Flat Earth Society Gains Members
“The missing link between animal and civilized man is us.” –Konrad Lorenz
Welcome mats are not out for FES members, but membership is increasing. The paradoxical dilemma: Where to hold the next annual meeting? It won’t be Boston, waters are rising. It clearly won’t be Quebec, either; weather has been so warm that all hotel ice rinks won’t freeze and skiing is out because snow is melting in wintertime; thus, corporate facilities have been cancelled.
What about the new Hilton in the Marshall Islands in the far Pacific? Oops! Those low-lying islands are already being inundated by sea water. Wells are filling with salt water, making drinking water scarce and reducing food production.
For its part, Arizona’s legislature has been debating a bill to encourage teachers to avoid instruction based on scientific truth about biological evolution and climate change caused by the warming of the globe. Scientific proof that it is not happening will be welcome if and when the bill becomes law. “Teachers know the real truth,” mumbled one legislator from Dewey, Arizona.
Strange, indeed, are these days in which we live—tuna is not tuna anymore, horsemeat makes lousy burgers and North Koreans are firing rockets into space. But wait! “All smoke and mirrors,” charges the senior spokesman for the Flat Earth Society (FES) from their outpost on an island in the Verde River. “Such a feat is impossible because the earth, our earth, mother earth, is flat. It has always been flat. Columbus never proved it was round. With mirrors and canvas bags, he created a huge illusion that survives today. He never landed in the West Indies. When he wrote that all the earth is shaped like an orange, the enlightened people knew it was shaped like a pancake—and it still is, despite tons of information that is as useless as withered weeds, such as the climate is changing, sea water is rising–that can’t be happening because Earth is flat.”
On the grounds that no members would be quoted by name, FES members agreed to meet with this scrivener and some members of the staff. It was agreed that the meeting would be held in the underground conference room at Judi’s restaurant where only the truth is allowed to be spoken. Wearing New Age silk pajamas so they wouldn’t stand out, the leaders arrived explaining that they wished to blend in with the local lunch crowd. Some were tall, others short; their eyes were a strange color, not previously seen in West Sedona. But it wasn’t the blue-red-green color that surprised the Special Excentric Paranormal Task Force. It was that each had a third eye that was striped.
One man with blonde surfer hair flopping on one side of his face stood out. Towering over everyone in the candle-lit room, he said that no one could know their names or which realty company they worked for, for fear that their crusade for truth might be revealed. Were their radicalism revealed, they might be sent into the mountains where all the defrocked churchman and crooked politicians have gone.
“Why do we say the Earth is flat when the vast majority say otherwise? Because we know the truth.” A murmur of assent spread through the room. The Special Excentric Task Force, its battled-earned sense of ethics showing, refused to join the murmuring.
According to the tall man with the blonde surfer hair, for centuries, mankind knew all there was to know about the shape of the Earth. It was a flat planet, shaped roughly like a pizza, with lots of pointy things hanging down from the underside. On the relatively smooth upside, Europe sat in the middle of the circle, with other continents scattered about the fringes, and parts of Africa hanging over the edge. The oceans lapped against the sides of the Earth, creating currents that would pull over ships that ventured too far from the shore. And you from the best small paper around may quote me on this major piece of the truth: “The space beyond the edge of the world was a dark realm, inhabited by all sorts of unholy beasts. Fire and brimstone billowed up from the very depths of hell itself and curled ’round the cliffs whose infantile length jutted straight down to the darkest depths…”
Clearly this guy was looking for something and trying to use this truthful sheet as a vehicle. As if he had read my thoughts, scattered though they may be, the short man piped up through a long white beard, “The Flat Earth Society is always pleased to welcome new members. We have been at this for 451 years, and welcome new members to dispel the myths perpetrated by the round Earth people, like the climate is changing and sea water will soon engulf coastal cities and send us all to the doom. Hogwash.”
Upstairs at Judi’s there was heard the scraping sound of chairs, squealing of ladies, grown men using nasty words. “Hurry, hurry, find higher ground. Rising waters will soon be. Do you hear the roar now?”
