27. October 2008 by admin.

I need a scanner.

Halloween would seem to be a great time to launch my Guys in Robes comic strip.  The quasi-pagan origins and popular mythology tying the holiday to Satanism would make it easy to compose the first few strips, and then the onslaught of of the mid-winter holidays would allow me to maintain momentum.  Alas, the economic downturn has affected even the web comic industry, forcing hard choices.  Given how much the kids squawk if they don’t get fed the scanner may have to wait for the after holiday discounts.

Maybe it’s the mists of memory, but Halloween seemed to be a bigger deal when I was a child, o lo those many decades ago.  I remember packs of becostumed munchkins roaming far and wide, filling pillowcases with tooth-rotting goodness and generally running wild.  Now we’re lucky to have a couple of dozen trick or treaters come to our suburban neighborhood.  With All Hallows on a Friday I’m hoping for a better turnout this year; it looks like the weather may cooperate.

The transformation of the Halloween party into a “Fall Party” or “Harvest Party” in schools is just amusing to me.  For 364 days a year the Conservative Christian movement howls about allowing religion to be taught in schools, and arguing that we should “teach the controversy” about creationism (intelligent design’s true face) vs. evolution. Yet when a school wants to permit a social activity only notionally connected to another belief system, suddenly ‘religion has no place in school’ and it is ‘harmful for the children.’  Remember this commotion in eight weeks when these same voices start complaining how Christmas break morphed into winter break.

Posted in Geek, Religion, Politics | No Comments »

6. May 2008 by admin.

Crap, I need to get on here more often.

I could offer lame excuses: I’ve been dedicating my time to updating the PBN website so it doesn’t look so slapdash, and I’m trying to keep ahead of the Being Green story, and this just fell right through the cracks.

In reality it’s because religion, politics and geek has gotten boringgg!

Even Gary Trudeau has taken a sabbatical from writing Doonsbury, politics have gotten so predictable.  McCain is keeping his head down while Obama and Clinton damage the Democrats chance to win the White House for personal ego.

I mean it was fun to watch a couple of primaries ago, but now it’s just predictable.  Even with Indiana and whatever Carolina is voting today, we know what’s going to happen.

I do kind of hope for a contested primary.  That could be fun.

D&D’s 4th edition is coming out in a couple of months, but even that’s boring, because from the previews it looks like they are continuing the trend of making characters even more munchkin with extra powers and abilities than they were before.  It’s essentially WoW the RPG.

The pope came to visit, and said nice things, and even met with some victims of the sex abuse scandal.  I don’t know that it actually will result in any changes, but it was a nice touch, and at least the papal pr guy gets my respect for have Pope Bennie do it, especially in such an understated way.

So, gentle readers, we while away our time until the summer, when things should pick up.

Posted in Geek, Religion, Politics | No Comments »

11. March 2008 by admin.

The Catholic Church released a list of 7 new sins.  The list includes some issues I would have expected, such as birth control and stem cell research, but also encompassed such things as pollution and contributing to economic disparity.  The full list is:

1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control

2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty

For the most part, I’m impressed.

While the Church is still on the wrong side of the birth control & stem cell debate, I’m glad it has gone from condeming the more societal kinds of acts as a matter of conscience to making them expressly sinful.  Doing so adds an emphasis that was lacking before.

As an aside, The Apostolic Penitentiary is actually the branch dedicated to forgiveness.  There is a definate dichotomy between its mission and its name.

Posted in Religion | No Comments »