Read this awesome essay on The American Pantheon. Terry McCombs outlines the godlike identities that resurface again and again in the American psyche, and arranges them into the proper relationship of a pantheon. He explains the principles they stand for, their natural alignments, and identifies incarnations/avatars of that deity.

He made some identifications and connections that I would have missed, but are totally appropriate. There are other things that might have been more tightly finessed (such as the Great God of Science's relation--I'd put him as the arrogant (and single) older brother of Uncle Sam. And there are connections that he didn't draw out but are implicit (that Bugs Bunny--our trickster god--is a younger relative of Science (having come from TV, which is within Science's dominion of communication)--both of them being proper aspects of Mercury). I guessed right away that the Blonde Bombshell would be there, while The Man in Black is one I wouldn't have guessed but completely agree with.

Also he identified our devil most accurately: The Foreigner.

Fun to read as a mythology buff and, well, an American.

1:02 p.m. 2004-03-04�