Just in time for Easter, Sneaking Suspicions has an amusing suggestion for taxing not just alcohol and tobacco, but all of the Seven Deadly Sins. Go read it, and then come right back. My comments:
1. A friend (now a priest) and I once accidentally invented an amusing game for present and former Catholics: name the Seven Deadly Sins as quickly as you can. Even after decades of church avoidance, most lapsed Catholics can name six without even slowing down, but the seventh usually takes much longer, if it comes at all. The first one named is always an obvious and admitted fault, while the last is the one you really have to worry about.
2. The wittiest alternative list of seven sins that I know comes from the Austin Lounge Lizards: "sloth and avarice, fornication, television, whiskey, beer, and wine" (title cut of "The Highway Café of the Damned", 1988). Are there others? Should there be?
3. One of my college classmates is now a therapist and coauthor of a book entitled Sex, Drugs, Gambling, & Chocolate: A Workbook for Overcoming Addictions (five stars from Amazon). I'd like to see a sequel for those who suffer from the less classy addictions. Perhaps "Gin, Porn, and Pork Rinds"? Actually, gin, though alliterative, is a fairly high-class potable these days. What would be the tackiest alcoholic beverage? MD 20/20? Not according to this website. Nachos might do for pork rinds: they were Beavis & Butt-Head's addiction -- so was porn, come to think of it. And it would be nice to work in bad television or video games somewhere. Speaking of addictions, how about "Gin, Porn, Blogging, and Pork Rinds: A Workbook for Overcoming Addictions"?
Posted by Dr. Weevil at March 31, 2002 10:00 PM