Billboards

Billboards have drawn my attention recently, for spectacular idiocy. The most recent one I pass at least daily on my way to work. (I've since seen others like it.) It tells us to mark the date, May 21, 2011, for the return of Christ.

Yeah, sure, whatever.

First of all, you can't convince me that whoever paid for these has some special advance warning of an exact date that none of the rest of humanity shares. This, presupposing there might be an actual, literal, in-human-form, return. And also presupposing we believed in Christ in the first place. Millions don't. Billions, maybe, but let's keep it local. So, if you believe in Christ and in a return, you have to buy somebody has advance knowledge.

Next question is: in what form? Is another baby going to be born? Is there a miracle pregnancy underway? Is that how somebody knows? Kind of a modern "she's knocked up and it ain't mine"?

Yeah, that never happens. Must have God as the baby-daddy. Sure. Uh huh. I believe, oh Lord, help me in my unbelief. My whole lotta great big unbelief in this one. Maybe those cherry trees will lower their branches and drop fruit, out of season, yet.

But how would one know which baby bastard born that day would become Christ, much less how any particular baby will be born that day? It's kinda advance notice of a caesarean. But hey, if the method is a baby, it gives the sponsor of the billboards about thirty years to get found out for a fool or worse. Just think of the possible ways to make money off this one.

Or are we expected to believe somebody will suddenly appear as a full grown, presumably male, adult claiming to be Christ? Those tend to get straightjackets and padded rooms. In this day and age, who would actually believe those claims?

Really?

So if you see my car wobble a bit on the road as I pass one of those billboards, I'm not drunk. Not texting. Just ROTF LMAO. That's hard to do behind the wheel. Better not tailgate me.

There was another one that sprinkled itself along the landscape a few months back. They stood there like a challenge. No, more than that, displaying the arrogance that their brand of logic is unassailable, their question cannot be answered, and thus we must be persuaded to their viewpoint.

I am referring to the billboards that show an adorable young kitten next to a fuzzy yellow chick, and demand, "How can you love one and eat the other?" I'm not sure who the sponsor was, since the very find print is hard to read while driving safely by at 60 mph, but I presume it was some animal rights group. I doubt it was them - the wording didn't have the right shape - but just the idea makes my mind jump to PETA.

Since my mind became subverted years ago, PETA is the organization whose acronym I retranslate mentally every time I see/hear it into People Eating Tasty Animals. I am an unabashed omnivore, in the interest of full disclosure here, and that contributes to my impatience with the goals and tactics of the group. Dr. Temple Grandin has done much more to introduce kindness into the lives of domestic animals than PETA will ever manage to do. When their primary tactic is releasing lab animals into the wild to starve since they have not been trained to cope, how on earth does one take them seriously? Especially if one has a fondness for being kind to animals?

But back to the billboard. How can we love the one - the kitten - and eat the other - the chicken? It mistakenly assumes that since both are depicted as babies, we will find each equally cute, and that translates into equally worthy, and thus inedible. Even at the start, they're wrong. Kittens are much cuter than chicks. Of course, that can be attributed to my personal prejudice, so let's look systematically at lovability versus edibility of both animals.

Chickens: tasty, can be served so many ways. Cats: nasty flavor. At least so I've heard, never having been tempted to actually try one.
Cats: can be litterbox trained. Chickens: poop everywhere.
Fur: silky texture, bends under touch and rebounds. Feathers: scratchy, break easily.
Cats: self-cleaning. Chickens: messy and content to stay that way.
Purring: pleasing sound, interpreted as pleasure, affection. Clucking: annoying.
Cats: range from toleration to welcoming of petting. Chickens: indifference to run-away response.
Cats: kill pests like mice, saving the storable food supply. Chickens: eat bugs... and the storable food supply.
Cats: able to get along in groups. Chickens: peck weaker members of the group to death.

The list could get longer. But the point is, compared to each other, cats are lovable companion animals, and chickens are delicious. Does that answer the question? So, what was their point again, exactly?

While pondering that, I've got some cold chicken in the fridge that's calling my name. I might pet the cat on my way by.