High summer 04 blog. Vacation time.

Time for a summer vacation from blogging, to more or less coincide with some days off from my job, and visits by my mother and brother Jay and his family, which will be soon. I’ll start posting again around August 3rd or 4th.

But before I sign off, a question. Why? Why? Why? Why is an advertisement for that @#$%^& cult Sci---ology in the advertising box of this blog? What did I write about to deserve this? Is there some connection between PL (see July 8, 2004) and @#$%^& Sci---ology that I don’t know about? I’d prefer advertising from just about anyone else. Snake handlers? No worries. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Rosicuricans, Swedenborgians, Theosophists? Bring ’em on. I wouldn’t mind seeing ads for Caodaism, Eckankar, Falun Dasa, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the Church of the Brigade of Light, God Saves the Earth Flying Saucer Foundation or even – yes, even the Moonies. Not that any of them are getting a dime from me, anyway.

If I had more stamina, and more time to browse the Pangaea known as the Web, I probably could compile a much longer list of cults, sects and other tidal-pool religions, but I’m lax. Still, I’m reminded of one of the many impressive entries of The Devil’s Dictionary, an essential volume in anyone’s education (and from which extracts are easily available without having to type them in, since its copyright has expired).

INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. (See GIAOUR.) A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums.