Wherein Basic Predjudices Long Unexamined Doth Boil Up

I personally don't belong to any faith and find the whole business of mumbo-jumbo and mystery in general to be a tremendous cop-out from embracing the truly exciting concept of the universe being powered by chaos, random events and competition between natural systems. That said, I was raised in the warm bath of generalized British soft protestantism and so when the Pope recently came to the United States for a visit I had the following reactions:

1) Ugh, the Pope.

2) Look at him, all conservative and hypocritical.

3) Wait a minute, who are all those cheering people?

4) Bloody hell, there is a significant percentage of the world's population who love the Pope and think he's a force for good.

5) I think I need to work on my empathy.

The Pope, as I've always seen him and his predecessors. Not a view shared by all, nor even the right one?

Bugger...

... I forgot it was Bonfire Night yesterday. In an attempt at amends, here's a couple of minutes on the loony protestants of Lewes, Sussex:

Happy Bonfire Night!

It's Bonfire night- erm- tonight! The linked Wikipedia article above is fairly explanatory, although I'm baffled by the concept of "bonfire toffee". Either my family were too cheap to ever buy me any (hmmm) or I only ever attended spectacularly crap bonfire parties (which I doubt, as growing up on RAF camps the fireworks were great because they used to set off all the expired signal flares as well as the commerical rockets). And given the origins of the festival ( and the fact that the centrepiece of the evening is still burning a Catholic militant reactionary in effigy) isn't the image below just the cutest bit of Protestant bigotry this side of Ian Paisley's tattoo of Daffy Duck shouting "the Pope is the antichrist"?


As the accompanying text says; "Download this image as native Adobe Illustrator file, which means it won't break up, no matter what size you make it. That's real important if you're making a banner to go across the high street."

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to get a long roll of paper, some bailing twine, and a cherry picker. "A banner to go across the high street"? Are they out of their minds?

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.