Somehow I missed out on that campaign

This panel is taken from a tract created by a particularly virulent evangelical Christian named Jack Chick. The D&D tract was shoved in the middle of my Monster Manual when I bought it at the Waldenbooks at the Sooner Fashion Mall (somewhere around 1986, if my memory serves me correctly). It was so priceless that I saved it for years and years as a bookmark, although I’m not sure where the MM or the tract are now. Maybe Kevin has it. Anyways, Chick is a real piece of work. Check out some of his others. I’m especially fond of the anti-animal rights and anti-Islamic, which is so bigoted and condescending it should buy Mr. Chick his own fatwa. That being said, I find it ironic that the reason I know that Chick is wrong is because of Rushdie. To explain: Chick’s tract, entitled “Allah Had No Son,” takes the condescending presumption that because there was a pre-Islamic cult of Al-Lat, the moon goddess, then it must be the same character that Muhammad chose for the center of his monotheistic religion he was “inventing.” This Al-lat, as is clear in the Satanic Verses is not Allah. In fact, there was Allah before Islam, Muhammad just insisted that none of the others be worshiped. there is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.

Then the time of the idols began; by the time of Mahound, three hundred and sixty stone gods clustered around God’s own stone. … There is a God here called Allah (means simply, the god). Ask the Jahilians and they’ll acknowledge that this fellow has some sort of overall authority, but he isn’t very popular: an all-rounder in an age of specialist statues. … [L]astly, … the mother-goddess, whom the Greeks called Lato. Ilat, they call her here, or, more frequently, Al-Lat. the goddess. Even her name makes her Allah’s opposite and equal. (99-100)(emphasis Rushdie’s)

Chick just didn’t bother to check before he jumped to his conclusion.
Big, fat props to This boy is toast, which is where I found the linkage.

I’d be remiss in my duties…

Ok, I’ll admit that I consciously steer clear of the big bad fads in the blogging world just so I’m not seen as a follower. Now that I’ve admitted that, let me say this: I use Hobbsblog II as a links archive as much as an entertainment vehicle, so I have to include the next two, for my own sake if not yours.

This is a Realplayer Movie of a video called “Tunak Tunak Tun” by a Punjabi pop star named Daler Mehndi. This video will probably take those still stuck in dialup land a long time to load. It will still be worth it. More Daler here.

And then there’s the insane but irresistible “All Your Base Are Belong To Us", which is a badly translated video game intro. The game is called Zero Wing, and I have it on my computer. Courtesy of a friend, I have an amazing collection of emulated arcade games from the 80s and early 90s. To show off with houseguests I sometimes ask what their favorite game was from that era and then I let them play it. Anyway, this AYBABTU thing is everywhere. Trust me. (Mag informs me that this bloggage tars me with the geek brush pretty indelibly. Rats.)

I leave you with this, the Babelfish translation engine from Altavista. This may be the coolest thing yet on the web. I again am asking myself why didn’t anyone tell me about this before?


Hobbsblog II thanks Metafilter, as always.