Star light, star bright, first star I see, tonight.
I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.
As often as we make this atavistic prayer to the nightly gods, we forget that the sky is a hard thing to fathom. For example, the first thing most people focus on as being the first "star" is actually Venus. Now, while it is, indeed, the Morning Star, in astrological and astronomical terms it is a planet, wandering about the cosmos. However, being that Venus is also the third brightest object in the night-time sky, it is easy to confuse its luminosity for star power.
The caution here is to make sure that you are actually wishing on a star when making your plea, and not wasting it on some heavenly body who would care not one whit about you or your foolish hopes. We have to look carefully, and perhaps even wait for a true astral form to peek through the veil of night in order to aid our mundane desires.
So, adding to the complexity of for what we are wishing, we are challenged by how.
posted by gregorio at 9:49 PM
The POTUS and the newly appointed Secretary of State are having an affair, and you know it. Jon Stewart knows it. My mom knows it. Anyone who sees Condi giggle like a schoolgirl whenever her husband-I-mean-the-President is around knows it. If this were Bill, he would be strung up. Instead, is the American people who will be hung out to dry.
Oh, you 51% suckers.
posted by gregorio at 9:35 PM
The whole Left Behind series, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins is both hilarious and creepy, simoutaniously. Hilarious, because it makes for fun science fiction, a great, "what if" scenario. Really, think of it:
if the book of the Apocalypse of St. John was literally true, and
if the revelations were to happen in the present day, this
could be a way it happens.
It is creepy, however, in that many millions take it to be an accurate expression of how the Rapture and its aftermath will proceed. The same people who believe in the literality of a revealed book are the same ones who teach Creationism as a science. This anti-intellectual onslaught against rationality is the germination of fear mongers who would have us all quake and quiver at the sound of their fire and brimstone broadsides.
I will not.
But I will read good science fiction, and that is why I am going to finish the series to the end.
posted by gregorio at 8:48 PM
My new creed:
We believe in one drink, Guinness the almighty
Makers of cans and bottles
Of all that is drunk and un-drunk
We believe in one brewer, Arthur
The only son of Guinness
Eternally begotten of the hops
Hops from hops, barley from barley
True drink from true drink
Begotten not made
Of one distillery of the Father
Through it all things were made
For us men and our salvation
It comes down from St. James Gate
By the power of the market he became incarnate
And was made a rich man
For our sake we are crucified under Pontius Prices
Bad pints, suffer hangovers and A.A. meetings
On the next day we rise again in accordance
With our scruples and ascend into oblivion
We come again to judge the living and the dead
We believe in one alcoholic beverage
Brewed and bottled under one license
We acknowledge one Arthur, son of the almighty pint
Conceived in heaven and sold on earth
Blessed is the one drink through one father and many sons
Sold under one label and distributed throughout the world
We look for the resurrection of new drinks
And a cure for hangovers.
Amen
posted by gregorio at 6:24 PM
