Faith

Dear Indigna,

You seem to think President Bush can do no wrong! Some people think you actually worship the guy! True?

Democrat
Burlingame, VT

Dear Democrat,

On the contrary, I am a Cavist. President Bush is only a minor prophet in our religion. Cavism, a relatively low-key and little-understood faith, worships Cavy, the noumenon or Platonic Ideal of the guinea pig--its Kantian “Ding an sich,” if you will. Cavy is incarnate in all Cavia porcellus and hence members of our faith are prohibited from using guinea pigs for food, fur, or transportation. Cavy’s divinity is immanent in the inscrutable, depthless, vacant gaze of the beady eye, the eternal twitching of the nose, and the infinite patience of the holy rodent. Our liturgy is celebrated in a joyous cacaphony of chirps, whistles, squeals and chatter. Cavist monks commit their lives to a diet of kibble, hay and water, abject boredom bereft of companionship, and sleeping in cramped, seldom-cleaned cages soiled by their own urine and feces.