Preserving the Egg of LifeObviously, Football is a syndrome of religious rites symbolizing thestruggle to preserve the Egg of Life through the rigors of impendingwinter. The rites begin at the Autumn Equinox and culminate on thefirst day of the New Year, with great festivals identified with bowlsof plenty. The festivals are associated with flowers such as roses;fruits such as oranges; farm crops such as cotton; and even sun-worshipand appeasement of great reptiles such as alligators.In these rites, the Egg of Life is symbolized by what is called”The Oval”, an inflated bladder covered with hog skin. The conventionof “The Oval” is repeated in the architectural oval-shaped design ofthe vast outdoor churches in which the services are held every sabbathin every town and city. Also every Sunday in the greater centers ofpopulation where an advanced priesthood performs. These enormouschurches dominate every college campus; no other edifice compares insize with them, and they bear witness to the high spiritual developmentof the culture that produced them.Literally millions of worshipers attend the sabbath services in theseopen-air churches. Subconsciously, these hordes are seeking an outletfrom sexual frustration in anticipation of violent masochism and sadismabout to be enacted by a highly trained priesthood of young men. Footballobviously arises out of the Oedipus complex. Love of mother dominatesthe entire ritual. (Notre Dame and Football are synonymous).The rites are preformed on a green rectangular area orientated to thefour directions. The green area, symbolizing Summer, is striped withominous white lines representing the knifing snows of Winter. Thewhite stripes are repeated in the ceremonial costumes of the fourwhistling monitors who control the services through a time perioddivided into four quarters, symbolizing the four Seasons.The ceremony begins with colorful processions of musicians and semi-nudevirgins who move in and out of ritualized patterns. This excites thethousands of worshipers to rise from their seats, shout frenzied poetryin unison and chant ecstatic anthems through which runs the Oedipustheme of willingness to die for the love of mother.The actual rites, performed by 22 young priests of perfect physique,might appear to the uninitiated as a chaotic conflict concerned onlywith hurting the Oval by kicking it, then endeavoring to rescue andprotect the Egg.However, the procedure is highly stylized. On each side there areeleven young men wearing colorful and protective costumes. The groupin so-called “possession” of the Oval first arrange themselves in anegg-shaped “huddle,” as it is called, for a moment of prayerfulmeditation and whispering of secret numbers to each other.Then they rearrange themselves with relation to the position of theEgg. In a typical “formation” there are seven priests “on the line,”seven being a mystical number associated not, as Jung purists mightcontend, with the “seven last words” but actually, with sublimationof the “seven deadly sins” into “the seven cardinal principles ofeducation.”The central priest crouches over the Egg, protecting it with hishands, while over his back quarters hovers the “Quarterback.” Thetransposition of “back quarters” to “quarterback” is easilyexplained by the Adler School. To the layman the curious postureassumed by the “Quarterback,” as he hovers over the central priest,immediately suggests the Cretan origins of Mycenaean animal art,but this popular view is untenable. Actually, of course, the”quarter-back” symbolizes the libido, combining two instincts,namely, a) Eros, which strives for even closer union, and b) theinstinct for destruction of anything which lies in the path of Eros.Moreover, the “pleasure-pain” excitement of the hystericalworshipers focuses entirely on the actions of the libido-quarter-back.Behind him are three priests representing the male triad.At a given signal, the Egg is passed by sleight-of-hand to one ofthe members of the triad who endeavors to move it by bodily forceacross the white lines of Winter. This procedure up and down theenclosure, continues through the four quarters of the ritual.At the end of the second quarter, implying the Summer Slostice, theprocessions of musicians and semi-nude virgins are resumed. Afterforming themselves into pictograms representing alphabetical andanimal fetishes, the virgins perform a most curious rite requiringfar more dexterity than the earlier phallic Maypole rituals fromwhich it seems to be derived. Each of the virgins carries a wandof shining metal which she spins on her fingertips, tosses playfullyinto the air, and with which she interweaves her body in mostintricate gyrations.The virgins perform another important function throughout the entireservice. This concerns the mystical rite of “conversion” followingsuccess of one of the young priests in carrying the Oval across thelast white line of Winter. As the moment of “conversion” approaches,the virgins kneel at the edge of the rectangle, bury their faces inthe earth, then raise their arms to heaven in supplication, prayingthat “the uprights will be split.” “Conversion” is indeed adedicated ceremony.

MICROSOFT Bids to Acquire Catholic Church
By Hank Vorjes

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In a joint press conference in St. Peter’s Square this morning, MICROSOFT Corp. and the Vatican announced that the Redmond software giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church in exchange for an unspecified number of shares of MICROSOFT common stock. If the deal goes through, it will be the first time a computer software company has acquired a major world religion.

With the acquisition, Pope John Paul II will become the senior vice-president of the combined company’s new Religious Software Division, while MICROSOFT senior vice-presidents Michael Maples and Steven Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said MICROSOFT Chairman Bill Gates.

“We expect a lot of growth in the religious market in the next five to ten years,” said Gates. “The combined resources of MICROSOFT and the Catholic Church will allow us to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people.”

Through the MICROSOFT Network, the company’s new on-line service, “we will make the sacraments available on-line for the first time” and revive the popular pre-Counter-Reformation practice of selling indulgences, said Gates. “You can get Communion, confess your sins, receive absolution — even reduce your time in Purgatory — all without leaving your home.”

A new software application, MICROSOFT Church, will include a macro language which you can program to download heavenly graces automatically while you are away from your computer.

An estimated 17,000 people attended the announcement in St Peter’s Square, watching on a 60-foot screen as comedian Don Novello — in character as Father Guido Sarducci — hosted the event, which was broadcast by satellite to 700 sites worldwide.

Pope John Paul II said little during the announcement. When Novello chided Gates, “Now I guess you get to wear one of these pointy hats,” the crowd roared, but the pontiff’s smile seemed strained.

The deal grants MICROSOFT exclusive electronic rights to the Bible and the Vatican’s prized art collection, which includes works by such masters as Michelangelo and Da Vinci. But critics say MICROSOFT will face stiff challenges if it attempts to limit competitors’ access to these key intellectual properties.

“The Jewish people invented the look and feel of the holy scriptures,” said Rabbi David Gottschalk of Philadelphia. “You take the parting of the Red Sea — we had that thousands of years before the Catholics came on the scene.”

But others argue that the Catholic and Jewish faiths both draw on a common Abrahamic heritage. “The Catholic Church has just been more successful in marketing it to a larger audience,” notes Notre Dame theologian Father Kenneth Madigan. Over the last 2,000 years, the Catholic Church’s market share has increased dramatically, while Judaism, which was the first to offer many of the concepts now touted by Christianity, lags behind.

Historically, the Church has a reputation as an aggressive competitor, leading crusades to pressure people to upgrade to Catholicism, and entering into exclusive licensing arrangements in various kingdoms whereby all subjects were instilled with Catholicism, whether or not they planned to use it. Today Christianity is available from several denominations, but the Catholic version is still the most widely used. The Church’s mission is to reach “the four corners of the earth,” echoing MICROSOFT’s vision of “a computer on every desktop and in every home”.

Gates described MICROSOFT’s long-term strategy to develop a scalable religious architecture that will support all religions through emulation. A single core religion will be offered with a choice of interfaces according to the religion desired — “One religion, a couple of different implementations,” said Gates.

The MICROSOFT move could spark a wave of mergers and acquisitions, according to Herb Peters, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Baptist Conference, as other churches scramble to strengthen their position in the increasingly competitive religious market.

Two rednecks go on a fishing trip. They rent all the equipment - the reels, the rods, the wading suits, the rowboat, the car, and even a cabin in the woods. I mean they spend a fortune!

The first day they go fishing, but they don’t catch anything. The same thing happens on the second day, and on the third day. It goes on like this until finally, on the last day of their vacation, one of the men catches a fish.

As they’re driving home they’re really depressed. One guy turns to the other and says, “Do you realize that this one lousy fish we caught cost us fifteen hundred bucks?”

The other guy says, “Wow! Then it’s a good thing we didn’t catch any more!”