Good Friday?

The fact that it's Friday (Chukar-waar, Jom'eh, yawm-al-jum'a, Istiqlal, Setting Orange) is good enough for me. I don't really need to add in any sort of religious aspect to the day to feel positive. But, apparently much of the world actually has the day off, which I have to say makes me feel a little pissy. Whether or not you understand why on earth they call today Good Friday (as if there's something good about the torture and subsequent death of another human being- whether or not you consider JC to be human, or semi-divine, or wholly divine), most of the rest of the world does not have to work today. FTS. Even in several countries that aren't Christian, today is a federal holiday. Here at the Cheese Factory, there is no such thing as normal. There is also no loyalty, no honesty, and definitely no sense of rewarding good work with fair pay. "So, you're telling me that some poor sap had to carry a wooden cross through the city while people were poking sticks at him and making fun of him, and then the army nailed him to the same cross and left him hanging there until gravity took hold of his organs forcing them to collapse upon each other until he slowly suffocated? Well, fair play to him. Shows a lot of stamina, that does. Glad it wasn't me."

In 1556 Archbiship Thomas Cramner was burnt at the stake for heresy in Oxford, England. Good for him. In 1788 New Orleans was mostly destroyed by a fire. As we know from the movies, this was probably purposely set by citizens trying to deal with a vampire infestation. We also know that vampires look like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. In 1844 the Baha'i calendar began, making today the Baha'i New Year and the first day of Splendor, not to be confused with Splenda, as our calendar has not yet been sold to sponsors. That same year, William Miller, had predicted that Christ would return. As far as we know, he was wrong. William Miller was the founder of a branch of Christianity that survives in groups such as the 7th Day Adventists, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and other annoying types who unexpectedly show up at your house and interrupt a perfectly good day. If you want to get rid of them, answer the door naked. Works every time. In 1857 an earthquake killed over 100,000 in Japan. In 1971 Henry Morgan Stanley began his search for David Livingstone. In 1913 the Great Dayton Flood killed over 360 in Dayton, OH. If there was a god Dayton never would have recovered- that place is a hole. In 1960 S. African police fired on an unarmed black crowd, killing 69. In 1963 Alcatraz closed. In 1980 the US announced that it was boycotting the Summer Olympics and then later that night JR got shot on "Dallas". "Who shot JR?" became a cultural obsession, the boycot not little to no effect on our daily life. And in 2005 a kid shot 7 fellow students (and his grandpa and grandpa's GF) at his high school in Red Lake, MN.

In the south African nation of Namibia today is Independence Day. The capital is Windhoek and the nation which relies primarily on uranium and diamond mining has about 2 million people. Ten percent of the population is infected which HIV and if that won't kill them, the malaria will.

It's Harmony Day in Australia; Truant's Day in Poland; Human Rights Day in South Africa; Mothers' Day in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. It is World Poetry Day. I will be accepting poems all day long which will eventually be read aloud and then thrown away, unless they're really good, in which case I'll publish them as my own several years down the road. And it is World Down Syndrome Day. I will not be accepting down syndrome inflicted children as I have no use for them.

Enjoy your weekend. Please do not eat too many chocolate eggs and/or bunnies. If you find yourself in church on Sunday with a belly ache, you have only yourself to blame. And as William Miller might have said, "The world is coming to an end, pleae log off."