Tomorrow--- 30. September ---is International Blasphemy Day. I'll celebrate it, of course. It was created to mark the anniversary of the date in the Year Five when the Danish newspaper published the "Muhammad cartoons", the "Mo-toons" that set off self-righteous rage amongst the Paynim. A free speech event--- a day to stand up against attempts to censor criticism of religion. I support free speech and have nothing but disdain for efforts to give special privileges to religion. (And that goes for "spirituality" and "cultural identity", too) So, yes--- I will celebrate International Blasphemy Day. The only question remains--- should I dress as a pirate or a ninja? What is the correct attire for International Blasphemy Day? Well, obviously Catholic schoolgirl uniforms for lovely, cachexical, panty-free BRDYTW girls... But that's a given, right?

The lovely Artemis at artemislives wrote once that she doesn't use "believers" and "unbelievers" in regard to religion, but rather uses terms she thinks are more precise: "insane" and "sane". I can't recall a time in my life--- all the way back to grade school ---when I ever had any belief in deities or anything supernatural. Catholic or High Anglican pageantry, yes--- I always loved that. Russian Orthodox, too. I just never believed in anything behind it. When I was a mere petite little long-eared desert (or dessert) hedgehog, I thought that religion would fade away in the upcoming new century, that it would become something like a tourist attraction at Rome, and that people in the new century would appreciate Catholic pageantry as performance art. I hoped that there'd be popes and monasteries for the same reason that I support the retention of the House of Lords or the Princes of Liechtenstein or the Imperial Family in Japan--- as living art. But I also thought that religion in a new and clear-thinking century would have no political power and that no one would base morality (let alone biology) on revelation. I suppose I thought that religion would be treated as a personal affectation--- like wearing a monocle, or cross-dressing. Just another thing to shake one's head over as a foible among one's acquaintances. Like drinking domestic beer. I hadn't thought about Islamism brewing amongst the Paynim, or the evangelicals lurking in America. I'd have sooner believed in Cthulhu returning--- I'd probably have been happier with Cthulhu, given the social/cultural aims of both Islamism and Evangelical Christianity.

So, yes--- I will be celebrating International Blasphemy Day. Now if only that celebration could involve a leggy, wicked, clever Catholic high school girl in a panty-free mini-kilt and sex on a cathedral altar. I suppose if I ate small pork dim sum off her nyotaimori-style...while she was spread out on pages of a Qur'an....I could cover all my bases.

Richard Dawkins writes that he's amazed and bemused by how many creationists reject the fact of evolution by saying that they just refuse to believe that they're "descended from monkeys". Never mind the almost-willful failure to understand evolution--- why is it that they stop at "monkeys"? After all--- far enough back, there are single-cell organisms in everyone's ancestry. Aren't creationists more offended at the thought of being descended from...well...pond slime? Now, do note. We De Guzmans of Hokkaido have no problem with that idea. Cyanophyta--- the House of de Guzman is proud of deriving ultimately from Cyanophyta, from the finest blue-green algae in all of Ezo. Certainly better than any claims of the Matsumae, whom we displaced in Hakodate!

Tony Bourdain is on "No Reservations" tonight doing a tour of Old School restaurants in NYC. Okay, yes: I must go to Le Veau d'Or in NYC. A French restaurant that's proudly fixed permanently in 1936, that rejects pretty much any changes since then. The menu hasn't changed since...well...since. It's not even post-ironic food: it's all done dead seriously. And he goes to the last Old School Cantonese restaurants in Chinatown. Places where won ton soup and egg rolls and sweet 'n' pungent pork still rule. To places where Mandarin chicken and bbq spare ribs are still the adventurous parts of the menu. The kind of food served to gwai-lo turistas in the 1950s. The kind of food I remember from tiny Chinese restaurants in little towns across the lake from New Orleans when I was a petite little hedgehog. Yes-- I can think of a couple of similar places in New Haven when I got there: Chinese restaurants in tiny storefronts with red-and-white chequered tablecloths left over from previous (cheap Italian joints) tenants, one in the labyrinthine innards of a dim old Edwardian house there off Whalley Avenue. I really would like to take someone with the right sensibility--- maybe Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo ---and do Old School Cantonese. I can only do it ironically, alas--- but, still... Pork-fried rice is one of the staples of life. And maybe Miss Ginny could take me to tiny and very, very Old School Russian and Polish diners in Montreal...

Needless to say, I quite support Roman Polanski in fighting extradition to America. Even though he did make "Bitter Moon", I'll forgive him that. I hope the Swiss listen to the French and Poles and set Roman free.

I'm looking at my bookshelves: lots of books on international law and human rights law. I wish I could talk to Lissy at emigree about international issues and politics. I miss having someone to talk with about those things. I miss academic discussions. I miss talking books and ideas late into the night. I miss thinking that I could have a life inside those things.

Ms. Chang is going on a two-week tour of grad schools she's applying to--- Stanford, Duke, Princeton, USC. I really wish her well. I know she'd like to be at Princeton--- and her Russian skills are certainly good enough. I do want her to get her grad degrees at top-flight schools.

Of course...talking to Ms. Chang does make me realise how much I hate my job and how much I hate my life and locale. I already feel utterly inferior compared to people I know who are in real cities and preparing for careers doing serious things. I don't have any pork-fried rice tonight, and I really, really hate my job and my life.

Though I will be celebrating International Blasphemy Day tomorrow. Oh, yes. Now if I could just get a lovely, sharp-hipboned, panty-free dangerously-young girl in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform and the keys to Chartres Cathedral...