More Pigs!

We here at Nib Manor are not particular fans of cartoons. Since the great days of the Warner Brothers cartoons in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Jay Ward productions of the 1960s, there hasn't been much to our taste. Japanese anime is boring, Scooby Do is and was just dumb. Like many contemporary live action films, most modern cartoons lack depth.

But this past week, while recovering from a 24 hour virus excited by the World Series, I happened to come across this program on the local PBS television station:Welcome to Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks Entara Ltd. I was impressed. I'm not usually much a fan of computerized animation, but this program is an exception. More importantly, though, is that the stories are good. And they're funny. And they have a bit of a moral without being being heavy-handed like the old flannelgraph presentations in Sunday School.

Check it out if you get a chance and while you can. The show is an English production and you can bet dollars to doughnuts that some imam in Nottingham or Derby is getting ready to file a protest claiming that an Irish pig is an insult to Muslim kiddies. But you know what that great humanitarian, the Ayatollah Khomeni said, "There is no place for humor in Islam."

Prince Charles=Twit. Bardot=Prophetess

Imagine that you wake up one day and find yourself to be the Prince of Wales. Your mother, the Queen of England is considered the head of the Anglican Church. One of these days, if you live long enough you will be the King of England and will be the head of the Church of England. One of your titles will be Defender of the Faith. The Church of England is, at least historically, a Christian church. Christianity was, and is, an exclusive religion. In other words, salvation is only found through the Grace of Christ and faith in Christ. Other religions, by this claim of exclusivity, no matter how "nice" or colorful of spiritual, are pretty much exercises in re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after the iceberg was rear-ended.

Prince Charles, current Prince of Wales and perhaps future king, takes a different tack. He has said in the past that he would like his future title of Defender of the Faith be changed to Defender of Faiths. His idea is that, since Great Britain is now a multi-religious society, he should not favor one over the other. Or to put it another way, he plans on being the head of the Church of Kumbaya. He is a "modern," "liberal" and "forward thinking" monarch. Or to be more truthful and to the point, he plans on being the first dhimmi king of England.

I'm sure that Charles is a nice fellow. He has some ideas about architecture that I agree with, bad taste in wives, is reputedly a decent polo player and a rather indifferent father. That's all his business. But now he has decided to come to the US to explain Islam to us poor benighted Yanks:Telegraph News Prince Charles to plead Islam's cause to Bush. There are about 1.6 million Mohammedans in Great Britain. There are several times that in the US. Large populations of Muslims have a longer history in the US (since about 1900 in Michigan there has been a large Islamic presence) than they do in Great Britain. But Charlie knows best. Perhaps he should visit the Netherlands and explain this all to Ayaan Hirsin Ali, the surviving relatives of Theo Van Gogh or the survivors of Pym Fortyun. Thanks for nuthin', Chuck. And thank God for Washington, Adams, Hamilton and Co.

Meanwhile, in France, there's been a bit of a bother with Muslims rioting in a suburb of Paris:Fjordman: Second night of rioting in Paris. Make sure to read the whole post. The police in Paris admit that they have been unable to deal with the street fighting. They'd better get used to it because it will be come more and more often. Perhaps the foreign Legion should be called out. Meanwhile, Brigette Bardot is considered the author of "hate speech" for warning our French friends years ago about what has happened.

And if you're wondering why there's a photo of BB on this post instead of Charles, the answer is simple. I'd rather look at BB than an inbred twit. But I'm just a dirty dog.

We Are Happy Family!

As you may remember, the title of this post comes from the Barney the Dinosaur television kid's show. The following links may show why dinosaurs are extinct.

In Uzbekistan it is apparently forbidden to convert from Islam to Christianity:Compass Direct

In Eritrea, a Muslim nation, some Christians (the government approved ones) are more equal than others. The interesting thing is that the priest managed to have weekly evening meetings with 250 worshippers (almost any Anglican or Episcopal priest would not imagine such numbers in his wildest dreams), but Third World Anglicanism is a much different thing than the Canterbury or American variety; it's Christian: Compass Direct 2

Have you ever wondered what the future of Europe looks like? Here's a hint:Compass Direct 3

Meanwhile, we see what a threat little girls are to Islam:BBC NEWS Asia-Pacific Three Indonesian girls beheaded.

And this is big news on the media:Top News Article Reuters.co.uk Some of the gooey types speculate that the bombings may be the work of Sikh separatists. Ramadan ends and the bombings pick up. What a co-incky-dink! It must be the Sikhs!

What I Will be Giving for Christmas

The following item has given me an solution for my holiday gift buying problem --Piggy banks 'offend UK Muslims' - Breaking News - World - Breaking News . You may want to consider buying your friends and family a nice piggy bank and encourage them to save money while making a statement.

And here's a question: If a Mohammedan is given a piggy bank with, let's say, five hundred dollars inside it, will he touch it to get the money out? Will he even touch the money since it has been "profaned" by the image of a pig? I think we all know the answer.

And You Thought You Had It Tough

Being a conservative Christian -- both theologically and politically -- I'm sometimes amused and bemused by some conservative Evangelicals and Roman Catholics claiming that Christians in America are being persecuted. It is a fact that groups such at the ACLU and Americans For the Separation of Church and State would like to erase all public displays of Christianity from the land, but they haven't gone as far as to burn Christians, churches or Bibles. And it is to be remembered that the Bible tells us that the world will always be hostile to those who follow Christ. We, in the US, actually have it relatively good.

In Egypt, on the other hand, things are different -- The Free Copts ??????? ???????: Muslim radicals threaten to kill Pope Shenouda.

Money Talks

Some of us here at Bloody Nib Manor have never been big fans of Big Business. We've never been big fans of Big Labor either, but that's another story. Big Business has shown, especially within the past thirty years, that it (we'll assume for a moment that Big Business is a single entity because many big businesses share the same philosophy) is willing to sell out the welfare of the nation in which it is based for money. Examples abound. Boeing outsourcing components for the 777 and the Dreamliner to China, Japan, India, France, Italy and Great Britain instead of using American talent and skills, Wal-Mart selling goods made in China by what amounts to slave labor, and the use of customer service centers in India for telephone enquiries by almost every computer and Internet company, are only a few examples. Add to this the hiring of illegal immigrants to do "work that Americans won't do," to quote George Bush.

Big Business looks after its own interests and its own security. In fact, Big Business seems to be able to look after and address problems regarding security and the turning of a dollar much more effectively than do national governments. Consider this story:Middle East Times . The companies in question are based in France, of all places. Could it be that the Fat Cats will be the vanguard against the encroaching dhimmitude?

A Potpourri

We here at Bloody Nib Manor like to laugh. Despite adhering to a theology more akin to the Puritans of Early America and Commonwealth Britain than the current evangelical bip-bop, hip-hop, we like to exercise our diaphrams with a good guffaw. Let's just say that we take the attitude of Samuel Johnson -- life is ridiculous and yet serious.

Last night your faithful correspondent saw Dolly Parton on the television. And seeing Ms. Parton reminded me that there is an American style of humor that goes beyond irony, snide comments and insults of others. Ms Parton, while a great country singer, is a very funny woman and if she ever loses her singing voice she can look forward to a career as a comedianne. Can you imagine Rita Rudner, Margerat Cho or Ellen DeGeneris saying something like, "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap"?

A promoter is trying to excite interest in sumo wrestling in the U.S.Among the featured sumo wrestlers are a group of Yanks. As a young man. before my marriage to the ever lovely Lady Nib, I thought sumo wrestling was basically a pair of fat fellows trying to bump one another out of a ring. Since then I've found out that there is a lot more to the sport. There is a lot of skill and training involved in the sport. I'll never be a sumo fan, but the promotion of the sport in America is a good thing. It shows a form of wrestling that is real, unlike the current fascination with fake wrestling such as the WWF. Meanwhile Greco-Roman wrestling (Plato's sport) is relegated to high school and junior college basements.

The local PBS station is running a new series of mysteries based on the P.D. James novels. The problem is that the actor who is supposed to play Adam Dahlglish just doesn't quite cut it. The actor, whose name I can't remember, would be much better suited to play the role of psychiatrist in some kitchen sink drama than he is suited to play a detective. I've known a couple of police detectives over the years and they have been hard men. And if, God forbid, if I were in a situation where an investigation were done over the death of one of my loved ones, I would much prefer that the investigation done by a hard man instead of a soppy Sam.

I like an English type blend of pipe tobacco. I don't smoke a pipe very often, but when I do I like what I like. When I do smoke a pipe in a public place I usually smoke something like Captain Black. Captain Black is a black Cavendish. It is quite mild. And, for some reason, people who don't smoke like the smell of Captain Black in a pipe. More than once, while smoking Captain Black I have been told something like, "What are you smoking? It smells good." The ever lovely Lady Nib claims that is smells like hot chocolate. The taste of the tobacco is rather inane, but it's acceptable to the public. And given the choice of being able to please the uneducated public with a tobacco that "smells good" or a tobacco that tastes good to me, I'll take the "smell good" tobacco for the simple reason good manners demands a regard for the feelings and senses of those other than one's self.

A Little Jihad News

Why is it that women in Europe seem to be more vocal about the encroachment of Islam into Europe than are the men? Consider the fact that both the demi-goddess Brigitte Bardot and the intellectual powerhouse Orianna Fallaci have been prosecuted for their statements regarding the true threat posed by the Islamization of Europe. Ayraan Hirsi Ali, the female Dutch parliamentarian,has been forced to live on a Dutch naval base because of her criticism of the Islamic influence in Holland. The female minister of the interior of the Netherlands has declared war on the burka in Holland, saying, in effect, "The tea party with Islam is over. Dutch values will be the default values in Holland. If you don't like it, shove off." The men, at least the public men, in Europe, seem content to let themselves slide into dhimmitude. It may have something to do with the fact that European men, for all their macho posturing, are rather wimpy -- in effect, akin to gigilos feeling that their manliness comes from delving the span instead of putting up their dukes and fighting for what they believe in. "The Yanks will take care of that, cherie." It may have something to do with soccer, the ultimate Eurotrash sport.

But be that as it may, another woman, from Russia this time, has leveled a blast at Islamofascism and its creeping into Russia: Union of Councils for Soviet Jews: Window on Eurasia: Russian Novelist Does 'N . I'm not a big fan of the Russian Orthodox Church for several reasons that need not be outlined here. But the Russian Orthodox Church and those remaining religious Jews in Russia are probably the bulwarks against the imposition of sharia law in parts of Russia.

Mark Steyn has an interesting article about the reluctance of the mainstream news media to acknowledging the fact that the terrorism in Chechnya is based on Islam: Media utters nonsense, won't call enemy out . One can only assume that NPR is afraid of getting a nasty phone call from Ibraham Hopper for calling a rat a rat.

Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the lovefest of Muslims and Christians goes on, with the Muslims being the more loving party: >>> AsiaNews.it /view.php?l=en&art=4359<<<. Actually, the amazing thing in this story is the use of the word "extremists." Most news organizations will not use the term "extremist" when referring to Mohammedans. It might hurt someone's feelings and we wouldn't want that.

And finally, in a non-jihad item, we see that two groups that are societal termites have managed to make bystanders suffer:- toledoblade.com - Nazis stink. Neo-Nazis stink even more. Criminal gangs stink. Criminal gangs "protesting" neo-Nazis stink even more. It brings to mind Faulkner's comment to his wife the night before he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature, "The human race stinks."

No Pigs This Week

There will be no Mohammedan/pig comments this week except to ask the question, "When a Mohammedan goes to a MacDonald's' and asks for a hamburger is he committing some sort of a sin?" And if he shops at a Piggly Wiggly does that mean that he might as well commit suicide and consign his soul to the Islamic version of hell?

Let's talk cinematic versions of novels. Back in 1979 a movie came out called The Warriors. The movie was directed by Walter Hill (who seems to have gone downhill since The Long Riders) and was based on a novel by Sol Yurick. I saw the film when it first came out and I enjoyed it. I've seen it several times since then and have always enjoyed it. It had a mythic quality. The novel was based on the history recounted by Xenophon entitled Anabasis. Xenophon was a participant of the march from Persia by the 10,000 and while he tends to punch his own importance in the matter more than is gentlemanly, we can pretty much rely on his memoirs of the March Out.

This week I bought a DVD of the film and a copy of the novel on which the film was based. I did njot buy the Director's Cut of the movie. I bought the version as originally released. I've found, over the years, that Director's Cuts are exercises in masturbation by the director. In other words, the director's cut is akin to saying that, "This was my original vision and 'the suits' made me change the movie." And I've often found that the director's cut just stinks. I'm not interested in Walter Hill's "original vision." I'm interested in the version I saw some 26 years ago. If I was interested in the original, or true version, I'd read Anabasis, which I have. and which I enjoyed.

I got hold of the novel The Warriors in the mail today. I've not read the book yet, but I read the introduction by Sol Yurick And to tell the truth, reading the introduction made me not want to read the novel. He bitched about the publication of the novel and the movie version of his book. Yurick seems to think of The Warriors as an "art" or "socially conscience" novel and that Hill just raped his work. On the other hand, such great novelists such as Hemingway, Faulkner or Chandler never pitched a bitch about the movie versions of their novels. They just took the money and assumed that anyone really interested in the story told in the movie version would take the time to read the book. If nothing else, it shows the confidence of the writers. Hemingway and company knew that their stuff was good despite the screen version. Yurick seems to think that his reputation rests on Walter Hill.

But to get back to the point. Yurick's introduction to The Warriors was one of the few introductions to novels that made me not want to read the novel. I've read introductions to Proust's novels and Joyce's novels, and each made me want to read the novel. I never finished the novels in question, but I learned something from the introductions. Yurick's introduction, on the other hand, taught me nothing except that Yurick considers himself a "serious" novelist who can sling around words about Camus, post-modernism, social realism and on and on. In other words, he seems to be a guy who doesn't want to tell a story as much as he wants to make a social statement. He's a one remembered novel wonder, which more than most of us will ever be. And he bitches about it because he's not going to be remembered for his novel Fertig.

If a person wants to make a socialist statement perhaps that person should study Jack London. London managed to insert Socialism in his novels without shoving it in the reader's face. Hemingway, Faulkner, John Gardener and John Updike were/are able to let their works stand alone without extensive apologia or self/social analysis. They told/tell a story and let the reader take it as they would. When a novelist has to interpret his work for the reader he's failed. Or he's a post-modernist, which is pretty much as being a failure.

But what the hell do I know? I'm just an uneducated bum.

Tammy's Blog

The wonderful Tammy Bruce has modified her website to include a blog. Ms Bruce is one of my favorite public personalities. I've listened to her on the radio since her days as the overnight talker on KFI when she used to read books over the air. Now she's on KABC on Saturday afternoons in L.A. and is one other stations nationwide.

Check out her website: www.tammybruce.com . I don't always agree with her, but she always has something interesting to say

More Pigs!

If your faithful correspondent keeps making posts about pigs the name of this blog will have to be changed to the Piggy Nib. But I really do believe that the Mohammedan battle against pigs, pig figures and pig drawings in Great Britain is more important that it appears. To use the old term that has fallen out of favor, "It is the thin edge of the wedge."

Consider the fact that in the US and in Great Britain Jews have lived peacefully for at least three and a half centuries. In America Jews have had a presence since the late 1600s, and in Great Britain since the time of Cromwell. In fact, it was the Puritan government in Britain that invited Jews to immigrate to Britain after Edward II (it may have been Edward I) banished Jews from Britain. Religious Jews are forbidden from eating pork. They have been so forbidden since the time of Moses. To my knowledge there has never been a movement among Jews, religious or otherwise, to ban the existence or portrayal of pig, hogs or boars among non-Jews. In fact the Warner Brothers, both Jewish, are partially responsible for the giving to the world Porky Pig.

Our Islamic "brothers" on the other hand, want to drive Porky underground in the same way that they want to drive women's hair underground. Apparently Islamic clerics and theologians feel that the average Islamic man is so driven by his lower instincts that the sight of a woman's hair/face/ankle drives him to rape, and the sight of a pig drives him to a ham sandwich. The result is that the rest of us are unable, in public, to express our appreciation of porcine qualities. How long will it be before you go to the local Blockbuster or contact Netflix and find that the DVD of "Babe", "Charlotte's Web", or "Animal Farm" is unavailable because some guy who beats his wife with religious consent covets your Virginia ham and feels guilty coveting the ham?

Cox and Forkum have a pretty good cartoon about the current pig ban in Great Britain:Cox & Forkum: Perils Before Swine . Be sure to read the attached Mark Steyn article.

Long live Piglet, Babe and Geordie!

A Few Thoughts on Tea

One of my most vivid childhood memories is waking up early on a Saturday or Sunday and walking into the kitchen seeing the Earl sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper waiting for a saucepan of water to come to a boil. "Want a cup of tea, Hitz?" he'd ask. "Yes, Dad," I'd answer. And then when the water came to a boil he'd plop Lipton teabags in mugs and pour in the hot water. After a couple of minutes of steeping the teabags would be pulled out and sugar cubes would be dropped into the mugs, the tea would be stirred and then gingerly tasted and approved and the heat would warm me up on the coldest day.

The Earl is a tea drinker. Hot, cold, lukewarm. And I'm a tea drinker. It wasn't until I was in the Navy that I got used to drinking coffee. And even then coffee was a poor substitute for coffee. It's not because my family is English. I was the first member of my family to touch English soil since the late 1600s. And there was no great tea drinking tradition in my family. There was always a coffee pot on the hob for the rest of the family. Tea was, and is, my preferred drink. It's more warming, more cooling, more refreshing and better tasting than coffee.

Orange pekoe, oolong, Darjeeling, Assam, Earl Grey and lapsong souchong. Those five varieties of teas cover a greater flavor spectrum that do all the world's coffees. From light and clear to heavy and smoky, tea offers a drink that can be consumed by the pot without ill effect and makes coffee taste like burnt gravy doped with speed. No perking, no dripping, no squeezing. Just infusing leaves for a few minutes results in a drink that is not only stimulating, but calming and refreshing.

And one can't ask for much more from a drink than that.

The Quest for Cool

At one time your faithful correspondent was a member of the United Methodist Church. The UMC had, at one time, the reputation of being a Bible based, though Arminian congregation. Then, sometime beginning in the early 60s, the rot set in. By rot I mean theological liberalism. After the theological liberals managed to work their ways out of the pulpits and into the District Superintendent and Bishopric positions theological liberalism became the default position of the church. The Bible was no longer the Word of God. It became a somehow more valid version of Ovid's Metamorphosis. Christ was no longer Virgin born, Adam was no longer the first man, the Sermon on the Mount became a prescription instead of an indictment. The list goes on and on. The UMC, in its leadership, became what 19th century Unitarians were, with a social reforming agenda. Man did everything and God was a shriveled up old guy sitting in a corner as helpless as a kitten cornered by a pitbull. It was man's duty to save God instead of God through Christ saving man.

Once I started reading the Bible seriously I decided I'd had it with such Deistic nonsense. To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor, if the Bible isn't true, then to hell with it. I decided that the Bible was true and I upped stakes, leaving a lot of friends behind and, after a false start or two, found a worshipping body that held that the Bible was inerrant, that Adam was the first man, that Jesus was born of a Virgin, that God hates sin, that man is a sinner and that Christ saves sinners.

For various reasons I was, am and will be a little leery of the Roman Catholic Church. One of the reasons is that the Catholic Church has extra-Biblical beliefs i.e., Mary as co-Mediatrix, purgatory, the gaining of grace through the sacraments, et al. And I figured that if the Roman Catholic Church takes the position that it can add to the Bible, that means that it can subtract from the Bible.

Well, slap me silly and call me Martin Luther, the English bishops have decided that certain parts of the Bible are just not true. See this link:Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible - World - Times Online. (Tip o' the lid to Tammy Bruce) What I want to know is why any person subscribing to the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church should trust this bunch of guys. Consider this: when they took their vows as priests they vowed that they believed the Bible. Now they don't. Have they had a revelation? Perhaps the Holy Ghost came down and whispered in their collective ears that the Scriptures that have informed, educated and inspired close to 2,000 years of Christians is just an allegory? Or do these fellows want to try to pull back in the fallen by lowering the standards? Or perhaps they sailed into their positions while flying false colors; cuckoos as it were, laying their strange eggs in the True nest while pushing the native eggs out. Why should any Catholic who listens to this bunch consider the Eucharist the real Body of Christ when the bishops say that parts to the Bible are not true? And does the man in the pew get to pick and choose in the same way that the bishops do.

But, hey, the bishops want to be cool and with it and respected by the average newspaper and television opinion spouter, so who can blame them for playing the part of Judas and/or Simon Magus? They have shown themselves to be simoniacs by the very fact that they have, over the years preached one thing and believed another while drawing a paycheck. When their world begins to crumble about their ears they shouldn't wonder why.

Pigs are Your Friends

While considering the pig controversy in Great Britain, and I apologize for dragging this Muslim/Pig controversey on longer than some may see fit, it occurred to me that there are several instances of the employment of pigs that Muslims may be rather hypocritical about.

The first is the use of the heart valves of pigs to replace the damaged or diseased heart valves of humans. Would the man who complained about the display of pig figurines and calendars in Britain refuse the replacement of his heart valve(s) with the heart valves of a pig if his heart was hinckey?

The second is insulin. Not keeping up with current pharmacological practices, the last I heard, insulin for diabetics was made from pig by-products. Would this man refuse insulin for himself or his child if they were diabetic?

Thirdly, American football. The football is called the "pigskin." I don't know if the footballs in current use are actually made of pigskin anymore, but the calling of a football a "pigskin" is the same relationship to a pig as is a ceramic figure of a pig to a real China White. Does this mean that a Muslim should not play or watch football?

How many Muslims are walking around in pigskin shoes (think Hush Puppies), have pigskin wallets or key fobs?

Recently one of the Saudi Arabian Muslim poohbahs has dictated that soccer is an UnIslamic game and that all Muslims should abandon soccer and take up something else. Does this mean that the Islamic countries will not be sending soccer teams to the next Olympics?

The whole point of this is that this Mohammedan war against pigs, pig figurines and pig portrayals is really nothing but a grab for power. It is, in a sense, the thin end of the wedge. The banning of pig representations today, the banning of pigs tomorrow. And your wife being forced to wear a chador the next day.

And if you're not a pig fan, remember this; Mohammendans consider dogs "unclean." Are you going to let some knucklehead who doesn't even have the sense to worship the true and living God as either a Jew or Christian tell you that you have to get rid of your mutt because some illiterate merchant in Arabia some 1300 years ago was chased from somebody's door by a dog?

Geek and Freak Sports

The other day while visiting Earl and Countess Nib I watched a DVD called How to Be a Player. The DVD was produced by the Duncan Yo-Yo company and is a compilation of yo-yo tricks. A few minutes after the DVD began the ever young Countess Nib and the ever lovely Lady Nib wandered off to have a chew fat while my father and I watched the DVD. It occurred to me while watching the DVD that yo-yoing, serious yo-yoing, is pretty much a sport (and I do mean sport) that appeals to males. In the whole of the DVD there was only one female. Everything was boys and young men. Geeky girls spend their time doing something else, though I don't know what -- modern dance perhaps. And, let's face it, yo-yoing on a serious level is a pretty geeky past time. There are baseball heroes, football heroes, basketball heroes, even bicycling heroes. But there really is no such thing as a yo-yo hero who is known outside the world of yo-yo aficionados. Being a yo-yo champ is like being a Frisbee Golf champion. In other words one will not get rich from endorsements for beer, cars, Viagra or even from the manufacturers of yo-yos or Frisbees. Being a serious yo-yoist is like being a ukulele player. No matter how good one is, the world at large sees one's skill as just screwing around when, in fact one has spent hours of disciplined practice to learn how to do a flawless Brain Twister or play Little Grass Shack.

Another sport that receives the same public "honor" as yo-yoing is hacky-sack, or as more properly called, footbag. Hacky-sack (I use the trademarked name because that's what my crowd has always called it) is seen as the purview of Grateful Dead fans killing time between sets, hippies waiting for their buzz to take effect, or college students trying to avoid studying. But a good sacker is a person who has spent a good deal of time perfecting his (and hacky-sackers are overwhelmingly male) skill for either the free-style, circle or net forms of the game. The sacker is often seen, while practicing in a park or village green, as a person on his way to heroin addiction while the English footballer, Mexican or Argentinean soccer players bouncing soccer balls off their knees and heads for hours on end are considered athletes because they are playing against others while the hacky-sack player is often challenging himself. And what fun is there, as far as society is concerned, in challenging one's self instead of knocking someone else down on his fundament?

I was while watching the yo-yo DVD that I realized, and I mean really realized, that I'm a geek. I rather fling a yo-yo than play baseball and would much rather kick a hacky-sack than swing a golf club. I know little about computers, my advanced math is weak, I can fix a car and build an airplane or a boat, I seem to have the geek (and maybe freak since I love the Grateful Dead) mindset about sports. And having realized my true condition at the age of fifty-two I have no choice but to go to Lenscrafters and buy a pair of black framed glasses, preferably with tape over the bridge, and embrace my geekdom. And I'll have to buy a new hacky-sack in pig skin just to offend a Mohammedan.

When Pigs Are Outlawed...

One has to wonder what is the matter with the British. Or at least the British legal system There seems to be some sort of suicidal mind set there that is baffling. Is it in some sort of atonement for having once been a great power and civilizing force for much of Third World? Or perhaps some sort of self-punishment for foisting Boy George on the world? Or maybe it's some sort of offering to the goddess Diana (Spenser) as an apology for the fact that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles are still alive while Princess Diana died in a car crash with her Muslim boyfriend.

The British, once one of the most chauvinistic and patriotic people on earth, seem bound and determined to become dhimmis to the Muslim minority. A case in point is the apparent banning of the lowly, yet noble pig from public sight:The Sun Online - News: Muslims win toy pigs ban

If one has ever read English light literature one knows, like no other country known to your faithful correspondent, the English have had a special place in their hearts and culture for pigs. P.G. Wodehouse used pigs and hogs many times in his stories, Orwell had pigs as heroes and villains in Animal Farm, Milne's Winnie The Pooh featured the optimistic Piglet. How many stories and novels feature meetings in pubs called The Pig and Whistle or The Boar's Head? English artists of the past expended quite a lot of oil paint and water color on paintings of magnificent pigs, hogs and boars (and not a few bores and boors, to boot). The pig was as much a symbol of England as John Bull. The pig was to the English what the rooster is to the Mexican.

Now we find that our porcine co-creatures offend the Mohammedans and in the interest of "peace" we are expected to kotow to their feelings while they insist on offending ours. It makes no sense. The Muslims were not forced to immigrate to England (or the U.S or Australia or Canada) and they are not being forced to stay. They can go home to cultures that are more in line with their beliefs any time they want. In fact, it would not be surprising that if a charitable fund were established to repatriate Muslims to their homelands there would be no lack of donations to send them home. They feel that pigs are unclean and so we have to make our affection for pigs (whether as symbols, pets or food) a secret. Who would think that Miss Piggy could be so controversial?

The blog Relapsed Catholic has an interesting idea:++ relapsed catholic ++ religion politics culture blog See the entry for October 1.

Here at Nib Manor we have a cast iron pig used as a gate stop. And said pig will leave the manse when it's pried out of my cold dead fingers.