"You know what it is about this place that bugs me?" Grisha Perelman says. He's just been telling me how he's a mathematician, solved one of the Clay Mathematics Institute's Millennium Puzzles, was in line for a million bucks when he got raptured or whatever out of there. Ain't that always the way, he sighed.

"No," I say, "what is it about this place?"

"No perspective."

"Excuse me?"

"No perspective. Parallel lines don't meet at the horizon."

"Oh," I say, dim memories of high school physics rousing themselves feebly, "that kind of perspective."

"Right. It's like a medieval painting. Everything is right there in your face, demanding precisely the same kind of attention as everything else."

"And that bugs you, huh?" I'm just making polite conversation. Talking about math beats listening to Herakleitos. Sort of.

"What bugs me about it," Grisha says, "is that I can't figure it out. I can't parse it. It's a whole new math. I'm going to have to retrain myself up here."

"What makes you think it's 'up'?" I say idly.

"Exactly!" he cries. "That's just what I'm talking about! A whole new topology! What did you say you did on earth?"

"Writer," I say.

"Science writer?" he says hopefully.

I shake my head apologetically. "Blogger," I say.

He sighs. His eyes scan the cookout for someone more interesting to talk to. I'm thinking the same thing. I haven't heard from Mullah Billdoug in whatevers. And where's Bill, for god's sakes?

Just then I see something very strange--something I haven't seen since I arrived here.

It's a cloud. It isn't exactly floating; it's more accurately stumbling across the clear green sky, heading right toward us.

"Ba'al?" Yahweh calls, one eye uneasily on the sky.

Everybody looks around for Ba'al. We finally locate him, up in the power boat, under the tarp. First his head pokes out, then Ann Coulter's.

"Can't this wait?" he says.

"Look up," Yahweh says. Ba'al does. Ann Coulter does. I'm looking at Ann Coulter: her shoulders are bare. "That your cloud, Ba'al?" Yahweh says.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 3:25 PM

Herakleitos is here today. He looks a bit like Bill Kaul: tall, heavy, hairy, big nose, bulging eyes. Sort of lumbers when he walks. He's eating baby back ribs, talking with his mouth full. His beard is red with barbeque sauce, which I could swear is Corky's, but I can't find a bottle anywhere, and Yahweh is evasive when I ask him.

Everybody's getting a little sick of Herakleitos, if you want to know the truth. All he does is make clever little pronouncements, in this annoying pompous vatic voice. I see the others rolling their eyes. "Come on, chill out," they want to tell him. "This is heaven. Enough with the postmodern philosophy already."

For example, the others start talking about poets. "T. S. Eliot," Yahweh says. "Now there was a poet. Good Catholic, too." Others chime in, arguing for their guys. I make a case for Mullah Jalal al-Din Mevlana, my Sufi favorite. Allah's here today, and nods sagely, smiling his enigmatic little smile, as I talk about the second-holiest writer in the Muslim world.

Then Herakleitos chimes in: "The poet was a fool," he says, "who wanted no conflict among us, gods or people. Harmony needs low and high, as progeny needs man and woman."

What the fuck?

"I'll give it to you low and high, you little Greek pussy," I hear Ba'al muttering over by the grill.

Then there's a knock on the back yard gate, and two people come in, a man and a woman--necessary, as Herakleitos has been telling us, for progeny.

"Hello?" the man says. "Is this Yahweh's place?"

I recognize the woman. "My God," I say. "It's Ann Coulter."

"That's the name!" the man cries. "I can't believe I couldn't think of it!"

"That's my name?" the woman says wonderingly. "Ann Coulter?"

"I saw you on The Daily Show," I say. "What a painful experience that was, Jon Stewart tying himself in knots, trying to be nice to you."

"I don't remember," she says softly.

"She's got amnesia," the man explains.

"Oh, sure," Wodin says. "Happens all the time. People can't remember their lives on earth. Sit down, have some ribs. Maybe it'll come back."

"As souls change into water on their way through death," Herakleitos says, "so water changes into earth. And as water springs from earth, so from water does the soul."

Brother!

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 11:21 AM

"Let's look for God," Grisha Perelman says.

"Who?" the woman says.

"The Deity. The Creator of all things. The One. Any of those ring a bell?"

She shakes her head. "Sorry."

"This is His city," Grisha says. "It's like He's the mayor."

"What's a mayor?" the woman says.

Grisha sighs, turns away.

"Excuse me," he says to the next passerby. "Could you direct us to the Throne of the Most High?"

"The what, now?" the stranger says with a little smile. She's a nicely put together middle-aged woman, maybe a year or two over fifty, with the body of a 25-year-old jogger.

"The Throne of the Most High," Grisha says.

"Sorry, I have no idea what that is," the woman says.

"God's throne," Grisha says. "Where God lives."

"Which god?" the woman says.

"What do you mean, which god?" Grisha says. "The God of Israel. Creator of the universe."

"Who, you mean Yahweh?"

"Yeah," Grisha says, "that's the one."

"And you think he created the universe? That's a new one on me!" She's laughing, now. Her eyes are all lit up. Grisha has made her day.

"Look," Grisha says, "do you know where His throne is, or not?"

"I have no idea about any throne. I've never been inside his house, so I don't know how he's furnished it. He spends most of his time out around the pool anyway."

"So you do know where He lives?"

"Sure. Everybody does. See that street up there? Not this next one, but the one after. See the Walgreen's? That one. Take a left there. It's a bit of a hike, maybe a mile. On your right."

"A castle? A palace? A mansion? How will I recognize it?"

"No, it's just a tract house. A starter home, we used to call it back when I was in the real estate business. It's got their names on the mailbox."

"Their?"

"Sure. Yahweh, Mary, and Jesus. Seriously, you can't miss it."

"Thanks," Grisha says.

"Think nothing of it." The woman chuckles again and shakes her head. "Creator of the universe. I like that one. Mind if I use it?"

"Not at all," Grisha says.

The woman walks off laughing.

"Looks like maybe this place isn't what they told you about back in--shul? Was that the word?"

"Yeah," Grisha says sourly. "That was the word."

They turn left at the Walgreen's and start hiking out Divine Acres Lane, reading the mailboxes.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 9:47 AM

"So this is heaven," Grisha Perelman says, looking around at the golden streets and sapphire buildings.

"What?" the born-again liberal woman says.

"This is it," Grisha says. "What we wondered about all our lives."

"Oh. Did we really?"

"Of course."

"And you're sure it's--that place? That same place you--we--wondered about?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

"How were you supposed to get to heaven?"

"You were supposed to be a good person. Obey the Ten Commandments. Not lie. Not take the Lord's name in vain. Not commit adultery."

"Did you do those things? I mean, avoid doing those things?"

"Well, no."

"So?"

"So ... well, there's divine forgiveness for sins. If God forgave you, then you went to heaven when you died."

"So did you die?"

"Not exactly. I got sucked up through a hole that appeared in the space-time continuum."

"And did the stories about heaven talk about holes appearing in the space-time continuum?"

"No."

"Mm-hm."

"I know," Grisha says. "Let's check it."

"How?"

"Ask somebody."

"Okay."

"Excuse me," Grisha says to the first man they pass in the street, "but could you tell me--hey, you're Adolf Hitler!"

"That's right," says Hitler.

"Well damn, then," Grisha says, looking troubled. "This can't be heaven."

"Why not?" the woman says.

"Sure, it's heaven," Hitler says.

"But--" Grisha starts.

"But I killed six million Jews, and was the signature madman of the twentieth century, so if I'm here, it's got to be hell?" Hitler smiles.

"Uh, yeah," Grisha says.

"Forget all that stuff you learned in shul," Hitler says. "It's just heaven. It ain't paradise."

"Uh, okay," Grisha says.

"Be seeing you around," Hitler says.

"Sure," Grisha says.

"So," the woman says as they watch him walk away. "He killed six million Jews?"

"Yeah," Grisha says. "Your hero."

"What's a Jew?" the woman says.

"I am," Grisha says. "That was the boogey-man. That was the guy I spent most of my life secretly afraid of."

"But I thought he was great?" the woman says.

"Yeah," Grisha says. "Secretly."

"Oh," the woman says.

"What is your name?" Grisha says, waving his arms a little impotently.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 8:56 AM

It all comes to an abrupt halt at some kind of rough ceiling. It extends as far as the eye can see in every direction, and looks and feels like the bumply bottom of a molded sink.

He just sticks to it, along with all the other random trash picked up by the updraft.

His first instinct is to cling to the surface for dear life. The panic passes quickly. He isn't going to fall. He isn't being held up by suction, or pressure, or reverse gravity. The force holding him there is alien to the electromagnetic fields of the space-time continuum he has spent his life mathematizing. Nothing to do but trust it, for now; take some notes; start figuring out ways to reduce his new environment to numbers.

So for a moment he rests, getting his bearings, then pushes himself up into an upside-down crawl. There must be holes in this surface too: it is quite patently no three-sphere. (But would the Poincare hypothesis hold here? Only one way to find out.)

After searching an unmeasurable period of time, perhaps an hour, perhaps a century, he comes to an irregular cavity in the bottom of heaven's sink, and carefully climbs through. Just above the surface, rough steps start.

They are, however, covered with some mucky substance, which his nose tells him is, well, blogshit. Clearly, the blogosphere is no perfect three-sphere either. The steps and walls are a good ten centimeters deep in the shit.

Grisha plays it safe: stays on his hands and knees. Tries not to think about what he's crawling through.

At the top of the steps there is a slight recess. On a small ledge there cowers a not-unattractive blond woman. She is shivering and hugging herself for warmth. Her face, clothes, and hair are smeared randomly with blogshit.

"Hello," Grisha says. The woman just shivers and stares. "Do you need help?"

"I--I don't know," she finally manages to say.

"Here, give me your hand," Grisha says.

She reaches out tentatively, and he helps her to her feet.

"How long have you been crouching there?"

"I don't know."

"Right. Sorry. Stupid question. No time here. Come on," he says. "Let's go topside."

They walk up into the light.

"Where are we?" the woman says.

"Either this is heaven," Grisha says, "or--"

"Or what?"

"I don't know. I was going to make some kind of Wizard of Oz reference. But I think this is heaven."

"Where are you from?" the woman asks. "Are you Chechen?"

"Russian," Grisha says. "And you?"

"I'm not sure. I think--I've lost my memory. I don't know who I am."

"I see."

Grisha looks around. Twenty steps away stands a beach shower, with soap-on-a-rope and towels on a hook.

"Shower?" he says.

She nods, and they go over, strip down to their underwear, and wash off. As they towel-dry their hair, Grisha has an epiphany.

"Wait," he says. "I know you."

"You do?" she says, her eyes lighting up pathetically.

"You're that fascist! You're--what's your name?"

The name is on the tip of his tongue. The woman's eyes fall.

"I'm a fascist?"

"Well, yes--or, well, maybe not a fascist. But so far right that you--well, hate everybody that loves freedom and diversity. What's your name?"

The woman shrugs miserably. Tears well up in her eyes.

"I don't want to be a fascist," she says, her voice breaking.

"Then--don't be one," Grisha says easily. "Change. Be something new. Be a lesbian. No," he corrects himself, eyeing her lycra-sheathed breasts, "don't be a lesbian. Be a liberal."

"What's a liberal?" the woman asks.

"Someone who loves liberty," Grisha says. "Liberty and justice for all."

"That sounds good," the woman says. "I think that's what I'll be. A liberal. That has a nice sound to it."

"Wouldn't the fascists back on earth shit bricks!" Grisha says happily. "But I wish I could think of your name! Oh well," he sighs, "it'll come to me. Shall we go explore?"

She nods. They set off.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 2:36 PM

It's not an unpleasant experience, being sucked up out of the four-sphere space-time continuum at warp speed.

Of course, Grisha Perelman has no stationary points to triangulate his actual speed from, but he somewhat unmathematically decides to call it warp speed.

He's still on the rough cot, as it turns out. He feels a bit like Dorothy in the tornado, whirling around through--

Hold on here: could that have been a hole in the space-time continuum that Dorothy's whole house was sucked up through? Could the tornado have been merely a naturalistic explanation slapped onto an empirical event deemed too implausible for Hollywood?

When he reached his destination, would Grisha too land on a witch?

Strangely enough, yes, in a way--but a witch who had lost her life and her memory.

Grisha snags a notepad and pencil eddying near him, and begins jotting down numbers, equations, formulae ...

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 2:25 PM

"The n=1 case is me," Grisha Perelman muttered. It didn't sound right. "The n=1 case is me," he said again. There was something wrong with his mantra.

Then he tasted the bile on his tongue, smacked his lips a little, and opened his eyes.

There was a man sitting in a chair across from him. He himself was lying on some sort of rough cot. The room was dank and dusty. The floor was concrete.

"Feeling better?" the man said.

"Who are you?" Grisha said.

The man just smiled. He was large and fleshy, with a pink balloon of a head.

"How did you get me?"

"Smart tranquilizer dart," the man said. "From a mile away."

"Oh shit," Grisha said. "The fucking government."

"What," the man said, "you think we're the only ones with that technology?"

"I won't tell you about the holes," Grisha said.

The man smiled again. "Oh, but you see," he said, "you already have. In your sleep. And now," he added, pulling out a Glock and screwing a silencer onto its barrel, "we no longer need you."

Grisha just had time for a silent apology--"prosti menya"--to his wife, his ex-wife, mother of his child, when a hole opened up in the ceiling and Grisha Perelman vanished.

Karl Rove, not an emotional man, grimaced briefly. Then he began unscrewing the silencer.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 8:36 AM

Grisha Perelman stood as close to the hole as he dared, watching it throw rocks at the heavens.

Occasionally he'd add a rock or two to the mix. He'd never been athletic as a boy, never learned to throw like a boy, but there was no one here to watch him pick up fist-sized rocks and launch them awkwardly, his left elbow jutted forward, toward the deafening upward streaming of the hole.

This was the last place, he hoped, his enemies would think to come look for him. And if they did, he could simply step into the hole and be forever beyond their reach.

The hole, maybe fifty feet across, was in a sacred desert in northern New Mexico. For centuries, perhaps thousands of years, the Navajo had worshipped the powers in these rocky hills. Now there wasn't a Navajo for hundreds of miles around. The only one left to worship the power was Grisha Perelman.

As he stood there, feeling mostly rather empty, experiencing only the odd half-conscious shudder, he muttered a kind of mathematician's mantra:

"The n=1 case is trivial. The n=2 case is classical. The n=3 case is me. The n=4 case was proved by Freedman in 1982. The n=5 case was proved by Zeeman in 1961. The n=6 case was proved by Stallings in 1962. The n=1 case is trivial. The n=2 case is classical. The n=3 case is me."

And so on.

As he bent to pick up another rock, he didn't see the glint of sunlight off a pair of high-magnification binoculars from a rockpile just over a mile away.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 7:25 AM

Late yesterday afternoon in Sydney, Australia, at the Fourteenth Annual World Conference on the Mathematics of Fog, Purdue mathematician Louis le Branges announced his solution to the Reimann Hypothesis. First posed in 1859, the Reimann Hypothesis is one of seven mathematical puzzles designated four years ago by the Clay Mathematical Institute for their million-dollar Millennium Prizes.

But the big buzz at the Sydney conference has surrounded a solution offered two years ago to another CMI puzzle, the so-called the Poincaré conjecture.

The rules established by the CMI for a claimant to win a prize are (a) that the solution must be published in a reputable mathematical journal, and (b) that it must not be disproved during a two-year waiting period.

If Professor le Branges' solution to the Reimann Hypothesis is correct, therefore, it will be two years before he can claim his million dollars.

In 2002, a reclusive Russian mathematician named Grigoriy Perelman published a proof of the Poincaré conjecture, posited by H. Poincaré in 1904--but not in a mathematical journal. Rather, he posted it to his website, http://arXiv.org/. Indeed he seems disinclined to pursue publication, and thus the prize money--although, two years on, the general consensus of the mathematician community is that Perelman has indeed solved the puzzle.

To put it in layman's terms, the Poincaré conjecture states that every simply connected closed three-manifold is homeomorphic to the three-sphere--which is to say, in baby talk (begging the reader's pardon for this condescension), that the three-sphere is the only type of bounded three-dimensional space possible that contains no holes.

What has caused the furore at the Sydney conference has been a theory put forth by the so-called Bucharest School of Sufi Math that links the holes that inevitably appear in other bounded three-dimensional spaces with the recent natural disasters variously dubbed by the media as "pseudo-raptures" and "urban degravitation events." Initially met with skepticism and even overt scorn, the Bucharest School theory now seems to be finding widespread acceptance, and it seems increasingly likely that Perelman's solution to the Poincaré conjecture can help explain the "leakage" of random people and things--even whole cities--through the four-sphere of the space-time continuum and reappearance in the storm drains of heaven.

(For counterarguments that the space-time continuum is actually a five-sphere, a six-sphere, or even, laughably, a seven-and-three-eighths-sphere, see Swales (2004), Pinpop (2004), and Globule (forthcoming), respectively.)

As news of this spreading consensus among the world's top fog mathematicians has been picked up by the media, an intense search has been set in motion to track down the reclusive Russian mathematician, but so far to no avail. Speculation in news rooms, intelligence agencies, and OTB parlors around the world is rife that Perelman is hiding from, or perhaps has already been kidnapped or killed by, the forces that would exploit his proof for their nefarious schemes.

Anyone who can provide information as to the whereabouts of Perelman should telephone the White House immediately and ask for Karl.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 10:46 PM

"So I says to that pompous ass O'Reilly, I says," little baby Jesus is saying, holding Mary's breast to one side, a thin rivulet of milk dribbling out of the left corner of his mouth, "'you can't turn me off, because I'm Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son!' You should have seen the look on his big fat red face then! I thought he was going to burst an artery in that pea-brain of his!"

It's the fourth time he's telling the story. Everybody around the grill is smiling forced smiles, trying not to roll their eyes. Even the milk has stopped spurting out of the trinitarian holes in Mary's nipple.

Then the Mullah starts talking to me again, from inside my head.

Doug? You there?

Uh, I think, I can't really talk right now.

Okay, he says. Just listen. Ann Coulter got whacked today. She should be appearing up there any minute now. I think Karl Rove's behind this. Coulter is his spy in the forbidden experiment plot. He sent her up there to lean on Olivia and foment a fascist coup in heaven. So here's what I want you to do: if you see Coulter, don't think about Olivia Dunktert. Got that? Just make your mind a blank. Jedi mind trick. Okay? Nod if you got all that.

I nod.

Good, he says. I'll be in touch.

And he's gone.

"So then," Jesus is saying, "so then this Nazi lawyer Ann Coulter comes after Me! Can you believe it? After Me!"

"Right, well," Yahweh says, suppressing a burp, "more chicken, anybody?"

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 9:40 AM

Ann Coulter, neo-conservative pundit and author of the New York Times bestsellers High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Slander, and Treason, was found dead in her home of an apparent heart attack, police sources said today.

"Given her high-profile career and outspoken public opinions," police spokesperson Trudy Wiegel said in a press conference, "we will of course be investigating her death. But at this point it looks like a simple heart attack."

Coulter, 43, was much in demand on the neo-conservative lecture circuit, and unnamed sources in the Medical Examiner's office have suggested that her "killer" was too much rich restaurant food and too much airline-related stress.

"That'll kill you right there," the source said. "Sitting in gate areas waiting for your flight to be canceled."

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 9:33 AM

Mullah, Here's the latest wireless transcript. I haven't yet identified the speakers on the tape, but I thought maybe you would know. Fatima

A: So did you boys see the latest from that big dumb horse Ann Coulter?

B: Oh, what, that she hates Bill O'Reilly?

C: I said all along that we should bring her in, torture her a little.

D: Shut up, Rummy. You and your torture.

A: No. The thing about her and Jesus.

D: Oh, something about Jesus attacking big corporations for scamming shareholders?

A: Right.

B: Yeah, I saw that. Dump Christianity, kill the liberals, usher in a new era of American freedom.

C: I still think it'd be a good idea to strip her naked, put her in a room with a couple of big beefy military subcontractors, and--

D: Shut up, Rummy. Haven't you gotten us in enough trouble already with your torture memos?

C: Karl, Dick keeps--

A: Shut up, both of you.

B: Besides, how are you going to humiliate Ann Coulter? That broad is incapable of feeling shame.

A: Good point.

C: But then--

A: But you're right, Donald. She's hurting us in the polls. She's hurting us with the Christian Right. She could hurt us very badly with Olivia Dunktert and the forbidden experiment. Something ought to be done.

B: Something--permanent, Karl?

A: Something--relatively permanent, yes.

B: So you're saying that as the Attorney-General, I should--

A: I'm not saying anything, John.

B: Oh. Right.

A: I'm not giving orders. I'm just thinking out loud.

D: Don't you think, though, Karl, that this born-again shit has gone too far? I mean, it's one thing for the Chimp Clone to say God talks to him, but--

A: No, I don't, Dick.

D: I'm just saying, Karl, that maybe Ann's got a point.

A: A point in the press is worth ten in the polls, Dick.

D: Yeah, you're right. Sorry. I was just thinking out loud.

A: Well, don't.

D: Right.

A: So--what have we been talking about here today, boys?

B: Uh--not sure?

C: The budget?

D: Halliburton?

A: Good boys.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 9:12 AM

Right-wing crusader Ann Coulter today went after everybody's favorite Savior, Jesus Christ.

Jesus has been under fire from the political Right since His appearance on Fox's The O'Reilly Factor yesterday, during which He called on God the Father to cross the show's feisty conservative host Bill O'Reilly off the "saved list" and refused to forgive him.

In a memorable exchange at the close of the appearance, Jesus said "Don’t make me ask dad to let Satan mess with you," whereupon O'Reilly tried to grab the mic off the lapel of Jesus' three-piece executive suit, and Jesus taunted, "Can’t turn me off, can’t turn me off. Nanny nanny boo boo!" At this point O'Reilly lost his temper and began shouting "Shut up shut up shut up shut up!" at the top of his lungs.

As the producers say: good television.

Now Ann Coulter has chimed in, accusing Jesus of being "even more liberal than that communist Bill O'Reilly" and accusing Him of flipflops going all the way back to his ministry on earth.

"What would you call 'Let him who is without sin among ye cast the first stone'?" Coulter charged. "Doesn't that sound exactly like John Kerry? Oh, those poor Iraqis, they might get hurt when we cast our big stones! Then it's 'I've come to bring not peace but a sword.' Make up your mind, Jesus! What do you want to do, dither or cut somebody's head off?"

Coulter went on to argue that Jesus was the worst thing to happen to America, with His flipflop liberal message of forgiveness mixed with sudden irrational bursts of anger against big corporations "fraudulently" skimming funds from church-goers and shareholders.

"The sooner we dump the flipflop liberal religion of Jesus Christ," she declaimed, "and incinerate all the flipflop human liberals, beginning with Bill O'Reilly, the sooner we'll be able to get American freedom and democracy back on track."

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 8:01 AM

They heard a sofa creak, and creak again. Somewhere inside, a human groan; then it was the floorboards that were groaning.

"Mr. Talib?" they called through the peeling door. "Are you all right?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming, keep your shirts on."

Presently the door swung open and revealed an ancient bleary-eyed ruff of skin wrapped around Paul Bunyan's bones.

"Mr. Talib?"

"Yeah, that's me. What can I do for y'all?"

"I, uh, I'm Dean Wocklefeister from Sufi U, and this gentleman is--"

"Yeah, yeah," Abu Talib said (for it was indeed he). "I know Mullah Billdoug. Him and me go way back. How you doin, Mullah?"

"Been better. Got some pains in my joints. You must know all about that."

"I do indeed, I do indeed. I got so many pains in my joints, they've gone and had babies and grandbabies. Some of my pains, they tell me, are the direct descendants of the pains I once caused the Praised One, the Prophet."

"Yes, well," Dean Wocklefeister said, rocking on his feet, "Mullah Billdoug tells me that you used to work for us over at Sufi U. Is that true?"

"Did I? Did I? You bet I did. Worked there for a long time. Worked there so long I should be getting rich off my retirement benefits. But of course the contract I signed back in whenever only allows me a goat a month. Ain't much to live off of, one goat a month, let me tell you!"

"No, no," Dean Wocklefeister said, cutting his eyes uneasily over at Mullah Billdoug, "I wouldn't guess it would. But you see--"

"Yes, yes, I heard all about the shit y'all got down at the college," Abu Talib said. "I know why y'all're here. Y'all want me to come back to work."

"Well, Mullah Billdoug said--" the Dean began.

"He told you some story about me shitting my pants at the Prophet's house, umpty-odd years ago, right?"

"Not your pants, exactly, Abu," Mullah Billdoug said.

"Okay, okay," Abu Talib said, "so it was the whole fucking room. Big deal. It was a small room."

"Now when you say 'the Prophet,'" Dean Wocklefeister said, "do you mean--"

"How many fucking prophets are there?" Abu Talib snapped. "The Prophet. The Praised One, Mohammed."

"Well, that's what Mullah Billdoug said," Dean Wocklefeister said. "But that would make you--"

"Old. I know. They don't call me the oldest living retired Sufi U janitor for nothing."

"But how--"

"The Prophet rewarded me with it."

"Rewarded you? What, with long life?"

"No, no, that's a curse, ain't no one ever told you that? You don't want to live thousands of years. No, the reward, of course, was to clean up other people's shit, like he cleaned up mine."

"I see," Dean Wocklefeister said. "Well, we do have a lot of other people's shit. And the entire custodial staff has up and quit. Do you think--"

"--Do I think I'd like to come back to work? Sure. What the hell. I got nothing better to do. I won't work for one goat a month, though."

"No, no, of course not," Dean Wocklefeister said.

"I won't come back to work for less than two goats a month."

"Done."

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 5:53 PM

Yes, folks, it's true: Mel Gibson reads Mullah Billdoug! I loved him in Lethal Weapon, didn't you? The way he looked all crazy at the beginning, shoving that gun in his mouth like he was going to blow his brains out, and jumping off that building with the guy, and scaring the hell out of Danny Glover, but then turning out to be a real-life action hero? Man. I love that stuff.

Anyway, I have a letter here from him:

Dear Mullah Billdoug:

Just want to say, I love your blog! I read it every day, most days several times. I admit it, I'm hooked!

There's something I can't figure out, though. You keep portraying Jesus in different ways. Here, for example, it's 1912 and He's a large boneless blob in the upstairs room of a honkey-tonk. Here, and here, he's a wild rapscallion in heaven, raising hell with Mohammed. Here, he's also in heaven, but as a tiny suckling baby who takes Mary's breast out of his mouth and talks like an adult. And here, he's a young unborn Rotarian visiting the Seventy translators at Alexandria, in 281 BC. Which is it? I mean, shouldn't you be more consistent in your portrayals of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered and suffered and suffered and suffered and suffered under Pontius Pilate?

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Yours in Christ,
Mel Gibson

Well, Mel, sorry, but all the editors are out of the office again, so I really can't help you. I'm just the janitor, Jerry Falwell (no relation to the famous Jerry Falwell, who I'm sure would know more about Jesus than I do, though I love him, Jesus I mean, from the bottom of my heart and mind and soul). But they did show me how to post letters to the blog, and I'm sure they'll be getting back to you with detailed answers to your really good questions when they get back!

Jerry Falwell

P.S. Since you seem to know so much about how Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, maybe you should make a movie about it? That would be awesome, man. Gosh, I can't believe I'm writing to Mel Gibson! I love you, man! You're the greatest!

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 11:27 AM

Fade up on John Kerry's face, grimacing evilly, with photoshopped devil horns and goatee.

VOICEOVER: John Kerry says he wants to be President. John Kerry says he's a war hero. John Kerry says a lot of things.

A cartoon ghost drifts into frame.

GHOST 1: I served under John Kerry in Vietnam. I was on his boat. He killed me dead. John Kerry murdered me. That flipflop liar snuck up on me and pushed my face into my soup until I drowned. Now he's running for President and I'm dead. I wish someone would kill him. Then I'd beat him up for killing me.

The first ghost is joined by a second.

GHOST 2: I served under John Kerry in Vietnam too, until he snuck up on me from behind and hit me in the back of the head with a baseball bat. And he's a Satan-worshipper, too.

The first two ghosts are joined by a third. It's getting a little crowded.

GHOST 3: John Kerry says he wants to be President, but he isn't even human. He's a devil-goat with sharp teeth. I saw him unzipping his John Kerry suit late one night on the swift boat, when he thought nobody was looking. That's when I understood where the tall forehead came from: they had to make the suit like that to fit his long goat head into it. Do we elect devil-goats with sharp teeth in John Kerry suits President? I don't think so.

VOICEOVER: John Kerry says he wants to be President. But then John Kerry says a lot of things. Paid for by Swift Boat Veterans For Truth.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 9:38 AM

Well, life in heaven seems to be one long cookout. Today Isis and Osiris are here, with Isis's pet priest Lucius Apuleius. Nobody mentions the time when he was a golden ass. I gather it's something of a sore subject with Isis. Osiris, well--if I never hear him bitch and moan about the pain in his leg again, it'll be too soon.

I never realized gods could be such big babies.

I'm off to one side, blogging, when Mullah Billdoug starts talking to me from inside my head.

Doug? You there?

If you call heaven "there," I think.

Listen, is Bill with you?

No, I think. I haven't seen him since the rapture mud. And then only as he was going under.

Never mind. There's something you need to know. Karl Rove's been talking to Olivia.

Olivia Dunktert? I think.

Yeah. He's trying to get her to do the forbidden experiment for them.

But, I think--she's here in heaven. Is Karl Rove dead?

He isn't exactly dead, Mullah Billdoug says, and he isn't exactly undead. And he's a very long ways from alive.

I see.

He needs the forbidden experiment in order to derelect the Clone.

The Clone? I think.

The Chimp Puppet Clone.

"Oh, I get it," I say out loud, thinking: why would anyone want to clone a chimp puppet for president?

The technology was very hit-or-miss back in the mid-forties, the Mullah says.

So what do you want me to do? I think.

Just don't think, he says.

Don't think? At all?

Don't think about Olivia Dunktert.

Oh, I think, I can do that. I hardly ever think about her anyway.

Good. Oh, and another thing.

Yes?

Keep an eye out for Mullah Jalal al-Din Mevlana.

Rumi?

Yes, Rumi. He may have ties with Olivia.

Ties?

Literally. We have the ropes that were used to tie her up in the photo I found in her dresser drawer, and they've got Mullah Jalal's DNA all over them.

DNA? I think. He's been dead seven centuries.

You think dead people don't have DNA? the Mullah says, rather snappishly.

Right, right, I think: I got it: don't think.

Exactly, the Mullah says.

So do you think Mullah Jalal's working with Rove on this? I think.

I repeat, Mullah Billdoug says: I don't think.

Okay.

Just keep an eye out for him.

Right.

Oh, and say hi to Isis for me, would you? I used to have a big thing for her.

And he's gone. And I'm thinking: the Mullah and Isis? Is it possible?

Then I remind myself: don't think. Don't even remind yourself not to think. Don't even refer to yourself in the second person while not reminding yourself not to think. Don't even

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 9:23 AM

You tie me up and I break free furiously, opening out into sky, round and bright, candlepoint, all reason and love.

You gave me this bone-bursting joy at sixes and sevens. You stuck me with this hangover.

I turn when you turn to look. Somehow I’m saying this wrong.

I’m some nutcase in jail, tying up spirit-women.

I’m Solomon. I’m lame.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 7:17 AM

After a week of unusually intense (super?)natural disasters, just when we thought we could begin to loosen the industrial-strength bungee cords that were holding our cars in our driveways and our computers on our desks, scientists in the Department of Creationist Seismology at Magnolia Bible College in Kosciusko, Mississippi, are reporting a series of bizarre Urban Degravitation Events (UDEs) in whole cities. The liberal media, fearing an outbreak of religious revivalism in the heartlands, have so far managed to keep these UDEs quiet; but the disappearance into the skies of entire cities, and in some cases of whole boroughs in major metropolitan areas, makes it impossible even for the all-powerful liberal media to keep a lid on this indefinitely.

And in any case we here at Mullah Billdoug take our journalistic duties very seriously indeed, and feel compelled to break this news story no matter how many abortionists, gays, lesbians, feminists, civil liberties lawyers, and Kerry campaigners it pisses off.

What apparently is happening is that tall buildings, whole streets and neighborhoods, and in many cases large metropolitan areas have been coming loose from their moorings and soaring up into the upturned bowl of the sky. Here are some of the US cities thus far hit (investigations are still underway, and it is not yet known whether all of these cities have completely degravitated or only certain neighborhoods):

Scottsdale, Arizona
Dulles, Virginia
Gwynn Oak and Owings Mills, Maryland (apparently just the Social Security Administration buildings, though)
Alexandria, Virginia
Brooklyn, NY
Cortez, Colorado
Denton, Texas
Pekin, Illinois
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Kansas City, Missouri
San Mateo, San Jose, Laguna Niguel, North Hills, and large chunks of Los Angeles, California
Pocatello, Idaho
Ogden, Utah
Mililani, Hawaii
Green Bay, Wisconsin (just the football stadium, unfortunately during a Packers home game)

Magnolia Bible College's creationist seismographs have also recorded scattered Urban Degravitation Events in Malaga, Spain, Porto, Portugal, Soignies, Belgium, Helsinki, Finland, Helsingor, Denmark (but only Hamlet's castle), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, and Singapore. Successive highly localized (called by experts "pinpoint") UDEs in Milton Keynes, England (a city not named for John Milton and John Maynard Keynes), took only the world's longest shopping mall (720 meters long), indoor ski slope, Open University, National Badminton Centre, and National Hockey Stadium.

Creationist seismologists at Magnolia Bible College, their machines pressed to the breaking point by incoming data, have not yet had the leisure time to seek out a Bible-based explanation for the events. However, a prayer network in and around Kosciusko reports that heaven's storm drains are clogging up at an alarming rate, and suggests there may be a connection with the upward loss of global urban infrastructure.

Born-again Christians who would like to build their own seismographs to track UDEs around the globe are encouraged to download instructions from the University of California Seismological Laboratory in Berkeley.

Related stories: Pseudo-Rapture: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Hurricanes Francis and Ludwig: 1 | 2 Mississippi Rapture Mud/Catfish: 1 | 2 | 3

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 2:28 PM

Olivia Dunktert at home

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 1:04 PM

Hey Mo! Look, what's that?

What's what, Jeeze?

That!

What, you dumb fuck?

Don't call me a dumb fuck, you dumb fuck. I'm the Son of God.

No you ain't. You're His Prophet, like me.

Are you saying Yahweh ain't my dad? He'll smite you for that.

No, I'm saying Yahweh ain't god. My guy Allah is.

Oh, you really are looking for a knuckle sandwich, aren't you, you turd.

No, but you are, and I'm just the fella to give it to you.

Oh yeah?

Yeah. I'll hit you so hard, when I'm through with you there'll be hundreds of miles between your west and your east. Your left hand won't have the foggiest idea what your right is doing.

Oh, you think you can take me, you punk?

With one arm tied behind my back.

Yeah, well, I don't feel like fighting with you now. I want to get that thing.

What thing?

That thing! That thing down there in the storm grate!

Oh, you mean that address book? Why didn't you say so?

I did say so, numbnuts! What, you think it's an address book?

What else could it be?

I don't know. I can't see it very good from up here.

I guess you don't got x-ray vision, huh?

Shut up!

I guess you need glasses, you pencilneck egghead Jew boy.

I'll pound you!

Later. Let's find a long stick. A rake, maybe. Who's got a rake?

I know where there's one. Cardinal Newman's garage.

Yeah! I hate that old guy. Let's go borrow it!

You're on.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 10:20 AM

Hi, folks, I'm Commerce Blogspot for News Channel 5, and I'm here live in Cockburn Town, Grand Turk Island, trying to climb, crawl, and hop my way down a street that has been, well, to put it mildly, rearranged by Hurricanes Francis and Ludwig. The devastation is unbelievable. Things that were on top are now on bottom, on the side, or all mixed in between. Things that were side by side now occupy the same space or have been separated by miles of torn real estate. The scene here looks, in fact, like some dead cardinal's depiction of heaven, "omniadjacent and omninestled."

I'm going to try and talk to some of the people on the street here, most of them glumly surveying the sticks and splinters that remain of their homes and their earthly possessions. You, sir--can we talk to you?

"Uh, sure."

What's your name, sir?

"Mullah Billdoug."

Interesting name. Is that Cuban? No? Well, never mind. Did you lose everything in the hurricanes, sir?

"Nah."

Nah, sir?

"Nah. I thought I had. I was hoping I had. Turns out I just lost my address book out of my pocket here. See? Empty pocket. I had an address book there. Still have the pocket. Still have the pants. Still have the stuff the pants cover up. No address book. One of those hurricanes must've reached in and picked my pocket while I wasn't looking. Pretty good hands, wouldn't you say?"

Just one of the hurricanes, Mr. Billdoug?

"Well, just one pocket."

Oh. Right. Well. But. But--your home, Mr. Billdoug! Was it destroyed?

"Oh, no. Not really. Not that I'm aware of."

Oh, so you don't actually live here?

"Well, now I do. But I didn't always."

Wh-- When did you move here, sir?

"Just before the storms hit."

What terrible luck!

"Tell me about it. You would've thought two big hurricanes like these, incarnations of two great Sufi masters, the Limper and the King, would have done more damage. But here I still am, head and home intact. Only my address book mysteriously whisked away."

I--I'm afraid I don't understand, sir.

"Really? Well, that's reassuring. Maybe the hurricanes did more damage than I've been thinking!"

Excuse me?

"Uh--do you have a light?"

No, I'm sorry, I don't smoke.

"No, you're right, neither do I. Well, nice talking to you!"

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 9:47 AM

Last year, I was a connoisseur of wines. This year, I’m lost in a world of red.

Last year, I was a doctor of inflamed bone marrows. This year, I’m the throbbing pain in somebody’s leg.

Last year, I stared into the fire. This year, I’m charred flesh on a grill as big as an Escalade.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 9:12 AM

Dear Mullah Billdoug,

I was pleased to read in your blog such an unusually accurate and conscientious account of the current state of affairs here in heaven ("Oops"). A heavenly blogger of such insight and acumen is truly a pearl of great price. The 10-point Sufi lead has indeed knitted heaven's pundits' brows. The logical conundrum of poor obsessive Asimov stalking a Yahweh whose existence he is seeking to disprove has our mathematicians scratching their beards. Buddha is suicidal; there's no other word for it. Jesus is a little hellion and is going to take him lumps from Allah for dragging Mohammed into his scrapes, that is certain.

Surely, however, the Sufis would never seriously contemplate performing the forbidden experiment. This I believe must be an unconfirmed rumor that must be squelched before it does any more damage than it already has.

The main reason I'm writing, however, is to correct a laughably absurd phrasing that somehow managed to escape the blogger's red pen: "somewhere in downtown heaven." As we all know, this is theologically nonsensical. Origen of course was the first (in De surs. et deors. en caelo) to demonstrate that there is no down or up in heaven. Hence it is physically impossible for any one part of heaven to be above or below another. All objects, streets, and internet cafes in heaven are, needless to say--sigh! if only it were needless!--omniadjacent and omninestled.

Respectfully yours,

Cardinal John Henry Newman, decd.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 10:43 PM

My soul drunk on too much cheap wine, my body ruined by rich food and fast women, the two of us sit here helpless in this wrecked wagon, not a tool between us or the knowhow to use one. My heart? A lame mule in a mudhole. Every frantic effort to work free just mires it deeper.

You know the rule: drunks must argue and pick fights. Lovers too, of course. They fall into holes just like my mule here. But at the bottom of those holes they find shining things, treasures like the moon traipsing down the street singing, shedding clothes. I couldn’t help myself, I saw that moon and started singing myself, and tumbled up out of my wagon into the upturned bowl of the sky. The bowl shattered, and everywhere I looked everywhere was falling.

New rule: smash the wineglass. Fall into the glassblower’s breath.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 2:55 PM

I don’t know what else to say about the whole Messiah thing, so we sit there in silence for a few moments, still sort of shaking our heads and smiling at ourselves. Then I say: “So tell me, Jesus, this God-in-III-persons thing ...”

“Yeah?” Jesus says.

“The Holy Ghost said it was some sort of emanation deal. Like the Logos emanating out of Sophia.”

“Well,” Jesus says sort of dubiously, “I don’t know about that. I’m supposably the Logos, but last I heard I was going to emanate out of a Jewish virgin, not some Greek lady named Sophia.”

My eyebrows go up. “You mean to tell me,” I say, “you’re going to emanate out of a virgin?”

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s what Dad keeps saying.”

“How does that work, exactly?”

“Uh, what?”

“Being emanated out of a virgin.”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Well,” I say, “how’s that different from being born of one?”

“It’s not,” he says.

“I’m not following,” I say.

“Dad sticks me inside of her belly, there,” he says. “And I get bigger and bigger. And when I’m big enough, pow. I emanate right on out of there.”

“So when you say you’re fixing to emanate out of a virgin, you really do mean born, huh?”

“That’s right,” he says.

“I see,” I say. “So I’m guessing you don’t have a real clear idea on how you get into her belly, or the road you’re going to travel coming out.”

“Not exactly,” he admits cheerfully. “Dad sort of explained it. But I think he left a lot out. Said I’d understand when I’m older.”

“I guess it’s just one of those mysteries, huh?” I say. “How she gets pregnant and stays a virgin.”

“Right,” he says. “I’m leaving all that to Dad.”

“I guess to God all things are possible, huh?”

“That’s what he tells me.”

“If you’re God and you want to get a girl pregnant and have her still be a virgin, I guess you just fucking do it, huh?”

“I guess so!” Jesus chuckles. There’s something about this guy. He has that uncanny ability to make you feel, regardless of your race, or class, or age, or gender, or whatever, like you’re at a Rotary Club luncheon.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 8:57 AM

“So, uh," I say, "your dad fixing to have you grow up in Judea, or in exile?”

“I don’t think he even knows, yet. Last I heard he was talking about Galilee.”

“Galilee!” I whistle. “All the way up north of Samaria, there! Hoo-ee! Well, I guess that’s better than down here in Egypt, or something. At least it used to be Israel.”

“Yeah, that’s what Dad keeps saying,” Jesus says. “Half the time, anyway. He wants me to be born in Bethlehem, for some reason.”

“Bethlehem, huh? That’s one hell of a way to travel just to get born.”

“Tell me about it.” He sighs, like he’s tired already from all that traveling he’s going to have to do. “My Jewish name’s going to be Yeshua, or Yehoshua, or something.”

“Oh, sure,” I say. “We’ve got some Yehoshuas here.” I point them out.

“Hey, man,” Jesus says, winking and cocking his finger at them like a pistol. Blowing imaginary smoke off the muzzle. “Hey, there. How you doin?”

“So,” I say, “come on over here, sit with me. We’re getting breakfast in a minute. Or, uh—do unborn people even eat breakfast? I don’t want to—”

“Sure,” Jesus says expansively. “Hey, no problem, I can eat breakfast if I want. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay, that’s cool. So tell me,” I say, “how do you know the Holy Ghost? I guess you two fellers didn’t go to school together or anything. Seeing as how you ain’t even been born yet.”

“No!” he laughs. “That’s a good one, going to school with the Holy Ghost! You’ve got a good sense of humor, Sid. I find that a sense of humor often helps people get through hard times and awkward situations.”

“You sure got that right, kid,” I say.

“No,” he says, “how I know the Holy Ghost is, see, we’re, well, we’re sort of the same guy.”

“Say what now?”

“Sort of the same guy. One with God.”

A light goes off, now, finally. I’m so slow!

"Oh! Oh!” I cry. “Right! Damn, he told us about that, weeks ago now! III in I, or something!”

“That’s right!”

“God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.”

“You got it!”

“Damn, and you’re God the Son. Of course! I don’t know why I didn’t figure that out sooner.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, it’s no big deal, Dad still doesn’t have all the bugs worked out. It’s not like a done deal or anything yet.”

“Oh, okay. Well, that’s cool.” Something else strikes me. “You wouldn’t be—nah, couldn’t be. No way. No, it’s just too preposterous.”

“What?” he says. “Go ahead, ask anything you like, Sid.”

“You wouldn’t be the Messiah or anything, would you, Jesus? I mean, you know, son of God, born in Bethlehem and all.”

“Well, that’s sort of a state secret, but yeah, why not, I can tell my new best friend about it, sure. That’s the plan. Guilty as charged: yes, I’m the Messiah.”

“Well I’ll be hog-tied,” I say, whistling a little. “Boys, Jesus here says he’s the Messiah!”

“Not yet!” he cries merrily, looking around. “Not till I start my earthly mission!”

“Damn,” the guys say. “That’s cool, man. The Messiah, huh? Wow.”

I guess we’re all thinking the same thing: we must be pretty important. This translation we’re doing is. The Messiah comes to chat with us over breakfast. Sees us naked, and all.

“Yeah,” he says, “the Greeks, they’re going to call me Jesus Christ. Khristos being their word for Messiah, and all.”

“So, wait a second, now,” I say. “Wait—just—a—second. When we say that it’s CCLXXXIV B.C., that’s before you, right? Before Christ!”

He smiles modestly. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s me all right. I’m that guy.”

“That Christ guy.”

“You got me. Bull’s eye! Bingo! Hole in one!”

“Man oh man,” I say, shaking my head in amazement. “You know I used to think I’d never figure out what that was all about, that B.C. stuff, counting backwards and all. Where’d that come from? Why couldn’t we count forwards from I, like normal people? And here it was you all along. It just goes to show you, don’t it?”

“It sure does,” he says with a big friendly smile. “You just learn something new every day, don’t you Sid?”

“Truer words were never spoken, Jesus my friend.”

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 8:45 AM

“Guys?” the Holy Ghost says. “I’d like you to meet someone. This here’s Jesus. He’s going to be visiting you today, maybe again in the future too. Okay? Take good care of him.”

“Sure,” we say, sort of nonplussed. We’re naked. We’re not used to getting introduced in the buff. “We will. No problem.”

And at that the Holy Ghost turns into a puff of smoke, and is gone on the breeze up off of the sea.

I step up, shake Jesus’s hand. Hell, I’m game. I’m not going to hang back wishing I was someplace else, just because I’ve got on clothes on.

“Hi there,” I say. “Welcome to the LXX Bible translation team. My name’s Sidaiyyahu ben Admon. But you can call me Sid.”

His eyes flicker just momentarily down to my penis. I see him do it. I’m not surprised. Of course you’re going to check out the other guy’s equipment. It’s only natural.

“Hey, Sid,” he says, rearing back a little, pretending to be surprised, “you’re Jewish?”

“Yeah,” I say. “We all are, here.”

“Whoa, that’s cool,” he says, nodding as he looks around at the guys, raising his eyebrows appreciatively as if I’d just told him we were all Nobel Prize laureates. “Me too, I think.”

“Yeah?” I say. “You’re not sure?”

“Not exactly.”

“That happens a lot these days,” I say, nodding sympathetically as we go inside. “A lot of parents don’t tell their kids. They don’t want em getting beat up on the playground. Tormented on the school bus.”

“Yeah?”

“Happens all the time.”

“That’s sad.”

“Ain’t it just. But, you know, what’re you gonna do. That’s the Diaspora for ya. So,” I say, slipping into my robe and fitting my yarmulke on my head, “are you from the future too, like the last guys who came in here?”

“I guess, in a way. I haven’t been born yet. That’s sorta why I’m not sure if I’m Jewish. The plan is for my mom to be Jewish. You know? The plan. Who knows, though, really.”

"Not born yet, huh?” I say. “Wow. That must be tough.”

“I guess,” he says. “There are a lot of things I can’t do, because my dad hasn’t picked my mom yet.”

“I would think so,” I say. “Man. Not yet born. Hoo. Guys, you hear this? Jesus here hasn’t even been born yet.”

“Bummer.”

“That sucks.”

“Tough break, kid.”

“No, no, don’t worry, I’m fine with it,” Jesus says.

"Well, that’s good,” I say. “Good for you. That’s the best attitude to take all right. That’s the healthy way of dealing with it. An attitude like that, you’ll go far, mark my words.”

“Well, thanks,” he says.

“Think nothing of it,” I say.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 8:30 AM