Genesis

Genesis

Today is the first day of my new life in San Diego. Let me not start with something misleading (as the polite fact-checkers like to say about Donald Trump’s speeches). It is the first day of my permanent residence in the enclave of Hidden Meadows in the northern part of the town of Escondido in the north-county of San Diego County in the great state of California. California is symbolized by the Great Hulking Grizzly Bear (Ursus Arctos Californicus) with the state bird being the Callipepla Californica of California Quail (we live on Quail View Drive, so that’s a bit of news worth remembering). It is called The Golden State, which may refer to the Gold Rush of 1849 (gold is the official state mineral) or it may refer to the fact that the general dryness in the summer turns all the hillsides a magnificent golden color offset by the occasional live oak or other indigenous tree. We all hope that global climate change doesn’t turn this into the The Brown State or The Wildfire State for obvious reasons.

The King James Bible starts with the book of Genesis with a version I would like to paraphrase for my own purposes (no sacrilege intended or cared-about):

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and California.

And the earth was without form, and political correctness.

And God said, Let there be light: and there were Democrats.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness with Dems in the north and Republicans in the south.

And God called the light Dems, and the darkness he called pro-Trump. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of this.

And God called the firmament West Hollywood. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass (Ganga), the herb yielding seed (CBD and THC-laden), and the fruit tree yielding citrus after his kind, and it was so. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

And let them be for enlightenment in the firmament and it was so.

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day (the California Sun), and the lesser light to rule the night (Moonstruck): he made the stars also, but made them to stay in West Hollywood.

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth the great whales, and every living creature that moveth (including surfer dudes), which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind (including the bulk of San Franciscans): and God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply with the help of illegal immigrants from Mexico, who he said deserve a good life as well.

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And OMG, that must mean that Mexican illegal immigrants are also made in the image of God…imagine that.

And God said, Let us make Silicon Valley and Encino Man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the internet and media, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth (both real and virtual), and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (even Mark Zuckerberg).

So God created man (and Mexican illegal immigrants) in his own image, and God created both male and female (and gender-unspecified and gender-confused people) except he needed to specifically exclude Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen and Bill Cosby, for whom he would have to make a new separate 10th level of Hell.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply (both by procreation and immigration), and replenish the earth (the whole earth and not just your favorite nationalist obsession), and subdue it (peacefully and without added military spending and Second Amendment arms): and have dominion (in a nice and polite way) over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth (and please keep the water and air clean enough for everybody to use, thanks).

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat (As Impossible and Beyond Meat as that may sound).

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat (hmm…He seems to prefer vegetarian animals as well as people): and it was so.

And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

We end our little prayer there because we know that on the Seventh Day he asked that we spend our time in the Hot Tub and give thanks to Him and to all the creatures that crawleth in Washington D.C. for abiding by the laws set forth in this here Bible 2,000 years ago and this here Constitution two hundred and thirty years ago. And, of course, this is the day that the U.S. Senate will be acquitting Donald J. Trump and reinvigorating his re-election prospects at the same time. I might have to use a different part of the Bible for that, perhaps something from The English Standard Version in Timothy 3:1-5:

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

Or as Mel Brooks said in his famous 2,000 Year Old Man album, “Let ‘em all go to Hell except Cave ‘76!”