[Edited 11-21-09, 4:11PM: I realized hours after posting this how inappropriate it was of me to hotwire those images. But! I will provide links.]

I have an easy, convenient, and enjoyable job that unfortunately has a single, glaring flaw - it's like a watering hole for the religious right.

Underneath the coffee bar where I work is a periodicals basket for the The Wall Street Journal, the local paper, and community bulletins. Three days ago during my night shift, I made for the paper because we were slow. While looking for the police blotter, I happened upon something else that captured my attention entirely - a tiny pamphlet entitled, "The Long Trip." Underneath that was another leaflet in the series called, "Titanic," and planted squarely in the center of the bathroom counter was "Charlie's Ants." I collected them all and took them to the back.

These things are what happen when you mix horrifying with hilarious.

"The Long Trip" chronicles the life of a generic John character who chooses "the rat race of life" over the "good news." He, along with other non-believers, inevitably find themselves plummeting into the depths of hell and into the hands of Satan (who seemed to have been wearing a Colonel Sanders mask). The presence of racism and bigotry is downright blatant. But, to illustrate my point...

Horrifying

Hilarious

Disgusted and tickled, I googled the publishers of this horse-puckey. On their website, all of the "tracts" in the series littered across my place of work are made available for free viewing in "nearly 100 languages." Some tracts are deeply upsetting, such as "Sin City," which does all but directly justify hate crimes towards homosexuals. Others are more amusing, like "There Go the Dinosaurs." As clearly as I suppose Chick Publications is able, they explain away evolution and, get this - attribute the extinction of dinosaurs to the environmental effects of the great flood! Apparently, after Noah loaded the dinosaurs off of his ark, they couldn't survive in the thin air (caused by the destruction of plant life).

It's also interesting to note that in the motivational call to witness, "Who, Me?," Chick directly compares its pamphlets to communist propaganda. The whole point of printing the tracts is to make imposing radical Christian beliefs onto others a less uncomfortable experience for the respective "witness." Gross.

It is simply beyond me that this stuff is being circulated. I just don't get it.

That's west Texas for you.





P.S. From "The Long Trip," a memorable quote: "Will you receive God's love gift?"
Haw Haw Haw