A Rain of Frogs

It is a little known fact that the archangel Lucifer was not only the brightest of all angels before the fall, but also Heaven’s foremost baker (check out the Apocrypha for validation). Still seething from the humiliation of being cast from heaven after the war (started after a controversial 2-1 vote cast against his butter tarts), the dark lord found himself in the kitchens of hell, laughing maniacally as he combined the green candied fruit, dense batters and unnamable nuts that would eventually become the (f)root of all evil. Eve wasn’t tempted with an apple. That was just lazy translation.

If there is a single universal constant, it’s the speed of light. If there are two, they are the speed of light, and the fruitcake. It has existed almost since the dawn of time, and when the last suns wink out, leaving the universe empty and cold, only the fruitcake will remain, having absorbed all the matter in the universe into itself.

The true nature of the fruitcake is not understood. Like all things quantum, it exists in all places at all times, but unlike most quantum phenomena, the fruitcake also exists in all emotional states. It is known that there is only one fruitcake, which has been tagged by Soviet scientists (in 1965) with a radioactive tracer, in order to track the movement of the fruitcake. Science can’t tell us much, but it has shown us the nature of the fruitcake’s motion. Somewhere in Kazakhstan, a radar screen deep in an underground bunker shows the path of the fruitcake.

We all know the fruitcake. We have all received the fruitcake. We’ve all locked it away in a box with the rest of the Christmas decorations for the remainder of the year, out of sight, out of mind. We’ve all unpacked it the next Christmas and given it to someone else, just another link in an endless chain

As Lucifer had intended, fruitcake truly is the gift we keep on giving.

It fascinates me, sometimes, that people write entries to their blogs when they have nothing to say. Like me, hypocritically writing this, right now.

I don’t have anything to say right now. That’s the sad truth. I am so busy just being content with the way life is right now that nothing really seems that pressing – nothing requires my scathing wit or a once-over of my cynical eye.

It’s probably a good thing. Perhaps more of us should strive to be in a place in our lives where we have nothing to write about.

If the irresistable chicken were to lay the immovable egg, and nobody was there to hear it, would it still get to the other side first?

Take warning.

I woke up this morning to the most spectacular sunrise I have EVER seen, in my entire life. It rivaled the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. Of course, the cynic in me, often the most alert part of my mind, dropped an ominous sentence into the top of my mind: Sailor take warning.

Thankfully I’m not on a sailboat, or that nagging little superstitious part of me would have dragged itself out of its stupor and started pushing all those buttons that make people freak out when black cats scoot across the sidewalk in front of them. Nonetheless, I wonder what sort of day its going to be.

Not entirely related, but it dawned on me last night, after watching the American Ambassador to Canada hand out a strong “warning” to the Prime Minister of Canada, that the long standing American policy of interfering with other country’s democratic election system to suit itself is no longer just something that happens to small, third-world countries.

It happens to big ones too. I suspect the current US administration is trying to influence our election and help the Conservative party of Canada get elected. You see, the current Canadian government, which has been in power for more than a decade, is strongly anti-american. It did not support the “war on terror” and while it went out of its way to support the American people after the attacks on New York and Washington, it most it did not support the any military action against any oil-bearing middle-eastern countries.

The reasons for that war aside, the US administration made it clear to Canada that, in its mind, the Great White North existed solely at the whim of America. An undeclared economic war was waged, first against the Canadian beef industry, then against the Canadian Softwood industry. Maybe I’m just speculating, or so far off that I should be ignored. But it certainly doesn’t seem that way to Canadians.

All that aside, The Conservative Party of Canada is far more friendly to US foreign policy than the current Liberal party. The Washington Times called the Conservatives “pro Iraq war” and stated emphatically that should the party become elected, Canada would once again become America’s most friendly ally.

Of course, what the Americans might not have banked on is how strongly the Canadian distaste for the Bush administration is. I suspect these statements by the American Ambassador have more or less torpedoed the Conservative hope of toppling the Liberal government, and has probably destroyed the political career of creepy party leader Harper. Or maybe they did bank on it. Or maybe I need to take my tinfoil hat off, step outside, and enjoy the sunshine.

Red sky in the morning, indeed.

Is it okay to go back and edit a classic work of art to ensure it complies with modern mores? I know a couple Popes did it, and it is generally agreed today that it was a bad move, irreparably damaging art that can not be replaced.

I was directed to a flickr page this morning. Specifically to http://www.flickr.com/photos/kokogiak/sets/1425737/. It is a side by side comparison of two editions of the same book, one from the 1960s and one from the 1990s.

To me, the changes in this book are appalling, on the same level as re-editing To Kill a Mockingbird to remove the racial slurs, or taking the profanity out of Catcher in the Rye. Classics are classics, and shouldn’t be tampered with.

I am aware that its just a kids book. It’s not even one I had as a child, though I fondly remember the librarian in my school reading Richard Scarry to me when I was in Kindergarten. I always thought his name was cool.

They could have called the book something else. It would have solved all the problems.