My next car will probably be new (my first two were used), and will be replacing my trusty-but-aging 1998 Honda Civic DX hatchback. This may sound strange, but lately I’ve been sitting in the little thing (I named her the Black Pearl) and wondering “do I really need a car this big?” Only problem is, very few cars sold in America are smaller than the one I’ve already got. On paper, the Scion iQ offers everything I want in a car, which is, in short (no pun intended), no more and no less car than I need.

I’ll reserve final judgement till I actually get behind the wheel of one on the road, but from spending some time in one in Tokyo and everything I’ve read, it matches what I’m looking for in a car more than anything else out there. And the choice in the subcompact segment have never been wider: Hyundai Veloster and Accent, Kia Rio, Chevy Sonic, Ford Fiesta, Nissan Versa, Honda Fit and CR-Z, Toyota Yaris, Scion xD, Mazda2, Fiat 500, Smart ForTwo, and a few I may have left out. The following are ten criteria, ranked by importance, by which I shall measue the iQ.

1. Packaging. This is where the little Toyota really has the edge over everyone, even the Smart. While only a little longer than that overpriced penalty-box, it manages to fit a rear seat for one in a pinch and two in an emergency. No, it’s not the most spacious or comfortable backseat, but I very rarely need the backseat I have (an advantage of all your family and friends owning capacious wagons of one sort or another). Thus, the iQ’s slight backseat will usually be the storage compartment. The iQ’s diminutiveness (it’s more than three feet shorter than the Pearl) isn’t just a novelty; I live in Philly. In center city and Roxborough alike, parking space is at a premium. The iQ will allow me to park places and make u-turns where I wasn’t able to before, even in the wee Pearl. That’s huge for me, because I hate looking for parking spaces.

2. Fuel Economy. My Civic has a 4-speed automatic (I’ve yet to learn stick), and it rarely tops 25-26 mpg in combined driving. The Scion promises 36 city 37 highway, thanks to low weight and an efficiency-minded Continuously-Variable Transmission. Even if my aggressive driving style nets me 32-34, that’s still considerable improvement. Better fuel economy means more money in my pocket.

3. Price. Scion, like Saturn (RIP) before it, has a policy of no-haggle pricing. While that can mean no big discounts, it also means no dealer markups and no negotiations. Which is good, because while I don’t suck at negotiating, it isn’t my strong suit. The iQ starts at $15,995. My ceiling is about $18-$19K, so we’re good. No, it’s not a lot of car for the money, but it is a lot of what I want in a car for the money, which is a key distinction.

4. Quality/Reliability. Scion is the youthful offshoot brand of Toyota. Toyota’s had some rough spots lately, but Camrys and Corollas still dominate streets and parking lots, and not just because of their rep, but because they last. My brother and sister-in-law both own Camrys, and as far as I know, they haven’t had any big problems with them. As I’ve said, I’ve been in an iQ, and it has a nice solid, well-build feel to it. Which is good: it’s shaped like a brick; it may as well be solid as one.

5. Comfort/Safety. The back seat may be a torture device, but I found the front seat more spacious than the Pearl‘s, with an airier feeling to it, and a more upright position. Visibility is on par with my car, and the beauty of being so short is that checking the blind spots is easy. The Pearl has no ABS, no stability control, and two old airbags. The iQ has all of that, and eight additional airbags, including the only rear-window curtain airbag. Some say size means safe, but I disagree. The iQ is a smaller target, and easy to see out of and to maneuver to avoid trouble. It’s definitely safer than my fifteen-year-old Honda.

6. Performance. My Pearl won’t win many drag races, and even when new was less about muscle (it has none) and more about the impression of quickness. She’s a “zippy” car, but takes a long time to get up to highway speed, and even at 70, you can tell she’s out of gears and struggling. By 80 or 90, the whole car shakes; as if she knows she’s out of the city, which she doesn’t like. As a modern car, the iQ will be far more disciplined, though with only 90 horsepower (still more than what’s likely left of the Pearls), it won’t win many drag races either. I’m fine with ‘fast enough’, and will endeavor to maximize fuel economy without hypermiling or semi-drafting.

7. Toys. The Pearl has none. No cruise control, no sunroof, no cassette or CD or MP3 player, just an AM/FM Radio and some simple HVAC controls. I actually prefer this austerity, but I do want more media options, and the iQ will offer them. I don’t need nav, but I would like a CD/MP3 player, or at least a jack I can plug an iPod into. Not sure if it has a sunroof, but with the size of this thing, I’d say it doesn’t. That’s okay though.

8. Handling. The Pearl probably handles better, or at least more spiritedly, than the iQ, owing to its longer wheelbase and race-bred suspension. The iQ is more Camry than Civic, though its tiny wheelbase means greater manueverability and a much tighter turning radius than the Pearl. It’s a car that’s more of a big bulky suit than a coddling coccoon. I don’t want the latter when I’m on the road. I want to see where I’m going and what’s around me, and dart about accordingly.

9. Ride. Again, the short wheelbase will result in a bumpier ride on uneven pavement than longer cars, but considering the positive parts of the compromise I’ve discussed above, it’s not a huge sacrifice. My Honda’s ride has only ever been tolerable, anyway. Neither of these cars will be confused for Town Cars or Cadillacs.

10. Looks. Don’t get me started on the looks. This thing looks ridiculous. It can be compared to a dishwasher as much as a cozy coupe, depending on the color. Me, I’m sticking with as close to black as I can come. Black gives even this car quiet dignity and a touch of class. I would have preferred if they hadn’t bothered trying to design what amounts to a cube at all. Square windows, round lights, no nonsense. You are starting to see that I’m not the average car buyer.

Nor is the iQ meant for the average person, because it doesn’t offer everything they want, and it’s a bizarrely compact, even off-putting package. But I’m not off-put. This is the car I’ve been waiting for, and Toyota of all brands was kind enough to build it for me. The iQ is quite simply everything I want in a car: it doesn’t take up much space, it doesn’t use much fuel, and it doesn’t cost much money. For those and all the reasons above, there’s a very good chance an iQ will succeed by beloved Black Pearl. But I’ll have to test-drive one to be sure.

Thanks to the magic of HBO, I have been immersed in the world of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels. I watched the first season, loved it, have completed the first two books, and am currently on the third. When season two arrives on television, I’ll know exactly what’s going on right from the get-go, unlike last season, when I hadn’t read anything.

Anyway, one of the interesting things about the literature is the world in which it takes place. Everything takes place in Westeros, with the exception of one POV character, who’s in Essos. I liken Westeros to the Wetern Hemisphere on our own green old Earth, while Essos is Eurasia.

I’ve noticed so many similarities between the geography of Martin’s imagined world and the real one, I decided to take the liberty of re-mapping all of the locations in the books against a real world map. Obviously, one runs into several problems, including the fact only bits and pieces of Martin’s world are officially mapped, and the real world map lacks many of the more distinctive features in Martin’s world.

For a full-size view of the map, click here.

When you zoom out, Westeros more closely resembles Norway, positively crenillated with fjords, bays, and harbors. But I didn’t want to fiddle around with scale. Westeros is a hemisphere-sized landmass, and like our own Western Hemisphere, is clearly deliniated between North and South, with a narrow neck connecting them.

I totally disregarded real world terrain and political boundaries. The US-Canada border, for instance, is too far south to serve as The Wall. In addition, spacial relationships and distances are obviously not kept constant, but I did my best to keep them in the ballpark. Glaring downsides to this translation mean that King’s Landing doesn’t have much of a bay, The Land of Always Winter is at the bottom, not the top of the map, and The Vale of Arryn is a bit stunted, with no fingers.

In the quaint suburbs West of Philly where I work, there is a black Jeep Liberty roaming the streets. Don’t know the year. It is driven by a middle-aged woman with a vacant expression. She is, quite possibly, the slowest driver in the world, in relation to the speed of those around her. It’s not the car; I know many owners of Jeep Liberties who drive normally. It’s just that this particular owner tends to drive fully half the speed limit. So if it’s 40, she goes 20. If it’s 30, she goes 15. J.C. himself would likely curse his own name in a vain attempt to urge her to get a move on.

The line of cars that forms behind her is so long, you’ll think the President’s motorcade has arrived in town. Mail trucks and cement mixers weave around her whenever a passing lane presents itself. Oversize Load trucks carrying two-storey homes have to slam on the brakes. But on single lane roads, there is nothing to be done. She is apparently deaf, as she hears none of her fellow drivers’ horns or pleading for her to pick up the pace a bit.

She also has no sense of shame or common sense, and almost seems to revel in her slowness, and the considerable inconvenience she’s causing her fellow man. The best strategy for dealing with her is simply to stop and wait for her to drive out of sight. Don’t let her get to you. If you have an in-car entertainment system, you can pass the time by, say, watching Gettysburg, or the uncut version of Das Boot. If you don’t, keep War & Peace and Anna Karenina handy. As long as you’re not a speed reader, you’ll only have another fifteen minutes or so to wait by the time you finish both.

She is dangerously slow. Not necessarily because her behavior can directly lead to accidents, which it can, but because of the way it sucks all the joy and hope from anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck behind her. She’s like the Dementors in Harry Potter, only she happens to be real. All that time waiting for her to get to where she’s going can cause the mind to wander. Dangerous, destructive thoughts can take root in those peoples’ minds. Any affinity or goodwill they had in the human race is slowly eroded away by the soul-sucking wake of the Laggard. Psychosis sets in. Society breaks down. All is lost.

Perhaps I am being too harsh. Perhaps this old lady (or whatever eldritch creature lurks beneath her flesh) simply perceives time differently than the rest of us. There are some people out there whose internal clock is either sped up to that of a hummingbirds (in which everyone appears to be standing still), or slowed to that of a whale’s (in which everyone is zipping by like jets).

Usually, such people are confined to institutions for their own protection, and the protection of others. Somehow, this one escaped, and someone gave her an SUV. If this is indeed the case, I do not envy this poor woman, or the virtual hell in which she lives. She cannot hope to keep up with the dizzyingly-fast world around her. So she doesn’t try.

I don’t envy her, but I cannot sympathize with her; not after what she put me through. The third or fourth time I was stuck behind her – for a combined time equal to the length of several third-world regimes, and in which I grew several full beards and subsequently shaved them off in the car – I initially believed that being stuck behind the Laggard Liberty and its disaffected driver was the worst thing in the world, perhaps worse than wearing a cage of starving rats on one’s head. But there is in fact something worse: I could be her.

I’m terrible with directions. Ask anyone I’ve ever given them to, or navigated for. When it comes to directing someone where to go with turn-by-turn directions, I’m about as useful as an iPhone…that’s been switched off. I find my way almost by landmarks alone. It’s how I got from the train station to my hotel in Tokyo, and it’s how I usually get around everywhere else. I have intimate knowledge of specific locales – Roxborough/Manayunk (in Philly), Guilford (in Baltimore) and Shinjuku Ward (in Tokyo), for instance. But when it comes to how to get from A to B, all bets are off. I’ve never successfully been able to direct a stranger to their destination.

I also noticed that even though I’ve lived in Philadelphia for nearly 43 months, I still have only a vague understanding of how Center City is laid out. This, despite the fact it’s a very logical grid down there. Specifically, I always forget whether certain streets are north or south of others. The left-to-right rules are pretty simple: 30th on the bank of the Schuylkill to the West, Front (1st) on the bank of the Delaware to the East. So how about up and down?

Then it dawned on me: one of the only things I remember from a 9th grade IPCES class (Intro to Physics, Chemistry, and Environmental Science) was how to memorize the first 20 elements of the Periodic Table, which anyone will tell you are the most important elements, I guess. Our teacher, no older than 30, spelled it out on the chalkboard in ragged penmanship, clearly new to writing on a vertical surface: “H’He Libebcnof’ne Namgalsipsclar K’ca.” Twenty-five teenagers stared blankly at the board.

Of course, that string of seemingly nonsensical words, if spoken enough, turned out to be the easiest way to memorize those elements. It worked; here I am, nearly a decade removed from high school, and I still know my first 20 elements. What comes after, not so much. So if it can work with elements, by gum, it can work on philly’s streets, right?

Viracharj’marchesam Walosprupiloso, then, is an aggregation of the names of the fourteen streets in downtown Philly, from Vine Street in the North to, South Street in the south. By simply writing out these two rather long but phonetically charming words, I can now draw a map of the city between those two streets. Vine, Race, Cherry, Arch, JFK, Market, Chestnut, Samsom, Walnut, Locust, Spruce, Pine, Lombard, and South. Easy-peasy.

With this tool, and knowing Broad is 14th Street, and the fact the numbered streets go down as you travel east, I will no longer be lost, and may even be able to administer crude directions to people. Maybe.

What do Beyonce, The Donald, King James, the Kardashians, Coco, Lindsay, Charlie Sheen, Justin Bieber, Rebecca Black, Jesus, Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse, Hitler, Saddam, and Osama Bin Laden all have in common?

The American people know their names. After 9/11, Osama became a lasting household name; a celebrity of the worst kind. Now that he’s dead, terrorism lacks a superstar. No Big Name every American can say “oh yeah, of course I know him.” I think that’s huge.

Ask any random passerby the name of anyone who orchestrated the London bombings, or the Madrid bombings, or the bombings of the Taj Mahal Hotel and other targets in Mumbai. They won’t have names for you. Some may not even be familiar with those attacks; others wouldn’t be able to locate those cities on a world map. Their capacity for terrorist name-dropping begins and ends with the 9/11 mastermind: Osama Bin Laden.

Ditto the would-be Shoe-bomber, the didn’t-happen Fort Dix Six, almost Christmas Underwear Bomber, and the failed Times Square bomber. Even if the average citizen had once heard the names of the perpetrators of those domestic terror plots, why remember those names? They were failures. They were caught or foiled before anyone got hurt.

Where I’m going with this is…this: America is replete with names, and those names have significant meaning in our popular culture. For better or worse, such Olympian figures dominate our collective American mindset. Small fries need not apply; no offense to them, it isn’t like they don’t matter. The average American just doesn’t know who they are.

If you do happen know who Richard Reid, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Faisal Shahzad, or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are, then congratulations, you’re informed. You’re probably educated about these things. But you probably also understand that a sizable chunk of America isn’t. There are more than enough singing and dancing and lifestyle reality shows to see to it that the actors in real reality go unnoticed. The bulk of Americans aren’t engaged with world affairs, and possibly with good reason: those affiars rarely affect their day-to-day lives.

If we owe Mr. Bin Laden anything at all, it’s that he probably actually hurt the cause of global terrorism by letting his name and his Evil-Dude-With-a-Beard persona so completely monopolize Americans’ collective imagination. He was the supervillain; the one and only guy. No one else came close. And like the “He Hate Me” guy in the XFL, or Lebron on the Cleveland Cavs, he was kind of…it. Now that he’s gone, there’s no one ready to step up and claim that same celebrity.

To most Americans, he was the King of Terrorists. Regardless of whether he still deserved that title at the time of his demise, he died without heirs. His line has ended. His fall has decimated terrorism’s public prominence. Now the King We Couldn’t Catch is caught, and Terrorism now seems the same disorganized, leaderless, rudderless rabble it seemed before the name Osama entered the vernacular. Now there’s just a bunch of scrubs; bush-leagers; amateurs. They ain’t got nothin’. They’re done.

Is this the Truth with a capital T? Of course not. But truth (with a little t) is in the eye of the majority of the American people. If they don’t know you, you can’t scare them. And who wants to step up and try anything, knowing that even if it takes almost a decade, America will find them, and justice will be done?

I’m not much for pharmaceuticals. I can count on less than two hands how many times I’ve been prescribed medicine, and it was always for acute conditions, the worst of which was a wee bout of Walking Pneumonia. The last time I had a prescription for anything must have been when I was still a Freshman at MICA in 2003. I had some persistent Strep in my throat and elected to receive a Z-pak (Azithromycin, an antibiotic). Since then, nothin’. But there is one prescription I remember absolutely loving…and no, not because it was a powerful opiate painkiller.

Its trade names are Amox, Amoxil or Trimox, but what it is is an oral suspension of Amoxicillin, which was prescribed to me about a half dozen times throughout my childhood to treat ear infections. There was a time when I never washed my hands – I got downright adamant about it, and not because I was worried that one day all bacteria would become resistant to Triclosan. It was because I was an unsanitary moron. Anyway, yeah, ear infections fcuking sucked. The pain was often such that I all I could do was lay in bed and groan. I couldn’t even play Nintendo.

But Amoxicillin was my ticket to recovery. But not pills, mind you. One unusual aspect about my childhood is that I made it a point not to put random things in my mouth, such as choking hazards. Once I learned to read, the warnings on packages amused me: ‘who’s dumb enough to put this stuff in their mouth?’ But for me, this included pills. No matter how small or streamlined, I couldn’t swallow one to save my life. More to the point, I refused to try. When forced to try, I’d down a tall glass of water, but the pill wouldn’t go down the gullet.

Enter the Amoxicillin oral suspension. It’s pink; but a more pleasant hue than the whoopie cushion rose of Pepto Bismol. It was also rather smooth and viscous, though not as thick and nowhere near as chalky and unpleasant as the aforementioned stomach aid. Most importantly, it was the best-tasting medicine I’d ever taken: delicately sweet, but not cloying. And it made me better every time. It was a medicine all medicines should aspire to, in terms of flavor. I can swallow pills now, but God forbid I should get another virus that requires Amoxicillin, believe you me I’ll be asking the doctor for the pink nectar.

I like efficiency. I think complex things can be made more efficient by assigning alphanumerics wherever possible. BMW has this system down; so does Lexus and many other automotive marques. The Tokyo Subway has it down, too. If Japanese isn’t your first tongue, you may have trouble discerning between the Chikatetsu-Narimasu and Chikatetsu-Akatsuka stations on the Yurakucho line…but fear not, they’re labeled as yellow Y-02 and yellow Y-03. You ain’t gonna confuse 2 for 3, are ya?

So every time I go to Dunkin Donuts, everyone saying all the names of the donuts all adds up to a lot of wasted time, especially if they order a dozen donuts and all twelve are unique. So here’s what I propose (don’t know if this idea is already out there, I formed it independently): Give all of the donut kinds a letter and number. Like a letter for each “column” of donuts, then a number for each “type” of donut in that column. A1, B1; A2, B2; et cetera.

This way, ordering donuts will not only be a quicker, more efficient proposition, but “pointing out” the kind you want will no longer be necessary. Pointing is rude anyway, even if it’s at donuts, and if the donut person’s back is turned to you, he/she can’t very well see you pointing, can they now? I predict this will also help stave off back pain for employees, as far less swiveling to see what you’re pointing at will take place.

Let’s take this system a step further: Dunkin Donuts could develop a smartphone app that would display a diagram of what donuts are available and what their alphanumeric codes are. Thus, you could call in (or text in) a dozen donuts quite easily like this: “5 A6, 2 B8, 2 B9, 1 C3, 1 C5, 1 D7″. That’s SO much easier than spelling them all out, or trying to say them over the phone at what could be a very busy store. Walk in, pick up the donuts, walk out. No standing in line with people who don’t know what they want or haven’t taken out their wallets yet; no wasted time.

aka Snow Day Chili or 481 Chili

Serves many once, or a few many times

Vegetables:
Note: Best results are achieved if vegetables are chopped while watching the State of the Union Address, and whilst stuck at home due to inclement weather.

6 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 large red onion, diced
1 large yellow/white onion, diced
3 large bell peppers (green, red, yellow), diced
2 medium tomatoes, diced
8 small (1″- 2″ wide) tomatoes-on-the-vine, loosely chopped
5 TJ’s fire roasted Piquillo peppers, loosely chopped
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
1 small can yellow corn
1 large Portobello mushroom cap, diced

Seasoning:
2 tbsp olive oil
the following (to taste):
chili powder
chili oil
chinese chili sauce
cayenne pepper OR (not and)
mombasa pepper
smoked paprika
garlic powder
onion powder
parsley flakes
cilantro flakes
white pepper
black pepper
salt

Beans:
1 12oz can kidney beans
3/4 package pinto beans, rinsed, sorted, soaked

Meat (optional):
1lb chicken breast, diced OR
1lb ground beef, crumbled

1. Combine all vegetables and kidney beans in a Crock-Pot.
Set to “Low”.

2. Add seasonings and stir well. When using hot spices, taste often to ensure desired initial heat is achieved. Note: Caution is advised when using Mombasa pepper; it is extremely powerful in small amounts.

3. Allow to slow cook on “Low” overnight or 8+ hours, stirring occasionally. Adjust seasoning as needed.

4. Follow directions on package to prepare pinto beans. One whole package is too beany, so use 3/4 package. When beans are tender, add to Crock-Pot and stir well.

5. If adding meat: sauté in cast-iron skillet with salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder and a pinch of cayenne until cooked thru and browned. If using chicken, cook in peanut oil or butter. Drain cooked meat and add to Crock-Pot, no more than an hour before serving.

6. Serve with grated cheddar cheese and Jiffy cornbread. Add pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cayenne to the cornbread batter.

Suggested pairings: Vella Chablis, Ovaltine

Setting aside the fact that the latest version of Adobe Flash Player is required to learn more about it (excluding millions of iPhone users, iPad users, and people with an older Flash player and without the user permissions to update…what are we, chopped liver?), this “McOatmeal” thing is going a little too far. It has to stop.

Forgive me for using my barn voice in front of a lady, but it’s friggin’ oatmeal. The most boring meal you could possibly eat. You can tart it up with chunks of fruit from Gosh-knows-where and infuse it with maple “natural flavor” all you like; hell, why not throw in some marshmallow fluff and peanut brittle while you’re at it – doesn’t matter. It’s still formless gray glop. Nutritious, maybe even delicious, but not McDonald’s. It makes no sense.

Anyone can make oatmeal. You put the oats and some water in a bowl and microwave it for a minute. Done. You can do it in the time it takes to read this sentence. If you’re rich and have one of those hot water taps at the ready, it’s even easier, because you can tell your servant to do that for you. I’m sure there’s even oatmeal packs for when you’re out roughing it in Yosemite that automatically heat themselves when you pull a string or something. Oatmeal isn’t complicated.

It’s obvious why McDonald’s has decided to spend trillions of dollars apotheosizing oatmeal: image. Calorie counts are on the menus in big cities, supersizing is gone, and America is still getting fatter. So McDonald’s big contribution is – wait for it – oatmeal. Something available everywhere else that anyone can make but no one eats because it’s boring and unsatisfying compared to a real breakfast consisting of myriad dead animals and embryos. This cynical grab for healthy legitimacy is as hollow as it is lazy.

And why is the marketing so goshdarn prominent? Anything McDonald’s you see: print, web, bus, billboard, television, those ads before movies, urinal cake holders – is all about the friggin’ oatmeal. The marketing blitz probably cost more than the oatmeal! You’d think they’d stopped making burgers. No one asked for McOatmeal, dangit, and if they did, it was ’cause it was friggin’ April Fool’s. Stop taking peoples’ jokes seriously.

I’ve been eating McDonald’s since before I was born (literally; a cheeseburger was my mom’s last meal before going into labor and giving birth to me). There are few pleasures in life as good as an Egg McMuffin in the morning, or a cheeseburger in the afternoon. Or the sublime Bacon & Cheese Angus Third Pounder. Or a friggin’ McRib, when it’s available. But to replace a classic promotional product like the McRib with oatmeal insults America, and my birthright.

People who go to McDonald’s know what they want: disgusting, artery-clogging food, not gruel with some fruit sprinkled in. Ironically, in Japan, at this very moment, they’re getting a series of delicious-looking burgers named after places in America. Check ‘em out, they look unbelievably good. I’m switching my lunch plans as I type this they look so good…even though they don’t sell them here.

No…in America, we get bland oatmeal!…and they don’t even have the courtesy to name it after a place in Japan. What gives? We won the war, but you’d never know, looking at how much more epically awesome Japanese McDonald’s are in every way. If America is indeed in decline, surely this is the best evidence of it. Giving other countries Tasty New Burgers while giving us oatmeal is like punching a Bald Eagle chick in the face. Not like that; exactly like that. In other words, it’s a travesty.

So yeah, get rid of the stupid oatmeal, McDonald’s. Stop shoving it in our faces. We do not want it. We want a burger with tortilla chips and a hash brown on top. We want fast, efficient, dedicated, smiling servers. We want fast service. America can be great again, if its McDonald’s are free of oatmeal and full of Japan. Make it happen. Yes you McCan.

Alright enough of this; lunchtime. Did somebody say McDonald’s?

UPDATE: Here’s what someone with a much bigger readership had to say…about a month after I said my piece. FTR I finally tried the stuff (I had a coupon to acquire it for free); it’s more dessert than breakfast. Not that that’s a bad thing…New York Times

This Doritos/Pepsi Max Super Bowl commercial has gotten a lot of flack, to the extent its been pulled and likely will not be aired during the Super Bowl. Catholics are offended. People are calling it wrong and blasphemous. Here’s why it isn’t. From the increasingly reliable Wikipedia entry on Eucharist:

The Catholic Church teaches that when the bread and wine are consecrated in the Eucharist, they cease to be bread and wine [emphasis added], and become, respectively, the body and blood of Christ, each of which is accompanied by the other and by Christ’s soul and divinity. The empirical appearance and physical properties are not changed, but for Catholics, the reality is.

In Holy Communion, one must remember: there is no eating of bread or drinking of wine any more than there was at The Last Supper after Jesus said his piece. There is no bread and wine, period; only the body and blood of Christ. This is a sacrament of faith. You either believe in the body and blood of Christ, or you don’t. Faith doesn’t require any additional explanation or justification; your faith is your faith.

Likewise, in this ad, no one is eating Doritos or drinking Pepsi Max. If the pastor consecrated those foodstuffs, they’re the body and blood, period. A little nutty, maybe, but there it is. Consider this: say there’s no official Communion wafers or Official Communion wine available for whatever reason (maybe the church missed a shipment)…but there is some kind of liquid and solid foodstuffs.

Would a Pastor simply cancel Holy Communion? Of course not; he has to work with what he has! Necco Wafers, chicken fingers, fortune cookies, OJ, Colt 45, it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it isn’t, once blessed.

I will say, however, that the people in line asking about Cool Ranch flavor and referring to Pepsi Max probably shouldn’t be in line, because I don’t think they get it: the food and drink being physically served doesn’t matter: what matters is, you are receiving the body and blood of Christ. To return to wiki:

The consecration of the bread (known as the host) and wine represents the separation of Jesus’ body from his blood at Calvary. However, since he has risen, the Church teaches that his body and blood can no longer be truly separated. Where one is, the other must be. Therefore, although the priest (or minister) says, “The body of Christ”, when administering the host, and, “The blood of Christ”, when presenting the chalice, the communicant who receives either one receives Christ, whole and entire.

Some people (germophobes and/or teetotalers, mostly) eschew the wine, and take only bread. But that’s okay, as long as you believe. If you don’t, there’s no point in getting in line.

Was this ad a little ridiculous? Yes. Blasphemous? Not at all. Was it risky, considering the predictable knee-jerk reaction most people have to such things? Absolutely. One reason this may strike a nerve for some more uppity Catholics out there is the underlying truth of this ad: Catholic churches are struggling.

Churchgoers are aging and passing away, as are nuns, with few youngins to replace them. Parishes are consolidating and churches are shutting down and being converted to loft apartments. Nearly all global Catholic growth is occurring in developing nations.

This is an effective ad not only because it is funny (in a tongue-and-cheek way, IMO), but because it does address the real-life dilemma of the church in the first world: How can the church remain relevant in this modern world?