I'm livid! 
While my back was turned an historic highway had its history and its uniqueness buried under a mountain of religious superstition and bigotry.  'Socially Accpetable Superstiton' (my term for religion) has claimed yet another victory over reason, intelligence, and common sense, and right here in my home state of New Mexico. I am both embarrassed and outraged.

We all know the type people who instigated this silly plot and why they did it.
They attribute a superstitious significance to the number 666, the mark of the beast as foretold in the biblical book of Revelation. They're the same type who recoil from the number 13, and see to it that there are no thirteenth floors in skyscrapers, nor hospital rooms with that number on their doors. Fear of the number 13 is simply superstition. Fear of the number 666 has biblical backing and therefore carries more weight.  The government officials who support legislation of this type are either bowing to the whims of their voting constituency or they are  idiots themselves......most likely the latter.

Officials in three states, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah, joined together in this asinine effort.  In New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson,  Dem. Rep. Ray Begaye, and anyone else who voted for the proposition should be required to wear a dunce cap and to sit in some remote corner of the fourteenth century. Could it be they were actually swayed by the stories of the 'Devil's Highway'?
"Everyone dies on that highway."  "The Devil lurks there."  
It's a fact that New Mexico leads the nation in  highway fatalities......  
'drunken' highway fatalities.  Believe me,  I  am expressing no bigotry when I say that the problem is the 'drunken Native Americans' in this corner of New Mexico....... not the Devil. It's a simple fact. 

Changing the name of the road will not change what happens on it.

Then why am I so upset over a name change ( or number change ) ?
Because I'm tired of the ignorant, the stupid, the superstitious, and the fundamentalists trying to run the world....a world that I have just as much right to live in without their interference.  Let them keep their silly beliefs to themselves, in their churches, in their homes.

But we should respect religion, right?  For an intelligent and relevant answer to that question read Richard Dawkins' article, "Time to Stand Up".  

I happen to love Science, Philosophy.......and History.  Changing the Devil's Highway number from 666 to 491 has buried forever a piece of history.  If any of these 'meddlers'  had cared to do a bit of research, they would have found that highway 666 was given its designation in 1942, when it became the sixth major road to branch off the newly created Route 66.  Personally, I think that's kinda 'cool', and I'm going to do my part to keep that little bit of triva alive.

"491, Hell !"  For me it will always be 666, and even the Devil can't take that from me!

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