A New Year Hope..

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For me it's a hope.

If only the World's religions would make it a resolution.
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The Jesus Pizza Project

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No, not Jesus, Che Guevara. But you get the idea.

The face of Jesus appears all over the place, from chapatis to condensation, bringing succour to the faithful and faith to suckers.

But what if he materialised in someone's pizza and they never noticed? The Jesuspizza project exists to avert that disaster. It gives you software that downloads images from pizzacams around the world, and compares them digitally to the face of Christ.

Join the search for a cheese feast with anchovies and our Lord now.

- The Ship of Fools.

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Bah Humbug!

Something that is slowly inveigling itself into Australia, probably through TV but also the internet, is the use of the phrase "Happy Holidays".

In the United States, "Happy Holidays" (along with the similarly generalized "Season's Greetings") has become the common greeting in the public sphere within the past decade, such as department stores, public schools and greeting cards.

Some advocates of the phrase view it as an inclusive and inoffensive phrase that does not give precedence to one religion or occasion. Critics view it as an insipid alternative to "Merry Christmas", and view it as diminishing the role of Christianity in Christmas, or part of an alleged secular "War on Christmas".

The phrase 'Happy Holidays" also considers the fact that New Years and Boxing Day occurs shortly after Christmas. Hence, "Happy Holidays" is effectively a short form for the greeting "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year".

- Wikipedia

It does, to me, seem to be a wimping out on saying "Merry Christmas". Now I am an atheist but I am more than comfortable in wishing people well in whatever denomination they trade in. It is still Christmas and I do wish them well. Why shouldn't I say "Merry Christmas"? "Happy Holidays" just lacks something.

You must also remember that "holiday" is a contraction of "holy day", so are the secular users of "Happy Holiday" on thin ice? It also makes a nonsense of the last Wikipedia paragraph where it supposedly included New Year, clearly not a 'holy' occasion.

And should I not use "Happy New Year" in case I upset the Jews and Chines who have different New Years?

And should I not use the word "Thursday' in case I upset the people out there who are not followers of Thor and the other Norse Gods?

Far to much political correctness for my liking.

Interestingly enough I don't have the same bad reaction to "Season's Greetings".
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The Christmas Story in 30 seconds

A team of advertising executives in the United Kingdom have come up with a novel approach to educating the country about the real meaning of Christmas.

With the UK leading the developed world into a recession and stores looking unusually vacant, the Churches Advertising Network decided it was time to put the focus on something else.

The group ran an international competition to see who could accurately tell the story of the birth of Christ - the catch was it had to be done in less than 30 seconds.

They were alarmed at the results of a recent UK survey which found that only one in eight adults or one in 14 18 to 24-year-olds could tell it with any level of accuracy.

This is what they came up with:

Dropping the bundle.

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They did what?

Crop circles are where a field of wheat, barley, corn, whatever, is knocked down to create a pattern, often only visible from the air.

They vary - some, such as the top one, are definitely man-made. But ones like the bottom one get the alien conspiratorial types all excited about landing pads for space craft and such like theories. They say that the circles are the alien's attempts to communicate with us.

So, let me get this straight, a civilization that can travel the vast expanses of space has no better means of communication than scruffy circles in an out of the way wheat field?

Perhaps they are under the belief that sparrows are the primary intelligent life-force on this planet.

Perhaps they are right.
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The tax man believes in me...

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Reality Bites

But I'm not sad!

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(Click to enlarge)

It's the leaflet that is sad. (In a sort of amusing kind of way!)
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Nativity Ducks.

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Deck the halls with advertising
Tis the time for merchandising
Falalalala...

- Stan Freberg.
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Ménage à trois.

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Apologies to anyone who has arrived, hoping for serious threesome activity.

It just seemed like a good title to the post.

This post follows on from the previous one that looked at the superstitions around the number 13.

Have you ever had friend tell you 'bad things happen in threes'? Me too. But why?

More to the point, if bad things happen in threes...

...who don't groups of bad things happen in threes?

You know, three groups of three. Or three groups of three groups of three.

Perhaps it's too depressing to think that bad things happen in twenty sevens.
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Triskaidekaphobia.

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Giving religion a break for the moment, a foray into superstitions. Maybe it is still the same thing.

Never mind.

In the news today:

"The housing market has slowed but if you're trying to sell a home which is Number 13, then superstition makes it even harder to shift, says Chris Bowlby.

The problem is apparently so great that some local authorities in the UK are banning the use of number 13 in all new property developments - while others are determined to hold out against this official blessing for ancient superstition."

- BBC

Oh, give me strength! Why do people believe this stuff?

And yet I have seen multi-story buildings without a 13th floor.

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Other 13 trivia:

It is a lucky number in Italy.

The number of original colonies the United States was founded from. The original flag had thirteen stars, one for each state. New stars have since been added whenever a new state joins the union, but the idea of adding stripes for new states was soon dropped, so the American flag to this day has thirteen horizontal stripes: six white ones and seven red ones.

In the Great Seal of the United States there are 13 olive leaves (with 13 olives), 13 arrows, and 13 stars. These form a triangle over the eagle with the number 13 on each point. On the reverse the pyramid has 13 levels.

The number of loaves in a "baker's dozen"

There are traditionally thirteen steps leading up to a gallows. It is, however, an urban myth that there are thirteen turns in a hangman's noose (there are most commonly eight turns.)

Triskaidekaphobia - the fear of the number 13.
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Madonna and the General

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SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Pop star Madonna's antics are lustful, a stain on humanity and offensive to God, a retired Roman Catholic cardinal said Wednesday during a mass for the late Chilean military dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

"The atmosphere in our city is pretty agitated because this woman is visiting and with incredibly shameful behavior provokes a wild and lustful enthusiasm," Cardinal Jorge Medina told the congregation.

"Thoughts of lust, impure thoughts, impure acts, are an offense to God and a dirty stain on our heart," Medina said in his homily marking the second anniversary of Pinochet's death.

- Reuters.

With active support from the CIA, Pinochet implemented a series of military operations in which (according to the 1993 Rettig Report) over 3,200 people were killed, while (according to the 2004 Valech Report) at least 80,000 were incarcerated without trials and 30,000 subjected to torture. Another 200,000 people went into exile, particularly in Argentina and Peru, and applied as political refugees.

- Wikipedia.

There is a lot to be said in favour of "wild and lustful enthusiasm": to the best of my knowledge, Madonna is not responsible for a single death or jailing.

The Catholic Church does not get it.

This is probably a good thing because it is ridicule and disbelief that will accelerate its disappearance from this world.

And none too soon.

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Does God drive a SUV?

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"S.U.V.’s sat on the altar of Greater Grace Temple, a Pentecostal church in Detroit,
as the congregation prayed to save the auto industry." - New York Times

What's God supposed to make of this?

How come nobody ever asks God to intervene in the good times? " Look God, I know things are really good but would you like to check your calculations, just in case we should be in a pestilence phase and you missed it?"

Bah!
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Thong of Praise

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Saves? Shaves? Whatever, Jesus does it!

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"Jesus Saves" money box

"Jesus shaves" coffee mug.
JC's beard magically disappears when hot liquid is put in the mug.

Looking for a special something for that special person? Look no further!
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Ghosts

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Does granny know you wear pink, lace panties? She does now.

I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in anything paranormal.

But for those of you who do, I have a question:

How do you feel about your dear departed watching you on the toilet; seeing secrets that you would never have told them when they were alive; watching you have sex; for that matter, doing anything private? Are you happy and comfortable with that?

And what if they spill the beans on the neighbour's Ouija board? Can you trust them?

Just wondering.
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