Easter: what's that all about, then? We all know bits and pieces of the story of Easter. Jesus, the crucifixion, the eggs, the rabbit, the whole springtime resurrection motif. But how do the pieces fit together? Is Easter just a load of old guff cobbled together from pagan festivals, dodgy theology, and decades of twee marketing? Or is there a deeper spiritual truth we can uncover for the greater glory of God through blind unquestioning faith and the misguided and scattershot application of logic?

Clearly, the latter. Hallelujah, amen, gloria in excelsis deo!

The basic narrative, as near as I can make it out, goes like this. Jesus was crucified by the Romans at the place called Golgotha. Various gospels claim his last words were either "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," "It is finished," "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit," or "Rosebud." As he hung dying there on the cross, Jesus laid a clutch of brightly-coloured eggs. These were distributed to his faithful disciples by the Easter Bunny, the most mysterious and abstract member of the Holy Trinity (whose other members are Santa Claus and Doctor Who). Three days after Jesus' death, the eggs hatched, disgorging Jesus' brood of spider-like face-hugging young, as depicted in the film Alien.

What can we deduce from this, theologically?

1. It has widely been agreed since the Council of Nicea in the Fourth Century that Jesus was a mammal. The only egg-laying mammals are the monotremes. Therefore, like the platypus and the echidna, Christ was a monotreme. We can conclude from this that His urinary, defecatory, and reproductive systems all emptied through a single opening, known zoologically as the cloaca. In other words, His anus, urethra, and ovipositor were all as one. In this we can see a clear validation of the trinitarian view of God.

2. Furthermore, in the current geological era monotremes are native only to Australia and New Guinea; therefore, Christ must have been Australian, and consequently favoured tight and revealing swimwear. This raises many questions about his relationship to the Easter Bunny, as rabbits were not introduced to Australia until 1788. The two can only have met after separately migrating to Israel, possibly in a dance club or public toilet, or more likely soaping up in the showers after a hot, sweaty day at the beach. Further research into this theologically sensitive topic is clearly warranted.

3. The practice among many Christians of consuming crackers, said to transubstantiate into the body of Christ, seems deeply connected to Jesus' face-hugging spawn, and may represent an alternate vector for Christological reproduction. We see evidence for this in the use of the word "host" for these crackers, for a host is also one who harbours a parasite. It seems very plausible that, on the day of the Second Coming, the Christ tissue that has accumulated from the hosts in Christian bodies over the years may complete its incubation cycle and form sleek bio-mechanoid xenomorphs. These will burst out through the chests of the hosts, to feed and grow into full-sized acid-blooded killing machines for the greater glory of God, amen.

And that is the true story of Easter.

I didn't find out until Friday afternoon that, Thursday night, Iowa City, where I spent my four years as an undergraduate, was ravaged by tornadoes. Not only do I still have friends there--all of whom seem to be okay, fortunately--but I consider Iowa City to be my home town. I enjoyed my time there, considerably more than I ever did my years growing up in Council Bluffs. I spent hours learning its streets, following creeks and trails, trekking out to the edges where the town trickles off into cloned housing developments and rural roads...I never quite stomped around the entire place, but I covered a hell of a lot of it. Even after a few years away, it's all still familiar to me. I've been hunting down all the photographs I possibly can of the aftermath...I feel, oddly, somehow derelict in my duty for not being there to weather the weather with the town in which I began figuring out how this whole life business works. I'm a sap. Tap me and make syrup.

Suddenly this is going somewhere I never intended. Let's just look at the pictures.

Here are a bunch. The completely destroyed thing near the railroad bridge used to be a Dairy Queen. That big orange brick not-destroyed thing is the Christian Science Reading Room on College Street, just three blocks from my old studio apartment. Then there's the destroyed sorority house, just a block up and a block over on Washington, if I recall correctly. The whole area had its power knocked out, I'm told, and it was still down as of Friday night. Then there's the annihilated church, St. Patrick's, which I never really paid much attention to while I was in town. Their god could not protect them.

St. Pat's already has its own gallery of storm damage photos, conveniently. The destruction there is very picturesque. Lots of interesting details of the church's structure, for architecture geeks.

The Daily Iowan has a photo gallery here. Lots of flipped cars downtown. I hear the police were trying to empty out the Ped Mall due to a gas leak. They've got a story on the whole event here. They may ask you to register for free. Or just get a login from BugMeNot.

My dear friends Clake and Klake have more here, and also here, and indeed here.

The University of Iowa has some photos of its own, including this one of some poor schmuck's car drowning in a creek. And this shot of the Ped Mall area from above, showing the roofs torn off.

I'd actually forgotten how big tornadoes could be. Hadn't really been through a significant one since the late '80s, when a real monster ravaged Council Bluffs. Blew houses to matchsticks a block north and a block south of us, cut off power for days, ripped up trees blocking off the streets...The sky always turned a funny green colour beforehand; I used to hover out in the front yard watching for funnel clouds and dodging hail until the last moment.

UPDATE (4/16): Here's video footage of the tornado that molested Iowa City. The hubris of Dairy Queen has clearly angered the gods.