Saturday, February 05, 2005
The Dark Side Of Time
"Armaggedon is coming!" I heard that all my life. The "cult" fundamentalist religion I was forcibly attending used the impending end of the world to keep the faithful in terror both for their physical souls and immortal ones. They taught that we had horrible times ahead, where we'd be persecuted for publicly obeying God's word, some would be killed, but in the end, God would get us smuggled aboard a ship, and we'd end up in Petra, which is a rocky piece of nowhere in the middle east. Yeah, that's a GREAT place to stash a bunch of Americans. Granted, God can take care of such things. I'm still reading my bible trying to understand prophecy. I still don't.
When I first became aware of this teaching, I was terrified. My first thought: "God's coming back and I haven't LIVED yet! I want my time!"
End-time paranoia is an easy thing to induce. Some upheaval in the middle east, a few natural disasters, and those are SURE signs that it's impending! Jesus will be here probably day after tomorrow, and he's gonna be PISSED!
The "Armstrongites", yeah, that's right, I was a slave of the Herbert W. Armstrong propaganda machine, used incidents like these to stir up the "imminent return" frenzy, and exhorted the faithful that, in the impending world economic collapse, their money would be useless anyway, so give it ALL to God NOW. We were discouraged from pissing our money away on doctors and medicine; instead, if you weren't bleeding or enduring broken bones, you were to request a "Prayer Cloth", a cloth prayed over by some of the Holy Elite, and therefore embued with healing powers from God. Some people allowed this stupidity to continue treatable conditions until they weren't treatable. Some died. I think you DO pray, and even doctors are acknowledging it makes a difference they can't explain. It's a good idea to question your medications. But don't ignore medical treatment and diagnosis. You could be praying for God to heal your mysterious liver ailment while your appendix explodes. My Dad's DID explode inside him. (Side note: Dad would have had no problem going to the doctor; he just has this annoying habit of diagnosing himself. He's usually wrong, but that hasn't stopped him from doing it.) It spreads all kinds of nastiness throughout your body, makes you sick as hell, infectious crap is poisoning you, and it CAN kill you. It's also totally unnecessary. Get your ass to the doctor, and he can prevent that mess with a simple, common surgical procedure. That's not a lack of faith on my part; that's a piece of common sense.
I'll continue my Anti-Herbie rap at another time, ok?
I was in downtown the other day, paying a bill, and I heard this commotion out in the street. I was on a second-floor balcony, so I stopped to look. OH I wish I'd had my camera handy! This cluck was driving what had been a nice black pickup. The entire front end was smashed, the hook buckled and a piece standing up like a mountain about 10 inches high, the right fender pushed back into the wheel well so far that every time the guy steered to the right, it started chewing off part of his tire.
He dived across 3 lanes of traffic; I wondered what was motivating him to drive that destroyed piece of junk in the first place, especially the insane way he was; then I heard the siren, and here came a nice, efficient city cop, gliding through traffic like a greased eel, till he was right on our mad escapee's tail end. There are times I don't like cops; there are times I don't trust them. There are also times you've got a cop working for the public good, and you're 110% behind him. This was one of those latter times. This nutcase had NO good excuse to run in that pickup; its usefulness as a motor vehicle was almost nil. When it was in excellent shape it didn't have the power to outrun that cop. Now it was nothing but a constant danger to everyone in its path, and as they rounded a corner out of my sight, the cop was making a move to get ahead of him, risk himself to FORCE this idiot to stop. Now, I know a convicted car thief who's smarter than that fool in the pickup! When he gets hopelessly trapped by the cops, he pulls over, takes out his keys, sticks his hands WITH the keys out the window, and awaits further instructions.
My Dad being an ex-cop, maybe I was taught better, and in case I was, here's how I was told to handle being questioned or arrested by cops:
First, you have NO idea what kind of day he's had. Sometimes a cop has a whole WEEK of bad stuff pile up on him, and he may be needing an outlet to vent. Don't give him one. Be polite, be relaxed, don't make ANY sudden movements. It's best not to move at all unless instructed to, and if you want to scratch something, change positions, whatever, TELL the cop you're going to before you do it.
Be very careful in what you say to the cop. Don't swear at him, but don't tell him you life history either. That's why we have lawyers. Let a lawyer decide if your life history needs to be shared or not. But no matter what, be polite. It inclines him to believe you, or at the least, to treat you better. He gets a dozen people a day telling him what a huge asshole he is. A polite suspect will get whatever breaks he has to offer. If he's going to arrest you and take you to jail, keep your mouth shut and go to jail. You're not going to make anything better by trying to run or fight getting handcuffed. You're just going to pile up more charges against you. You get to present your case to a judge later on. That's your best chance, not trying to wheedle, bribe, threaten or harass the cop.
Well, I'm not low on material, but I AM sleepy. Take care, and Debonair Suaveroot wil be back soon to Blog at you some more.
