2003-10-15-2:13 p.m.

Wednesday, 15 Octobre
Sorry I have been out for awhile again. I am a lazy son of a bitch. That's my only excuse. That and I have this maddening American keyboard on French Canadian and Canadian mode all of the time. Hmm...could be a sign I should do something...

I had my first Octobre Thanksgiving ev-ar. It was strange. I suppose the benefits outweigh the weirdness of cooking this dinner on a hot day. One can separate a big fat dinner from another big fat dinner by many, many more days than the American way, and also integrate Halloween in a much more prestigious place of honour as part of The Holidays, the way it should be. Actually, the way it was intended to be, if you're into western history.

Shall I elaborate?

I feel I must, and you knew I would.

The tradition of knocking on doors and demanding "trick or treat!" is actually a Christmas tradition, going back centuries. If one didn't bring out (or invite in) one's best ale and best fatty meat, one would certainly get tricked, or worse. That was the day that looting was expected, the day the poor got to take the place of the rich, the day everything was backwards, the day servants beat their masters, the day wives were the bosses, the day of The Lord of Misrule. If that doesn't remind one of Halloween, I son't know what does.










In Mexico, the church tamed the tradition the way it intended. Gangs of children went on Posadas, where they dressed as the holy family and knocked on doors asking for small cakes. England and America couldn't get it right. The puritans outlawed it. The English invented an at-home, family Christmas. A secular Christmas. People still, of course, have not forgotten their pagan ways. Who could resist carving small fruits and vegetables and pretending spirits live inside of them? That is where Halloween comes in.

2003-09-09-1:57 p.m.
Tuesday September 9

The Ten Commandments

Now that the Behemoth has been removed from that Alabama courthouse, and we're wishing Roy would step down (ha), I thought I'd add a few words to purge myself of the sheer anger I'd been feeling about it. I mean, deep, shaking, irrational anger. I don't know where it's coming from.

First thing I wish the huddled, weeping masses on the steps of the courthouse would know: if you guys were Israelites in the desert, and you were weeping over this stone thing, Yahweh would wipe you off the face of the earth in the most gruesome way possible. Have you not read Exodus? You terrible, terrible Christians!

What they must surely haven't read are the actual ten commandments. Or they are banking on us not having read them, as they are claiming that the monument is not religious in nature. Not religious? Well, if you think that the Ten Damnmandments are nothing more than some nice rules about being nice to your parents, not stealing and killing, think again. Is this what you want your government to be based on?

King James Version
Exodus 20:1-17

1. And God spake all these words, saying,
2. I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
13. Thou shalt not kill.
14. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15. Thou shalt not steal.
16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.