Jaynestown...

The Criminal Rites Of Spring

(v. 1.1)

Over the next 3 1/2 months, thousands of American businesses and millions of individual citizens will use tax preparation specialists or software to help themselves commit one or more of a variety of serious crimes. Willfully, or, at best, negligently, these otherwise law-abiding Americans will prepare and execute a variety of fraudulent affidavits, resulting in serious harmful consequences for themselves and others. Despite being 100% personally responsible-- both morally and legally-- for its accuracy and its effects, these men and women will engage in a mass exercise of perjury, putting into the record sworn testimony about matters of which they are completely ignorant.

For instance, without ever having looked-- even for a moment-- at the highly specialized, quite-different-from-common-meaning statutory definitions of such custom legal terms as "employee", "trade or business", "employer" or "self-employed", these people will execute tax instruments declaring themselves to be one or more of these things. Those who do so inaccurately (the majority, I'm afraid) will at the same time subject themselves to a vastly higher tax liability than is legally appropriate; but whether right or wrong, each will swear to the truth and correctness of it all, to the best of their knowledge and belief. Click here for the rest of the story...

(or navigate to www.losthorizons.com/comment/archives/TheCriminalRitesOfSpring.htm)

Book: "What are we up to, sweetheart?"

River: "Fixing your Bible."

Book: "I, um...(alarmed)...what?"

River: "Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logistics - doesn't make sense." (she's marked up the bible, crossed out passages)

Book: "No, no. You - you can't...

River: "So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah's ark is a problem."

Book: "Really?"

River: "We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat." (rips out page)
Book: Give me that. River, you don't...fix the Bible.
River: It's broken. Doesn't make sense.
Book: It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something and letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith, River. It fixes you. You hang on to those, now.
--River Tam and Shepherd Book from the Firefly episode "Jaynestown"