In the past few weeks, the Church of the Flying
Spaghetti Monster has become perhaps the world's fastest-growing
"religion" and maybe its most improbable. While no one can be sure of
the exact numbers of "Pastafarians", as acolytes are called, they may
number in the millions.
All of which has come as
something of a shock to Bobby Henderson, an unemployed physics graduate
from Oregon. According to Mr Henderson, the FSM - as His Noodliness is
sometimes known - "revealed himself to me in a dream". Like most
mysterious prophets, Mr Henderson communicates with the outside world
only occasionally, although this may be more to do with having only one
telephoneline to his home in the small town of Corvallis and a Google
e-mail account swamped by hundreds of messages every day.
But while the "theory" relies on the existence of a god, it does not
specify which god. It was only when the state of Kansas announced
earlier this year that its schools could teach ID in science classes
that the Flying Spaghetti Monster made Himself widely known.
In an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education in July, Mr
Henderson wrote: "I think we can all agree that it is important for
students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves
the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however,
that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design."
Barely three months later, Mr Henderson has discovered
that he really has created a monster. His website - www.venganza.org -
receives as many as two million hits a day. It has been featured on
several widely read blogs, one of which is offering a $1 million
(£545,000) prize for "proof" that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not
exist.
Some of the faithful have created images of
their Divine Saucy Leader, including one that reproduces Michelangelo's
Creation of Adam, but with the image of the creator replaced by the
Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Some "Pastafarians"
speak of the rapture that they felt when first touched by "His Noodly
Appendage" or offer prayers that end with the word "ramen" - as in the
Japanese noodle - rather than "amen". Others may have been drawn by a
vision of Heaven that includes a stripper factory and a beer volcano
and what its founder calls the church's "flimsy moral standards".
Of the thousands of e-mails Mr Henderson has received, he says that
about 95 per cent have been supportive, while the other five per cent
"have said I am going to hell".
Meanwhile, true believers can now order souvenirs from the Church of
the Flying Spaghetti Monster website, including T-shirts from $13.99
(£7.50), a coffee mug and a car bumper sticker. Mr Henderson says the
proceeds may be used to fund the campaign or, in the best tradition of
dubious cult leaders, to buy a yacht that he has long fancied. If the
sales really take off, it may also help him avoid having to take up his
only job offer so far since leaving Oregon State University -
programming slot machines in Las Vegas.
As for whether there will still be Pastafarians in 2,000 years from
now, there are already signs of trouble ahead. Some of the faithful
question whether their Noodly Saviour might be made of linguini rather
than spaghetti. Such people, Mr Henderson says, "give me a headache".
Newsweek has just published
a horrifying story entitled "How Bush Blew It."
This is must-read for
everyone, and this story must be shared widely. Bush should resign,
or we should have a California style Recall election now. He is the
worst president in modern history, just look at his record. He has lost
all of our allies, the surplus, (2) trade centers, (4) airliners, and a
whole American city. He should decide that his work here is done
and move on.
What we learn in the Newsweek story.
Bush's aides are SO afraid of telling him bad news that they
practically drew straws to see who would have to tell him, on TUESDAY,
that the hurricane was so bad he'd need to end his vacation and come back to the White House.
Even on Thursday Day 4 AFTER the storm, Bush didn't realize how bad the storm was:
The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night.
Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought
the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New
Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush
could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the
next morning on Air Force One. But did he even watch that DVD?
He was going to watch the weekly news
Friday Day 5 for the FIRST TIME to get a sense of how bad things were.
3. No one wanted to tell Bush the truth
When
Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President
Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been
overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was
not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the
resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the
president overriding all other authority.
Washington just wouldn't listen
A
man in a blue FEMA windbreaker arrived to brief them on his helicopter
flyover of the city. He seemed unfamiliar with the city's geography,
but he did have a sense of urgency. "Water as far as the eye can see,"
he said. It was worse than Hurricanes Andrew in 1992 and Camille in
1969. "I need to call Washington," he said.... The FEMA man found a
phone, but he had trouble reaching senior officials in Washington. When
he finally got someone on the line, the city officials kept hearing him
say, "You don't understand, you don't understand."
8pm on Monday, the day of the storm, the governor asked Bush for everything he's got.
Gov.
Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a motherly but steely figure known by the
nickname Queen Bee, knew that she needed help. But she wasn't quite
sure what. At about 8 p.m., she spoke to Bush. "Mr. President," she
said, "we need your help. We need everything you've got."
Instead of helping New Orleans Monday night, Day 1 Bush went to bed.
here
are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale
federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful
and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout
the region. But the president, who was in San Diego preparing to give a
speech the next day on the war in Iraq, went to bed.
9. Wednesday morning, Day 3 while Bush was STILL on vacation, he wouldn't take the governor's call for help
Early
Wednesday morning, Blanco tried to call Bush. She was transferred
around the White House for a while until she ended up on the phone with
Fran Townsend, the president's Homeland Security adviser, who tried to
reassure her but did not have many specifics.
Bush wanted to hear good news, so that's all they gave him until Friday Day 5.
Bad
news rarely flows up in bureaucracies. For most of those first few
days, Bush was hearing what a good job the Feds were doing. Bush likes
"metrics," numbers to measure performance, so the bureaucrats gave him
reassuring statistics. At a press availability on Wednesday, Bush duly
rattled them off: there were 400 trucks transporting 5.4 million meals
and 13.4 million liters of water along with 3.4 million pounds of ice.
Yet it was obvious to anyone watching TV that New Orleans had turned
into a Third World hellhole.
The denial and the frustration finally collided aboard Air Force One on Friday.
It took local officials ripping Bush a new one on Friday for him to finally wake up - a full 5 days after the disaster.
The
denial and the frustration finally collided aboard Air Force One on
Friday. As the president's plane sat on the tarmac at New Orleans
airport, a confrontation occurred that was described by one participant
as "as blunt as you can get without the Secret Service getting
involved." Governor Blanco was there, along with various congressmen
and senators and Mayor Nagin
Americans are now the kids stuck in the back seat of the station wagon,
while their drunken father figure preznit, and the trailer trash whore Republican congress he picked up along the way, take
them on a wild high speed ride through town. The kids realize they made
a mistake getting in the car in the first place, but now they are going
90 miles an hour and the doors are locked. They have watched in horror
as dad has run over a few people along the way, and are praying they will run out of gas or that
the cops will pull them over before dad runs the wagon off the cliff.
