aaah, Capitol Hill in the Springtime...

Sometimes, I truly love working 2 blocks north of the Capitol grounds. You take a step outside for a lunchtime walk, and almost immediately hear the roaring static of protesters.

Usually the cause they're shouting about is reasonable, some policy gone horribly wrong, etc... This time, the cause du jour was a bit harder to figure out.

These strange characters were being sheep-dogged around by the Capitol Police while they sang like happy summer campers... They sang, in a charming-yet-grating lack of harmony, and to the tune of "Country Roads", something about how God is killing our troops because he didn't like Brokeback Mountain very much.

I've since discovered they're part of a Topeka-based organization whose evident aim is to spread hopelessness and despair, supported by carefully chosen bible passages. The point seems to be that God has lost patience with our misbehavior. It's too late. He will shake us off like dust mites from a filthy carpet.

Now don't get me wrong; I dig nihilism as much as the next guy... probably a bit more than the next guy. But this interpretation of Christianity seems devoid of even humorous irony (and I dig humorous irony as much as the next guy, etc...)

It's amusing to reflect how we chastise the Iraqi people for their inability to get their religious sects to agree on a new constitution, while back at home, we can't even agree on what a Christian is. The Bible has inspired everything from charity to genocide to "sale-a-thons" at your local Toyota dealership, so what IS this religion Americans seem so intense about? What is a Christian? One of these people?

Now, according to this tiny, bizarre protest, the Christian god is also a movie critic. When he/she/it gets a regular spot on the Post's OpEd page, THEN I might actually subscribe...