Posthuman Blues

I found yet another Chick tract in the men's room at Borders. This one's not nearly as funny as most. It's less of a story and more of a thinly veiled threat that if you don't believe the Bible literally you're going straight to hell (where I assume dumb-looking goblins with cucumber-noses say things like "Gotcha, sucker!")

The company I work for has this truly hilarious Web filtering software. It's supposed to keep prurient cubicle-drones from looking at Victoria's Secret catalogues and living it up in chat rooms, but all it does is get in the way. For example, I tried accessing a site that lampoons Republicans and the "Religious Right" and was denied access because the content was "tasteless." (Curiously, I seem to have no problem at all viewing authentically offensive sites praising Bush and advocating prayer as a method of keeping "evil-doers" at bay; my company's own online newsletter is slavishly sympathetic to dirtball "God and guns" ideology.) And it goes without saying that many sites dealing with esoteric science are labeled "cult." (Kurt Jonach's Electric Warrior, largely about technology and art, falls in this category for no readily discernable reason.) I think it would be a great hack if someone could lock out access to business-related sites with a screen that says "Forbidden: Mind-Numbing Bullshit."

Still no response from the dedicated staff at Malin Space Science Systems.