Amongst the many monstrosities produced by Judeo-Christian western civilisation, this one has attracted some heat recently ...
The pond had only vaguely been aware of the American obsession with pumpkin spice, a bizarre mix of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, mace and cloves which turns up in fall recipes ... and in concoctions like the pumpkin spice latte ...
The pond thought that all that was needed to be genuinely a member of western civilisation was to say "I'll have some cinnamon with that to go ..."
Perhaps after noting Colbert's success with Trumpian ratings, Jimmy Kimmel has also regularly featured endless Trump jokes, not to mention gaining nationwide notoriety for having a healthcare test named after him ... but he also takes time out for conventional comedy, a lot of it not to the pond's taste ...but every so often skewering the achievements of Judeo-Christian civilisation, as reported here ...
The pond was vastly relieved when Kimmel gave the pumpkin spice Oreo a clean bill of health ...
... which brings the pond this day to its delicious Monday Oreo, one of the finest examples of the outpourings of Judeo-Christian western civilisation ...
Ah, the good old killer kids meme ...
Now it being a holyday Monday, perhaps the pond should have waxed lyrical about the way Labour day is a celebration of suckers labouring away without penalty rates, so that the indolent and well-heeled and well-off might enjoy themselves watching the suckers labouring away bringing them samples of pumpkin-spice flavoured goods ...
But that's probably a bit laboured, and how could penalty-rate free labourers on Labour day compete with an Oreo warning of kaliphate kid killers generating jihad in the urban jungles ...
Now here is not the place to go looking for sentimental images of suffering at the hands of heroic jihadist George W. Bush ... or shots of children suffering in war and deserving of our pity as the heroic crusaders go about their business of bombing Iraq and Afghanistan towards democracy and a civil polity ...
After all, what better way to teach the heathens and the heretics about the joys of advanced western civilisation than to bomb the bejesus out of them back to the stone ages ...
No, here the important note is to take care of our own and to blame it all on the Islamics, and never you mind at the way that the real exporters of fundamentalist Wahhabism once again get out of jail by promising that women might eventually and at last be able to drive cars ...
Indeed, indeed. Generation Oreo jihadist has been trained to bomb the bejesus out of anyone who gets in the way of the west. It is wise to walk blindly into this sort of battle, and really bomb the shit out of anything that moves, and then having transformed the landscape, to blather on about what the fine citizens of the Judeo-Christian west have accomplished ...
You know, like the current state of Iraq and Afghanistan and the pumpkin spice pizza ...
As for talk of secularism and humanism? Please none of that here. Just enjoy your warrior-certified pumpkin spice Oreo, and your delusional nutty notion that somehow we still live in a monolithic Judeo-Christian western civilisation where cannibalism in the form of actual blood and flesh wafer munching remains all the go ...
And so to a cartoon celebrating religious unity ....
And thence to a few more cartoons celebrating the Judeo-Christian West, with more at jesusandmo.net ...
Oreo: "There are many child victims of jihad."
ReplyDeleteI wonder what she'd say about the child victims of Crusades ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade
And thanks for the timely reminder of J&M. Still as apposite as ever.
Mmmm, pumpkin spice...a sort of pot-pourri of the really excellent side of Western Judeao-Christian history.
ReplyDeleteCinnamon from coastal Sri Lanka, nutmeg and mace from the Banda Islands, cloves from the Maluku ("Spice") Islands, all conquered by the Portuguese and then by the Dutch VOC, the genocidal transnational corporation dedicated to destroying lives and livelihoods everywhere they went. Purely from a commercial point of view, their monopolistic practices and engineering artificial scarcity to hike prices encouraged the production of cheap substitutes - cinnamon from Spanish-occupied Philippines, nutmeg and mace from Spanish (then British) slave plantations in the West Indies and cloves from slave plantations in French Mauritius and the Sultanate of Zanzibar (the arab world's biggest slave market).
Allspice is native to Jamaica, so produced by Spanish-owned Caribbean slaves, and then British-owned African slaves. Ginger, boringly, is widespread and could not be monopolised in this way.
Pumpkin spice originates in the north-east states, presumably due to Dutch connections ("even old New York was once New Amsterdam"), so thanks to the VOC, white Americans can savour the true flavour of racial supremacy, and 500 years of genocide and slavery. Mmmmm, that's the taste of victory... :)
Oh, as a sidebar, these spices share a common ingredient (which is ultimately why their flavours are so compatible), the "essential" oil eugenol, which is present in varying concentrations in all of them. Eugenol derives its name, ultimately, from the same root which gives us "eugenics".
DeleteI don't know why, but given the sordid history of these condiments, the link seemed somehow appropriate.
Quite fascinating, FD, and just one more thing I've never heard of before. But even with the 'clove oil' eugenol in common, I can't quite see why all of those ingredients were somehow stuck together or why, even so, basil and bay leaf were omitted. Didn't the Dutch VOC know about them ?
DeleteBut I'm not quite sure that I want to ingest quantities of 'pumpkin spice' to try to find out. Have you ever consumed it yourself ?
"Besim was friends with teen jihadist Numan Haider"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/home/coroners+written+findings/finding+inquest+into+the+death+of+ahmad+numan+haider
Haider had lived in Australia since he was 5. He was not a "caliphate child". He was a troubled and depressed Australian teenager. He became radicalised and violent over several months. It is ridiculous and entirely un-Christian to believe that transformation is irreversible. Oriell's fundamentalist rhetoric is disgraceful.