Cultural

As some of you may have noticed, I have been absent from this site for a few months now, so Antigone was constantly winging in coming up with a new story. She claims that I lost my mojo and cannot write anymore. As usual, she's wrong. I do have what it takes to write another story and I don't even need palm notes like Sarah Palin to remember what to write or say. I don't even have to think hard about what to write these days. All I have to do is think of Sarah and her TEA Party supporters.

Surely, some of you have heard Sarah Palin had mistaken South Africa for a continent rather than a country. I do not know if this is true but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.  However, the average American's ignorance of the outside world is downright astonishing. It's not a secret that many N. Americans do not know much about the world and seems damn proud of it. Check, for instance, this Youtube video. I am sure that this is not representative of the people, especially MY American friends, but the fact remains that there are many Americans who know nothing about the world, as this link further proves.

I've about had it with these religi-whacks trying every which way to jam their holy intentions down my throat. While I find the bumper sticker bearing, Tea Party attending Christian fundamentalist activists wholeheartedly obnoxious and intolerable, I've come to discover I'm more irritated by those who adopt the more subtle, seemingly innocent approach to raping you with their religion as part of their subconscious need to save the non-believers from ourselves and recruit us into their cause.

You know the type to which I refer. They're the ones with the email signatures like 'God bless', 'have a blessed day', or some faked up string of biblical verse gracing the end of their emails. Why must people do this, I ask myself? Are you so dead-set on showing off your Christianity (ie stupidity) that you want to shout it from the minarets? Ooops, sorry, wrong religion. 

In its attempt to more successfully market the cheap and plentiful cod substitute, pollack, British supermarket Sainsbury's will now call it by its French name ‘colin.' While pollack caught in British waters is in great demand with the French as ‘colin,' British consumers aren't as impressed. Retailers believe shoppers are embarrassed to ask for pollack because of its widely known reputation as a cheaper white fish than cod in the same way people may not be proud to show off their generic or private label goods over well-known national brands. 

I don't know how much sense this revamped marketing plan makes though.

Get married or you’re fired! Something uttered by a new version of the obnoxious Donald Trump on his famed reality show The Apprentice? No, afraid not. This is the threat issued to single workers at Iran’s state-owned Pars Special Economic Energy Zone Company which controls the gas and petrochemical network along the Gulf.

Shockingly: a screwy policy in Iran – home of the ‘fashion police,’ that go about harassing both citizens and foreign visitors alike for dressing too un-Islamically with such violations cited as ‘showing too much hair’ or wearing a color they deem too bright.

Tragically I must report I’m mourning the loss of my oldest and dearest friend’s brain – not to illness or accident but rather to religion. Yes, I’m beside myself with grief over the news that my once logical, sensible, intelligent, parallel-thinking friend has fallen prey to societal pressures and joined a Catholic church. OH THE HORROR! What’s even worse is that she actually believes this is good for her and will make her a better person. I’m still trying to figure out what was wrong with the person she already was. Upon delivering the tragic news ever so proudly, she then audaciously suggested that perhaps I should consider doing the same in order to find ‘happiness and direction in life.’ At that point, I knew her mind was lost forever. Disheartened and distraught not strong enough language for the way I feel over such horrible news.