Every now and then I have to jab myself in the eyes with a glockenspiel stick just to serve as a reminder that we're living in the 21st Century, and not a fantasy-ridden dream that's the unfortunate product of my subconscious.
It all started yesterday morning. There I was sucking down a cup of coffee like a caffeine hungry Dirt Devil getting ready for the capitalist hamster wheel to start rolling, when I stumbled across this.
I almost spat my drink over Matt Lauer's LCD enclosed head and had to lower the TV volume to make sure I had read the story properly and that it wasn't some kind of belated April Fool's Day prank.
The story centered on a "spirit medium" called Normatter Tagarira who managed to...wait for it....convince Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe that she could produce unlimited amounts of diesel fuel by simply tapping a rock with a stick.
A rock. With a stick.
So convincing was her story that the geniuses in charge of Zimbabwe gave her almost $1 million in cash and also threw in a farm for good measure.
Of course the whole thing was a scam but it took Zimbabwean government officials more than 15 months to figure out that a 35-year-old witch wasn't actually able to replicate the feat of a bunch of dead plants and animals, and millions of years of slow cooking.
Just for the record, the US Government has given over $400 million of aid to Zimbabwe over the last five years. I'm sure it'll be spent wisely.
Later in the evening I switched on Fox News - the Comedy Central of current affairs - and happened to catch an interview with Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. "Do you believe in Adam & Eve," the interviewer asked? "Yes I do," Huckabee shot back without a flicker of doubt.
Ok Mr. Future-Most-Powerful-Person-In-The-World, just to confirm you're endorsing the story with the garden, the serpent and the Granny Smith that didn't quite taste right. How reassuring.
At this point I was starting to think that the weight of my beer gut had caused a rip in space-time and I'd fallen back through a wormhole to the middle ages. But alas, no.
Reaching for the TV control, I flicked over to The Travel Channel and found myself watching a bunch of screeching, semi-hysterical Brits prowling around old houses at times of the night when most honest English are vomiting outside kebab houses.
The show - called Most Haunted - films a bunch of ghost-hunters who seem to only have three sentences in their entire vocabulary. "Did you hear that?", "What was THAT?" and my personal favorite, "What the hell......".
The third is so dramatic - and usually reserved for when a floorboard creaks or a lightbulb flickers - that the gormless host/psychic investigator/medium can't bring themselves to finish the sentence.
My mind was still buzzing with rocks, sticks, diesel and serpents and suddenly I'm confronted with a lispy psychic claiming to be "channeling" a spirit while the rest of the crew ooo and ahhh like slow kids at a firework show.
The last straw came this morning while waiting for the bus to the gym. Minding my own business, two Jehovah's Witnesses approached us and shoved a pamphlet in our face. Titled "Who Really Rules The World?", it issues a warning to avoid evil spirits and reassures us that while the world is up shit creek, God's about to fix everything......soon.
Cue glockenspiel stick in eye. The human propensity to believe in things that are so ridiculous and devoid of any kind of evidence never fails to amaze me. Whether it's meeting 88 virgins in heaven, contacting dead Uncle Arthur by looking into an empty tea cup or thinking that dabbing drops of water with a single molecule of elder flower can cure cancer, we just can't get enough of this stuff.
And this takes me back to theme that will run throughout this blog. While I believe wholeheartedly in evolution, I have no doubt that we as a species are a long, long way from being anywhere close to evolved.
Two thousand years ago our ancestors believed in sun gods, rain dances and demons. What's the difference between them and us? A sharp suit and an unhealthy dose of arrogance.
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