Animals and Other Creatures

A good rainstorm sluiced through the area yesterday, and when I looked out on the front porch, I saw what appeared to be a very small, very intense Benedictine monk praying at the makeshift altar at the edge of the boards. He stayed there for quite a while, and stared at Mrs. Orr when she came to the window as if to say, “Private time. Vespers. Don’t intrude. Do you mind?”

And then I went to the landfill today to drop off some trash. The place usually does a pretty good job of controlling feral cats, rats, and other critters, but the last two times I’ve been at the landfill, I was greeted by the soft meows of a little female cat, blotchy and starving. I keep a packet of dog treats in the console for contingencies, and I fed her a handful today. She purred loud enough to hear over the idling engine. I’m sure the management would frown on my feeding the little cat; I may even have broken a law. I do not care. I’ve broken many laws in my life, most of them stupid and irrational. What matters to me is that the little cat purred while she ate the treats. I know that cats sometimes purr when they are dying. And we are all dying. But we don’t all have to be unfeeling. I make no apologies for my tenderness towards the small beasts of this world. I make no apologies for detesting most of the people upon whom the world lavishes adulation.  Unchristian? Well…okay, then.

The good Christians who would be upset at my declaration that I detest a large number of living souls are the same ones who willingly, eagerly obeyed when their priests and pastors told them that they must obey without question St. Anthony of Fauci’s pinch-faced papal bullshit, the bullshit that insisted the churches be closed and the sacraments withheld from the very ones who had been told that the sacraments were necessary for salvation. They follow the rules. The rules say that it’s wrong, across the board, to hate another person. The rules say that we are to obey our leaders, so to disobey them is wrong.

Those same upstanding folk who have never hated anyone in their Just As I Am lives or disobeyed lawful authority are now expressing their dismay and horror at all the razorlike jokes about the alleged President of the US and his painfully obvious dementia — dementia, I might add, that follows more than four decades of the most craven political and ineffectual political whoring I can recall. “Oh, that’s sinful, to mock the President,” they scold in their somber tones. “We are to pray for him, not mock him.”

The problem with good, upstanding Christians is that they have such short memories. Oh, they can memorize, never doubt that. But they don’t remember. At least not the things they should remember.

Some things should not be forgotten.

Christians are upset that Tapioca Joe, de Prez, is roundly and cruelly and accurately mocked for his lifetime of reptilian corruption and now his mental capacity of a sandbag. But were they upset back in the old days, say back in 1992, when Saturday Night Live took sadistic delight in mocking Admiral Jim Stockdale, the running mate of Ross Perot? I was a good church-going Christian back then, and I don’t recall any Christian outcry over how this genuinely heroic man was treated. In fact, I remember most of my church-mates laughing heartily at Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey as they played Stockdale and Perot for cruel, cruel laughs.

Most people know nothing about Stockdale, even those who remember his veep candidacy or his name. Take a few minutes and read this. And then look at the tame, creampuff jokes being made at Brandon’s expense and ask yourself all those good Christian questions. And do try not to despise anyone. Because that would be a sin.

 ~ S.K. Orr

One of these things is not like the other:

ps….that wasn’t a casual suggestion. I want you to READ Jim Stockdale’s essay to which I linked above. If you can read my sloppy ramblings, you have time to read Admiral Stockdale’s thoughtful observations. And you have time to think about his life and what it implies.

Hat tip to Sev for reminding me of what Stockdale endured.