So I've been thinking lately.
My father-in-law's Popular Science magazine tells me that the received notion that people use but 10% of their brain is just a persistent myth. Years and years of studies using MRI and PET scans have proven that most of the brain kicks in when needed. Besides, scientists scoff at the evolutionary idiocy of developing a huge, under-used noodle that hogs 19% of the energy in your blood.
One evening, as I was shutting the commute-mobile down in our driveway, a couple of extra percentage points of noggin switched on. After a hard day of managing doc schedules, fixing bugs, and managing executive egos, my tired gray matter gave one last heave and got me thinking about cannibalism.
Cannibalism happens all the time. Frogs eat frogs. Lady mantises chow down on their paramours. Chimpanzees have been known to kill and consume their own.
For most humans, cannibalism is repellant. A few cultures integrate cannibalism as a ritual part of war and death. Some groups just like the taste. As more and more historians look back through the years with less prejudiced eyes, they find that cannibalism happened just about everywhere. Still, these days, cannibalism is generally frowned upon.
The modern-day indigenous folks of the Four Corners region get all huffy when presented with evidence that their forebears snacked on people, evidence that has been piling up over the years. You might be able to equivocate and dodge the issue with stacks of human bones showing marks consistent with meat processing. It was all part of funerary rituals, they say. Now that we've stumbled across ancient, preserved human doody with human proteins in it, the Four Corners folks should just give it up and join the club.
Some time ago I read a critique of Catholicism that derided the mackerel snappers for their symbolic cannibalism. Later, the columnist was big enough to print a retraction, explaining that he'd been set to rights by helpful Catholics. For the true believer, the Sacrament of the Eucharist is not symbolic cannibalism. According to the doctrine of transubstantiation, the host and the wine are the actual body and blood of Jesus.
Sometimes I have to scoot back to the choir after I've received my host. Trying to sing with a stale, pasty cracker clump in your mouth can be a challenge. I usually stick it between cheek and gum like a wad of chew, a little bolus of carbos just waiting to be miraculously transmogrified into flesh.
While I'm at it, I just had to share this site for milspec sacramental bread and wine. White or wheat? How about a convenient juice cup package? Maybe you'd be interested in the "Juice, Grape, Sacramental, Dehydrated" or, as Harlock puts it, "Scramental Kool-Aid". Folks shudder when they read about modern cannibals like the Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes or the Donner Party. Some actually declare "I would never do that."
I wonder.
How many of those folks would refuse people flesh when faced with starvation and death? Are those who do abstain and die to be lauded as saints or scorned as fools? What would Jesus do?
Riffing on cannibalism got me thinking about other forbidden acts that are more common than people would like to admit.
Take, for instance, bestiality.
While in college, I came across an old illustration of a Saracen humping a camel. In order to get certain biological features in line, the enterprising gentleman had strapped foot pegs to the beast's rear legs.
Considering my Kiwi heritage, you'd think that I'd be more sympathetic to such camelophilic antics. But no. Ick.
This gets me to wondering what circumstances lead folks to pork a pig. Do some people have a greater susceptibility to making it with our fuzzy friends? How does someone stupid enough to have sex with the neighbor's dog, tape the act, lend out the tape to a friend, and have his dog-porn viewed at a wedding reception manage to eat his breakfast every morning without choking to death?
I have the faintest glimmer of a hint of the beginning of understanding when it comes to shepherds. It's night. You're totally depraved and horny. A sheep saunters saucily by and the next instant you find yourself doing the nasty with a baa-baa.
But a camel? First off, camels are notoriously vile. Secondly, foot pegs show a disturbing about of preparation and premeditation.
To take the idea a bit further, sex between humans can get pretty goopy. Genitals are designed to produce all sorts of useful fluids. Butt sex apparently has the potential to generate gobs of newly dubbed santorum, "The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex". So, uh, majorly ick.
Thinking of this in the context of bestiality brings me down to a level of ick that inspires me to stop typing.
Yes, you are all very welcome.
Pakeha