On Order: A New, Improved “Burning Times!”

Posted on by Malcolm J. Brenner

The following is a slight revision of an email I sent to 34 individuals, some Pagan, a few Christian, and a handful of other religions just for luck. In short, just about everybody I know! I consider this dangerous announcement, from our seriously unhinged Commander-In-Chief (if Little Rocketman Musk hasn’t assumed that authority too) to be a warning anyone who is NOT a card-carrying Christian, to this effect:

Shut your damn pie hole about whatever weird rite it is you do, because talking about it is just as bad as doing it, and if Donald doesn’t send the IRS suits to question your religious tax exemption, maybe he’ll just send the Proud Boys to beat the snot out of you, smash whatever unholy heathen idols you think you’re worshipping, and burn your house of worship!

With that in mind, here it is:

Feb. 7, 2025

Shake the moths out of your asbestos undergarments, all you Witches, Pagans, occultists, Native Americans and followers of other obscure religions, because suddenly our notably-unreasonable sequel, TRUMP 2: MY REVENGE ON EVERYTHING!, is the only attraction at the local drive-in!

As proof I offer you this news report, filed today, Feb. 7, 2025, by Lauren Taylor of Straight Arrow News, bless her pointed little head!

https://centurylink.net/news/read/article/straight_arrow_news-trump_signs_executive_order_to_combat_antichristia-sanews

Gee, I wonder who The Donald and the Reptilian who holds his leash, Emperor Elon, will appoint to decide what is “anti-Christian?” Why, that fuming, writhing cauldron of feminist sorcery, Her Witchyness Pam Bondi, the U.S. Attorney General! I haven’t looked at her tack, err, TRACK record yet, but if Herr Drumpf’s other nominees are any indication, I bet she’s as highly polished as a frozen turd can get, to paraphrase the late, great Stanley Kubrick! Wonder Bread, all the way! 

What, I wonder, are Pamela’s qualifications to sit in judgment on those who might be considered Anti-Christian? What a challenge! Does this mean we don’t get to enjoy the seasonal Baphomet display of the Satanic Church every Yuletide? Will the Isis-worshipping roots of the Easter Bunny be exposed? Is the Book of Revelations really a “how-to manual” for the Apocalypse, and can Ms. Bondi’s crayon connect the dots without melting?

Who can Pam enlist to help her in this noble crusade? Well, she could use a Quija board to raise the spirit of Torquemada, leader of the Spanish Inquisition, because you’re allowed to do Satanic things, as long as it’s in the Lord’s Name! You get it? There’s absolute absolution at the top, baby! And I’m sure Torquemada, or “Torky!” as he was known to close friends, could advise her. 

So could the mad, unlamented pre-Revolutionary Russian monk Grigori Rasputin, who sinned mightily so he could be forgiven! (Notez-bien: Any similarity to the philosophy of Universalism, as espoused by people such as 19th-Century poet Walt Whitman, is co-incidental and unintentional!) I’m sure Cyril of Alexandria, who had Hypatia, the brilliant, Pagan woman mathematician of Alexandria, murdered horribly by a mob, then burned the great library of Alexandria, would be willing to add his two bits worth… you get my idea? The candidates will have to take a number! Their name is Legion!

As the Wiccan High Priestess Starhawk advises, “Never make your religious decisions out of fear.”

I, for one, will not go quietly, and I hope you feel the same way! Otherwise, go read an astrology column! Or a right-wing screed, or a complaint about passivity that is, itself, passive! I will continue to be what I am, a pro-dolphin evangelist (secular), an author, photographer and publisher, and do what I do. I don’t have time to be anti-Christian, 

BECAUSE I’M TOO FUCKING BUSY RIGHT NOW FIGHTING FASCISM! 

Thanks for being, and remaining, my friends and readers! — Malcolm J. Brenner, now and forever an iconoclast, and individualist, and a Foe of Bullies Everywhere!  

(Image of Indiana Jones, or somebody who looks like him, generated on the third attempt by WordPress’s built-in AI, which is an oxymoron. Here’s what I was aiming for:)

“I came here to study the Humanities and punch Nazis, and they just cut funding for the Humanities!” — Dr. Indiana Jones, Archeologist & Tomb-Robber

The Utter Ambivalence of Evil

Posted on by Malcolm J. Brenner

by Malcolm J. Brenner

I woke from a nap last Saturday, just in time to witness on live TV the attempted assassination of ex-President Trump. It was quite a surreal situation, I assure you; I’d laid my head on a pillow on the couch for just a moment, and it seemed like no time had passed. I sort of lap-dissolved from the national evening news into coverage of The Donald’s election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and became, as they say, another witness to the latest chapter in America’s dark, violent and bloody modern politics, the politics of hate, of polarization, the politics of the AR-15 and the bump stock.

Do you know what the wonderful thing about hate is? It is utterly indiscriminate! As an emotion, a state of self-perpetuating rage and battle-response stress, hate doesn’t care about any reasons who or what is hated, it’s much too primal for such refined cogitation. Any reasons it could come up with would only be thin masks, barely concealing the need to inflict hurt on others. Because hate only acknowledges its own existence, its own pain, its own wounds, and uses them to justify lashing out at the perceived person or object hated, or, as psychologists call it, the other.

Hence, we get news stories of rednecks attacking Sikhs, not because Sikhs are evil or have done the rednecks any harm, but since adult male Sikhs all wear turbans, grow full, luxurious beards and appear prosperous (the ones I’ve seen, anyhow), they fit the rednecks’ preconceived image of “your stereotypical A-rab oil sheik” and as such become the target for discrimination, harassment, assault and worse. Mind you, the rednecks wouldn’t know a real sheik if they tripped over him; many sheiks wear Western business suits when visiting our side of the world. Besides, I hear relations between the Muslims and Sikhs aren’t exactly what one would call amorous, and haven’t been much that way for the past, oh, I don’t know, 525 years?

Would-be Trump assassin Thomas Mattew Crooks, it now turns out, had images of both Trump and Biden on his cell phone, along with schedules of the Republican and Democratic Conventions. Crooks targeted both, but Trump’s convention came first, and was thus the earliest opportunity to do something totally random, totally chaotic, and thoroughly evil. It’s obvious Crooks didn’t care who he killed, finding one victim as good as another! He therefore had no impetus, no narrative, and no motive, except the brooding rage of one incessantly bullied, access to his father’s semiautomatic people-hunting rifle, enough cash to buy 50 rounds of ammo, and the immanent, irresistible presence in his world of an important, accessible target, like the smell of bacon attracting a hungry dog.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies are having a hard time assigning a motive to Crooks’ murderous actions, and no wonder! His only motive was the opportunity to kill someone famous, it didn’t matter who! This kind of randomness, where the flip of a coin may decide whether you live or die, doesn’t care which side you’re on, what uniform you’re wearing, what color your skin is or what language you speak. Like the Xenomorph in the Alien movie franchise, Crooks killed because he could. His attempt to murder Trump made about as much sense as nobody John Hinkley trying to kill President Ronald Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster: NONE WHATSOEVER!

Is this assassination attempt, such a meaningless gesture, a signal that the era of extremism in politics is over? If it no longer makes any difference to a would-be assassin what you as a victim believe, or do, or plan, why bother holding extremist viewpoints? Now, both sides of the Congressional aisle can feel equally threatened!

When it no longer matters who you kill, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, you have truly become a psychopath.

***

NO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (A.I.) WAS USED IN THE COMPOSITION OF THIS ESSAY. AS A WRITER, I REJECT A.I. IT’S MORE PRONE TO HALLUCINATIONS THAN I AM! I MUCH PREFER THE APP NATURAL STUPIDITY. YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT AT… OH HELL, JUST GO FIND IT YOURSELF!

All contents including photo are © 2024 Malcolm J. Brenner