We had made up our minds. But there was one last technical problem.

The CSI/CBS team, as incredibly helpful as they had been were, after all, really just actors. So, well (sigh), some of their forensic work was, er, let’s just say Johnny Cochran would have eaten them alive like a white chocolate Jesus candy bar on some of the “handling” of the evidentiary issues.

Put frankly, our dog (who ironically, is actually named “Frank”) got a hold of the ransom note at one point and ate the end delivery demands for the cushions.

Well “ate” is not that accurate. Let’s just say that after he got a hold of the note significant gaps in the text occurred. It’s what is technically called “textual corruption” of a certain kind.

Basically, most of the chocolate had been lapped up or licked off, leaving only the bits of paper backing messages from the Advent calendar.

Frank was not feeling well later. We felt worse.

We felt, well, Jesus-less; and frankly confused; and worse, how do you watch "CSI wherever" without a couch?

*******

So long as I am ranting a bit (I admit this) what is with all the “scholar guys” rejecting their first names? It’s always J. Carl Runfummsky; T. Royer Johnson, G. L. Focker.

I figure the only reason F.F. Bruce didn’t come clean was because his middle name was “Fyvie”. How would you like to be F. Fyvie Bruce? Better F.F. Bruce

So he gets off scott free.

Does calling myself M. Thomas Malraux make me more impressive?

Okay, maybe it does, but I’ll still go by “Maugham”. Meet me on the basketball court and you can call me “T-Mog” and I’ll still kick your butt...unless you are in your thirties and in reasonable shape.

But others are not so. Walter Breuggeman had the guts to spell his first name, and so did Ernest Becker, and Frederick Buechner, and Peter Berger, Kenneth Ballie, Norman O. Brown, etc.

I guess the real thing is you only have the balls to use your first name if you last name begins with “B”?

Ironically, one of the two guys in the Time magazine article who says anything of substance is an actual New Testament scholar (see above recommendation). It is John Barclay

Which only supports my growing scholarly “B” thing theory. No “J. Robert Barclay” crap! Nope…just John Barclay.

Scholar Raymond Brown is also quoted in the Time article (I have recovered enough, with the help of some Maalox, to resume reading) and like all the “Killer B’s” he not only speaks sensically, more importantly he has, like the others, accepted his given name instead of a simple letter, which I am beginning to believe is the only true test of a reliable journalistic source on any given academic subject.

The author of the Time article is Van Biema, The “Van” means “from…”. Suggestion David…get back to being a real B. Don’t just be "from" there.

*******

Frank, had licked away the significant chocolate Advent information. We had to think outside the box.

Thinking outside the box…

How to safely get the cushions to the thieves and also have a safe place for the baby Jesus to be returned? And that was even if they would. But I figured, ultimately, Jesus could take care of himself. So could Mary and the wise men.

The shepherds? I gave them a 50-50 chance, even in Marin. One of them (if he got out of the box) was gonna wander directly out onto St. Francis and be squashed by a huge black Hummer. The other two would probably be picked up like McDonald “Happy Meal” toys by children.

The shepherds were doomed regardless.

So we needed a safe spot nearby. The thieves thought we had the note…well the full note, and not what we now have. All we had now was a scant manuscript, like “Papyrus Bodmer II”, one of the earliest New Testament manuscript fragments (copy) which was only a few decades from John’s original autograph. Ironically it resides near London, not far from where the Waxed Beckhams look after The baby Jesus in his posh crib.

Jesus, what a world you came to save.

So we had only fragments like those early manuscripts: “Leaves for Holy City” tag, then a [chocolate stain]; followed by a “reclining on pillows at table” tag; then another chocolate stain. Then the final panel has the words “Good Friday”, which we took as another threat, and next to it was a partial chocolate stain of a half-eaten Santa.

Thanks Frank.

No "crunchy bones" for you this month.

*******

I still support CBS. Even after they let the dog eat the evidence I feltl rather bad for anchor Dan as he was recently fed bad info like chocolate too.

Time magazine has no excuse for their bad journalism. Not only that, Rather was fed his stuff and just read it. The Time guys and this whole secret nativity mess? Those guys had, behind them, two millennia and the thousands of people who have researched it, going back to Luke's account in 70 A.D.

This is worse than reports of WMD that were obviously falsified in front of the UN.

This is grand fraud. If Colin Powell, who was given bad information and delivered it to the world at the UN, was a biblical critic my guess is he would say this was not "Heilgeschichte" but simply "Bullgeschichte".

There were, and are, trained experts on the authenticity of documents. Time just screwed up. You might as well have joined the 32 chefs in Naples and spend part of the 4500 hours creating chocolate nativity figures as publish your last issue.

So no excuses. You suck. Van Biema should resign and take up confection making or Alpaca farming, or the art of making warmongers into real-scale wax figures.

I decided to not even finish the Time article. It’d be like reading the Enquirer with a serious mind. Better to read Mad magazine.

Besides, I had cushions to get to thieves. I had to try and reclaim Jesus and Co, and time was running out.

The story concludes:

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© 2005 Azotuscafe.com

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