Tetherd Cow Ahead

It warms the cockles of my heart* to know that Cow Readers are ever-vigilant for tidbits to whet my whistle†. JR sent me the above flyer which was popped through his door recently by some vagrant evidently disenfranchised from the Land of Normal Thinking.

Let’s deconstruct it, shall we?

•IS EVOLUTION PART OF SCIENCE OR IS IT A TAX SUPPORTED RELIGION?

Given the tone of the nonsense that follows, this is probably meant to be a rhetorical question. Sadly for the person who wrote it, evolution is, in fact, part of science. A tax-supported religion is something like Catholicism or Scientology or Mormonism or just about any other whacky belief system that calls itself a religion. Governments seem to be real happy about allowing those kinds of organizations to accumulate cash and avoid their social financial responsibilities. Calling yourself an Evolutionist, on the other hand, doesn’t attract any tax benefits. Trust me – if there was even the remotest chance of that, I’d have the certificate.

•HAS EVOLUTION EVER AIDED MAN IN TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT AND PROGRESSION?

Well, duh, yes. That’s why we’re not in still in caves hiding from Big Noise and Light That Come From Sky When Gods Make With Much Falling Water. You idiot.

•WHAT ARE THE FRUITS OF EVOLUTION?

Well, I really want to say ‘bananas’ here but that would just be flippant wouldn’t it? What do you mean by that you loon? It’s a question that defies any sense whatsoever. I couldn’t make up a stupider question if I spent a month trying.

•WHAT ROLE HAS IT PLAYED THROUGH RECENT CENTURIES AND WHAT ROLE DOES IT PLAY TODAY?

You really are a halfwit, aren’t you. Evolution plays the ‘role’ of having gotten us where we are. Maybe you think it would do better playing the role of Hamlet? Or Riff-Raff from Rocky Horror? And ‘recent centuries‘? Hello? Missing the point bigtime there fella.

ALL QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED! ALL SIDES ARE SHOWN AND EXPLAINED THOROUGHLY AND FUNDEMENTALLY SUPPORTING MUCH EVIDENCE.

AND ALL IN CAPITALS WITH SPELLING MISTAKES AND NONSENSICAL SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION!

KENT HOVIND, A SCIENCE TEACHER AND A BIOLOGIST WITH A DEGREE IN PHD AND OTHER AREAS OF QUALIFICATION

Hmmm. A degree in PHD. That either makes no sense at all (surprise!) or possibly stands for ‘Phony Historical Dissertations’ or maybe ‘Preposterous Hysterical Diatribes’, seeing as Kent Hovind, a well-known Creationist, knows as much about science as George Bush knows about, er, science. As for ‘other areas of qualification’, well sure, if you accept a Bachelor of Religious Education from a non-accredited college, or a ‘Master’s’ Degree in Christian Education gained via a correspondence course as qualifications. I guess they could be considered ‘areas’ of qualification. As in, “Yeah, they’re in the general area, but not actually qualifications.” Of course, anyone with actual qualifications that meant anything could just say what they were.

– IS A FEARED OPPONENT IN DEBATES, AND YOU WILL KNOW WHY

Well, that’s true, anyway. He’s a feared opponent in debates because he’s a pig-headed close-minded bible literalist of dubious (if any) intellect, with a track record of making ridiculous and unsupportable claims. Richard Dawkins, a well-known champion of evolution, refuses to debate people like Kent Hovind because, really, who could be bothered? It’s not so much a fear of losing the debate, as a fear of losing your sanity.

Oh I can’t go on. Suffice to say that if you did waste valuable time visiting Kent Hovind’s ‘Dr Dino’ site, you would not get an explanation of ’60+ Hours of Science’ so much as an irritating spew of biblical silliness. How Atlantis quite fits in there I’m not sure, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least that it’s included. They probably have stuff on UFOs and unicorns too.

As for the promise that ‘you won’t be dissappointed‘, well, aside from the fact that you might be dissappointed by the awful spelling, you certainly won’t be dissappointed if you’re looking for more of the kind of claptrap that the flyer spruiks. There’s LOTS of that.

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*What does that actually mean, ‘cockles’? Since when did you ever hear a doctor talking about your heart cockles? “I’m sorry Mr Smith, but it seems you have near-frozen heart cockles and we’ll have to operate”.

†And what the heck does that mean, too?

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Punchline courtesy of Violet Towne – xxx

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Today,while looking for something else entirely* I came across an image of a curiously titled painting, ‘In Praise of the Pickled Herring’, by the 17th century Dutch painter Joseph de Bray (someone of whom, until today, I was entirely unaware).

The website where I learned of Joseph, which is dedicated to ‘Food in the Arts’, leads me to believe that this painting is a fine example of ‘Fish Still-Lifes’, an artistic niche that had also previously (and regrettably, I must add) passed me by.

This is the full version of the painting (click to get a closer look), which features, as a centrepiece, a stone table drapped with herrings and onions, and inscribed with the poem that gives the painting its name. It was penned by preacher and poet Jacob Westerbaen, and contains the picturesque declaration that the consumption of pickled herring:

Will make you apt to piss
And you will not fail (with pardon) to shit
And ceaselessly fart…

I immediately set about attempting to track down a complete rendering of Westerbaen’s poem, because if anything at all in this world is certain, it is that Cow readers will be clamouring to learn all that is to be known about literature that involves soused fish, poetry and bodily functions. It appears, alas, that no-one has seen fit to bring the genius of Westerbaen’s herring musings to the digital world, which is a shame because I feel it is more than obvious that there is a monumental dearth of pickled fish verse in our lives today. To that end, faithful Acowlytes I know you will more than rise to the occasion, so I’m declaring a TCA competition:

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to write a paean to preserved fish. You may include references to the digestive process if you wish. Most importantly you should understand that you toil in the shadow of greatness – make Jacob Westerbaen proud!

There will be a real prize this time.

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*Another reason I love teh internets.

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Atlas draws my attention to a story at Times Online about a group called the Evangelical Alliance (representing ‘thousands of churches of most denominations worldwide’) who have handed down what they call The Ten Commandments of Blogging. It seems that church leaders have suddenly become aware of the actual landscape of the internet and are worried that God Bloggers might be falling prey to Satan’s wiles. This is entirely in keeping with my hypothesis that the thing that scares religions the most is that their followers might one day get access to actual facts and start questioning the fundamentalist status quo.

The Commandments that the EA has decreed* include such pithy paranoid edicts as: You shall not put your blog before your integrity (whatever the crap that means), You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind (OK, there goes 90% of the Blogosphere) and You shall not steal another person’s content (there goes the remaining 10%).

Also of note is the weighty You shall not covet your neighbour’s blog ranking. Be content with your own content. Wha? Does anyone really care about their ‘blog ranking’ so much that it needs a commandment?

I haven’t spent much time on blogs dedicated to Christian Evangelism (I mean, who could really be bothered?) but it seems to me that if the Christian corner of the blogosphere is in such dire need of guidance that the Powers That Be feel compelled to issue ‘commandments’, then it must truly be a seething Sodom & Gomorrah of iniquity and maybe I’m missing out on something.

I get the distinct feeling, though, that it’s all a ridiculous beat-up in the vein of the Vatican’s idiotic Ten Commandments of Motoring and with all that in mind, you can see that I have no choice but to post The Tetherd Cow Ahead Ten Commandments of Blogging:

1-10: Thou Shalt Not Create Blogging Commandments†. It’s pointless and stupid and will send you straight to Hell.

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*One has to wonder how they got the dispensation to do this. After all, the original Ten Commandments were personally handed to Moses by God.

†And yes, I am completely aware of the recursive nature of my actions.

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The Reverend’s Adventures in Advertising, Episode 2.

The advertising world has many peculiar little niches and enclaves, and one of these is the realm of the Car Commercial. Cars are to advertising agencies as cows are to Hindus – sacred beings that are talked about in hushed tones and showered with rose petals.

I’ve done the music and sound for a number of car ads and I don’t think any one product ever gets as minutely scrutinized and picked over as the automobile. And almost invariably, after the ad agency creative directors have finished conjuring up hyperbolic pitches full of unbelievable superlatives and interminable drivel, the majority of car advertisements end up being nothing more than pretty pictures of the car in question driving around winding country roads. All the client ever cares about is seeing pictures of the car. Car car car. They can’t get enough of their car. No matter how clever the copy, or how novel the conceptualization, all they want to see on that screen is pictures of the car. What’s more, they fool themselves into thinking that everybody else thinks their car is as fascinating as they do too, and in this they are, for the most part, completely wrong.

One particular car ad that came my way was no exception. As usual, it began with a phone call from the ad producer:

Producer: Hi. We’ve got this great spot that we’d love you to look at. It’s got your name written all over it!*

Me: Uh huh. What’s the skinny?

Producer: W-e-e-e-l-l-l, I can’t tell you too much about it over the phone. The concept behind this one is ultra top secret.

Me: Right. Well, I’d like to know something about it before I commit to it…

Producer: OK, I have some storyboards that I can send you, but it’s super confidential.

Me: No problem. Mum’s the word.

Producer: So if I fax them over now, can you make sure you stand next to the machine. Don’t let anybody see them.

Me: O-k-a-a-y.

Producer: Promise that you’ll stand next to the machine and take them off straight away.

Me: I promise.

Producer: Because this is really Top Secret. It’s all very hush-hush. We don’t want news of this idea getting out before we have it ready to go.

Me: Sure. I understand. Super Ultra Spy-Level Top Secret. I’ll read the boards and then eat them.

Producer: I’m sending them right now. Stand by. [Hangs up]

I wait expectantly by the fax machine. The pages of the storyboard slowly peel out. First frame: a car drives down a country road. Second frame: a car drives over a hill. Third frame: a car drives through a tunnel. Fourth frame: a car drives over another hill. Fifth frame: Closeup – a car taking a bend. And so on.

I think of a possible way I could leak this to the media: “You’re never going to believe this – their car can turn corners! And it’s got wheels. Yup, that’s right, FOUR of the danged things. Underneath. Yessiree. I swear on a stack of bibles – I’ve seen the badly-drawn pictures.”

I didn’t do the ad. I think they saw me as a security risk.

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*This line is usually followed by “We don’t have a lot of money for this one…” In this case it wasn’t.

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