They totally think this song is about them

Sorry, sorry guys. Combination of general laziness and well...let's just say I increasingly question the "Humans are social animals" meme. Because I was ready to slam my head in a car door to make it all stop and really, I wonder if anyone in the family enjoys these get-togethers. Maybe it's one of those things where we do it because culture says you need to do it and everyone assumes that everyone else enjoys it, so they feel they have to suck it up and do so as well. Keep hoping that at some point, we'll break the ice and everyone will be like, "I thought I was the only one," and filled with our newfound wisdom, we'll decide to show how much we really love each other, by get together separately in the privacy of our own homes.

That and well, we must never forget that 2016 was the equivalent of a year-long dumpster fire. Even if we ignore the celebrity deaths, Donald Trump alone makes this year the worst in recent memory. I would forgive the Founding Fathers for so much if they put a loophole in the Constitution that made it so Trump couldn't be president. I wouldn't let them slide on slavery--that's too big--but I'd stop ranting about the Electoral College. In fact, why don't we add an amendment saying that "Everyone can run for president, so long as they are over eighteen and they're not Donald Trump." Though we'd code it to his DNA specifically, so he can't cheat by changing his name and we don't screw over some other guy with the same name who actually would be a decent president. In the unlikely event that one of his descendants runs, like I said it's just for Donald's DNA specifically. Because it's conceivably possible that he could have a grandchild or somebody who actually is a decent human being.

Though given that none of Trump's kids bear any resemblance to their father, I've long suspected there's some Game of Thrones-level shit going on with his wives. Yeah, I know he marries supermodels, which would cancel out a lot of his bad genes, but would it really cancel out all of it?

All right, I'll shut up and get to it.

I've ranted many times about how disturbingly unimaginative Ellanjay are. I will probably rant many more times before this book is finished. I apologize for the repetitiveness, but stand by the general message.

Because again, when asked to write about Heaven, a world where there is no pain or sorrow, where you have nothing but time on your hands to pursue whatever activity interests you, and all earthly quarrels cease, they can't imagine anything except a slightly more amped up version of our current existence. Hence why you have characters talking about how they should take some time off from work to do X and such. Given that everyone is immortal, wouldn't time cease to have any meaning in Heaven? Again, like I said, you have nothing but time. And since there's no need to worry about stuff like how you're going to pay the rent or pay for food or insurance, why couldn't you just take off time whenever you want? Is there some kind of a holy landlord who goes around knocking on doors and saying, "Come up with the money you owe me or I'm throwing you out?" If there is, where are they throwing them out to? Hell? If they're over one hundred and have said The Prayer, wouldn't that be yet another reason why their convoluted theology makes no damn sense?

Of course, all this could have been avoided if Ellanjay had followed the example of other writers who were sensible enough to bow out. Get your characters to the undying lands and fade out from there. But like I said, hubris and avarice did them in.

CAMERON WILLIAMS was up two hours before anyone was expected on his property, which now covered eighty acres and was threatening to have to expand yet again. Daily he and Chloe and Kenny and a couple hundred other staffers hosted the children at what had become known as the biggest day care center in the world.

Have to admit that when I read that bit about how his property was "threatening to have to expand yet again" I pictured Cam-Cam's property as being made up of Audrey IIs. Admit it, it would actually make so much sense, explain how Chloe and Cam-Cam are managing to raise two hundred freakin' kids. The answer is obvious; they feed the bad ones to one of the Audreys. So yeah, I'm starting to wonder if I should regret all the smart-alecky remarks about how I'd use my knowledge of the Bible to corrupt the other kids and get kicked out of that daycare so fast.

I've talked about how incredibly poorly run the MK Daycare center is, so I won't do it again. Plus Ellanjay are being too vague with numbers for me to rant about the child-adult ratio. Just yeah, Ellanjay clearly haven't been around kids, like ever. Probably farmed out the kids to nannies and such, because if this was anywhere near realistic, with actual kids and not pod-bots, the daycare would be like Kurtz's setup in Apocalypse Now. No points for guessing who the severed heads and corpses would be. I'll let you decide who will play the part of Kurtz and who plays Dennis Hopper's character. I'm leaning towards Qasim being Kurtz myself, because again, even though he hasn't done anything deserving of it, they just keep shitting on him. Then again, Kurtz ends up dead, so now I'm conflicted. Someone want to help me out here?

It is kind of weird to think that in Heaven they would need a daycare. You need them in the real world, because parents often have to work for a living and kids are small, noisy, and stupid so you can't just leave them alone, but again, this is a place with no pain and sorrow, where the child can stick his hand in the adder's nest and everything will be okay.

Though yeah, even Ellanjay, in the next paragraph, admit that the most important tenet of the RTC faith is "Thou shalt show reverence unto Rayford and Buck Cameron."

But of course it was more than that. Besides that the kids all seemed to revere and, yes, love him and Chloe— which he accepted gratefully from Jesus as recompense for their giving up their small family in service to Him during the Tribulation— COT had become the most effective salvation ministry anyone was aware of.

Okay, judging by the use of the word "revere," apparently Cam-Cam is Kurtz. Though that part about how they all love him, I'm fighting the urge to make jokes, seeing as they're, y'know, kids. I know, I know, I'm reading too much into it, but given how all the creepy sex stuff keeps showing up in this book, I can't help myself. Though we all know in actuality, Ellanjay view love and revere as synonyms. You know their view: There must be a leader with all power over his followers and that Leader must possess a penis and everyone must obey and never criticize, regardless of how badly the Leader's decisions turn out. Unlike my digression about wolves last week, Ellanjay feel good leadership is about whether people kowtow to you, not about taking care of the people under your command.

Cameron sang and prayed as he strolled the grounds, checking on everything from parking areas and gates to buildings and open areas. Everything seemed in order for their special visitor. Predicting within a few thousand how many might show up was another thing. Only one staffer had informed him and Chloe that he wouldn’t be there, giving no reason, just asking for the day off. Who knew? Maybe he wanted to be there as a spectator. Why else would a person not want to be working today?

Again, they keep proving how disturbingly unimaginative they are, over and over. Because of course, they would still have to worry about parking spaces and gates. I mean, we all know if given a choice between paradise and a parking lot, they would choose a parking lot every time. Even though, since again, this is supposed to be paradise, it seems strange that Ellanjay would want to recreate one of the most irritating aspects of going to a major event: trying to find a legal parking spot. And even though it's paradise and no one wants for anything, they would still have gates to protect against thieves or just the hoi polloi in general.

And we all know the daycare/church/Christian madrassa would look like a Protestant Megachurch rather than say, Notre Dame, or anything actually beautiful to look at. Like I keep saying, this is supposed to be Heaven, where you have nothing but time and resources. So wouldn't you really go all out on aesthetics, since you no longer had to worry about money?

Sometimes I find myself longing for the days in which the Church was the only game in town for artists/musicians/artisans. I know there was a whole lot of bad stuff went on when the Church ran the show and I'm glad to live in a democracy, but again, all the really good Christian art seems to have come from that era. Back then you couldn't just slap a Jesus Fish on a piece of crap and call it a day. If whoever commissioned you, didn't find your work to their liking, they would be like, "Tough," and move on to the next starving artist in line. Competition only strengthens the craft and modern day Christian Art™ suffers from a serious lack of it.

Oh and I'll spoil it for you. The hold-out staffer is Qasim. I know it's supposed to be proof that he's a hardened reprobate, deserving of nothing but our scorn, but I've already made my views on him clear many times. Just GTFO, Qasim. Don't try to kiss up and earn the favor of bullies; it's not worth it.

Then we cut to Kenny-boy.

Things were different between Kenny and Ekaterina by the time he arrived at her place that morning. He was struck that they seemed to look at each other differently. She looked him full in the face, her eyes not wavering from his.

I'm wondering if they put in that last sentence in anticipation of dirty perverts like me. I'll assume that Kat proceeds to fall down an open manhole, because you should really really focus when walking down the street. Though maybe Kat is secretly hoping in Heaven, she finally got her seventh birthday wish and is now one of those kids from Village of the Damned. That would be nice, if she proceeded to make Kenny's head explode.

They talk for a bit, Kat's parents give them their blessing and we cut to the Steele family. Ray-Ray, Chloe, Cam-Cam, and Saintly Irene are hanging out, talking about Kenny's fixation with crush on Kat. It is really quite dull, except for the part where Saintly Irene (or one of them, it's hard to tell with the lack of dialogue tags) is like "And Kenny's got designs on her?" Who wants to tell them that when people say "They have designs on someone," it's rarely a good thing. It's usually the kind of thing said by Villain's in thigh-high stiletto boots.

Those of you who think I am reading too much into it, well, here's the first paragraph of the next section with Kenny-boy.

When Kenny and Ekaterina walked in, everyone’s response was Kenny’s worst nightmare. It was painfully plain that they had been talking about whom he was bringing to breakfast. Everyone had gone mute and studied Kat, reading way more into this than it was worth— at least yet.

Given that the blood of Rayford Steele and Cameron Williams flow in his veins, it's not too surprising that everyone is obsessed with him. And of course, no one would just assume that Kat and Kenny are friends and decided they wanted to hang out and see Noah together. Or that they could merely be exchanging long protein strings. It's probably a case since Ellanjay can't imagine hanging out without a woman and being friendly to her without wanting sex from her, of course, their characters would feel the same.

And we get a cameo from Bruce "Dead and Useless" Barnes.

“Kenny,” Bruce said, “I haven’t seen you in forever. You know you’re named after me, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that I performed your parents’ wedding?”

“I know that too, sir. Good to see you.”

“You don’t need to blush, Kenny Bruce,” Bruce said. “I’m not suggesting anything.”

"I'm just curious as to whether you like films with gladiators."

:shudders: Yeah, I'm wondering if they will ever stop with the creepy sex stuff. Though I thought that since Bruce died before Kenny was born, he hadn't seen Kenny at all. Though maybe it's more, "Hey I haven't seen you in a few days," kind of thing, which would make some sense.

Bruce's Nameless Wife scolds him. I still remain appalled at the sheer laziness in that they can't even bother to give her a name. C'mon just give her the first woman's name that comes to mind. You don't even have to do a Google search. I thought about naming her Selina Kyle out of spite, but that would mean Bruce Barnes is Batman and there's no way he is Batman; he's the absolute negative of everything about Batman.

Kenny's all "We're just friends," and Bruce Barnes fills the all-important part of loudly proclaiming how perfect they are for each other, because the Right believes loudly saying something makes it true:

“Yeah,” Bruce said, chuckling. “That’s some radiant friend. You two couldn’t look more enamored with each other if you were posing for wedding pictures.”

Uh, no one uses the phrase "radiant friend" unless said friend is Marie Curie or...I'd make a radium girls joke, but given what happened to them, it just feels too sad. At least, Marie Curie had two Nobels to show for it.

Kenny talks for a bit and finally Noah shows up. Sadly, the description doesn't enable me to make Ho Yay jokes like that time with Rayford and David.

Where there had been a loud hum of activity throughout the Williams acreage, now silence pervaded. No one spoke; no one moved. Everybody turned as one and stared toward the main entrance, where a lone figure strode purposefully onto the grounds.

He wore a colorful robe with a wide blue sash, and his white hair and beard contrasted with his robust appearance.

For my own benefit and because I'm a huge Simpsons geek, I'll picture Noah as The Sea Captain. Your call to which character he'd say, "Y'arr that'll replace that whale in me nightmares."

And that's it for this week. I know wussy snark, but cut me some slack here. I'm still suffering from Holiday-related trauma. Why can't we have a holiday where we give each other gifts and just leave each other the hell alone? No religious or family-based guilt, just all the fun of getting presents.

Purple Vein Dick Joke

Hey guys, sorry for the delay, but we had kids over on Saturday and I spent Sunday recovering from it. How exactly humans got to the top of the food chain, when everything a small child does, seems contrary to the basic rules of survival, I don't know. But the kids are gone and I'm here now, so let's get to it.

As for the post title, let's just say it will become more apparent as you read my post. And yes, I have heard of Bill Hicks. Hence the title of this week's post. Though honestly you wonder what it would have been like, if Hicks had stayed around to see the conservatism of Bush II and the modern GOP, both of which has us fondly nostalgic for the conservatism of Bush I.

Again, we begin with the arrival of a priest. Here's how he's (of course, it's a he) described:

THE SHORT and stocky priest wore a linen garment and trousers. When he bowed and introduced himself as Yerik from the line of Zadok, neatly trimmed hair showed from beneath his turban.

Like I said, given Ellanjay's views, I don't think there are any more rabbis, so all of you dusting off your "A priest, a pastor, and a rabbi" jokes, I'm sorry.

I was going to make some crack about the name "Yerik" because I thought it was proof of Ellanjay's laziness, that they just made up a Biblical-sounding name because of, y'know, laziness, but according to Google, it is an actual name. So I'll be respectful and stay away. Because there are probably people who find names like Steve and Joe to be hilarious.

But I have to admit that I raise an eyebrow at the description of the priest's attire given that in the real world, Ellanjay and those of their ilk seem to be in favor of profiling the hell out of people who wear turbans. But maybe they would stop if real-world turban-wearers would pin a G on their turbans, G for Good, thus indicating that they are one of the good ones, not one of the scary brown people.

Ray-Ray offers the priest some fried vegetables and fresh fruit. I have to admit, because I'm the kind of anal-retentive type seldom scene outside questionably-run state asylums, that I do wonder what the vegetables were fried in. I suppose it could be vegetable oil or canola oil, but fryer oil can be made up from animal fats. I know, I know, I'm thinking too much, but again, the whole "No Meat" thing continues to baffle me.

Yerik says that King David wants to talk with them, because of course, the central tenet of the LB-verse is "Everyone, good or evil, recognizes the inherent greatness of Rayford Steele and Buck Williams." Like I said, were it not for the fact that Ellanjay were too chicken to have God and Jesus speak in anything but Bible quotes, there probably would have been a seen where one of them would break down sobbing and blubber about how they wish they could be as tall or manly as Buck or Rayford. And like I keep saying, yes, I'm exaggerating, but can you really say I'm exaggerating by much.

But Yerik says David also wants to meet with Mac and Chaim.

And now we cut to Raymie, who is meeting with Qasim, aka the guy mentioned in the previous chapter.

Qasim had a long, pointy face with a scraggly black beard, and while he was thin and of only average height, his robe was too short. It hung just above his knees, and the sleeves barely reached his elbows. He spoke quickly and explained that he liked it that way because it allowed him to move easier. “Especially when I have to run, which is often.” This was followed by a rollicking laugh. “So, how can I help you fellas?”

Yeah, I should be grateful Ellanjay didn't try to turn this into a graphic novel, because right now Qasim sounds like one of the racist caricatures of Muslims created by shitty political cartoonists, which are basically darkened versions of caricatures Anti-Semites did of Jewish people. Yeah, I don't need to go any further with the unfortunate implications, do I?

Though is that a thing now, in addition to being vegetarians, everyone wears robes. I suppose I could ask what Ellanjay think these robes look like, but given how disturbingly unimaginative they are, I can't think of any answer that wouldn't be as depressing as hell. Just I feel a need to point out that if you use Google, you can easily find Islamic attire and Jewish attire that manages to be both modest and stylish, but if you look up "modest Christian clothing," call it an unfair generalization if you must, but so many of the results are of attire so dowdy that even a character from Little House on the Prairie would be disgusted by it.

So Raymie and Qasim talk, and just as before, I can read so many unpleasant innuedos into their conversation. I know, some of it can be chalked up to Me being a drooling pervert, but at the same time...like I keep saying, writers of Christian Fiction could benefit from spending a few pennies to have a smart aleck read over their stuff and point out other ways certain phrases can be interpreted. I could post some examples, interspaced with Beavis and Butthead-type laughter, but given that the children being talked about, are too young for it to qualify as statutory, I can't in good conscience do so. Sorry guys, I may have only a few principles, but I stick by them, dammit!

Zaki already trusts his buddy, Qasim, but Raymie has his doubts and starts grilling him. I'll just post a gratuitous Monty Python link because it's my blog and I can do what I want.

“A long time, right. I got that. Let’s let Qasim speak for himself, shall we? Have you led children to Christ?”

“Have I led them?”

“Surely you know what I mean. Often we debrief late in the afternoon, and workers tell of children who saw their need for the Lord.”

“Well, I’ve sure told them about Jesus. I mean, that’s what we do. Whether any have actually prayed with me or in front of me, I couldn’t say. Some people are better at that than others, you know.”

“I know.”

“But a lot of the kids I’ve worked with became believers, and a whole bunch of ’em are fellow workers now.”

That's not all he led them too! :eyebrow waggle:

I know, I know, I ought to be ashamed of myself. But there's a reason I named my Raymie tag "Creepy Raymie" and I stand by it. Though I keep wondering how much hate-laughing I'm going to do while reading this book. Hate-laughing being my term for when you laugh at something you really shouldn't, laugh then you're like, "Oh I am such a horrible person for laughing at this" but you can't help yourself. Somehow the pain adds extra flavor to the laughter.

Raymie Steel de Torquemada is all "Tell me about your faith." And brace yourself for all the cringing awkwardness.

Qasim shrugged and pursed his lips. “I hardly remember; it’s been so long. I mean, I don’t recall my life at all before I was a believer. You know, with Jesus being here and in charge and all that since I was a baby, that made it easy.”

“But at some point you had to have—”

“Seen my need, as my dad calls it? Sure. Born in sin. Separated from God. Needed a bridge. Prayed the prayer. Got saved.”

That sure seemed to Raymie a passionless recitation of the steps to reconciliation with almighty God. “I’m going to have to pray about this, Qasim,” he said. “And the rest of us will discuss it. We’ll get back to you.”

“Great! Because I’d love to become part of your little band and find out what those French guys are up to.”

Oh, Qasim, I know you're only fictional but I sympathy-cringe for you nonetheless. Because your reasoning is perfectly sound: I see and talk with Jesus on a daily basis; therefore, me believing in his existence is about as self-explanatory as believing in the existence of carbon-based lifeforms that can't survive without oxygen. But apparently you haven't sufficiently believed in the right way, failed to say The Prayer with the precise amount of sincerity demanded. Though I always wondered, regarding The Prayer, while we get numerous examples of how The Prayer doesn't work if you don't say it with enough sincerity, what happens if you pray it with too much sincerity? Though I suppose I should ask how Ellanjay would define an appropriate amount of sincerity in the first place.

Though yeah, I'm sure the kinds of messages interwoven into this passage won't in any way cause anxiety for withdrawn, introverted kids with piss-poor social skills. Because apparently if you have terrible social skills and have a difficult time communicating when put on the spot, especially when the subject of the conversation is something as emotionally-loaded as religion, congratulations, you're going to Hell!

I suppose this means as if all the stuff I've written on this blog hasn't already damned me, since I've been recently diagnosed as being on the Autism Spectrum, so I'm damned regardless of what I do, because apparently having piss-poor social skills damns you. Out of curiosity, guys, can I take the Highway? Because it sounds a lot more comfortable than the handbasket, I'm just saying. Though if I have to ride in a handbasket, is it okay if I put flame decals on the side or is that the kind of thing that's so on the nose, it'll make the demons poke me harder with pitchforks.

Though I have to agree with both Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and Bart Simpson that all the fire and brimstone and pitchforks would suck, but wouldn't you eventually get used to it? The Dante-esque version of Hell is so unimaginative, especially to someone who spent years 11-18 being bullied relentlessly. Now if you said in Hell, I'd have to both go through puberty again AND sit in the High School Cafeteria, that would be a pants-wetter. But fire and brimstone? That's nothing...

We get a brief bit with Cam-Cam that I'm quoting in its entirety. It's short and like I said, serves as another reminder of how disturbingly unimaginative Ellanjay are.

At COT later in the morning, Chloe told Cameron what her mother had told her of the royal invitation. Cameron sought out his mother-in-law.

“So I guess there is sin in the kingdom,” he said, “even among us glorified ones. I have to confess, I’m feeling left out. Jealousy? Almost. I mean, I’m thrilled for Rayford and the others, especially Chaim and Tsion. But I’d give anything to be there.”

“Now I need to confess,” Irene said. “I just realized why the priest told Rayford not to tell anyone else. Clearly that had to go for me, too. But listen, Cam, this has to have something to do with the Lord putting some mission on your father-in-law’s heart the last several days. And you already have your calling. You’re not losing your enthusiasm for COT, are you?”

“Never. But one of these days I’m going to take a day off and talk to some of my Old Testament heroes.”

Again, even though this is supposed to be Heaven where all the laws of time and space that constrain people on Earth, have been done away with, Ellanjay can't envision any world where there isn't a hierarchy or a bureaucracy or a 9 to 5.

Even though given that all your physical needs are provided for and you don't have to worry about anything, wouldn't work in Heaven be more or less just an individual pursuing whatever craft or knowledge they wanted, with none of the limitations of Earth? So if you like to build things, then Heaven would be one of those Sim games where you can just build whatever you want, wherever you want, and you don't have to worry about funds or resources. Or you can finally chase down and study whatever topic, regardless of how obscure or esoteric it may be, and again, no worries about resources. Don't have to figure out how to pay the rent or pay for food or what you're going to do if you get sick, just pursue whatever interests you for the sake of the pursuit. And if one day, you feel like just chilling out and not accomplishing much, you can just rest and enjoy a day off with none of the consequences of our world.

Because while I realize this may be something of an oversimplification, even those who have had jobs they didn't hate (I'm told it's possible, but I have yet to see it), will admit that there are parts of it they don't much care for. And most of the stuff of a job that people don't care for, are the aspects put in to appease the bureaucratic elements of society.

Again, told to create paradise, and Ellanjay find themselves unable to envision anything except a more amped up version of now. As a result, of course, we have a bureaucracy, complete with the hierarchy that goes with it. So you have all this district managers (Old Testament characters) who have people below them, and they answer to King David, who is above them, and he, in turn, takes orders from TurboJesus.

Yeah, someone want to tell Ellanjay that people seldom if ever use the word "bureaucracy" in a positive sense? They probably subscribe to Thomas Hobbes's view of the life of primitive man: that it was brutish and short. But as said before, evidence uncovered by anthropologist doesn't bear that view out. From what they can tell, hunter-gatherer societies actually enjoyed a more comfortable way of life with more leisure and less warfare before the advent of agriculture and "civilization*." In fact, most of the ills associated with living with humans, didn't really emerge until agriculture.

This can be seen among the few remaining hunter-gatherer groups, like the !Kung. As said in a previous post, that even though the !Kung live in one of the harshest environments on Earth, they actually devote fewer hours to work than so-called "civilized" man.

Anyway, Ray-Ray, Mac, Yerik, Chaim, and Token Jew are all walking together, talking about how excited they are, in hopes of convincing the readers that if they say something enough, it will become true.

Ellanjay show their passionate love of the copy-paste function, but having Yerik pause and read Ezekiel 44.

It's boring as heck and of course, I had to copy and paste into Google to figure out where the passage originated in the first place. It's only notable for this part, which makes me cackle with delight.

“Now, whoever enters by way of this north gate shall go out by way of the south gate, just as whoever enters by way of the south gate shall go out by way of the north gate. No one shall return by way of the gate through which he came. ‘Thus says the Lord God: “No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart or uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter My sanctuary, including any foreigner who is among the children of Israel.”’ You brethren, of course, are either children of Israel or circumcised in heart.

I'm cackling because afterwards, I picture Yerik turning to all of them and being like, "So do your dicks still have their turtlenecks? Then sorry, can't go in until I go over you with a scalpel." I'd honestly want to see the reactions among the bunch. Because Chaim and Token Jew are safe, seeing as they were raised Jewish, but what about Ray-Ray and Mac? How do you think they're going to react to this? I'm picturing so many cries of "You want to do what to my what?!"

And for the record, until the Internet came along, I never knew that circumcision was an issue people were that passionate about. The two guaranteed thread-derailers in any online discussion seem to be abortion and circumcision. The abortion part I already knew about--see and hear about all the protestors on TV--but the circumcision part surprised me. Maybe it's because I'm a chick, but I didn't think someone would be that obsessed with a flap of skin on someone's dick. I know the stereotype is that guys think with their dicks, but I didn't think it was literally true. I imagine it must suck at the time--one moment, you're a happy baby boy lying in your bed, then snip, and you're introduced to the fact that powerful people can fill your life with pain for no real reason, a lesson life seems to repeatedly want to drive home--but again, I didn't believe people dwelled on it that much. I generally don't obsess over stuff that happened when I was too little to remember much of anything.

Okay, I think I've talked about circumcision enough. Like I said in the previous post, I'm wondering if I should start a counter for all this Creepy Sex Stuff. I'll just end this by quoting Galatians 5:12 from a passage where Paul chewed out people for being obsessed with circumcision. Because that's the kind of person I am. Can't remember chapter and verse numbers for anything but the weird verses in the Bible. Say something like John 3:16, and I'll be like, "Okay, that's the one that goes 'God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son, so we won't die and we'll have eternal life' or something like that. And I think there may have been some other good stuff in there as well." Say to me, "Okay, which verse does Paul tell his enemies to castrate themselves?" and I will, without hesitation, say "Galatians 5:12."

Yerik leads them in and we cut to Kenny.

Kenny, along with Zaki, Qasim, and Raymie, are working at a daycare for the COT. And as if we didn't have enough proof that Ellanjay haven't been around kids, outside of a photo op, here's more.

Kenny wondered whether COT had a capacity limit. Even now as additional buildings were being finished, more were in the works.

This day Kenny and six subordinates had charge of just under two hundred kids. They would play games, then hear a story, then sing before napping. He was making assignments and trying to keep the children corralled when an aide nudged him and pointed.

As a courtesy to my readers, I did some googling in hopes of finding out the regulations governing daycares, like how many aides you must have for each group of kids. Unfortunately it's one of those things that vary by state, so there isn't one answer. So we'll just use the facts at this website as our starting point.

Aide means an adult (18 years of age) who has not completed education or experience requirements for a teacher. An aide may be less than 18 if he/she is a high school graduate or is enrolled in an occupational education program at a high school or college (R.O.P.). An aide must be continuously supervised by a teacher and cannot supervise a group of children alone. (101216.3 a-e), except for supervision during nap time and for children going to the bathroom.

Teacher means an adult (over 18), who has completed at least 6 semester (9 quarter) units of Early Childhood Education and is enrolled in coursework as required by Regulation to complete the 6 additional units. Infant Center teachers also need 3 units in infant care. The holder of an R.O.P. certificate of completion may also be employed as a teacher according to conditions in statute, which include being 18 years of age and making satisfactory progress towards completing 12 semester units in E.C.E. as required. Teachers and Directors in School-Age Child Care Centers only may substitute 20 hours of specific kinds of approved training for each semester unit (New Section 1597.21, Health and Safety Code).

Fully Qualified Teacher means an adult who has completed at least 12 semester (18 quarter) units of Early Childhood Education in the areas specified in Title 22 at an accredited or approved institution and has 6 months experience. Holders of a Children’s Center Permit or Child Development Associate (CDA) credential are also fully qualified.

Staffing Ratios

0-2 years: 1 Teacher to 4 infants. Aides may be substituted if supervised by a Fully Qualified Teacher so there is a 1:4 adult to child ratio and there is one Fully Qualified Teacher for every 12 infants. There may be one staff person supervising up to 12 sleeping infants ONLY if remaining staff to meet the 1:4 ratio are at the Infant Center.

18-30 months: Toddler Option for Pre-schools. Requires prior submission of license application for change. Other conditions apply. 1 Teacher to 6 toddlers, or one Fully Qualified Teacher and an Aide to 12 toddlers. (Maximum group size = 12) (101216.6)

2-Kindergarten: 1 Teacher to 12 children, or 1 Teacher and Aide to 15 children. Naptime: 1 Teacher directly supervising 24 children IF staff necessary to make up 1 to 12 ratio are immediately available at center.
1 Fully Qualified Teacher and Aide to 18 children (aide must enroll in or have 6 semester units in ECE).

School-Age: 1 Teacher to 14 children or 1 Teacher and Aide to 28 children.

So yeah, the COT daycare is probably in violation of all those regulations. I'll be charitable and say that maybe Kenny is working as an aide, rather than a teacher, because do you really think Ellanjay would be so gauche as have one of the "good" characters pursue higher learning?

I don't know the age range so I can't really be too solid on the numbers. I almost wanted to say something about how all the kids would be under seven and go from there, but then I remember the time-skip, so that may not be true.

So when they say 200 kids, I'm not sure whether the range is from baby to teenager or what. But in service to my readers, I'll run through the numbers given to me by the website and see how the COT daycare fares.

If the 200 kids are all babies, then someone shut this daycare down, because when I divided 200 by 7 (Kenny said he had six people helping him, so I'm using seven as my divisor), I wound up with a number (ignoring the remainder) that suggests that we have 7 adults looking after 28 infants each.

For the record, Romania tried that approach with their orphanages. To say it didn't end well, would be the understatement of the year. Because it turns out that babies do have needs being the physical ones of having their bellies full and their butts wiped. So many of these babies withered away and died, due to not being held and cuddled and given the attention they deserve. People who adopted infants from Romania would talk about how the babies don't cry: not when they're hungry, not when they're wet, or when they get stuck with a pin. That's because after so much time and energy spent crying, only for no one to come, the babies simply stopped. They didn't cry and they never properly bonded with a caregiver, leaving them emotionally-stunted. And emotionally-stunted babies tend to become emotionally-stunted toddlers, and eventually, emotionally-stunted adults.

Though regarding that link I mentioned about Romania...again, who would have thought the Christian Right would so admire Nicolae Ceaușescu? Spoiler alert, Nicolae Ceaușescu was an asshole whose policies wound up causing a massive amount of suffering to his people, who thanked him by overthrowing and eventually killing him.

I have a feeling if I were to run the numbers for toddlers and school-age kids, it wouldn't be much better. Again, my head canon is that the situation at the daycare has turned into a mixture of Lord of the Flies, Thunderdome, and that episode of the Simpsons where Ned Flanders was running Springfield Elementary. Because children may be the future, but they're also small, hyperactive, loud as hell, and incredibly stupid. Most of the time I'm around them, I'm like, "How did humans get to the top of the food chain?"

Because childbirth for a giraffe involves having to survive a six-foot drop, yet they're walking around within hours. And while a giraffe isn't full-grown until it is four-years-old, I'm fairly certain at one year of age, they have some survival skills, know to be careful around the waterhole and stay away from lions.

Whereas it takes a human, on average, a year to master walking, and once we do, we're still stupid and helpless, displaying the survival skills of a drunk sheep in a trash compactor. Though, a drunk sheep would probably still be smarter than a human baby who would probably stick their head right in a lion's mouth if given half the chance.

:deepbreath: Yep, I think I've made it so no one will ever ask me to babysit. Life is good.

Saintly Irene shows up, bringing a Greek girl named Ekaterina Risto with her. I suppose I could do a Google search and check on that name, but given what we've seen with Ellanjay's tin ear for foreign names, Ekaterina Risto is pretty tame. I could quibble and point out that I thought Ekaterina was more of a Russian name than a Greek one, but I'm too busy celebrating the fact that they didn't name her Athena Acropolis. It's a small victory, but I'll take what I can get.

This made Ekaterina smile and wink at Kenny, and for the first time in his life, something fluttered inside. Perhaps it was that he had never been winked at by anyone but his parents. And he had to face it: like most young people, he hadn’t yet become interested in the opposite sex. Well, this one seemed interesting, and he didn’t know the first thing about her.

Yeah, Kenny, that "something fluttering inside you?" We call that an erection.

I know, I should apologize for making you think about the genitals of a Left Behind character, but I'm a firm believer in "Misery Loves Company." Besides, try to explain that passage in a way that doesn't convey Kenny is a perv who has a stiffie at the thought of seeing what's underneath Ekaterina's clothes, I dare you.

And that's it for this week. While I plead guilty to being a drooling pervert (because lying makes the Baby Jesus cry), I swear when I set out to write this snark, I didn't plan on making so many dick jokes. It's just one of those things that's out of my hands and in Ellanjay's apparently...:laughs than cringes for a bit: Keep wondering if the problem is that I'm a smart-alecky pervert or is this more a case of Ellanjay stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the needs and desires of the flesh and, in fact, hate said needs and desires, but they're still there, but they refuse to acknowledge it, leading to them manifesting themselves in disturbing ways.

*Civilization is in quotes because definition of it, seems to be slippery, depending on the speaker's bias. If we're defining civilization as having massive cities with huge buildings and a hierarchy between classes, leading to massive inequalities of wealth, then the !Kung and many others don't qualify. If we mean Civilization as in a group of people with shared beliefs regarding religion and the raising of children, and have an agreed-upon code of conduct, then just about every group qualifies, a fact that scares the crap out of those of the Authoritarian mindset that governs the Right.

Why Does This Always Happen to Me?

Happy Sunday! If my readers have stayed away because of all the creepy sex stuff, then you'll be happy to know that this week, well, at least there isn't any creepy sex stuff. Plenty of instances of Tribbles nailing themselves to crosses and acting like such martyrs about it, but no creepy sex stuff at least.

The two paragraph opening is a damn good example of it.

RAYFORD HOPED never again to have to face an ordeal like talking with Cendrillon Jospin’s parents. It might have been easier if they had become defensive and moved into denial mode. But these were devout believers who knew the truth. “She’s gone because she was lost,” her father managed, shoulders heaving.

Rayford asked carefully whether they would allow Cameron to make clear at the funeral that there was a way for all Cendrillon’s friends and acquaintances to avoid her fate. The Jospins nodded miserably. “We will have relatives here,” her mother said, “our siblings and Cendrillon’s cousins. I would have assumed they were all believers, but I’m not sure of anything anymore. Oh, it’s all such a hardship on our family. They were here not so long ago. Maybe six weeks. We had an early birthday party for Cendrillon.”

Yeah, Ray-Ray, it's so hard for you. I mean the Jospins did just lose a child who will burn in Hell for all eternity, but what matters is how upsetting this is to you. All those tears and sobs? They're just so unmelodic. When you wail with anguish, can't you have the common courtesy to do it on key?

Like I keep saying, Ellanjay's protagonists are totally the narrator of this Weird Al song: "Why does this always happen to me?" Can you honestly say that if Ray-Ray had stabbed Nicky in the face, he wouldn't proceed to whine about how the bones in Nicky's face bent the blade and left the knife unusable? Though at the same time, stabbing Nicky in the face would actually be doing something and the Tribbles remain steadfast in their opposition to doing stuff. Even the narrator of a comedic Weird Al song has better work ethic than any individual member of the Tribbles.

I will continue to try to work out this whole death at 100 thing. I will probably finally cross the line from near-madness into madness, but somehow I'll figure this out. Besides, maybe all those padded rooms get a bad rep. They always looked kind of fun to me, get to bounce all over the walls.

But I wonder how accurate the whole thing is. Like does it apply right down to hour and minute? So if you were born on X day at 12:01:01 p.m., does that mean, you have until then to say The Prayer on your birthday? Though I'd suggest starting it at noon, just to be on the safe side. Say The Prayer, save your ass, and enjoy the afterlife. Though given what I read later on in this chapter, the afterlife sounds about as enjoyable as high school algebra.

We cut to Raymie who is sitting with his friends, waiting for Cam-Cam to step up and begin the funeral. And of course, he displays the trademark tact and sensitivity we've all come to know and expect from RTCs.

Strange, Raymie thought, but this would spur the return of an entire industry. As children began reaching the age of one hundred all over the world, many would die. Cendrillon’s body had had to be kept in a wine cellar at her parents’ home until the service. And because cemeteries were nonexistent, she would also be buried on their land.

Like I said, I've more or less decided to induct Cendrillon into my League of Awesome head canon. My head canon, she was something of an amateur herbalist, took a concoction that made her appear dead, then once she woke up in her parents' wine cellar, she climbed out during the night, and is meeting up with the rest of the league. She filled the coffin with bricks to throw everyone off. Don't say this wouldn't work! Given the general obliviousness of Tribbles, can you honestly say that they would notice if the deceased was suspiciously red and brick-like in appearance?

In true "Why does this always happen to me?" fashion, Cendrillon's father steps up to say a few words, before we get to the bulk of the chapter: Cam-Cam preaching.

Cendrillon’s extended family filed into the front rows just before the service began, and her father was the first to take the podium. “We praise Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,” he began, laboring. “But this is neither the memorial of a life nor the celebration of a home going, for as you all know, there is only one place for the dead now, and it is not heaven. Cendrillon’s mother and I covet your prayers for our healing. We loved our daughter as much as parents could love a child, and we are in pain— deep,inexplicable pain. We have asked her friend and ministry supervisor, Cameron Williams, to say a few words.”

Uh, Papa Jospin, you know who else is in pain? YOUR DAUGHTER AS SHE GETS PITCHFORKED BY DEMONS AND ROASTED!

And if you guys really loved your daughter and you were staunch believers like you claim, what does it say about you and the missus, how you did as parents?

It's one of the many issues I have with all the whiny editorials about how the millennials will ruin everything for everyone. Speaking as millennial (born 1985), if we are as spoiled and screwed up as they claim, doesn't that reflect badly on the Baby Boomers that raised us? Though in my more cynical moments, I wonder if the reason the Baby Boomers call the generation before them, The Greatest Generation, isn't so much because they took on Hitler while in their twenties, but because that generation produced them and it's going to be all downhill from there. Because when the Whiny Editorialist was young, he/she always respected his elders, gobbled up vegetables like potato chips, regularly buried him/herself in unreadable classics like Moby Dick, never looked at or imbibed alcohol before he/she was of legal age, and was never whiny or immature in the slightest. Yet somehow these Saints among men, produced my generation who will ruin everything, just out of spite.

And now we get to Cam-Cam.

Cameron felt the presence of the grieving Lord with him and believed He gave him utterance. All he could do was present the unvarnished truth: that Cendrillon had seemed a wonderful person and had accomplished many good deeds. “But the sad fact is that either she never saw her personal need for a Savior, or she chose to ignore that need.”

If I were to start a drinking game for this book and I know I really shouldn't, because the only adequate response to this book is to just flat-out drink until your liver explodes, I'd wonder how many sips I should assign for what the Turkey City Lexicon calls "Signal from Fred." For those of you wondering or just too lazy to click on a link, here's how Turkey City Lexicon defines "Signal from Fred"

A comic form of the “Dischism” in which the author’s subconscious, alarmed by the poor quality of the work, makes unwitting critical comments: “This doesn’t make sense.” “This is really boring.” “This sounds like a bad movie.” (Attr. Damon Knight)

Because throughout this chapter and the previous ones and probably the subsequent ones, you have the characters saying stuff like that, talking how it doesn't make sense that anyone would decide against TurboJesus. As said before, Ellanjay keep setting this up like the characters are in our world, where faith is often the assurance of things hoped for, evidence of things not yet seen, as the apostle Paul would put it, but Cam-Cam and everyone else in this series SEE AND TALK WITH TURBOJESUS AND ZOD ON A DAILY BASIS! THEIR EXISTENCE IS A PROVEN FACT, NOT A MATTER OF DEBATE!

Like I keep saying and probably will, until I finish this book, it's not the existence of God that would be up for debate; it's the nature of said god, whether a being who does such monstrous things, is worthy of our thanks and praise. To those who passed Basic Ethics 101 and know that Might Does Not Make Right, the answer is obvious: just because someone has a lot of money or power, doesn't give them the right to, in true Ubermensch fashion, run roughshod over everyone else.

But Ellanjay, like so many on the Right, probably subscribe to a toxic version of Anarchism where it's not so much that they are opposed to law and order or any institutionalized -isms; they're totally in favor of all those things, so long as none of it applies to them.

Though another thing I've said before and will keep saying again: if it's that easy to fake being good, so easy that you can fool everyone with only a modicum of effort, what does it even mean to be good?

For the record, this paragraph contains The Prayer. Take care not to read it out loud, unless you want to spend eternity with people like Ellanjay.

“This is without question the most important decision you will ever make. I ask you directly: have you personally received Jesus the Christ and acknowledged Him as your only Lord and Savior? If you have not, I urge you to do so right now by telling God, ‘Thank You for sending Your Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for my sins. I confess I am a sinner and ask Your forgiveness. I receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior and surrender my life and future to Him.’

I know the rule is you have to utter The Prayer with the precise amount of sincerity demanded, but I do wonder if you have to utter it? What if some poor schmoe is a deaf-mute? Does this mean Helen Keller is roasting on a spit? Though given that Helen Keller eventually became a radical socialist, joined the Wobblies, and helped fund the ACLU, I doubt they would find room for Helen Keller, even if she wasn't deaf and blind.

[Slightly OT} All those years ago, when Alabama chose Helen Keller for its state quarter as opposed to, say, Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom had way more of an impact on Alabama and national affairs, I often wonder if they knew Helen Keller was a socialist or if they just knew her as, "That deaf and blind lady who done learned to talk." It's probably the latter, but it does amuse me. [/OT]

The next paragraph is nothing but a neverending Signal from Fred as Cam-Cam basically says, "We see TurboJesus on a daily basis, so there's no reason not to believe." I had originally intended to mostly summarize and move on, but I think I'll put Cam-Cam's paragraph up, so we can all enjoy it. Because I'm that kind of person.

“Now let me close by saying, your choice in this matter is easier than it has ever been. There may have been times in eras past when it took a great deal of faith to believe that Jesus was the sinless Son of God. But after all that has transpired, all the prophecy that has been fulfilled, all the attention-getting events that have occurred— including the Rapture of the church, the twenty-one judgments from heaven over the following seven years, and now this, the millennial kingdom with Jesus Himself presiding as King— you would be lying to say that the Christ is anything or anyone else than who He says He is. If you have hardened your heart against Him, it is not because you don’t believe. It is not because you don’t know. It is because you choose to go your own way rather than His, to indulge in a life centered on your own pleasures and wishes rather than dedicated to the One you know is creator of the universe.

“Should you leave here today without acknowledging Jesus, do not say you haven’t been warned that you will not survive your hundredth birthday and that you will suffer needlessly for eternity.”

I'm going to post a clip from Rise of the Guardians. If you don't know why, don't worry, I'll soon explain it all to you.

The point can be safely summed up in the part where the kid, Jamie, says to Pitch, "I believe in you. I'm just not afraid of you," a statement that sure as hell applies to the monstrosity in the LB-verse. Because again, the kids see and talk with TurboJesus and Zod on a daily basis. The idea that they would question the existence of either, makes no sense. We can argue about all the fallacies in C.S. Lewis's Liar-Lunatic-Lord Trilemma, but in the MK, not believing in God would, to borrow from Lewis, make about as much sense as saying, "I am a poached egg."

The only way any of this would work would be if everyone in the MK was massive psychotic, unable to receive accurate input from their senses and...dang it, you know there really is no avoiding all the Lovecraftian parallels. I'll just assume that what has happened is the Elder Gods have shown up, devoured most of humanity, and caused the survivors to snap from the insanity of it all. The Elder Gods are taking their sweet time with devouring everyone else, because they like to play and toy with their food, and if they do polish us all off, then the fun's over. But the Tribbles can't handle knowing that they are only puny beings, playthings for monstrous horrors to devour whenever they get bored, so they dive into insanity to cope with the horror of it all, create an alternate reality where Godthulhu really does love them; it's just those other people He can't stand. He'll totally spare us if we praise Him in the proper manner.

[OT Fangirling] Still love how in Rise of the Guardians, the key to defeating Pitch turned out to be, turning him into a joke. Jack rallies the kids to stand up and fight him, by hitting Pitch with snowballs, while he's in the middle of his standard "You've lost" villain lecture. Sometimes when dealing with bullies or hate groups, that's the best approach: make them into goddanged jokes. Of course, you should keep pushing back at them, but sometimes, the best approach is to make them laughable, make them into such ridiculous baboons no one can take them seriously. Another good example of this phenomenon: when Superman took on the KKK. Always considered that to be such a cool story about how the Superman radio show managed to cause real damage to the KKK.

I suppose I should stop drawing strength and taking morals from animated movies and superheroes, but I don't think I ever will. Take your strength and comfort where you find it, even if it comes from a humanoid alien in the funny books battling evil in an outfit his adopted mother sewed for him.

Or to borrow from Neil Gaiman's paraphrase of G.K. Chesterton: Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten. [/OT]

We cut back to Raymie. I admit it, I did spend some time, trying to twist his passage into something perverted, because that's how I roll, but for once, I have to admit it feels like something of a reach, even for me.

He's just sitting at the funeral, admiring Cam-Cam's boldness and passion (interpret that how you will), and decides to put his arm around Kenny.

Kenny was the only one of the four young people who sat there without a glorified body and memories of seven years in heaven with Jesus. He had come into the Millennium as an almost-five-year-old and even now still looked like a teenager, aging ever so slowly in this idyllic utopia, but Raymie prided himself on being able to tell who had glorified bodies and who didn’t. Those who did appeared, of course, to not age an iota. The slow effects of time had an impact on the others.

I am really trying not to add creepy sex stuff to all this, but Raymie did just admit that he spent a lot of time, checking out the bodies of young people and...y'know what I think I'll just stop there. If aunursa was still hanging around this blog, I'd ask if Raymie came across as this creepy in the other adult books. I know, he's bamfed in the Rapture and doesn't make any appearances until TurboJesus kills everyone, but I thought maybe aunursa, with his scary encyclopedic knowledge of the Left Behind-verse, would know something.

Though all this detail about how people like Kenny still age, but very slowly...again, if I didn't know that PMD was a belief system shared and practiced by many people all around the world (at least since Scofeld and Darby of the 19th century), this belief system is so incoherent that I would swear anyone trying to explain it, would sound like a schizophrenia patient explaining a really incoherent dream. Though that seems unfair to people with Schizophrenia; even someone deep in the grips of psychosis could come up with a more coherent belief system.

Raymie badgers Kenny about getting saved, saying he doesn't want to see his nephew in a box in a few years. Kenny hangs out and watches as, to use the book's words, hundreds of people knelt before Cam-Cam, weeping.

Zaki, a character I know and care little about, points out some guys in back, who are looking distracted and bored. He talks to Kenny about how if he didn't have a glorified body, he would totally infiltrate the TOL. They're like, "Oh you should totally do infiltrate those guys, Kenny."

Kenny had been ten and living in the kingdom a few years when his mother led him to Christ and prayed with him while putting him to bed one night.

“I don’t feel like a sinner,” he had told her. “I hardly remember doing anything wrong.”

“Sin isn’t necessarily just things we do,” she had said. “It’s what we are and who we are. We’re all born in sin and need forgiveness.”

It hadn’t taken much persuasion. Kenny had seen Jesus. If He wasn’t God, nobody was. To Kenny, the decision seemed easy. And while he had heard all the stories of his parents’ and his grandfather’s exploits during the Tribulation, he found living “the life,” as his parents called it, easy during the millennial kingdom. When he was younger, Kenny had actually wished there were more opposition so he’d have something exciting to do. But once he had become a believer himself, working with COT had been all the excitement he needed. Almost every day he had either led a child to Christ or known of someone who had.

Again, Ellanjay, when your own characters keep pointing out how this makes no damn sense, most would see this as a sign you need to take a long hard look at your story.

Though yeah, we all remember Cam-Cam and Ray-Ray's exciting exploits against the GC, how they occasionally thought disdainful thoughts in Nicky's general direction. One time they even trampled the flowers in his flower-bed. That was a two-parter episode.

As for the rest, oh, how many times am I going to have to cite Fred's post "Martyr Envy?" This part always seemed so very accurate where Ellanjay was concerned:

And here we come to the vicarious appeal of these books for American evangelicals. The perilous Tribulation that Bruce Barnes describes is frightening, yes, but at least it’s not as dull as the uninspiring sit-around-and-wait, do-nothing existence they’ve come to believe is their lot in life here in history.

Here in Left Behind they can reimagine the Christian life as an exciting adventure. It’s similar to the speakers we had on youth group retreats back in high school. They would tell these thrilling stories of Christians who were persecuted for their faith — first century believers or 20th-century Christians in China or behind the Iron Curtain. The stories would reach a crescendo where the persecuted faithful were forced to choose between denying their faith and certain death. “What would you do?” the speakers would ask. And then, with every head bowed and every eye closed, we were given the opportunity to come forward yet again to re-re-dedicate our lives to Christ.

I don’t know whether those speakers realized the secret envy we had when listening to those stories. The lives of those martyrs seemed so much more exciting and meaningful than our own did. Plus there was something weirdly appealing about a one-time, one-question, pass-fail test in place of the tedious day-after-day. In our imaginations, at least, the martyr’s egress sounded almost easier than the pilgrim’s progress (as somebody once said, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it.) We imagined that, like the grandmother in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” we could’ve been good kids if it had been somebody there to shoot us every minute of our lives.

Though again, what does it say about Ellanjay's depiction of paradise when even one of its dwellers openly longs for a life of pain and misery? Like I keep saying, Ellanjay, you should have had the sense to fade to white and move on. But nope, you wanted another solid gold Humvee and decided to take on a task that would stymie even a great writer, never mind a lazy-ass SOB like you.

Kenny meets up with some cousins of Cendrillon's, Lothair and Ignace. Wikipedia's disambiguation page doesn't list anyone past the 14th century as having the name Lothair. Geez, I wonder why.

Well, because I'm that kind of person, I'll just picture Lothair as Lothor, the Big Bad from Power Rangers Ninja Storm. Ninja Storm was an odd season of Power Rangers, one that had its tongue firmly in its cheek, and had no problem making sly self-aware quips about the nature of their universe. Plus gotta respect any villain that tries to use the scariest, most inexhaustible resource known to man, in order to conquer the world; I am speaking, of course, of fangirls. Watch the episode "I Love Lothor" if you don't believe me. Plus, having Lothor in this story gives me hope that there will be giant robot battles at some point and who doesn't dig giant robots? No really, who doesn't? Because I will fight them, all of them, because clearly they are some kind of pod person Cylon who hates all that is cool and awesome.

Unfortunately, when I looked for Ignace, wasn't able to find any cool pop culture references. Sorry. Though I could take advantage of my soapbox and use this to talk more about Megas XLR aka a smart, funny cartoon that had limitless possibilities and I'll never forgive Cartoon Network for canceling it after two meager seasons! :shakes fist:

Anyway, Kenny is talking with Lothair and Ignace and is shocked, shocked by the appalling language they use. Here's the appalling language they use, for my readers' perusal:

Lothair, a redhead, was the thinner and taller of the two. He snorted. “That crackpot sure made her sound like a loser. Don’t know who he thinks he is.”

Kenny flinched and hoped it didn’t show. He had never heard people this age talk that way. Little kids, sure, roughhousing, fighting, squabbling over toys, not sharing— that was common. But for almost-adults to be so negative, to talk so mean? That was new to Kenny.

Yeah, I imagine even the most tightly-wound schoolmarm wouldn't faint at that language. Though really, being negative and mean is a sin? Well, you might want to tell it to the Christian Right who breaks blood vessels ranting and raving about how GLBT people will burn in Hell. I'm fairly certain most would define seeing a group of people as, at best, a disease, at worst, an abomination unto the Lord, and doing everything in their power to drive up the hate crime/suicide rate, which is already much higher for GLBT people than just about any other minority group, to be the very definition of negative and mean.

Of course, I would also consider using a funeral to guilt-trip people into saying The Prayer or their eternal soul gets it, to be negative and mean, but still.

Lothair makes what I would consider, a damn good example of "Strawman Has a Point," remarks.

“Then you know she wasn’t some big sinner. She hadn’t even been outside Israel since she was a little kid. We couldn’t even talk her into having a little fun.”

“Fun?”

“Yeah, you know. Fun. Something other than singing songs to Jesus to make sure you live past a hundred.”

Ellanjay created the LB-verse as revenge porn for RTCs, but with every line they write, they undermine their own case. Because they keep admitting, again and again, that their version of paradise is actually really boring. You wonder if all this hatred isn't born of seething jealousy. They spend all their time sitting around, doing nothing bad, and being miserable, while those sinful sinners enjoy life.

Or to quote from one of my favorite Slacktivist posts:

What's striking here — and all the more striking because the authors themselves seem not to notice it — is how color-less Barnes' life as a sinner was. It would be wrong even to say he had lived the life of a sinner — he hadn't lived life at all.

This, I would argue, was Bruce Barnes' real sin. And it's far more dangerous, far more soul-killing, than the full-blooded pursuit of pleasure by a Brother Jim, or a Faust, or a Qoholeth. Sin boldly. Better to be a crack addict chasing a counterfeit of the pearl of great price than to be chasing nothing at all.

In my favorite prayer of confession from The Book of Common Prayer, we say, "Too often we carry on our lives as if You did not exist." Bruce Barnes is certainly guilty of that, but he also carried on his life as if he did not exist. He confesses to a litany of petty sins, but not to the sin of pettiness itself — of living a small, numb, meaningless life. That's the kind of sin that breaks God's heart.

Barnes wasn't "left behind" — he stayed behind on his own.

Lothair continues to make smart-alecky remarks, making me wonder if I need to draft him into my League of Awesome head canon. Haven't yet, but his little dig about how all the people with glorified bodies look like porcelain dolls makes me wonder if I should. Because y'know that in Ellanjay's depiction of Heaven, given that Zod had no problem giving personalities to people who were never actually born, the glorified probably all look like Precious Moments figurines. Because ethnicity or uniqueness has no place in the afterlife!

And here's where they tell us about the unspeakable crimes they are committing in the eyes of God and man:

Ignace laughed. “No dances at the temple, eh? No shows? No strong drink? Lothair here makes his own. Takes it right out of the foothills. Speeds up the fermentation process. Gives it a real kick.”

“You don’t worry about messing with God’s wine?”

“Lothair only makes it better, friend.”

But if it's already wine, how exactly are they speeding up the fermenting process? I don't claim to be any expert on alcohol but wine is already fermented, isn't it. Don't know what exactly Lothair could do to make it more alcoholic.

Though is this confirmation of something I'd asked in a previous chapter. When they talked about the hills flowing with wine, I wondered how well that would play with Ellanjay's target audience, which is made up of the bluest of bluehairs who firmly believed that Jesus turned water into non-alcoholic grape juice at the wedding of Cana. So is this confirmation that it's actually grape juice, but Lothair is being all evil and setting it aside so it would :gasp: ferment?

Yeah, if I'm not already mad from all this, I soon will be.

The chapter ends with Kenny looking at their stylish pinstripe shirts and wondering if the TOL design on them, refers to "The Other Light." Oh, Kenny. Let me guess, you have degrees in murderology and murderonomy. You'd be like, "Now I know Schmadolf Schmitler is loudly proclaiming and crying for the extinction of the Jews, but that in no way proves that he's actually Adolf Hitler wearing a fake Yosemite Sam mustache to hide his toothbrush one. It doesn't make any sense why he would do this. The fact that said mustache fell off, revealing a toothbrush one underneath, doesn't prove anything either. Adolf Hitler was named Adolf Hitler, not Schmadolf Schmitler. Why would a universally reviled dictator feel a need to hide his identity?" Kenny is so definitely Elmer Fudd in the "Duck Season, Rabbit Season" cartoons, minus the comedic timing.

And that's it. Read and comment if you're out there. I know I sound excessively whiny, but if someone hasn't commented in a while, I get a little concerned. Start thinking things like, "Anything could have happened. Could have konked their head, walking around in the favorite high heels, or suffocated in a freak wig closet accident. And let us never forget the dangers inherent in gardening, vomit-choking, or spontaneous combustion.

Why Can't I Stop Talking About Creepy Sex Stuff?! (Chapter Five, Part I)

All right, I'm here. I suppose I should have done something last week, but like I said, you need to rest after a good snark. Anyway, I'm here now. Let's get this show on the road.

Well, we begin with, like I said, a 93-year time jump.

BACK FROM Indonesia for a week, Rayford sat in a rocking chair on the rear deck of Tsion Ben-Judah’s tidy estate in northern Israel. “I had always wondered what that prophecy meant, about God’s people moving about with walking sticks by the end of the millennial kingdom. But I’m over 140 years old now, and I’m beginning to feel it.”

The back from Indonesia bit threw me at first. I suppose though, it's possible that Ray-Ray could have spent 93 years, doing whatever vague thing he'd planned to do in Indonesia. We should really think God or somebody that given Ellanjay's avarice and love of padding, they decided to do a timeskip and not spend God-only-knows-how many chapters with Ray-Ray doing stuff in Indonesia. It's a small favor, but experience has taught me to be grateful for those.

Though again, the bit about how Rayford will continue to age while the Raptured and Martyred get to enjoy brand, spankin' new awesome bodies for all eternity...so many images of body horror going through my mind right now. I'm like, "Hey Rayford, ever read up on Tithonus? Oh yeah, you probably find it torturous enough to read an article in TV Guide. Well, then this will all be new to you."

For the record, I totally believe that in Ellanjay's world, TV Guide magazine is still a thing. Given how badly they do at predicting the future, I have little if any doubts that they didn't foresee TVs with built-in channel guides.

Token Jew, well aware that his primary duties in the LB-verse is to kiss Ray-Ray and Cam-Cam's asses, immediately lays on the flattery.

“Oh, go on!” Tsion said. “A man is still a child at one hundred here, so you’re just a young teen.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not the man I once was. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like for me hundreds of years from now.”

“Look at Dr. Rosenzweig, Rayford. He’s twenty-five years older than you.”

“And you, Tsion, with your glorified body. You look younger than ever. Irene looks like she’s stuck at thirty-five and Raymie at twenty-five.”

“Well, we had our chances at glorified bodies, didn’t we?”

This exchange would be funny and charming if Ellanjay were, indeed, trying to poke fun at Ray-Ray's clownish vanity, but the problem we keep running into is, as Fred points out in one of my all-time favorite Nicolae posts, "What Would Rayford Do? (Do the Opposite)" But the problem is, like Fred said, we can't read all these scenes as some kind of deconstruction or satire of Rayford's pomposity, because the writers' themselves, are as wrapped in delusion as their protagonist. If they weren't, it might actually work. Seinfeld was a show about horrible people, yet everyone involved knew these characters were horrible people, and went with it, so it worked. Whereas Everybody Loves Raymond is a cast made up of horrible people, but the people involved with the show seem to genuinely believe that their characters are good, charming people, making it so I can't spend five minutes watching it without thinking, "Y'know, maybe people underestimate the value of a nuclear holocaust. Yeah, we may be struggling to survive in a hellish landscape and have a greater likelihood of dying of cancer or all kinds of preventable illnesses afterwards, but at least, we won't have to put up with this show anymore."

Though I'm raising an eyebrow here. I thought the magical age for Raptured and Martyred people was thirty-two and that they would look that age for all eternity. How exactly does it work out that Raymie looks twenty-five, but his mother looks thirty-five? Though while Raymie is a kid and thus is lower on the RTC hierarchy, he does possess the all-important penis, which may place him above his own mother. So Raymie gets to look more youthful. But again, everyone's beneath Ray-Ray and Cam-Cam. That's the one constant.

Token Jew asks Ray-Ray about how is work is going.

“We’re almost finished, Tsion. The Lord put us together with some of the brightest minds I’ve ever worked with, and because we’re in charge, we haven’t had to do much but equip them, encourage them, and let them go.”

“I hear wonderful reports out of Indonesia. Their technology rivals that of any nation, and you must take credit for that.”

Ever hear of Jakarta, as in the capitol city of Indonesia? Well, I feel a need to provide a link, showing that Jakarta looks like this. Indonesia isn't some backwater hole-in-the-mud nation; it's the fourth most populous nation on Earth. I also feel a need to reiterate a point I made last week: Indonesia, not any of those scary places in the Middle East, has the largest population of Muslims of any nation on Earth. If the problem really was Islam, wouldn't whatever was happening in Indonesia make the Middle East look like Switzerland in comparison? Yet the problems Indonesia is having, have more to do with the kinds of problems facing any first-world nation (population growth, lack of resources, etc.) than they do with terrorism.

Yeah, I like to bring up those facts every time some idiot rants about how all Muslims are terrorists. It's my hobby horse and I do like to ride it. That and Muslims make up 23% the world's population or roughly 1.6 billion out of a total population of 7 billion, so maybe you should really think long and hard, before calling for a genocide. Granted you probably shouldn't long for genocide even if a population doesn't have those numbers, but still.

Oh and given that this is literally Heaven on Earth, I've gotta wonder why only Indonesia has this vague, amazing technology that Ray-Ray's invented? Yeah, I know--Ray-Ray is the greatest, even greater than Zod and TurboJesus--but still. Again, it's supposed to be paradise, where you have an infinite amount of time and resources. So surely someone will have come up with something that would make Starfleet seem cute and quaint by comparison?

Because all those third-world nations...the reason they are underdeveloped isn't because they lack a wise white dude to show them the way; it comes down to resources. And before you look down on them, if you were to switch any third-world adult around with a first-world adult and have them live the others' lives, the first-worlder will struggle a lot more than the third-worlder. Once the third-worlder got over his/her culture shock and got a walkthrough on some stuff, they'd more or less be able to figure things out from there and after a while, their blundering would decrease dramatically. But the first-worlder would find him or herself sorely outmatched by any third-world child, unable to do the basic everyday tasks that the rest of the citizens barely think about. By the end of the month, the third-worlder would have more or less figured stuff out, but the first-worlder would still be pretty hopeless.

And before I get any outraged wails, I'm including myself in the hopeless category as well. As a first-worlder, I know my way around the Internet and how to find anything with a Google search, but physically my upper body strength is terrible, I seldom have to walk more than a few blocks at a time and usually on concrete, and I know little of the basics involved with growing crops and raising livestock. So yeah, I'm not being all sanctimonious; I sure as heck know I would struggle. Though on the technology front, how many first-worlders really have any idea how computers work or the infrastructure involved? If I were to take off the outer covering of a laptop, revealing all the inner parts, then said, "Okay, which part gets you on the Internet," how many would be able to answer that question? Yeah, I know there are a few nerd commenters on this blog, but still. We're talking about average people. I use the Internet every day and only have the vaguest of notions as to how it all works.

Nice, though, how they just say "Technology!" when asked what Ray-Ray's doing in Indonesia, and they don't even bother to try to explain what technology he's developing. Again, it's an impressive show of laziness. Though I have to wonder why Ellanjay chose Indonesia of all countries. Are they really into Komodo Dragons? Or did they get Indonesia mixed up with Thailand and Ray-Ray's technology is actually code for...y'know what, given that a large portion of the prostitutes in Thailand were coerced into the sex trade when they were barely teens, I'm just going to stop, go outside, and flog myself with bricks, and save everyone the trouble. Maybe pour some salt into my wounds for good measure.

All right, I'm done rambling and will move on.

Token Jew and Ray-Ray talk some more, with Rayford displaying the trademark humility he's become known for, by making a big, lavish show of talking about how it's all totally because of Zod. Then Ray-Ray talks about how he's been thinking about Matthew 28:18-20 (okay, he actually says that the Lord had been impressing it on his heart, but it means about the same thing), and from there, he and Token Jew go into a long discussion about evangelism. :whimpers: Yeah that scene in The Princess Bride where Westley gets a year sucked off of his life and all he can do is whimper afterwards? It's a lot like that.

Because really it's just all this back-and-forth blather of "Well should I?" "Yes, you should" "But I don't know. Should I?" "Yes, you should." To keep up with the gratuitous pop culture, it really is a lot like this bit from Linkara's review of Countdown. No points for guessing that my response is pretty much identical to Linkara's bit at the very end.

Though for those of you eagerly awaiting Ho Yay, so far I haven't found any in this week's snark. But there is this line, which just as hilarious out of context as in and makes me feel a little better about my Thailand joke earlier:

“But I don’t feel led to children in other countries.”

“Do you feel led at all? Or is He just bringing that verse to mind for no reason?”

“Surely not. But if I feel a nudge, it’s toward adults.”

...

:O

Oh, so many responses that can be made, none of them at all appropriate. Though it probably is a good thing to know that Ray-Ray isn't at all led towards children. If he's in Southeast Asia for any reason, it's because he loves the cuisine. :proceeds to laugh uproariously, while simultaneously cringing: Ah, hate-laughing is the best kind of laughing. Somehow the pain just adds a new flavor to it.

Though this is why every writer of Christian Fiction™ could stand to put forth a few pennies to hire an atheist smart aleck or just a juvenile smart aleck like me, to read over their stuff before publication and point out the many different ways certain phrases can be taken out of context. Pro Tip: Never talk about how much time a character spends on their knees and remember that there's something else that's shaped similar to a banana and is angled to fit perfectly in someone's mouth, but it isn't a banana.

God, I wonder what my life was like, before I became a drooling pervert. I'm sure I did a lot less giggling over stupid shit, but could I really say it was more enjoyable?

After all this boring back-and-forth between Token Jew and Ray-Ray, Ray-Ray receives a call from his skull phone. I'm not kidding. Here's how the book describes it.

“Excuse me, Tsion.” Rayford stood and moved away as the cellular implant in his inner ear sounded and Chloe spoke.

Yeah, I'm calling it a skull phone. Though I'm remembering something spiritplumber told me. He somehow managed to get involved in a chat with Jerry Jenkins and ol' Jenkins told him that he considered Left Behind and his shitty trilogy with shitstain Paul Stepola* to be set in the same universe, with the Left Behind series actually being a sequel to The Shitty Trilogy, even though in doing so, he creates so many massive plot holes that...well, in all honesty, it actually feels wrong to call them plot holes. Plot holes imply that the rest of the story makes some kind of coherent sense and isn't just Jerry Jenkins's surrogate character tea-bagging anyone he doesn't like. Yeah, I know it can be more easily summed up as They Just Didn't Care, but I like my frothing rants, dammit! And I'm still bitter that someone told the Tea Party idiots what Tea-Bagging meant. Yeah, they were still bigoted a-holes, but why did you have to take away the unintentional hilarity of White RTCs proudly proclaiming that they're tea-bagging for America?! C'mon, let us have some humor to distract from, y'know, our country's slide into a dystopian hellscape!

Anyway, Chloe is all sad, so Ray-Ray goes to talk to her and we get the shocking reveal of this chapter: a French girl named Cendrillon Jospin has died. Since you only die at 100 because you didn't say The Prayer with the precise amount of sincerity demanded, that means Cendrillon :gasp: wasn't actually an RTC.

First of all, while I freely admit that the website I got this information from is a little dodgy, it did have a link to a more reputable source, which was written entirely in French, so it could be the entire text of Celebrian for all I know. Anyway, here's the top ten names for baby girls born in France in 2010.

1. Emma
2. Léa
3. Chloé
4. Manon
5. Inès
6. Lola
7. Jade
8. Camille
9. Sarah
10. Louise

Note how none of these names are Cendrillon. In fact, with the exception of Manon or Inès, none are really obviously ethnic. Well, okay, Lola is a little iffy on that front, though I thought Inès was more a Spanish name than a French one. But hey, Europe is a small continent with a lot of countries mushed together. There's the old joke: the difference between a Brit and an American, is that Americans think a hundred years is a long time and Brits think a hundred miles is a long distance.

In fact, another interesting observation is that Emma is listed as the number one name for baby girls in France. And guess what name is currently the It name for baby girls in the US? It's Emma, for those of you who don't know.

But then again, Ellanjay feel that all characters who aren't White, Christian, or American, will have obvious Ethnic McEthnic names. Remember the interlude with the French dude named Jacques Madeleine who I dubbed Foreign McForeign, because there's more honesty and dignity in being called Foreign McForeign? Though maybe it's part of Ellanjay's worldbuilding. Maybe even though they failed to foresee cell phones and Internet and by extension, Internet Porn, they foresee a future where any group that isn't White, Christian, or American, will choose the most obvious ethnic names as a means of asserting their identities, a sort of hopeful future where everyone's all "Say it loud and say it proud! I'm [Insert Identity] here and I'm proud!" Yeah, there's a reason I'm laughing and laughing bitterly at that.

Especially since when Ray-Ray goes to Chloe's house to comfort her, he, Irene, Chloe, Cam-Cam, and Kenny are also there, along with Abdullah and Yasmine Ababneh. Try to guess which ethnicities Abdullah and Yasmine are. I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Chloe is all shocked, because she's weak and female, talking about how Cendrillon had led others to the faith. Luckily, Cam-Cam is there to bestow wisdom with his mighty white penis.

“I’m not sure about that anymore, Chloe,” Cameron said. “She taught, yes, and she counseled. And it seemed she was an enthusiastic saint. But as I think back, I can’t say I ever knew of someone coming to Christ specifically through her leading. Can you?”

Okay, so maybe we've been given a few parameters on what makes someone an RTC. It's not just saying The Prayer with the precise amount of sincerity demanded, like I had so hurtfully stated; it's about how many numbers you rack up for TurboJesus. Which means if you're an introvert with crippling social anxiety like me or just a normal, everyday good person who doesn't like being an Asshole for Christ to random strangers on the street, start tricking out your handbasket because you're most certainly going to Hell. Even though has anyone outside of a Jack Chick tract, actually picked up a tract and decided to become a Christian right on the spot? Maybe we should take a harder look at Jack Chick and his claims.

Though I do feel sorry for the awkward, anxious, phobic kids growing up in this subculture. Because I was an awkward, anxious, phobic kid, but I was fortunate enough not to be raised in the toxic RTC subculture, so I can laugh about it as an adult. I'm thinking of the documentary, Jesus Camp. There's a scene in it where a girl goes up to a stranger at a bowling alley and tries to evangelize and you'd think it'd be cute or funny, but the whole scene ends up being damn unsettling for the same reason the rest of the documentary is so damn unsettling. You've got all these kids being forced to be soldiers and spokesmen for an ideology they barely understand. And for some of you who think I'm being excessively hyperbolic by using the word "soldiers," the camp's founder explicitly talks about Islamic suicide bombers and how she wishes she could get the kids willing to die for their faith.

Though I read a five-years-later article about the kids in the documentary. Nice to know that they seem to have matured into healthy, young adults who are probably a lot more fun to be around. Though all the parts of the documentary with Ted Haggard take on whole new subtexts, after it was found out that Ted enjoys the company of meth-addicted gigolos. Like I keep saying, when it comes to scandals on the Christian Right, it's always about sex.

Cam-Cam chest-beats about how the Jospins want him to speak at their daughter's funeral. Yeah, because it's all about you, Cam-Cam! No need to consider her parents who are dealing with the loss of their child. Think I'm being hyperbolic? First of all, why would you think that, and second of all, here's Cam-Cam's words so you can see for yourself.

“The Jospins want me to speak at her funeral, Rayford,” Cameron said. “They know the truth, and yet still that’s what they want. Whatever would I say? She seemed a wonderful girl, and had her death been the result of an accident back in previous years, I’d have been able to rhapsodize about her. She was a dear friend, a valued coworker.”

Just look at how heart-broken Cam-Cam really is about the loss of Cendrillon, so heart-broken he can't be bothered to give any specifics as to what she was like, except to say something like, "She was a female human who did things and had relationships with other humans. And she was probably a carbon-based lifeform that walked upright and couldn't survive without oxygen. I better mention that as well."

Though that bit in there about "had her death been the result of an accident," has now thrown me further into a confusion spiral as I try to make sense of Ellanjay's worldbuilding. Yeah, I know it can be all summed up with that MST3K link posted earlier, but I like to try and put forth some effort, see if I can make my excessive anal retentativeness a force for good, rather than evil.

Because I thought the MK operated like that one episode of Family Guy where Death is laid up, forcing Peter to have to do his job. Naturally since Peter doesn't want to kill people, the number of deaths drop precipitously, causing people to believe that the laws of life and death no longer apply and people start doing whatever reckless stuff they want, now that they can't die.

But now apparently there's is death, so I might have to retract all the advice I'd given to the COT in previous posts. Though wait, no I don't. COT, if you do something bad, just immediately pray for forgiveness afterwards. That way you get to have all the fun, but still be free and in the clear with Zod. Because what's the fun of having forgiveness if you never even get a chance to use it? It's like having a laptop and never actually going online to do Google searches for stuff that would mortify your parents; it's just pointless. For the record, given that I'm a writer, I've had to do some questionable Google searches and I'm really hoping, if the NSA surveillance is as widespread as my paranoid brain claims, that "I'm a writer doing research! I swear I'm not a terrorist or a pervert or both!" is still a valid defense.

Yeah, all these posts I've made...I've pretty much guaranteed that none of my readers will ever ask me to babysit. Life's good.

Cam-Cam continues to nail himself on that cross.

“They just want a simple eulogy,” Cameron said. “But a funeral is no place for me to tell the awful truth. Cendrillon is in hell, no longer with us because she never trusted Christ for salvation. Is that what I tell people? And would her parents forgive me? Perhaps they’re in denial, desperate to find some loophole, some reason why a believer might die at one hundred.”

“Ask them, Cam,” Rayford said. “Because if they don’t permit you to be honest, there’s no point in doing anything but declining their request. The only benefit I see coming from this is if they allow you to warn other young people of the consequences of putting off the transaction with Jesus. I could go with you to see them and—”

But you just said a bit ago that it is still possible for people to die as a result of accidents in the MK, Cam-Cam. So isn't it conceivable that maybe Cendrillon died at 100 because she loved getting sky-diving massages or something like that?

And oy vey...I suppose we're supposed to see Cam-Cam as admirable in that he doesn't want to loudly proclaim that Cendrillon's in Hell for all eternity, like the hateful nests of shitstains that make up the Westboro Baptist Church, but if given a choice between Cam-Cam's weaseliness or Fred Phelps...it feels so dirty to say this, but I'm going to have to go with Fred Phelps. Phelps is at least a lot more honest.

Oh and that link takes you to an expose done on Fred Phelps and let me tell you, if you haven't read every single page of it, you can't really claim to hate Fred Phelps. Because all the clips of him and his bunch on TV...you're seeing the rotting yellow toenail of a monster, not the monster in its entirety and the monster in its entirety...Yeah, I'm not going to go any further.

About the only good thing I'll say is that sometimes I wonder if Fred Phelps wasn't some kind of stealth supporter of Gay Rights. By being so hateful and going to such extremes, he forced the Christian Right to soften and tone down their own rhetoric in a futile attempt to avoid being tarred with the same brush. And for those who may have been on the fence on Gay issues, Phelps forced them to be like "I can either choose to be on the side of the debate that protests the funerals of soldiers or I can side with the Gays."

Yeah, I know the truth is that some people really are hateful ass scunge on the face of humanity, but you almost got to thank Fred Phelps. Because in going to such extremes, in showing what the Anti-Gay movement actually wants, again, it led to people being like, "Y'know maybe society won't fall if we treat GLBT people like people and give them the rights due to them as citizens." The fight still goes on and it probably always will, but we're moving forward, pushing back against a-holes, and now, we've got Gay Marriage across the land. Though I still can't find anyone willing to marry me to my box turtle, even though the Anti-Gays said that if we let dudes marry dudes, people can marry their box turtles, because a turtle has legal standing and can sign a marriage certificate.

Though of course, when some members of his congregation turned on him towards the end, Phelps is suddenly all "What's so funny bout peace, love, and understanding?" There's something satisfying about seeing a-holes get caught in their own traps.

All right, I'm done talking about Fred Phelps.

Though of course, you gotta love Ray-Ray's use of the word "transaction" when it comes to Jesus. It makes you wonder how they view all their day-to-day relationships. Because y'know Ellanjay are Nice Guys who firmly believe that if you put enough kindness coins into a woman, sex will pop out. That probably have that view towards all their other relationships. Maybe they don't want sex, but of course, they'd approach any relationship as a transaction: I say the appropriate words that cast the right spell on this person and this person will do what I want. It's a horrible way to go through life, having such a dim view of relationships. It's even more horrible for the people who have to live in the world with them.

Then Abdullah tells them something his daughter had said.

“Well, it is most troubling. Our daughter— you all know Bahira— when she heard the news she was most distraught, as we all were. But she perhaps a bit more. Not that they were all that close. Cendrillon had wanted to be her friend, but our daughter rebuffed her.”

“Because?”

“Because of what we are talking about now. In front of Cameron and Chloe and the others, Cendrillon was a model leader. Behind their backs she was critical, a scoffer, a doubter at best.”

So there you have it: Cendrillon kept her mouth shut around the adults, who would likely tell her she's a hellbeast destined for hell, but talked about her doubts and concerns with her friends. That's why she's going to burn in Hell for all eternity, kids! And that kind of message will, like I've said previously, not induce anxiety and phobia in someone raised in the RTC subculture. Only good things can come of filling a kid with anxieties about sin, making sure to tell them, "One mistake and you're damned forever!"

Okay, maybe I'm being a bit excessive, but I had a feeling if I asked Ellanjay to define "being critical, a scoffer, a doubter at best," I wouldn't be. Out of curiosity, if you use the same dialogue as a Strawman villain in a Jack Chick, but leave off the "Haw Haw!" at the end, are you still damned? Is the "Haw Haw!" the magical words that forever damn you? Well, in that case, all of us fans of The Simpsons are doomed. You should have thought about that before you did all those Nelson Muntz impersonations. Since my soul is forever damned, in addition to tricking out my handbasket, I might as well get to doing other evils like having sex as an expression of love, rather than strictly for reproductive purposes, imbibing some alcohol, and listening to Rock and/or Roll! I mean, if I'm damned no matter what I do, I might as well at least enjoy my long slide into Satan's fiery pit.

I know, I exaggerate for comedic effect, but it's something both me and Fred Clark, not Phelps, have talked about: How the RTC subculture divides things into sin and not-sin and from there, proceeds to treat all sinful things as being equal in severity. So in their view, a man and a woman deciding to have consensual intercourse, even though they :gasp: don't have rings on their left ring fingers, is, in their view, the same as a teenage boy preying on his underaged sisters. Looking at Playboy is the same as being a modern-day Jack the Ripper.

And I know you guys get tired of me harping on the same points over and over, but I have to! Because like I said, it's always sex that ends up getting an RTC in the end. When you're raised in a culture of hierarchy, where you're always interacting with someone either higher-up than you or lower-down, there's no way sex can be treated as a mutual expression of love between consenting, caring individuals.

Ray-Ray says that they should visit the Jospins and talk to them about arrangements. Saintly Irene talks about how Cendrillon will be the first of many deaths to come. Okay, I admit that I paraphrasing a little, but I still can't help but picture Irene ducking into a restroom to touch herself afterwards, given how sex and violence seemed to be so interwoven in the RTC subculture.

AND DAMMIT, WHY DOES EVERYTHING I TYPE IN THIS POST WIND UP BEING ABOUT CREEPY SEX STUFF?!

Y'know I try to, as a service to my readers, finish out a chapter in one go, but I previewed my post and this one's hella long. Given that I've gotten into some pretty dark subjects here, is it okay if I make Chapter Five, a two-part snark? Because after all this talk between Cam-Cam and the others, we cut to Raymie and I want to be at full snarking strength to take him on. So accept a two-part snark, while I replenish my strength. I'll try to bang out the other part next week, I swear.

*I tell everyone in the Slacktiverse that no matter how much you hate Ray-Ray and Cam-Cam, Paul Stepola surpasses them all in sheer awfulness. Paul Stepola is so awful that there really doesn't seem to be an appropriate profanity that accurately describes him, at least not in English. Asshole is too mild. I define an asshole as "Someone who keys your car because he/she can't stand the fact that you drive a nicer car than them," but that doesn't accurately illustrate Paul Stepola. If you had the nerve to drive a nicer car than Paul Stepola, he would drop a tactical nuke on it, then laugh with glee as you and everyone around you, is either vaporized or dies an agonizing death from radiation poisoning. Though that's still somewhat inaccurate: Paul Stepola wouldn't have the work ethic to actually drop a nuke on you; he'd just pray and let Zod do it all for him.

I also reject the profane phrases, Son of Bitch, and Motherfucker, because both of those, are more slurs against Paul Stepola's mother. Given that Mama Stepola raised him alone after her husband died and eventually died unsaved (and of course, Paul, being the good soon he is, gives no thought to his mommy's fate), I'm inclined to cut her some slack. If Jenkins writes any future books where it's revealed that Mama Stepola is every bit as awful as her son, I'll retract my statements. Until then, I'll assume that Papa Stepola (who was no prize pig himself, as the books illustrate) purchased a baby from down the hall after their child died and Mama Stepola never noticed the 666 tattooed on Paul's scalp.

Though dammit, Jenkins, I never thought I'd have to say this, but apparently Tim LaHaye was a moderating influence on you. Now that he's dead, I'm a little scared as to what you're going to do now.