Reading about John Allen Chau, the young American evangelist who was killed by tribesmen on a forbidden island, my first response was, Didn’t he see The Wicker Man? But the more I learned, the more I rooted for the isolated tribe, who are “arguably the most enigmatic people on our planet,” and descended from the first modern humans to leave Africa.

North Sentinel, one of India’s Andaman Islands, is off-limits to everyone, even the Indian Navy and Coast Guard, who protect it from afar. The tribe who lives there has killed or tried to kill nearly everyone who dared to come ashore, most recently (until now) a fisherman in 2006. On a mission to spread Christianity, Chau achieved his dream of visiting the island, only to be slain for his trouble.

The population of North Sentinel is estimated at somewhere between 50 and 1oo. In the late 19th century, a British naval officer kidnapped several of the islanders, at the time describing them as painfully timid.

He took them back to his house on a bigger island, where the British ran a prison, and watched the adults grow sick and die. After returning the children to the island, he ended his experiment, calling it a failure.

“We cannot be said to have done anything more than increase their general terror of, and hostility to, all comers,” Mr. Portman wrote in his 1899 book.

“Over the next century, few outsiders ever returned. Just about anyone who dared to visit was greeted by flying arrows. In the 1970s, the director of a National Geographic documentary took one in the leg.”

Another isolated tribe that shared the island, the Jarawa, responded more positively to outside contact. Within 20 years of contact with anthropologists, the Jarawa began to roam the neighboring settlements, begging and dancing for money. Activists regarded contact missions as a kind of cultural destruction, and the Indian government eventually agreed, adopting a strict no-contact policy to protect the inhabitants of North Sentinel.

Is it paternalistic of India to protect the island from outside contact? Is it aiding in the tribe’s extinction? Or is it a rare instance of a government doing the right thing? To me, the answer is obvious. John Allen Chau was a nutcase who is being hailed as a martyr by his Christian buddies, but he got what he deserved. Evidently, Jesus agreed!

There is more amazing footage of North Sentinel here. Without wishing to be all National Geographic, life on the island looks like paradise. If you want to go deeper, there’s a history of North Sentinel here, from 2000.

*Just remember that if the US owned North Sentinel, it would be a golf course.

We have entered The Ass Age, and The Apocalypse is sure to follow. I would like it to hurry up.

I’m not certain about the beginning of The Ass Age. Jennifer Lopez was the precursor many years ago but no one could’ve imagined what was coming.

Astute bible students may have predicted it, though.

And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.

That’s just one of 143 times the word ‘ass’ appears in the bible. And as we know, Things Happen For A Reason. The Lord was warning us about the worship of asses. And in the fullness of time, it has come to pass.

Kim Kardashian is the Anti-Christ, obviously. We are suffering for her sins. I am, anyway.

That huge ass is following us everywhere, threatening to block out the sun. Maybe it’s causing Climate Change for all we know. It keeps getting bigger. It will need a wheelbarrow or crane or something if it keeps growing at its present rate.

What does that huge ass want from us?

It has already spawned disturbing imitators, especially in the art of hip-hop, who might be the Apostles. How many Apostles were there? I once has an awful wall-hanging depiction of The Last Supper that I used as a rug, but I failed to count the attendees. Were there eight? Ten?

Whatever. Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea are two, and Khloe Kardashian makes three. When we get the full cohort, the doomsday clock will strike midnight. The End Times. It will be a bummer for most of us but for others it will come as a blessed relief. No more huge asses taunting us, frightening us, swelling uncontrollably the The Blob.

We will be free.

“Rick Perry is like George Bush without the ethics or intelligence”   – Jim Hightower

Michelle Bachman poses with her children and her gay homophobic husband. Who wouldn’t want these fine Christians in the White House?

And here are Mrs. Palin’s toenails as she relaunches her “family vacation”.

Since Mitt Romney is already toast, we can look forward to a nasty competition over which candidate is the most Christian, plain speakin’, and determined to cut social security and social services to the American People who are presumably longing for fewer regulations of aviation standards, air quality, and whatnot.

It’s the stupidity and the hate-mongering that make me gag. I’ve given up on waiting for Obama to live up to his campaign promises.   But seeing Rick Perry morph into a g’ droppin’ , Bushian fake cowboy makin’ crazy charges about treason…it’s going to be enraging.

I mean, enragin’.