Eggshells and Miracle Grow

An artist in New York is soon to exhibit a 200 pound milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus in full on crucifixion pose, sans loin cloth (merciful heavens!). Naturally the censorious Catholic busybodies are up in arms about the sweet brown baby Jesus. (Okay, it's not a baby, but doesn't that phrase just roll?)

I think it's clever to make a larger than life candy sculpture of Jesus at Easter. It makes more sense than chocolate rabbits and eggs -- pagan fertility symbols. And don't Catholics ritually eat their God? Maybe they are offended by the guilty, pleasurable prospect of a sweet and tasty Jesus instead of a sanctified soda cracker. More people might go to mass if they got candy. Wait, bad idea, Catholic priests really shouldn't be passing out candy.

San Francisco is soon to become the first US city to ban plastic shopping bags. You know, like the ones you get at the grocery store. This has been done in Africa to combat litter, and in Europe for environmental reasons. Somehow I don't see Americans altering their lives to account for carrying dozens of canvas tote bags to the proverbial Piggly Wiggly when they shop. No, Americans will just have the store bag their junk food in paper bags, which are many times as detrimental to the environment as plastic ones. The 450,000 gallons of oil per year SFO saves by banning plastic bags will be a mere fraction of the energy requirements for producing all the paper bags that people will switch back to. And notice how they use "gallons" rather than the proper unit, barrels. Sounds much more impressive than saying 10,714 barrels of oil. Just for referrence, the US produces 5,750,000 barrels or 241,500,000 gallons per day.

Now, I'm not opposed to carrying your canvas tote bag to the grocery store if you're feeling extra green and crunchy. Good for you. (And bravo on buying that hybrid Lexus that gets less MPG than a diesel VW!) But think about the amount of food the typical American grocery cart holds and how many bags it takes to sack it all up. Are you really going to go out and buy a dozen or more tote bags and remember to keep them in your SUV? No, being a lazy consumer you will just make the store use paper -- like all the old ladies do already. Old ladies know paper bags are better for emptying the litter box. Why do old ladies hate the environment?

The other burning question: Without plastic sacks, what will San Franciscans use to pick up dog shit?

But wait, they won't have to get a new bag!

The new rules would, however, allow recyclable plastic bags, which are not widely used today.

Ta-Da! This has been another episode of "Hollow, Pandering Gesture."

Toys for Tots has recently refused a donation of 4,000 talking Jesus dolls. What do you want to be that the company was trying to offload inventory that nobody wanted and take the charge to help their books? I wonder if the "Christian" capitalists at Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Company have their toys manufactured by slaves in China? Because ya know, that's what CEO Jesus would do.

This is the kind of farcical thing that you just can't make up. Hopefully Jon Stewart will pick up where the BBC left off and tell the world more about designer burqas.

It really would be the ultimate in logowear. After all, the wearer is just an advertising medium to be covered in trademarks.

I think it's time that somebody revise the various circles of hell that Dante devised to include advances in offensive behavior and torture. My submission for consideration is very straightforward, there needs to be a movie theater in hell.

Who will be confined to this theater? Anybody who fails to turn off his phone. Anybody who takes his phone out and blinds people with the super nova glow of its display. Any parent who takes a child to a movie that starts after 10:00 PM. Anybody who utters one word after the previews are over that is not whispered directly into the ear of his companion, ie someone who thinks he's sitting at home on the couch instead of in public. Plastic candy wrapper rustlers, people who try to suck the last tiny drop of soda from their straw, and cows that chew with their mouths open will also be included.

What will their torture be? They will be confined to their seats while Howard the Duck plays on an endless loop. Evil demon critters with foot-long razor sharp claws will kick the backs of their seats and then slash through them lacerating their backs. Phones will ring constantly, babies will cry, and the lights will cut on and off randomly. They will endure one year for every offence.

That is all.

Some of you have accused me of being a service Nazi when it comes to what I expect out of the service "industry" and I suppose that it's true to some extent. But really I feel like I have quite low expectations in that I desire merely competency. Sadly mere competency seems to be a rare and unexpected treat rather than the norm. Lately I've had a string of less than stellar experience and have forgone the usual silent suffering and mental blacklisting that has been my custom. In short, I've become a constructively complaining bitch.

It's actually working out pretty well, all I have to do is hunt down the feedback option on the company website and submit the pertinent facts about how I have been grievously wronged and very often someone gets back to me and wants to send me free stuff. I can be bribed.

Great article on gay critters, straight critters, sexual selection and evolution.

What happens when you combine 500 Mentos with 200 liters of Diet Coke? See for yourself. It's sort of like Liberace with high fructose corn syrup. And while I don't think it would pass muster for XenopusLady's class, it's still pretty cool.