Hello my Darlings!

	Auntie has had a frightfully busy week with all the
	canning and preserving to do.  It seems every time I sit
	down to watch a few minutes of TV - which is about all
	I can stand I'll tell you, there's this popethon going
	on.  The papanazis, that's what we call them.  What's
	this I hear about the new one supposedly speaking ten
	languages?  Pig latin and what else?  How come we never
	get to hear them speak all these languages?  Anyhow
	Auntie speaks fifteen, so she's not exactly impressed.
	She also knows the naughty words in thirty languages;
	this he might know.  It's all entirely too much fuss,
	and Auntie wonders what else is getting slipped through
	while papanazi wool is being pulled over our Eyes.

	Oh, that reminds me, I promised Norman a translation of
	that Hitite inscription he sent me.  I must get to work
	so this will have to be short.



	Harsh, way harsh are the paparazzi on the new papanazi.
	Heavens, he's barely opened his mouth, which may be a
	good thing, but it does make you wonder just what he is
	thinking - or plotting.  Poor, poor, poor papanazi.

	Yes, the devoted Grand Inquisitor; they say Torquemada,
	like Stalin was really a sweet fellow when he wasn't "down
	in the lab".  Then, though they do say that, they do say
	a lot of things; so do parrots.  They say so much that
	they can't possibly pay attention.

	Of course, that's "Tomas de" Torquemada, not little "Tommy"
	who lives down the street.  He's such a quiet boy, always
	polite, and always smiling - if a little strangely perhaps.
	For some reason the dogs and cats don't seem to like him,
	and run, barking and howling.  I wonder why that would be?
	Auntie has a few suspicions, but she's no gossip.

	I keep hearing that many people have wondered about
	the church taking leave of reality, about the end of the
	church's "liberal policies", about the church having completely
	lost touch with the world we live in.  What *are* they
	thinking?

	Darlings!  All that, and much more.  It's been that way from
	its very beginnings almost 2000 years ago, and Holy Mother
	Church (an appropriate appellation if ever there was one; you
	just have to read it correctly) has had a long time in which
	to practice the particular brands of psychoses that it shares
	all too willingly with the unwilling.  It is the longest lived
	international monarchy in the world, whose ascendancy gave us
	all the Dark Ages, and a culture of death and destruction
	of all that is human.  Holy Mother Church does not change:
	once a political body that craves destructive power over others,
	ever shall it be.  Auntie has always read a lot, as you know.

	HMC is founded in psychoses by fathers, who might have profited
	from massive doses of thorazine before in their frenzied
	delusion they decided god wanted them to sever their little
	weeniepeckers from their bodies.  The early inhabitants of
	HMC had a problem: they started to believe their own hype.
	But HMC grew up, and fairly quickly understood that control
	of the masses wealth make no sense at all if HMC succumbed
	to its own inhumnization programs.  Where would HMC be if
	it did not sexually abuse little children?  If papanazis
	did not run around fathering children all over the place as
	they copulated with anything in sight?  If one papanazi could
	not exhume the body of his predecessor, dress it in papal
	robes so that it could be tried in a court in the vatican
	by himself for some minor indiscretion.  I'll bet you think
	Auntie is making that up.  Seek, and ye shall find various
	true papanazi stories that would be enough to make the likes
	of Tiberius and Caligula blush with embarrassment.  Lord
	Acton was right about power, and piety is next to hypocricy.

	My dears, these are not well people, and they never have
	been.  One of their greatest exponents was one Thomas
	Aquinas, whose major claim to fame is his application of
	Aristotelian logic to utter fruitcakery, thus destroying
	all rational thought in western civilization for about
	500 years.  They make things up that are nonsensical
	contradictions, and make it the virtue of faith that you
	somehow believe them when every fiber of your rational
	being tells you the truth of the nonsense.  It is not
	faith.  But if they called it induced psychosis, would
	you give it a tumble?

	You do remember the Donation of Constntine?  Galileo?
	Bruno?  Burned him alive in public, and that was in 1600.

	The spell of social psychosis was broken at the discovery of
	the Islamic library at Toledo in 1105; yes, dears, knowledge
	and sanity did survive, but elsewhere where HMC could not
	soil it with the depravities that it had turned to virtues.

	Think not on HMC's taking leave of it sense, humanity and
	reality, for those are givens of its existence, nor think
	on the iniquities it perpetrates in profession of its love
	for your allegedly immortal soul.

	Think instead on your own sanity, and how it is that you
	can maintain the physically ridiculous, the absurd in the
	same mind that knows better.  The world is not magical, and
	is not capriciously reorganizable simply because you wish
	it or think it to be other than it is.  In short, why are
	all the papanazis around?  Auntie has a few ideas on that,
	but she's not going to talk about that now.

	Auntie has lived many years now, and she knows the world
	is a very complicated place, but that it does make sense.
	Denying that does not make sense; without sense, you have
	nonsense, and there is certainly no sense in that.  If you
	think that's complicated, try reading Aquinas; not on a
	full stomach, but with a triple dry martini.

	Do not let them terrorize you about death.  That is their
	great weapon you know.  It happens, just like shit, and
	sometimes it happens just like the shit that happens: some
	one makes it happen, and that happens all too often.
	"Shit happens" is what the people who do these things say,
	as if we are all stupid enough not to know what they do.

	Every thing dies, from little bitty viruses all the way up to
	super galaxies, and presumbly the universe itself.  If you
	were to ask Auntie why that is, Auntie would have to confess
	that she doesn't know - and that is OK.  Life would be both
	boring and far too complicated if Auntie knew everything.

	Knowing is not the fun part; discovering is.  Making believe
	you know something when you really haven't a clue by
	inventing silly stories is only good for children: it
	stretches their little minds, and they need that.  For adults
	to do it, and then believe their own stories leaves little
	room for discovery; it makes you a very boring and tedious
	person, more likely to become a mass murderer - or a
	politician.  Auntie thinks maybe this is not such a nice
	or helpful thing.

	In not too long a time, Auntie will die too - and that's OK;
	it's the way everything works.  Is there more, afterwards?
	Auntie thinks not, and chooses not to make up silly stories
	about it when she has no idea.  Maybe it will be a discovery,
	maybe not.

	Papanazi says, in his own words that we should pray for him,
	and of course we should, either out of courtesy, or
	because we have finer hearts than papanazis do.  Loving him
	might be asking a little much, but praying for him?  To what or
	whom you pray is your business.  Personally, Auntie faces Mt.
	Toba lately, for rather obvious reasons.  Pray for Papanazi.
	Pray for him that he goes to heaven.  Pray for him that
	he goes to heaven - immediately.  It will be relaxing,
	and probably make you laugh.  Trust Auntie; she's a wise
	old fart.

	If you have success with your praying (don't hold your
	breath), you will have another daunting challenge rather
	lickety-split.  Why is a papanazi like a cockroach?
	They both inherit the earth.  What is the difference
	between a papanazi and a cockroach?  Damned if Auntie
	knows.

	Now, my darlings go to the zoo, and watch the bonobos have sex;
	forget about the papanazis and their government ilk.  Throw them
	all a big raspberry, and go watch the bonobos - have a banana
	with them.  But if you do what they do with bananas, you will
	probably be arrested by a would be junior papanazi. [sigh]
	So wear an oversized raincoat.

	The bonobos have not forgotten life; all the papanzis and
	pseudopapanazis have.  You have a choice.
	Now that's free will if you will have it.

	This is not a dress rehearsal, dears.   Go, have a good time.


	Your loving Aunt Agatha

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