Interview With Mollusk Theologian

Several preeminent mollusk theologians. They're the best because they remove bullshit from their environment.

This morning while I was bathing in the filthy river, I got some news from a local source, the oft-estimated (and sometimes measured) Tom Head, regarding one of the chief asshats of our time: Ken Ham.

Ken is a Young Earth Creationist, the President of the surprisingly unrecursive “Answers in Genesis” organization. They publish a website, have billboards, mobile apps, and a museum in Kentucky, all despite the fact that the only worthwhile questions for them that I could derive were “Sega (Blank)?” and “Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins.?”

And while the concept of a Universe only 6 thousand years old is so mind-blowingly ignorant (don't tell the Natufians) that racoons don't even believe it, somehow people – even smart people – bother with this daft twit.

Of his concern now is the religion of aliens we have not found. Ole Kenster asks the question: “If there were Vulcans or Klingons out there, how would they be saved?” which is precisely the sort of question humanity invented theologians to answer.

However, why limit oneself to human theologians? Or even bipedal Vulcan and Klingon philosophers? The Klingons rather famously murdered their gods, and therefore don't have much to add. If there is alien life out there, it's bound to be more foreign to us than apes or chimpanzees or dolphins, and the sermons of Reverend Bobo never involve space aliens.

That leaves us with few options to get to the bottom of this entirely unimportant question.


Fortunately, dear reader, you have me. I know a bank of the wisest mollusk theologian-philosophers that the Southeast can host. While few humans can translate their language of scents, gurgles, and water sprays, I can bravely go and soak my head to learn their secrets. Here I will baselessly assert that mollusks are different enough than humans, therefore their finest and most learned minds are alien enough to allow us wild assumptions on the nature of extraterrestrial spirituality,

Here, then, is my interview with Bertrand Mussel, the bivalve theologian.

PRF: "So, you're a freshwater bivalve mollusk who delves into the deep and abiding mysteries of spirituality and religion as it pertains to mollusks?"

BM: "Sorry, I was just filtering some phytoplankton there. You humans keep dumping fertilizer into the river, so it goes nuts. It's a good thing we're down here, or else the Gulf of Mexico would be a huge mess, right? Ah, good times, good times. Anyway, yes, that's me. That's what I do."

PRF: "Yeah... anyway. What are your views on salvation and redemption of non-mussels?"

BM: "The Bivalve Bible teaches us that all who are born in the gills of fish are capable of redemption, so long as their siphons are longer than the sediment in which they dwell."

PRF: "Well, that doesn't sound so good for us humans."

BM: "You did murder most of us in the river by covering us in silt."

PRF: "Well... hang on, let me see if I can make sense of what Ken Ham's getting at here."

BM: "You can't."

PRF: "No, wait, okay... So, oh, wait he's saying that if you're not a descendant of Adam, you can't get saved by Jesus."

BM: "Why would I need that? I was born from the gills of a fish."

PRF: "So if aliens were born from fish-gills?"

BM: "Then they're in! I have it on word from Clam-Pope. "

PRF: "What about the ability of clams to read the human bible and come to their own conclusions?"

BM: "We lack the detailed light-sensing organs. However, I did let an intern read it to me aloud."

PRF: "You have interns?"

BM: "That's not the point. The point is, according to what she read me, you humans consider us ...unclean."

PRF: "And are we unclean according to the Bivalve Bible?"

BM: "Yes. You and racoons are the worst. We've even gone and made sure that if you were born of the gills of a fish, and had long siphons, you couldn't get into Bivalve Heaven."

PRF: "Well, I guess we'll get back to you when someone finds god or aliens and gets some straight answers on this whole 'creation' kerfluffle. Until then, readers..."

FPJEROME

Wonderful Local Coffee Shops - A Rundown

Local coffee shops have a certain appeal for having products that you can't find anywhere else. What Starbucks offers Red Dog and dead mussels? None of them. NONE OF THEM.

Apparently, people don't like washed out pictures of dead animals and washed-up litter taken by an unwashed lunatic, so in order to increase blog traffic I've decided to follow the lead of several popular blogs and review coffee places. Local coffee places. And shower, but I still can't figure out how that's going to come across on the blog.

Local coffee shops. To be honest, I don't like them. The coffee they serve leaves enamel on the teeth and is entirely nonflammable. They usually have a lot of racoons out in front, to clean up the litter.

You don't get racoons out front at Starbucks. That's why I don't go there, either. A good coffee place will have racoons out front, either to greet you, or clean up litter. They understand that at Cups. All the locations. Faithful racoons.

You cannot kill a man with a scone from Cups, not without chemical propellants, which they DO NOT SELL. Do NOT ask the man behind the counter for such a thing. The scones are not as hard and lethal as a proper, British scone. A proper scone has a hardness of almost 2 on the Mohs scale, right up there with gypsum, but while you can burn and break down gypsum to make Plaster of Paris, you cannot do that with a scone. Scones can form Plaster of London, but that's something not even racoons will eat.

Above: The source of most scones, also where Starbucks gets the water for coffee that will not under any circumstance remove paint. If it removed paint, I'd go there. Good coffee should be mostly lethal.

Now, for a good, lethal scone, you need to go Seattle Drip. Unfortunately, they're mostly up in Madison, where I'm wanted for a variety of crimes against taste. But, you can fire one of those scones through a brick wall.

Finally, there's Koinonia, a nice place you can go that's close to Town Creek, which easily puts it into the top tier of local coffee shops near gar-filled creeks that can back up without warning and flood wide swaths of the city.

This concludes my informative, if informal, review of Coffee Shops in Jackson.

If you have any comments or questions or corrections to make, please just throw them in the river.