The Dancing Elephant!

In response to this crazy complaint and these news stories, I wrote the following:

Jim Blake,

Congratulations on your latest piece of work! When I read about your protest letter for the "ganesh" statue at the Calgary zoo, my sides were splitting with laughter. I can't believe the CBC, CTV and the Calgary Herald were all taken in by your parody! Maybe they'd never heard of your Concerned Christian Comedians before, or maybe they thought a genuine Christian would actually concern themselves with such silly things as elephant statues at zoos. Ha! You sure showed them!

After reading the stories, I had to read your actual complaint letter too and it is hilarious! If I hadn't known this was a parody, I would have been convinced that you're some kind of religious nutcase. The part about erecting the cross of Jesus, the ten commandments and Noah's ark was particularly clever.

After I stopped laughing, I realized that though I have a fairly liberal sense of humour, others might not and some Christians might even be offended at your parody of them. Unfortunately, it seems that some of the comments on the stories I've read are from such offended Christians, but I'm sure their spirit of tolerance will let them see past their initial anger.

I can't wait to see what you do next. Did you know the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu are coming to Vancouver this weekend? You already said, "The display of foreign gods is offensive and does not reflect the views of the majority of Canadians." in your genesh letter so you probably don't want to use that again, but with your creative genius, I'm sure you can think of something new. I'm sure whatever you come up with will be hilarious!

cheers,
D R Ferguson

To: teamleader@businesshost.ca CC: comments@calgaryzoo.ab.ca themayor@calgary.ca calgarynews@ctv.ca letters@theherald.canwest.com