My apologies to the Skeptical Inquirer, which I accused of being the Parade Magazine of the skeptic movement for neglecting to address the idiocies of organized religion. I believed that Stephen Gould’s loony concept of “two magisteria,” which continues to exert a baleful influence on the skeptical movement, might be responsible for this timorousness However, the most recent issue, Sept/Oct 2007, has a brilliant satire, penned by Stephen Asna, “How to Survive the Apocalypse.” As satirists from Jonathan Swift to Mark Twain have discovered, irrationality can often survive, indeed, batten on, rational discourse, but it remains vulnerable to well-placed ridicule. One paragraph goes, "If you're on your toes, you'll know when [the red dragon of the Apocalypse] is on its way. A series of loud trumpet blasts will signal its coming. You need to be on the move by the time the seventh trumpet blasts because that's dragon time. Truthfully, you should be looking for an abandoned car or bicycle or something by the time you hear trumpet number five, for that's when the human headed locusts will hit the scene (Rev 9:7). And you might be thinking, 'Hey, I can handle human headed locusts,' but you'd be wrong. These grasshoppers have 'tails like unto scorpions' (Rev 9:10) It will be important to loot pharmacies and carry analgesics." He advises, "It's time to think pragmatically, and you'll need some good survival strategies for negotiating the big hurt.” I went into gales of laughter reading the article. On a more alarming note, , the fundies have decided in a big way to funnel their energies into politics. Patrick Henry University, a small recently organized Christian college just south of DC, is the main institution responsible for training them for their mission. Essentially, they see the US as a quagmire of vice and corruption and their goal is to rescue the nation and consecrate it to Christ (rescue it from its constitution, apparently.) Already, its graduates have infiltrated many levels of the US government, primarily because of sympathetic conservative members of the government. I recommend the book, “God’s Harvard: a Christian College on a Mission to Save America,” by Hanna Rosin. The Christkids have youth, energy, dedication, and their ignorance of the basics of the history of their religion remains profound. The book is an extension of articles the author wrote for the Washington Post and The New Yorker. Jet Foncannon -------------- I am an old man and have known many troubles, but most of them never happened. ---- Mark Twain