A conspiracy of cartographers

It's 1 am, I have what my banker college roommates refer to as a "conference call" at 9 am (meaning I have to be up _before_ 9 am...), and I'm behind on two separate projects, so I figured this would be an ideal time for verbal masturbation. I'm sorry, "blogging."

Collection of random thoughts:

1. After wasting about half an hour searching through publicly listed blogs on blogger that are in the same general vicinity as I am, I have determined that most people are profoundly boring. Add this to my previously stated assessment that people are dumb. Henceforth, you may safely consider people both dumb _and_ boring.
2. re: the title of this post, I had the odd and philosophical thoughts as I was brushing my teeth that we take a lot of our perception of reality on faith. I'm heading to Italy in a few weeks, and it occurred to me that I have no tangible justification for the majority of the things I believe I "know" about this trip. For instance, I have never been to Italy, so I take it on faith that it exists. It might be, as Rosencrantz (or Gildenstern?) so famously suggested, merely a conspiracy of cartographers. I have this image in my head of "Italy" as this far away place where all the men look like either Chef Boyardee or Nintendo's Mario (but definitely have that ridiculous mustache), speak in sing-songy gibberish, use funny-looking money, and intermittently elect Popes. I take it on faith that the airplane I'll get on will, in fact, take me to "Italy," and that all of the basic rules of physics, human interaction, and bodily function will still hold when I get there. For all I know, it will all be like that scene in Breakfast of Champions where the ground goes all wonky, and everyone eats poop and craps pizza.
3. On the subject of Popes, how the fuck can someone who is elected be considered infallible? A bunch of guys in funny red garments point a finger quivering with importance at you, say, "Abraca-Pope!" and suddenly nothing you ever say or do is ever wrong ever again? Didn't this cease to be a viable idea around age 6?

Anyway, such was my thinking. Lest the papal election pass without comment, I'll throw in my two cents: I find it odd that "liberal Catholics" are so upset at the election of the Panzer Cardinal as His Popeishness, Pope Benedict XVI. Or as his friends will likely call him, Eggs. Sure, the guy is basically an ultraconservative. He's a fucking German who was charged with defending the orthodoxy of the church...try _not_ to be terrified by that prospect. He was even technically Hitler Youth (against his will, reportedly). So? Have you looked at your church recently? If you hadn't noticed, this was the same church that allowed you to buy your way out of sin during the Middle Ages, that declared basic scientific facts heresy during the Renaissance, that to this day thinks it's okay to use math for contraception but not latex, and that thinks a pedophile priest is better than a married or female one.

Hey. Guys. Wake up. Your church was fucked from the get-go. On the Christianity spectrum, really only the Mormons have you beat for goofy orthodoxy. Getting upset that you got a nutjob wearing the funny hat is like getting upset with cannibals for farting at the table. If you have issues with church policy, consider allowing yourself to take the next logical step and admitting that hey, maybe some of this shit happens naturally just by nature of the fact that it's organized religion. Maybe the problem isn't the Pope but the system that created him. Maybe the Catholic church is a human institution just like any other and is subject to the same dark human impulses that take control in any power hierarchy. Maybe the sanctimonious fucktards who run things invoke the divine because they don't have any better way to justify their prejudices, egotism, and power-lust. Maybe the Grand Creator, if he/she/it exists, doesn't have anything to do with this charade and would prefer you to sit in a field somewhere, take a deep breath, and think a few nice thoughts about other people instead of taking part in goofy rituals every Sunday and listening to pasty old white guys who have no better idea of the nature of the universe than you do.

Just a thought.