choke on the irony.

I wonder, if you put kosher salt in holy water, does it explode?

This just in – using thick toilet paper is worse than driving a hummer or living in a huge house.  According to this article:

Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age.

Yeah, no question.  When examining all the troubles and excess of our age, historians will be concentrating on how we wiped our butts.

If tree-huggers want to sandpaper their anuses with recycled paper, more power to them.  I’d suggest they pick a brand that has big chunks of wood in it so they can feel even more smug and self-righteous.  But if they want to condemn me for using a more comfortable alternative, they are cordially invited to kiss my ass.  And out of deference to their concerns, I won’t use any toilet paper first.

I just did an interview about Blood Witness on the Not About Religion blog.  Check it out. 

In 2006 there was only one podcast award.  It allowed anyone to vote on their favorite shows, once a day, for a month.  This guaranteed only the most popular shows with the biggest audiences could win.  I wanted an award with a different model, one that would give excellent but obscure shows a realistic chance of winning against the most popular podcasts.  No such contest existed, so I created one, The Podcast Peer Awards. 

Only podcasters were allowed to participate.  They could nominate as many shows as they liked, but only vote once for the winner in any category.  Contests were held twice a year, with rotating categories.  Over 500 podcasters signed up and participated. 

I figured that podcasts would become mainstream and the popularity of the PPA would grow along with them.  I figured wrong.  Podcasts have remained a niche.  A big niche, an important niche, but not nearly as popular with the general public as I expected.  Interest in the PPA peaked in 2007.  The  Fall 2007 awards ceremony at DragonCon played to a full house and people hung out afterward and partied.  Attendance at the Fall 2008 awards was sparse, and the room cleared immediately when they were done. 

It was obvious that the PPA had run its course, so I reluctantly decided to shut it down.  I explained this in an e-mail I sent to all 567 members.  Most people thanked me for doing them and wished me well in future endeavors.  Some lamented the awards passing.  Most agreed it was time to shut them down.  One message consisted entirely of a single sad emoticon. 

But one threw me. It said “I’m sorry for your loss.”  Huh? 

I’ve thrown myself into many large, time consuming projects.  Some succeeded, some failed.  When I succeeded I learned a little.  When I failed I learned a lot.

One of my biggest failures was Electric Avenue, a multi-line BBS I started in the mid 90’s.  It featured chat, forums, online games and 14 CD’s full of downloadable shareware and porn.  It grew to 21 lines and had 200 paying customers before the internet killed it. 

Home computers were becoming common.  The internet was on the horizon, and I figured people would use it for reseearch but still use BBSs for local socializing.  I completely missed the impact of browsers.  A dial-in ASCII BBS couldn’t compete with flaming spinning logos and the rise of the web. 

Over the four years it ran I lost about $18k, but that’s the cost of a single semester in a good college and it taught me far more.  I learned how to run 21 lines off a single 486 (and that sucker was fast.)  (The CDs fed off a second computer that was hooked to two 7-Disc CD changers.)  I convinced the phone company to rewire my entire village, because the eight lines I started with used up all their excess capacity.  I learned what kind of marketing worked, and what didn’t.  I fought a trademark lawsuit, unsuccessfully, with Montgomery Wards, who sued me because their shitty electronics department was named “Electric Avenue.” I learned that it doesn’t matter if you are completely in the right and the law is completely on your side when the other side has unlimited funds to harass you. 

Through it all, though, hundreds of friendships were formed.  There were meets and parties, sometimes several of them, every weekend.  There were at least three divorces, two marriages, and two babies born as a result of the place.  A lot of people got laid. 

It was a failure, but it was a glorious failure. 

In the early 90s I started an improv troupe with a friend.  We agreed to do it until it stopped being fun.  Another friend warned me about dealing with actors.  I figured it wouldn’t be a problem – I had been dealing with musicians for twenty years, including organizing several large music festivals.  He was right, I was wrong.  Far too many actors have huge but fragile egos, and dealing with them required a delicate finesse I didn’t have. Some were horribly unreliable and quit the moment something wasn’t to their liking.  Compared to actors, musicians are the most stable and reliable people in the world. 

The {Insert Something Funny} Players lasted for five years and three incarnations before the pain in the ass factor overcame the fun factor.  We played in small theaters with sparse audiences, in big theaters with packed houses, and college gigs all over the northeast.  We made a bit of money and had a great time.  We made thousands of people laugh until it hurt.  When the troupe finally broke up I’m sure some people considered it a failure, but I didn’t.  It had simply run its course. 

The Podcast Peer Awards failed, but I’m still glad I did them.  Just like Electric Avenue and the ISFP and other projects that have succeeded or failed, I made a lot of friends, learned a lot, and accomplished some good things.  What more can anyone ask for?  It was an adventure, and no adventure lasts forever.