From: VAX001::STEVENSJ "No Place for a Pope..." 4-DEC-1990 20:52:21.51
To: @THE_PURPLE_THUNDERBOLT_OF_SPODE

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THE PURPLE THUNDERBOLT OF SPODE                        VOL 1, 9
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"Kenyon's Very Own Non Alien Run       REPLIES TO: VAX004::PURPS
Electronic Magazine"     "[email-masked]"

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SOMETHING WHICH MIGHT, IN THE CORRECT FRAME OF MIND, LOOK SORT OF
LIKE A TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: The Pope Rants About New Members and the Upcoming
"Golden 11th" issue of Purps! 

News: Attacks on the Freedom to Learn, The Dangers of Wham! and
Pizza, Man Bites Dog, More!

OTISian Rants: The Last Bnqut of the God/esse/s instalment before
Christmas!, The Existence of Santa Claus, PROVED!

Other Rants: An Erisian Rant About Daemons!, Scott Simpson gets
the Last Word!, A Brief Spell to Enhance Your Life!

----------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTION
(Never Pet a Burning Dog)

            Welcome to the Purple Thunderbolt of Spode, the internet's
only non-alien run magazine, and a tome almost solely to the
nifty, strange and bizarre things of this and other worlds.  As
you can see from the header, we are just one magazine away from
the coveted double digits.  That's right, kids, next magazine we
will turn "10".  I expect nothing particularly fantastic to
happen then, but I will start now by calling for submissions for
our "Golden 11th" magazine, which will be a 20ish page long
celebration o
f Purps. (We're extremely limber here and patting our own back is
not beyond us).  Anyone who feels compelled to write in and tell
us what (s)he thinks of this magazine is more than welcome to do
so.  I promise to reprint the most interesting letters, and
reserve the right to take what you say completely out of context
or distort it all out of proportion.  (We don't NEED you to write
in, mind you.  We can forge letters of unadulterated praise from
respectful and greatfull readers at the rate of about two a 
minute.  Still it might be nice to know what you really think...)

            Welcome (an old refrain at this point) to all our new
members.  There are a few of them this time around, and we've
also (sniff!) almost lost one of our company.  I say "almost"
because, after receiving a mail message saying "Take me OFF
Purps", I inadvertently deleted it (Hail Spode) and can't quite
remember who it was from, which means that someone who doesn't
want it is still getting this magazine.  If you are that person,
PLEASE send a mail message and accept my most sincere apologies. 
(It won't be necessary to run over my dog or anything.  Really). 
The changes have prompted me to print once again the official
Purps mailing list at the end of this document.

            For the virgins, welcome, once again, to Purps.  You have
now left "normal" society and are in a place FAR FAR away. 
Escape can only be accomplished by clicking your ruby red
slippers together and saying "There's no place like home" over
and over again until you find yourself back in Kansas, or by
sending a message to Purps at the address above saying "Let me
OFF".  Hopefully, 'though, escape won't be necessary, and you
will enjoy the sick, strange, twisted version of reality
presented in the attached for
 many, many issues to come.

            Finally, there have been some bizarre technical changes on
this end.  Specifically Vax004, where Purps once proudly
resigned, has been made "transparent".  This is not, hail OTIS,
the same as "invisible" or "vaporized", so we still exist. 
Accessing the Archives and sending mail be intermittent for a
while, though.  We apologize for any inconvenience.
_______
News
-------

PURPS.STUFF-- This is getting to be a predictable plea, but the
Purps.ARcHives are growing rapidly.  I wish I could let you take
them home with you.  We have a whole new section, now, solely
dedicated to conspiracy theory, and I've added over 50 (GASP!)
files since last we talked.  So, ONE MORE TIME, here's how you
can get at the Net's strangest amalgamation of text files:!

KENYON PEOPLE need only to Type @[STEVENSJ]Purps.arh at the $
prompt, and hit "5" for a new file list, after the program has
run.  You then know the names of LOTS of nifty text files to
read, copy, print, etc.

INTERNET PEOPLE are somewhat out of luck until I get an anonymous
FTP site of my very own.  This event will most likely be preceded
by bizarre climatic changes, including Hell freezing over.  UNTIL
THEN: SEND A MAIL MESSAGE TO THE PURPS ACCOUNT (address at the
top of this message) asking for a copy of "Purps.essential", the
Archive's index file.  Then, send another message asking for any
particular files.  That's the best we can do.  Sorry.

PURPS is now available via anonymous FTP.  FTP on over to
quartz.rutgers.edu and much around in the M00se directory.  We're
at the bottom (where, I have now been told, we BELONG).  The bad
news for you VAXen is that it's all Unix.Z compressed over there. 
If you want them as just plain text files, drop a note to the
Purps address in the header of this magazine.

OTISIAN NEWS

[Reply-To: SKEPTIC Discussion Group
<[email-masked]>]
[From: Gary Stone <[email-masked]>]

People For the American Way have just released their annual
report on
school censorship and creationist agitation:

ATTACKS ON THE FREEDOM TO LEARN, 1989-1990
$10.95 ($8.95 members)
may be ordered from

People for the American Way
2000 M St, N.W. Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 467-4999

In this year's report they pay particular attention to claims by
Far Right Fundamentalist that the K-6 reading series,
"IMPRESSIONS",(by
Holt Rinehart and Winston, now owned by Harcourt, Brace
Jovanovich) has"overtones of witchcraft, mysticism and fantasy"
and "persistent themes of rebellion against parents and
authority".

The series is said to contain stories , poems, and literary
excerpts, including pieces from Martin Luther King, Jr., C.S.
Lewis, and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Well, once my Liberal knee stopped jerking to the words "Far
Right Fundamentalists", and I read some of the fundamentalists
charges about New Age and Satanic content in IMPRESSIONS cited in
the People For Report, I began to wonder if I shouldn't check
this out myself (which I'm going to do by checking with my local
elementary school principal):

(Quotes from literature distributed by Christian Educators
Association International):

"The Impressions Series appears to promote New Age and witchcraft
religious philosophy. Teachers are instructed to divide the class
into small groups and have the students write spells and cast
them; read and write chants and chant them; light candles in the
classroom....

...The Impressions series is a breeding ground for the occult,
involving ritual activity such as chants, spells, lighting
candles in a circle and fortune telling...activity consistent
with witchcraft or the Wicca religion.

...On Page 55 of 2d grade teacher anthology, it reads in part,
"Where ever there is hunger and sickness it is because the
spirits of the dead are unhappy" This thinking is common in the
occult...

END of QUOTES

Unless these quotes are very out of context or just plain wrong
(not totally improbable considering their intended purpose -- to
arouse the masses to action), I began to wonder whether such
California-Style New Age activities (if they are in fact part and
parcel of the Impression series, which remains unconfirmed),
whether such activities have a legitimate role in K-6 Education.

Is K-6 the same "Open Forum of Ideas" that we demand in
Universities or even progressive High Schools. Is there any
material that even SKEPTICs would consider "inappropriate" for
inclusion in K-6 educational programs?

To read "Attacks on the Freedom to Learn", one might come away
thinking that opposition by "Far Right Fundamentalists" to
superstitious New Age influences in K-6, ipso facto, must be
considered Censorship.

I wonder.

OTHER NEWS

A couple from Berlin Heights, Ohio, filed a $125,000 lawsuit against a pizza
company, claiming a "spoiled, rotten, rancid & moldy" pizza caused the death
of their dog Fluffy.  Their lawyer said the couple "became violently ill
after eating a small quantity of the pizza. Then they became severely
distressed in their search for medical assistance and ran over Fluffy in the
driveway."
============================================================================
A Concord, California, woman sued the International House of Pancakes
restaurant near her home for not participating in IHOP's natinal "Sweet 16"
breakfast special. She alleged a "burning in the stomach from hunger" and
severe emotional distress, humiliation, and disappointment-- to the tune of
$2 billion.
===========================================================================
In Pensacola, Florida, a veterinarian was sentenced to 2 years' probation
after pleading no contest to charges of animal cruelty. He was accused of
biting a dog on the nose.
============================================================================
A former bank manager admitted administering spankings to more than 50
customers of a Pittsburgh bank in the late 1970s as punishment for falling
behind on their loan payments. "I never had any trouble with them
afterwards," he said.  He was later found guilty of misappropriating $88,268
in bank funds. He told the court he was forced to use the $ to make
unrecorded loans when 6 of those who were spanked threatened to report his
actions to his superiors.
============================================================================
A substitute teacher in Indianapolis rewarded the well-behaved pupils in her
5th grade class by having them line up & spit on the bad ones.
[KWALITY Amarican education!]
============================================================================
Gordon Pickrell of Kingston, Tennessee, who was pinned under his wrecked
sports car for 6 hours with a broken arm, said the worst part of his ordeal
was having to listen to the British group Wham! playing on his tape recorder
the whole time.  "I never want to hear it again," the teenager told Roane
County deputies who pulled him from the overturned car.  "I swear I don't."

-------------------------------
OTISIAN RANTS
-------------------------------
(in which everything worth knowing about absolutely everything will be
revealed!)

THIS WEEK: THE LAST BNQUT OF THE GOD(ESSE)S BEFORE X-MAS!
(More Rantings of Bill, the Guy with One Perfectly Good Arm)

  "I los it", said Bill as we sat in a corner surouned by empty plastic
punch glasses watching Eris and Lotus continue their perpetual neck, "Right
after we bombed.  I had been kept under ground- prisoner, you see- but after
it happened I found my way up.  City was a mess.  They didn't expect it, I
guess.  Free city, lot's of prisoners."

  I had the distinct but weak feeling through my drunken haze that, after
several hours of mindless rambling made endurable only by the alcohol, Bill
was starting to say something important.  I was, however, distinctly
enjoying the spectacle before me so I while I was able to focus my attention
on Bill, I couldn't quite muster the energy to turn my head.

  "Ss Frees sity?" I said.

  "They did it anyway.  I remember all these people on the street. 
Wandering you know.  Lots of beggars.  A lot were rather spiffy.  Really
well dressed, wandering in their best clothes in and out of the piles of
rubble.

  "Disasters" he looked at me steadily "have really lousy timing.

  "I walked down this side alley.  Everyone had begun to, you know, look at
me a little harder.  I think the shock was wearing off.  Slowly the krauts
were figuring that I was supposed to be a prisoner.  The alley seems a good
place to be.  But there's this woman at the end.  Old woman.

  "She was sorrta picking through the rubble.  Looking for something, I
guess.  She had made this pile of rocks and was adding to it.  There was all
sorts of stuff in the pile, pieces of a piano,  the remains of a couch, what
looked like a broken picture frame.  She was working real quick and quiet,
you know?  She looked sort of like a robot, moving through the bricks and
the rubble.  I turned around and started to walk away but then she stopped
me.  Caramel?"

  "You said you didn't sshave any."

  "Didn't say I had any,  I was narrating."

  "Oh."

  "You interested?"

  "Sshure."

  "Good.  'Carmel?' she says again---"

  "OH!" I smiled brightly.

  "Mmmm.  I had gotten my hands on some a few days before I was captured,
and had used a lot of it to bribe the krauts who were guarding us. I got a
lot out of them, that way.  Little things, like cigarettes and quiet nights. 
I reached into the lining and pulled out another piece.  It was a little
cold, but I handed it to her anyway.  And this was the strange thing, it was
only then that she stopped working, to take it from me.  She shoved it in
her mouth, then, all mechanical again, she went back to the ro
cks.

  I watched her for a while, not thinking very clearly, cause I should have
been running, but it was fascinating, you know, watching this woman pick up
what was left, putting all the scraps into a little neat pile.  After a
while I think she said thanks.  I don't speak German well, but I think
that's what she said.  Hell she might not even have been asking for
caramel."

  I laughed. 

  "Mmmm." He said again "It was a few minutes after that the krauts came.  I
bolted for it, but one took out his luger and put a hole in this arm.  The
pain struck me so much I almost stopped moving.  Then he grabbed me. 
Twisted the wounded arm around right back and up to the neck.  His partner
stared at me the whole time with his gun drawn.  I swear if I had bolted he
would have shot.  As they dragged me away he paused and looked at the
rubble.  Then he kicked it and looked at me again, and kicked it again
, and put his gun away.  That was when she said it."

  "Said what?" I asked.

  "I'm not sure.  As I said I don't speak German well."

  "Oh", I said after a long pause.

  "I think it was 'I found it', though, and I turned, and I looked, and she
was holding this half-torn photograph of her and this well dressed man.  And
she turned around and sat down and started to cry.  They didn't speak after
that; they just dragged me away."

  He paused.

  "Later, when they weren't looking, I fed the caramels to a dog." 

AND THAT'S ALL FOR THIS WEEK.  NEXT TIME WE PROMISE NOT TO BE SO
PRETENTIOUS.

SEE YOU AFTER X-MAS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:  VAX001::KLEINSR      "I spent 4 years prostrate to a higher mind, got
my paper, and I was free-- Indigo Girls" 13-NOV-1990 19:06:36.63

I thought you might find this interesting... possible material for Purps.
Could you add this friend o' mine to the magazine circulation?  I think he'd
be a great addition; I'm not sure how you go about choosing the honored
recipients of the magazine.
==============================================
From:  VAX001::WINS%"<[email-masked]>" 13-NOV-1990

               FIVE PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SANTA CLAUS

                         [SUMMA CONTRA SCROOGICA]

     Question 2, Article 3: Whether Santa Claus exists?

     We proceed thus to the third article (of discussion):  it  seems
     that Santa Claus does not exist.

     Objection # 1: Presents may be given to us by the good elves, and
     so there is no need for Santa Claus.

     Objection # 2: If Santa Claus existed, there would be no chimneys
     too  narrow  for  him. But there are chimneys too narrow for him,
     and sometimes none at all. So Santa Claus does not exist.

     ON THE CONTRARY: Kay  Starr  says  'I  saw  Mommy  kissing  Santa
     Claus'.

     I ANSWER THAT the existence of Santa Claus can be proved in  five
     ways.

          The first  and  most  manifest  way  is  the  argument  from
     Christmas  trees.  It  is  certain and evident to our senses that
     some things in this world are Christmas trees. Now no fir becomes
     a  Christmas  tree  unless it is trimmed. But to be trimmed means
     that one receives  an  ornament.  And  since  one  cannot  go  to
     infinity  in  the  passing  on of Christmas tree ornaments, there
     must be a first Untrimmed Trimmer, and this everyone  understands
     to be Santa Claus.

          The second way is from the motion of Christmas presents.  In
     this  world  we find the giving of Christmas presents. Now he who
     gives Christmas presents either got them  from  someone  else  or
     made  them  in  his workshop. And since if no one makes Christmas
     presents in his workshop, there won't be any giving of  Christmas
     presents,  there  must be a First Giver of Christmas presents, to
     which everyone gives the name Santa Claus.

          The third way is from the plastic images of Santa Claus.  In
     all department stores we see plastic things which represent Santa
     Claus. Now these things  are  representative  either  because  of
     Santa  Claus  himself  or  because  of other images of Santa. But
     there can be no infinite regression in representation,  so  there
     must  be  something which is like Santa Claus because it is Santa
     Claus.

          The fourth way is taken from degrees of Christmas spirit. We
     see that people in this world have more or less Christmas spirit.
     But 'more' or 'less' can be said only in reference to  a  'most'.
     So  there  must be someone who has the most Christmas spirit, and
     this person we call Santa Claus.

          The fifth way is from the conduct of children. As  Christmas
     approaches, we see children, who lack intelligence, acting for an
     end, which is shown by their always being good, or almost always.
     But  children  would  not  be  good  for Christmas unless someone
     ensured that they be good. This someone is known by  everyone  to
     be Santa Claus.

     Reply Objection #1: Since the good elves got  the  presents  they
     give from someone else, they must at most be Santa's helpers.

     Reply Objection #2: It is not impossible that Santa Claus use the
     door like everyone else.

----------------------------------------------------------
Well, it works.  I'll be talking (typing) to you more often.
                              
===============================================================
OTHER RANTS
===============================================================
(in which absolutely nothing will be revealed at all)

From:  VAX001::DAILINGE     "IGNATZ PIGFATZ" 
Subj:  The Saacred

Blarg.
Narfang.
Pa-TING!
Shargalumpichetsie.
Shnibble-fritz.
LIFFFF.
Horchibald Q.
etcetera, etcetera, and cowpits.
These are the sacred words.  Guard them well against the evil
eggsalad-marauders
and their on-slaught of 
Chick,chick GHAZALOPIE!
This is your mission, should you choose to accept it.  
              signed, seriously, Colonel Otis F. Pingle
                                 Marco Horowitz-Liefgowitz.

============================================================================

Return-Path: <[email-masked]>

              <<< DISK$APPL_CONF:[NOTES$LIBRARY]RELIGION.NOTE;1 >>>
           -< A place to discuss religion and religious philosophy >-
============================================================================
Note 8.33                     Heavy Metal Exorcism                      33
SITVXC::U91_RBAIN "Sir Realist"                      32 lines   9-MAY-1990
                          -< Demons is bad thingses. >-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

       It's times like this I thank Chance (thanx, Dayal!) that I'm a
    Discordian.  We don't have to worry about "demonic possesion",
    (Incidentally, why would anyone WANT to possess a demon, anyway? They're
    smelly, ugly nasty stupid little creeps, and they're no fun at parties!)
    since our souls are coated with such a thick layer of SKEPTICISM that
    only the most BLATANTLY obvious meta-psychic entities can use us as 
power sources.  Some Discordian schizms do believe in various demons, 
angels, saints, monsters, and other such beasties. This is a cheap way
    of sneaking polytheism into a formerly nice clean monotheistic faith,
    which is probably a good thing. It's harder to be an intolerant,
    fanatical polytheist than an intolerant, fanatical believer in the ONE
    TRUE GOD, who/whatever THAT is.  
       ANYway...we've got demons and such, but they can't directly harm
    or control us. (So there! Nyah!)  However, they DO try to cause us
    harm, either by killing us, driving us away, or "Normalizing" (AIIIEE!)
    us, so as to preserve the purity of their "Food Supply"--the Normals.
    In some sinister way, the Bad Guys, (consisting of the minions of ALL
    other cults, natch;) sap off those saps, draining their "souls" for some
    evil purpose--usually their own growth, like some gigantic spiritual
    tumor. (Nice analogy, huh?)
       If a soldier dies "for his country", could he have been said to
    have been possessed by a National Demon?  He did something no "sane"
    human being would, after all...
       The same sort of argument can be applied to an company-man who
    poisons the world for Money Demons, a chain-smoker in the grip of the
    Tobacco Demons, a martyr dying under the sway of a Religion Demon,
    etc...
    
       (Note to skeptics--this ENTIRE bit of surrealigious raving could
    easily be retranslated into a simple treatise on warring meme cultures. 
    Only the superstitous deny the supernatural.  fnord.)

============================================================================
LAST WORD!

From:  VAX001::SIMPSONS     "My life conflicts, please reschedule." 
Subj:  Otisian Sayings

"Late to bed and early to rise,
Makes a man grumpy and gives him red eyes."

From:  VAX001::SIMPSONS     "My life conflicts, please reschedule." 

Late to bed and late to rise,
Makes a man lazy.
________________________________________________________________
THE PURPLE THUNDERBOLT OF SPODE                     ISSUE #9 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Neither censored nor edited.  Deal.