It’s been about six days since publishing conglomerate Harper Collins acquired Thomas Nelson, the local publisher of Bibles and books featuring little boys going to heaven and coming back to tell about it.
Already the rumours are flying. According to one author, the publishing company also publishes Satanic Bibles. This is somewhat true in that Anton LeVay’s The Satanic Bible, written in 1976, is published by Avon. Avon’s another publishing house under the massive thrall of Harper Collins, who seems to be in the habit of buying up smaller publishers. Avon was merged with HarpCo in 1999, 23 years after publishing LeVay’s book.
Both companies–now all three, including Nelson–are divisions of News Corp. Those are the people who own Fox and Fox News. So if we really felt like it we could change the rumor to “Fox News prints Satanic Bibles”.
Where am I going with this? Well, two places. The first place is that the news coverage about the HarpCo/Nelson merger emphasises the fact that HarpCo will be able to expand Nelson’s titles into the digital market. I’m hoping this bodes well for a lot of the backlist Nelson has let languish. I’m tired of not being able to read Catherine Marshall’s Christy on Kindle unless I spend $100+ on the carved-up version that TNelson markets to Young Adults.
The second place is that I really want to know who is in charge of the Christian Telephone Game. Because this is twice in the span of a week that I’ve heard a really outlandish-seeming, highly-alarmist retelling of the facts. First we had the dead babies in Pepsi, now we have this. Why do we do this to ourselves? The truth is the truth; exagerrating for dramatic purposes is what I believe they call “bearing false witness”.
I think I read that somewhere.
There’s dead babies in Pepsi?
::headdesk::
PepsiCo R&D has contracted with an outside biotech firm that uses stem cells in artificial flavor research.
[...] have been trying to come up with something clever to say about this post, but I just can’t think of anything. It did make me laugh. Anton LaVey’s best publicity [...]
The cashier that rang me up yesterday is probably banging her boyfriend regularly. Now what do I do?
1. Hand her a Jack Chick tract.
2. Take your hard-earned money to a store that doesn’t support sin.
See! Problem solved!
Outstanding!
But be sure to question all the cashiers at the new place about their sex lives before you start shopping there. They’ll appreciate it.
Um, come on, this is hilarious. I mean, it’s really funny, especially the way you put it. I’m sure Fox news is printing copies of the Satanic Bible. Maybe I should start that rumor and tell people I heard it first on your site. p.s. Did you know you sometimes use British spellings? As in rumour and humour? You probably do it on purpose! Or maybe there’s a conspiracy behind it.
I DO do it on purpose. I’m a longtime Anglophile of sorts, but the plain truth is that I just think the words look prettier that way. I also think ‘judgment’ looks stupid without the ‘e’ after the ‘g’.
When I first started blogging I took a lot of flak for it in the Nashville Blogosphere. But I admit it’s a hoity-toity affectation. Still and all, it doesn’t hurt anyone. So until there’s a tax on extra “u”s, I’m carrying on as is.
Carry on, then, and cheerio (she wrote in her best bad English accent. I’m almost positive old people still say cheerio.)
Pepsi Dead Baby is my favorite flavor of Pepsi since Pepsi Max. Shame it’s only a seasonal flavor, like Pepsi Holocaust and Pepsi Urine Blast.