For the most part, they still work pretty well. Even though we’ve had a whole lot of changes in this world since Moses originally got them.
Adultery is still adultery. Killing is still killing. Lying is still lying.
Speaking of lying, one of the things that has to tick off the Big Guy is how people spread crap over the Internet. Especially about President Obama. He being an equal opportunity God and all.
And there it is in black and white, no pun intended: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
I guess you could argue that Obama is not your neighbor so therefore he doesn’t count. Not sure God would buy that one though. Have to give him a little more credit than that.
Anyway, the 10 Commandments are remarkably comprehensive and have certainly stood the test of time. Not that they do much good.
I mean we still routinely violate them. Or most of us do. At least some of the Commandments some of the time. I think Abe Lincoln said that.
And we interpret them to mean what we want them to mean. Somehow killing in the name of patriotism we don’t count as murder. Have to wonder if God feels the same way.
But I digress.
My point in bringing the Commandments up in the first place is that I think we now need to add an 11th. It’s not a conclusion I reached lightly because, after all, who are we to mess with God’s Word.
But how could he know the depths of depravity to which the human mind could sink given a few centuries of evolution. We have been working our way up from monkeys, you know.
So it’s not all that surprising that a heinous practice has arisen that God, in all his infinite wisdom, could not forecast. Therefore somebody needs to step in and give the Big Guy a helping hand.
Since I have a column with some 17 or 18 readers, and because I have always loved to play king (even more than cowboy), I am willing to take on that heavy burden. I therefore propose for your consideration and for the consideration of all appropriate higher powers an 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not go long.
It’s important to understand that going long is not always bad. For example, going long in football and baseball are good things. Going long in hot dogs gets a thumbs up also. And when you travel, going long is a lot more adventurous than going short.
But it seems to me that it has become human nature to take the long way out whenever possible – especially if it serves the purpose of enhancing one’s own ego.
I have noticed this growing trend for a long time but was reminded just last week while watching “8 ½,” the Academy Award-winning 1963 Federico Fillino film starring Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale. It’s a great film, a classic, but at two hours 20 minutes it’s about 20 minutes too long in my humble opinion. I think those 20 minutes could have been lopped off without hurting the film a bit.
And most movies suffer from the same problem. When it comes to movies, I am a 90-minute guy. After 90 minutes I start to twitch. After two hours I can get downright uncomfortable. And the 90-minute rule holds true no matter how great the movie.
In most cases, I believe bigger is better. I am a big fan of huge restaurant portions. I much prefer large dogs to small ones.
But when it comes to things that consume my time, I would rather get in and out and be done with it. And it’s not just movies.
It seems like we live in the era of the superego where so many of us can’t refuse the temptation to make something longer than it needs to be. There is a particular reporter in town whose stuff is much longer than it needs to be.
I have the same tendency, and that’s where an editor is invaluable. Take this column for instance.
If I don’t stop soon, Editor Matt Brabb is going to hunt me down and extract the excess words like a sadistic dentist. So let me wrap this up.
We, as the human race, have developed a nasty habit of making things longer than they need to be just because we can’t control ourselves. Precious minutes are being wasted, minutes that translate into hours, days and eventually entire lifetimes.
Therefore I beseech the Big Guy to consider an 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not go long.”
If he (or she) needs somebody to go up the mountain and get the new stone tablets, I recommend my movie-watching buddies who could do it on their tandem bicycle. If, on the other hand, God is computer literate like the rest of us, he could just send me an e-mail.
I’ll let you all know when the 11th Commandment takes effect.
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