WTF

The soup is wearing off. The zinc caramels are not helping. My eyes hurt. My ears hurt. My face feels like there's a water balloon lodged behind it. My throat feels...funny. That's what we used to say when we were kids, wasn't it, on the cusp of a cold: "Mom! I feel funny!"

WTF, as my buddy J.C. would blog. If you have to ask what WTF stands for...bless you, my innocent friend. If you don't have to ask -- I can see you nodding in sympathy. (Or maybe I have a fever and am hallucinating.)

It's been a WTF kind of day.

On a serious note, I just read about Dr. Paul Mirecki, former chair of the University of Kansas Department of Religious Studies and professor of a class critical of intelligent design. For the crime of criticizing fundamentalists, Mirecki has been demonized by religious right-wingers, has had a Kansas state representative threaten to cut funding from the university, and was also beaten up this week by unknown assailants citing his anti-creationist viewpoint, pounding him with Kristian Luv [tm] until he wound up in the hospital with head injuries. WTF. WTF is the problem with the Kansas legislature? Who made them either experts in university-level science pedagogy or official censors of university course catalogs? I'd suggest that these self-appointed jihadists climb back into their clown cars, drive off campus and back to their respective offices, and earn their pay actually creating legislation that helps society -- that keeps people safe, that keeps them employed, that takes care of the most vulnerable. WTF is wrong with the sheeple who vote these idiots into office? And WTF do you do with people who think that their close personal friend Jesus wants them to beat up people who don't agree with them? WTFWJD?

WTF is the big deal about wishing people "Happy Holidays"? How is that diminishing anyone's respect for Christmas as a Christian holiday? WTF is happening to people, that's making them so nuts about stuff like this? I'm thrilled whenever another sentient being wishes me a happy anything.

On a far less serious note: WTF was NBC thinking, using an actual recording of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" in a promo for Fear Factor, one of the grossest shows on network television? Is that, like, clever irony? And WTF is up with that promo for the new NBC dramedy about an Episcopal priest and his family and parish, The Book of Daniel? In 30 seconds you've got a smart-alecky surfer-dude Jesus, drugs, rebellious teens, the Mafia, talk about foreign objects in rectums, lesbians and infidelity. Sort of a bizarre mating of Desperate Housewives and The Vicar of Dibley, with some Jesus thrown in. And Law and Order. And The Sopranos. And lesbians. (Gee, thanks.) NBC is evidently very anxious to cover all the bases here...all that's missing, really, is throwing everyone in the show onto a deserted island and making them compete in humiliating contests for money.

And now my scratchy throat is swelling shut, as are my red-rimmed eyes. Something tells me I'm not going to work tomorrow. WTF.