Why don't those stupid idiots let me in their crappy club for jerks?

Since "The Da Vinci Code" movie is coming out this weekend, I am making another attempt to read the book. A lot of people that I know like the book. When I first tried to read it, I found it smacks badly of typical suspense. For some reason I find one-page chapters annoying and insulting. Like the author thinks I have the attention span of a... hold on, let me read this pop up. I think I just won a plasma TV. Okay, what was I saying?

Anyhoo, I WILL read the book but it may take some effort on my part. I know it's a personal problem.

But in preparation for the book, I did snoop about looking into secret societies. Becuase that is the intrigue of the book. The book claims a thousand-year-old society, Priory of Sion, included the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton and others (the Catholic church, apparently). If suspicions are correct, these people were not geniuses. They were the lucky "Grand Masters" who were credited with the wisdom passed down to them through the society.

I do know Da Vinci was kind of fruity. His "Mona Lisa" painting became famous, not because it wow-ed the crowd, but because after he painted it, Da Vinci would carry it around with him everywhere he went. To the point that people would stare and ask, "Why is that dude always carrying around that painting?" There is a rumor that the painting is a self-portrait. A portrait of how Da Vinci would look as a woman. That theory might be in the book. I haven't read it so I don't know.

From what I have read, the FreeMasons are into white and black magic as well as negotiations with alien beings. I read a story about a girl who had escaped from a Mason-run drug house, where they kept doped up kids incapacitated so they would do anything and then they pimped them out.

People seem to believe FreeMasons essentially control the world and have done so for hundreds of years. That the layout of Washington DC was designed by Masons, which is why the White House lies at the base of a pentagram (when the streets are viewed from above). Masons love their symbols. It was suggested that the Revolutionary War was even part of a movement by the Masons (Ben Franklin, Paul Revere and George Washington among them) to shake up Englands widespread rule. They also like to suggest that the pyramid and eagle seals on the US dollar are Masonic symbols. Among other things, one Mason founded the Mormon church which currently thrives and makes use of similar rituals here in Utah, and another Mason went on to found the Ku Klux Klan.

It was suggested that all religions are just retellings of previous religions, many of them with interesting links between to eachother. Stories like the origin of Christmas, which was just a Pagan Winter Solstice ceremony (celebrating the end of winter's dying and the beginning of spring's rebirth) with the antlered god, like Pan from greek mythology, removed and a baby Jesus thrown in. All the other symbols seemed to have remained. Trees, deer, Santa and such. This change was made by Romans. There was also stuff about rain being the "sperm of God" which fertilizes the Mother Earth and a bunch of stuff about mushrooms and how people used to think they were magical because they didn't realize they were reproducing by use of spores.

I also thought an explanation of the Egyptian pyramids being recreations of volcanoes (wombs of the earth; thus the root 'pyra') was interesting. They also said the Egyptian calendar begins and ends in August, which is why the Sphinx has the head of a virgin (virgo) and the body of a lion (leo). Apparently, most secret societies love the Zodiac.

There is also the "Skull and Bones" society, created at Yale in the early 1800's. In the beginning they were believed to have ties a large opium smuggling ring. In the last century, members of this group are believed to have funded our major wars as well as political candidates. John Kerry and both George Bushes are part of this society.

So I guess secret societies do rule the world. If you don't have one, you're not with it and you're going nowhere. I really don't think there are any secrets we could learn that would really change your life. We are putty in the hands of the elite, regardless of what name they go by. To watch The News, you would think any Democrat and Republican who happened to end up alone in a room together would totally duke it out. But look at Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton holding hands and skipping around the world together. Why? Because they are the winners in our society. They may disagree on some things but, to take a step back, our society will give them money, a place to live, body-guards and immortalize them for as long as we exist. They like things just as they are.

My favorite secret society is "The Management." You know when you go in a public restroom and they have those paper things to put on the toilet seat. They always say, "Provided by The Management for your protection." Those faceless people are at least out there helping people. I mean REALLY helping people.