Sunday, July 15, 2007

Wikipedia Voyage of Discovery

Wikipedia is great. It's an encyclopedia with hyperlinks - that's right kids, it's a veritable educational adventure at your fingertips! I'd like to take you on a voyage of discovery that I recently underwent thanks to my good friends at Wikipedia. I began at the page of the Dalai Lama and had only read a little bit when my eyes strayed to a hyperlink to Steven Seagal. You may remember Steven Seagal from such films as Under Siege, Half Past Dead, Today You Die and Urban Justice. Apparently, he and the Dalai Lama are great mates. So I followed the link and found out that His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama, has officially stated that Steven Seagal (pictured below discussing the attainment of Nirvana) is a tulku, a reincarnation of an ancient Buddhist master. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? This would be like the Vatican canonising Jean-Claude Van Damme as a saint! (Alternative joke: 'This would be like the population of California voting in Arnold Schwarzenegger as their Governor!) The previews for Seagals' up-coming movies write themselves: 'He's a rogue police officer who never wears a bullet-proof vest. He doesn't need to; he's got Dalai Armour,' Anyways, after I had a chuckle at the infinitely wise ways of Eastern religion I scanned over the various sections on Mr. Seagal's page. Steven Seagal has released several albums, was a bigamist and has experienced what is ambiguously described as a 'mystical dog incident'. He has also been accused of occasionally kicking his stunt doubles in the nuts. Did you know that there is a Wikipedia page for getting kicked in the nuts? Neither did I, so I followed the link and found myself at a page entitled 'Groin attack'. It's a brief read, presumably because the authors assumed that it was a topic that people would either be A) sufficiently familiar with or B) disinclined to read about at length. Although relatively concise, the groin attack page had a supporting Bible reference. It makes sense when you think about it. God designed those genitals, he knows whats going to happen when they get violently disturbed. And when it comes to groin attacks, the word of god is mercifully clear: Deuteronomy 25: 11-12 'When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one approaches to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, you shall sever her hand; you shall have no compassion.' So, next time you get into a fight at the pub, make sure you've got the good book with you just in case you cop a 'Groin attack' from your opponent's girlfriend. And that was the end of my Wikipedia voyage of discovery, from the Dalai Lama to Steven Seagal to passages in the Bible about punishing women who have inappropriately grabbed at a guy's nuts! I wonder where my next voyage of discovery will lead...

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