San Andreas Fault
“How long have I been telling you people that it wasn't my fault? Huh? Just how long???”
San Andreas (Greek: Ἀνδρέας) (early 0th century—middle to latter 0th century) was an apostle of Christ, the brother of Peter and second cousin of Fred, and is regarded in the Catholic church as the patron saint of recrimination. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him, and bugger-all is set down in Finnish either.
Though a faithful apostle of Christ, Andreas had a knack for fault-finding that tried Christ's patience, long before God did his job on Job. Andreas is commemorated by a gigantic geological phenomenon in California that threatens to knock half of the state into the Atlantic Ocean if residents don't simply stop screwing up. It will be their fault.
Life[edit]
“Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”
The New Testament states that Andreas, like his brother Simon Peter, was a fisherman, and a damned poor one, rendering him uniquely disposed to leave all things behind, notably the boat with the day's catch of three minnows, to follow Jesus. Andreas insisted that the poor haul was not his fault; the lake level was low and Simon Peter had been distracting him all day with lame jokes. The Gospel of John states that Christ bought these sad excuses and welcomed Andreas as a disciple regardless.
The gospels tell us that Andreas visited the crucifixion site, shouting up at the cross, "Judas is responsible for this! He did it!"
Andreas was crucified in the City of Patras on the Peloponnesian Coast, as crucifixion in those days was a very good career move. Documents that are not cited in this article (My bad, dude) say that Andreas was not crucified on a cross-shaped cross but an X-shaped cross. That, too, was someone else's fault.
Commemoration[edit]
Andreas's life is commemorated by recognition from the See of Byzantium to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. He is the patron saint of Scotland and several of the Outer Hebrides Islands.
However, it is in California where Andreas is held in greatest renown. The fault-finding citizens of this bankrupt Pacific state have been treated to outrageously bad government, from Ronald Reagan to Gray Davis to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it never seems to be anyone's fault, nor even a reason not to send them back to Sacramento or, God help us, to Washington, D.C.
The California Assembly in 1920 fondly recalled the "good old days," when every mishap could be pinned on someone, by renaming for Andreas the 810-mile tectonic fissure running down the coastline.
The applicability of the San Andreas Fault has recently become more limited, as it is currently more popular to blame everything on George W. Bush.