I Am Not A Scientologist, But I'd Beat The Crap Out of Bud Cort*

So I guess I'm back. I was actually off starting last Tuesday, but I gave myself the rest of the week to recover. Hey, you score algebra tests for a month, see how you feel about it. (I also took the time to finish a short story and read up on some Russian history.) Also, I guess it is something of a special sin to have taken the time off during NaBloMoPoDoNaNaNaNaDoReMeFaSoLaTeDoMoFo-Mo-Month, whilst others are straining their very last nerves attempting to make sure they have an entry every single bleeding day. While, at the same time, others are trying to write a novel in a month. Meanwhile, the Writer's Guild has calleed a strike, with the result that there will be a slightly larger dearth of watchable television for awhile. The worst and most immediate effect of this actually is that the Daily Show has gone into re-runs, which on the one hand is a damned shame, but on the other hand, they go on hiatus often enough that the Daily show ceasing to be, well, daily, is far less of a shock to the system than it might be.

But, anyways, Tiff said "Couple weeks - here and gone dude.Come on back." Which is both true and fair enough. And I had meant to start again yesterday, but I really didn't have a subject in mind. (And I didn't see Tiff's chide until the end of the day, by which point I had done all the writing I would feel like doing for the day. And, by the way, the picture above is of an open-faced meatloaf sandwich, which is what I had for lunch last Friday.)

So this morning I stumbled upon a subject. Which is L. Ron Hubbard and the whole Scientology thing. Which pisses me off to no end. (This comes by way of reading that they have begun (or re-begun, or whatever) shooting on the film Valkerie in Germany, which had been postponed due to outrage over Tom Cruise being a loony-- er, Scientologist.) And, of course, as always, I started with Wikipedia, whose entry bears this definition:

"The Church of Scientology defines Scientology as "'the study of truth.' It comes from the Latin word 'scio' meaning 'knowing in the fullest sense of the word' and the Greek word 'logos' meaning 'study of.'""

Which I always look at and go "Huh. Hey, y'know what? That's EXACTLY what I believe in!" And then comes all the wacky alien-brain-theivery, anti-social-dynamic, alienation-as-aromatherapy crap that Hubbard and his ilk started dreaming up after claiming that they were on a search for the truth. (And the weirdest, the weirdest thing of all is that these folks claim that they don't take drugs. EVER.) And, AND, then, and follow me here: they claim that as a religion they have the right not to be @#$%ed with by anybody else, but claim they can @#$% with anyone else's beliefs because-- and this is the esssntial claim-- everyone else's beliefs are wrong. For Cripe's sake-- Cripe is the Messiah to which they pray for deliverence, mostly of pizza-- in the most holy name of Cripe, don't they know Jesus was an alien who brought us painful childbirth as a gift from Cthulu?!?! How ignorant can people be!?!?

Freakin' bastards. Stole my label. Makes me mad.

But I got better things to worry about.

Like my birthday, which is tomorrow, at such time as I will be 42 years old. Or so the chonological record shows. I don't feel 42. I certainly don't act 42. Oh, and hey, I almost forgot: back to Scientology. The Wikipedia entry also had this:

"Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism.If you cannot edit this article and you wish to make a change, you can discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or create an account."

I tried to get that to show the way it does on the Wikipedia page, what with the cute little lock icon and all, but as is so often the case, the programming used to create Wikipedia doesn't seem to be compatable with, well, anything. But the gist of it is there. Ah, Wikipedia. You can try to have it both ways, but if yer gonna be open source, that means yer gonna be open source to wackos, wackos who get no better jollies than when they insert insulting copy into what are reputedly reliable sources.

*Why Bud Cort? I dunno. Why not Bud Cort. He probably has bodyguards who would stomp me into the asphalt, then walk off cradling Bud Cort in their burly, tattoo'd arms.