lightcastle

Here there be Monsters.

The Binding of Isaac sounds like one messed-up game.

Arguments against the idea that religious views upholding male superiority, male-only leadership in religious posts and female subservience within the religion are simply a pretense for a pre-existing misogyny.

This puppy is deeply suspicious of broccoli.

I want a cat that does this.

I hit one of those lists of "unexplained ancient artifacts" and was pleasantly surprised how many I didn't know about.

1) The Grooved Spheres (aka the Klerksdorp spheres). These don't seem that interesting once you read the Wikipedia page.

2) The Dropa Stones, which were admitted as hoaxes years ago.

3) The Ica Stones, which I am sad to have not heard of earlier because DINOSAURS!

4) The Antikythera Mechanism which remains all kinds of awesome and delights me no end.

5) The Baghdad Battery. I didn't know Mythbusters had tackled these, and I'm glad to see they remain plausible.

6) The Coso Artifact, which is almost certainly just a sparkplug that got stuck in the earth. I love the idea of a time-traveler dropping it and am amazed it hasn't made its way into more popular literature. I would think I would have seen this in an episode of Doctor Who by now.

I am terribly fond of patron saints. Something about the idea of finding just the right story that you should hitch your star to when performing a certain job or faced with a certain dilemma appeals to me.

Now, the story of the Catholic Saints is a fascinating one, as the struggle to control and formalize the declaration of saints gives an insight into the struggle between a top-down hierarchy of temporal power and the spontaneous celebration of the holy that results in so many saints who only ever existed locally. (Of course, other traditions are filled with holy people as well, but very few have the specific formality of the Roman Catholic church.)

Many saints that are no longer saints fascinate me. Stories like Saint Guinefort and the fall of the Archangel Uriel into St. Uriel (and the other angels who mostly got demoted to Demons) fascinate me.

But I never cease to be amazed as to what there are patron saints for and what some of the saintly powers are.

And so, I present to you some of the best ones I've come across:

Perhaps my new favorite: Saint Drausinus who is the patron saint of invincible people. Because when I think of who needs a patron saint, it is the invincible. (I do think he would make a good patron saint of superheros, though.)

Although never formally beatified or canonized, there is Saint Christina the Astonishing who lives up to her name. She could levitate, was immune to fire and cold, able to smell sin on people, and also regularly led the souls of the recently dead to purgatory. She is, interestingly, both the patron saint of lunatics and the patron saint of therapists.

Again with the levitating thing, we have Joseph of Cupertino, who is now the patron saint of air travelers.

Padre Pio could fly/levitate (he seemed to protect pilots in WWII) and could bilocate. He isn't the patron saint of anything, though. (There are a handful of saints who could bilocate, by the way. Levitation is more common.)

I wonder if there is a canonical (pun intended) list of Saintly Powers?

I'm just being goofy.

From asciikitty, Movie Body Counts.

Randomly from the interwebs: Chocolate dieties.

In honour of being stood up twice this week by the same person...

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