You Are Dumb - Catholics

All For The Cookie

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:05:16 -0500

Catholics, 15 July 2008

Memo to William Donohue: HOLY SHIT, YOU'RE DUMB.

As you may recall, yesterday, we recounted the sad tale of Webster Cook, who hankered for a hunk of Jeez and got death threats for not eating his cookie. Despite Cook returning the communion wafer in a Ziploc bag, a fact that seriously fucked with the flow of yesterday's column without changing its informational content in any way, Catholic League president William Donohue has called for his expulsion.

Although now that I think of it, the returning of the wafer raises some FASCINATING theological and theo-political questions. The wafer has been in Cook's mouth. So what happens to it now? Does someone else have to eat it for the transubstantiation to be complete? If so, who gets stuck with that eminently disgusting task? If NOT, then what happens? After all, the outrage over Cook's actions is that he had kidnapped the Body of Christ. It puts that outrage in some pretty stark contrast if, upon receipt of the Ziplocked remains of the Prince of Peace, that said remains are then tossed in a dumpster because they've got college student cooties on them.

It's an important question, in no small part because it's one PZ Myers has not asked. If you're not familiar with PZ Myers, of the blog Pharyngula, he's actually a lot like me, only where I have dick jokes, he has credentials. He actually teaches biology at the University of Minnesota, hates creationists, likes the word "fuckwits", and has a sizable audience. Not that I don't love you all dearly, my snowflake babies, but I link to his blog at my own peril. He's that good. All I can say to keep you coming back is that PZ Myers will never, ever, ever make fun of the guy in line ahead of him at Target, and I will. Tomorrow.

Like me, PZ Myers thought the Webster Cook thing was completely fucking ridiculous, and said so. In doing so, he took the patently genius step of asking people to send him Communion wafers for him to desecrate and post photographic evidence thereof. Which is really, really fucking funny. Maybe funnier than smuggling one out in an asscondom, even. Because Myers has an audience, this came to the attention of the Catholic League, who started a mail-in campaign to get Myers fired. Nice. Their "reasoning"? ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"The Myers blog can be accessed from the university’s website. The university has a policy statement on this issue which says that the ‘Contents of all electronic pages must be consistent with University of Minnesota policies, local, state and federal laws.’ One of the school’s policies, ‘Code of Conduct,’ says that ‘When dealing with others,’ faculty et al. must be ‘respectful, fair and civil.’ Accordingly, we are contacting the President and the Board of Regents to see what they are going to do about this matter. Because the university is a state institution, we are also contacting the Minnesota legislature."

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Donohue is actually arguing that when you put a link to Site B on Site A, the contents of Site B become part and parcel of the contents of Site A. By that reasoning, You Are Dumb has just absorbed Pharyngula, which will come as a great shock to my Web hosting service.

Beyond that, there's an actual, fundamental issue at hand here. The way I see it, if someone makes a living saying shit, like, say, Don Imus or Chris Matthews, when they go and say something like "nappy-headed ho's" or equating "white people" with "regular people", you have an obligation to complain to their employer. Why? Because it's a performance issue. They're being paid to express opinions, therefore the employer has a right to control and approve of what opinions get expressed, in the same way that Apple gets to yell at the factory if they start making iPhones shaped like dongs.

But if someone's paid for something completely different, and their HOBBY is saying shit, then going to their employer and trying to get them fired is fucking unconscionable. It's threatening their livelihood for something unrelated to how they earn that livelihood. It's a dick move, and frankly, it's nowhere near as far removed from the Salman Rushdie fatwa as Donohue would have you believe.

Religion Of Peace

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:34:15 -0500

Catholics, 14 July 2008

Memo to Florida Catholics and William Donohue: YOU ARE DUMB.

Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone of the history, over the past decade, of outraged right-wing Christians writing letters to the editor and gleefully pointing out that whenever Muslims go apeshit over some imagined affront to their religion, that it proves Islam is not a "religion of peace", and that Christians are inherently superior, even though it has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with cultural comfort and complacency.

And now, on to the story of the poor guy who's getting death threats for smuggling a Communion wafer out of a Catholic Mass held at the University of Central Florida.

Meet Webster Cook. Upon receiving the Nazarene Nabisco, he did not put it into his mouth. He says he wanted to show it to his friend who was curious about Catholicism. When church officials demanded he finish his Jesus, presumably because there are children starving for Jesus in Africa, he popped the gluten-rich manifestation of the One True Keebler Elf in his mouth, then took it out when he got back to his pew.

Apparently one of the churchies saw this, and she tried to wrestle the Saviour Snack out of Cook's hand, which pissed him off, so he took it and left. That's when the fun began. He got death threats. The unfortunately named Susan Fani, speaking for the local diocese, actually had the big round wafers to tell the news that "if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it."

Let's just parse that out fully to really see how fucking stupid it is. Beating someone up, or even killing them, because they're gay? Not a hate crime. Being given one of the MILLIONS of wholly symbolic Jesus Newtons given out every day by the Catholic Church and not actually consuming it? That's a hate crime. Plus, it's hypocritical. Catholics, make up your damn minds. Are we supposed to swallow or not?

Of course Bill Donohue got in on the act. It's good to know that whenever a Catholic has a hissy-fit over something stupid, Donohue and the Catholic League will be there to make sure that hissy-fit is on Fox News eight times before lunch. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage—regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance—is beyond hate speech. That is why the UCF administration needs to act swiftly and decisively in seeing that justice is done. All options should be on the table, including expulsion."

Clearly, as an atheist who, had circumstances gone differently, might have ended up Catholic, I find this overwrought anger hilarious and inexplicable. Holding the Body of Christ hostage? I'll admit my knowledge of the various beliefs surrounding transubstantiation is incomplete, but it seems to me that given the age of the Catholic Church, and the number of communion wafers produced, blessed, and distributed during that time, that Cook is not holding the body of Christ hostage. He might be holding a chunk of a fingernail clipping of Christ hostage, tops. I mean, sure, if the Pope had a chunk of a fingernail clipping of Christ, I'm sure it would be in a diamond box in a gold room buried in a catacomb under the Vatican lined entirely of DaVinci paintings the world's never seen, but you get my point. It's not a big deal.

Maybe if he'd smuggled the communion wafer out like a drug mule, you know, wrapped in a Trojan and shoved up his rectum? Maybe then I could see them starting to get a bit cranky. But as it stands now, I just don't get it. I mean, if the Muslims are supposed to just let it slide when their prophet gets mocked in a cartoon, then why does Donohue get to call for the expulsion of Cook for Christnapping and get to be taken seriously? It's almost as if religion made no fucking sense at all.

And that doesn't even get INTO what Donohue pulled next, but that is a story for another day.

If You Haven't Sinned It, It's New To You

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:16:05 -0500

Catholics, 18 March 2008

Memo to the Catholic Church and the news media: YOU ARE DUMB.

I'm telling you, you hear the phrase "seven new deadly sins" and the comedy mind starts kicking into overdrive. Especially when you hear intimations in the media that Seven Deadly Sins Classic are getting a makeover for modern times.

Right out of the gate I assumed that the Pope and his Cardinals, all with their quavering, Vatican fingers straining toward the pulse of modern culture, would be condemning hip new sins like skateboarding, grunge music, Mortal Kombat, and raves. Oh, how my hopes got up. Oh, how quickly those hopes were dashed.

I understand the media's confusion. Really, I do. It's difficult to hear that there are new sins, they're deadly sins, and there are seven of them, and not draw the conclusion that there are seven new deadly sins. On the other hand, I have the theological training of an atheist and the journalism training of a very lazy college student, and it took me about five minutes of reading other people's shitty stories to realize that the Seven New Deadly Sins were, at best, additions and clarifications, not replacements for sloth, gluttony, lust, and the other four bad guys from Fullmetal Alchemist.

This is not to say that the list doesn't have comedy value. These are in fact additions to the mortal sins, the felonies of Catholic law. The ones you have to go to confession to be absolved of. Sure, the cynic in you might think that they're just trying to increase foot traffic to the confessionals, and the subsequent donations. You know, the way cities increase the fines on parking violations to help balance the budget. But let's pretend we're not cynics, and the Catholic Church has decided that these really are modern-day ills what need a good Papal cracking down on. What did they go with?

POLLUTING: Fair enough. Won't do any good, really. I could play the game the right plays with Al Gore and question whether the Popemobile is a hybrid, but that would be intellectually dishonest. I will point out, though, that if the fine people at Exxon were actually worried for a moment about going to Catholic Hell, they wouldn't STILL be fighting the court damages from the Exxon Valdez spill. I'm guessing the final disposition of their incorporeal soul is not on their priority list.

GENETIC ENGINEERING: I'm convinced that the main reason the Catholic Church is anti-science is because science makes people live longer. And if people live longer, then Popes live longer. And if Popes live longer, then the changeover rate of Popes goes down. And when that happens, the odds that any of these bastards making these rules might get to wear the Big Hat someday drops like a rock. Ergo, genetic engineering gets fucked.

HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION: Depending on which sloppy-ass media account you read, this is also phrased as "morally debatable scientific experiments", which I think makes for an interesting contradiction - if the Church has decreed "morally debatable scientific experiments" to be a mortal sin, then that effectively ends the moral debate. Which means the experiments are no longer morally debatable, which means they're no longer mortal sins, at which point they BECOME morally debatable again, and so on, and so forth, until the Pope's head explodes and his hat achieves low earth orbit and generations of children point to it in the sky as evidence of a miracle.

SOCIAL INJUSTICE, CAUSING POVERTY, EXCESSIVE ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH: Just because the Catholic Church felt the apparent need to pad its list out to seven by saying the same damn thing three times doesn't mean I have to follow suit. Anyway, it's nice of them to say it, even though it does strike my cold, atheist heart as a cynical ploy to beef up their "Jesus cared about the poor!" street cred while still supporting the kind of reactionary politics that leads to social injustice, causing poverty, and excessive accumulation of wealth.

Plus, you know, I'd love to let 'em off the hook for their own hefty global coffers, but it turns out massive payouts to the victims of sexual abuse is not actually a form of wealth redistribution that lets you claim any kind of moral high ground.

THE TAKING OF AND DEALING OF DRUGS: I can only assume they mean recreational drugs. And by recreational drugs, I can only assume they mean those substances which are traditionally illegal and considered morally objectionable. Marijuana, not Oxycontin. Ecstasy, not Cialis. Dude on the street corner, and not Glaxo. Again, not sure the people this is aimed at are going to give a shit about the Pope's newfound disapproval, but what the hell. Nice to see the Catholic Church step up on an issue and, at long last, take the position of a South Park character circa 1997.

Theologic

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:37:30 -0600

Catholics, 15 January 2008

Memo to Pope Benedict XVI: YOU ARE DUMB.

Sometimes religion bugs me. Sometimes it amuses me. Sometimes it infuriates me. But more often than not, it just completely fucking baffles me. It's a way of thinking, a way of approaching the world and its problems, that plays by a completely different set of rules, and it's a set of rules that makes no sense to me.

Case in point: the Catholic Church's latest attempt to deal with pedophile priests, a scandal so pervasive and persistent that the "Catholic Priest" brand is in danger of being diluted, and the term becoming a generic equivalent to "child-fucker", in much the same way no matter what brand you actually buy, you end up asking someone for a "Kleenex" because you need to blow your nose.

It's a new tactic, and one that differs considerably from their previous strategies (pretending it's not happening, covering it up, and paying it off): NON-STOP PRAYER.

The way it would work, according to the UK's Times Online, is that each parish would designate a person or group to pray for 24 hours for the Church to rid itself of the sexual abuse scandal. At the end of the 24 hours, they would then pass the scepter, as it were, to another person or group in the parish who would continue for the next 24 hours, and so on, and so forth, until the Catholic Church is entirely free of kiddie-fiddlers.

Now, I look at this and immediately, I am filled with questions as to the practical workings and effects of this effort. Because when you look at things logically, instead of theologically, this is an absolutely fascinating request.

Prayers like this are, in essence, a request for God to take action. In this case, they're asking God to stop priests from fondling children. Now, I presume that Catholics have been praying for this for years, and it hasn't helped. So His Popeness has decided to ask for global, continuous prayer. Which means that there is a threshold, somewhere between "how much they were praying" and "everybody praying all the time" at which God will decide that, yes, OK, he'll finally get around to stopping all that child-fucking by the clergy.

Which makes for an interesting portrait of God to begin with, and an even more interesting portrait when you think about how many of the clergy claim they were "called by God" to the task. So when God does decide the Catholics have prayed enough and he decides to do something, will he stop calling pedophiles to the clergy? Or will he make it a bit more clear to the pedophiles that no, he didn't actually call them, they just think he did?

My other question in all of this is, do they get to stop? And if they do get to stop, how will they know when to stop? There are, by the Church's own admission, over 400,000 Catholic priests in the world. They would also like to believe that no more than 1% of them are members, at least in spirit, of NAMBLA. In order to rid the church of pedophiles, they have to identify the four thousand or so they have on hand, get rid of them, have some way of identifying potential priests to keep any more from getting in, AND have some measures in place in case any of the 396,000 other priests suddenly take a prurient interest in the Hannah Montana set. That is, if you'll pardon the expression, a tall fucking order.

But let's just say that all of this is exactly what the Church needs. That God, having decided that the global Catholic population has now begged enough for divine intervention, steps in and enables all those things to happen, leading to a Catholic church where the pulpit is clean and the altar boys are intact. Do they dare STOP the constant supplications? If they slack off the continuous prayer, will God sneak a few molesters into the ranks to teach them a lesson? Is the whole thing as much of a cosmic protection racket as the Pope's request implies?

Threesus-Deesus

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:18:35 -0500

Catholics, 5 April 2007

Memo to William Donahue: HELP ME OUT, MAN.

For the longest time, one of the things that's irritated me the most about my fellow white people is their whining about the "rules changing". You know, the sentiment that basically boils down to "I finally stopped calling them 'colored', and now they don't want to be called 'black'? No fair! How can I keep up?" But now I sort of kind of understand a little bit how they feel. Well, not really. But just pretend for a bit.

Because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what the rules are for having an acceptable statue of Jesus.

This has, as you may already be guessing, come out of the past week's kerfluffle over Chocolate Jesus, and to a lesser extent, Obama Jesus. The former was part of a New York art exhibit, the latter at a Chicago art school. Neither are apparently OK with the Catholic League's Donahue, who I guess is some sort of self-appointed arbiter (emphasis on the BITER) of religious iconography. And, to be fair, the Catholics do love their iconography. They've almost made it into an art form.

Before we delve into the questionable Jesi, let's quickly take a tour of some of the Jesus statuary that religious types have no problem with. Jesus playing sports is apparently fine. Tacky plastic on the dashboard? Fine. Huge, crucified, bloody, and hanging on the wall? Also fine. Action figure? Fine. Caucasian? Just fucking spiffy. Extending it to the Virgin Mary, depictions on food, highway underpasses, and the like are not only tolerated, but worshiped.

Chocolate Jesus is bad. For a clue as to why, I turn to the Catholic League's press release, helpfully titled "NAKED JESUS—GENITALS EXPOSED—CRUCIFIED". From this, we can make three reasonable deductions.

First, "CRUCIFIED" can't be the problem, because Catholics make statues of crucified Jesus all the time. The second is that "CHOCOLATE" doesn't appear anywhere in the headline, which surprises me. Which leads to the third deduction, that what remains - "NAKED - GENITALS EXPOSED" is the real problem. And also redundant.

I'm not sure what the problem is - historians agree that Jesus, assuming he existed and was crucified, was probably crucified naked, because the Romans didn't like to waste perfectly good tunics or whatever. Therefore, the problem must lie with Jesus' wang. I can see where this would be a problem. I mean, obviously Jesus HAD a penis. Otherwise he'd have a tough time turning wine back into water. And writing his name in the sand. But from a theosculptural standpoint, depicting the Holy Gross is tricky.

Not too small, obviously. He's the son of God, and God isn't going to under-endow the Saviour. But not too large, either, because after all, he won't be using it for much. Obviously it's going to be circumcised. One might think that God could have snipped that bit of DNA in utero to save his son some pain, but that's apparently not the kind of dad God was. Is Jesus a shower or a grower? Nobody knows, and thus it is left for the artists and the Catholic League to fight over. And whatever you do, do not inquire as to the number of licks required to get to the center. They're cranky enough as it is.

The Catholic League is much more vague about the Obama Jesus. Actually, everyone's more vague about it. I couldn't find anybody going on the record for why it's bad. I guess it's because Obama isn't Jesus. Also, he's a Democrat. You can put Bush's face on Uncle Sam and sell prints at conventions, but Democrats don't get to be Jesus. But I'm just speculating here because I'm out of jokes about Christ's chocoschlong.

And I trust the irony of BOTH of these troublesome statues being a lot closer to the alleged actual Jesus's likely skin color than anything behind glass at the Vatican is so obvious it's barely worth pointing out.

Obama Jesus seems to have been spared the censor's wrath, but Hershey's Saviour With Alm(ond)s was pulled from display by the hotel that houses the gallery. You'd think Donohue would be crying victory, but in another press release, he just bitches about the gallery owner's understandable outrage. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"“Because we did not like the way the Roger Smith Hotel handled the decision to drop the display, we have no intention of contacting the 500 organizations that we alerted to this assault on Christian sensibilities to inform them that the exhibition has been cancelled." - Bill Donohue, petulantly refusing to call off his dogs.

Now that's what I call being a dick about Jesus.

Theotautology

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 22:04:42 -0500

Catholics, 18 September 2006

Memo to the Pope: YOU ARE THE POPE.

Now, I'm pretty sure Ratzi knows this. He's not waking up every morning and wonder what that giant fucking hat is doing on his bedstand. But he's still new at this, so he may not have internalized every little detail of what being Pope means.

I'm referring, of course, to him pissing off all the Muslims. When I first read the news, I have to say, I wondered what possible kind of context could justify quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor who called Mohammed's contributions to Islam "evil and inhuman".

So I did what I had to do and took one for the team. I read the speech. And let me just say this right up front. Pope Benedict is a HUGE FUCKING NERD. Seriously. I'm glad he's the Pope, because it's the only job in the world suitable for someone that into theology. Man would kill a party stone-dead, and I suspect that it's not so much a vow of celibacy as a convenient coincidence.

But anyway, I read the speech that caused the furor. OK, technically, I skimmed it, but I did skim the whole thing. It was long. It was convoluted. It was drier than Mother Theresa's hoohoo, is what I'm trying to say. I don't know how much they paid to get in to see him at the University of Regensburg, but I hope the opening act was David Hasselhoff or something.

After my mighty skimming, I have good news, and I have bad news. Because the good news is, there was a perfectly logical context in which the Pope's statements could be considered innocuous. The bad news is, that context is only perfectly logical IF YOU'RE THE POPE.

You see, what the Pope was talking about was forced conversion. Conversion by the sword. Which the Pope sees as a bad thing. So that brings to a total of two the number of things Benny and I have in common - I don't wear brown shirts anymore either.

The Pope's point is that Catholicism is good and right and true because it's based on Greek ideas of reason, and that Islam is stupid and evil and wrong because it's based on doing whatever God says, whether it makes any sense or not. And that Catholicism has drifted away from reason, and should get back to it. The Pope calls this drifting "dehellenization", which just emphasizes my point that you should not invite this guy to your parties.

You see the problem here. Everything the Pope says is correct and makes perfect sense - if you're the infallible leader of the one true faith containing within it the fundamental secrets of the universe. Outside of that context, however, Benny's just another crazy guy in a big hat telling us all we should really be worried about the inmate in the next bunk.

The Pope's no different from any other repressed nerd who's convinced that he's just being perfectly reasonable and logical and doesn't understand why you're getting so upset. Even if you punch him in the face, he won't realize what's wrong. His entire worldview depends on a version of himself that doesn't actually exist, so anyone bothered by his comments may as well accept his half-assed apology and rest secure in the knowledge that eventually he will die, find out he was wrong, and feel like a complete yutz.

You'd Think They'd Be Happy

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:47:03 -0500

Catholics, 3 July 2006

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled coverage of Rush Limbaugh's flaccid shame-shaft to issue this memo to Rev. Thomas Euteneuer: YOU ARE DUMB.

Rev. Euteneuer is the president of Human Life International, a Catholic embryo-fetishizing organization. I can only assume that Rev. Euteneuer was driven into the life of the Catholic priesthood and embryo advocacy by his unfortunate last name, which sounds like both "euthanasia" and "neuter", two concepts antithetical to the Catholics' intense desire to force the rest of us to be fruitful and multiply.

Anyway. Euthaneuter is pissed off at Warren Buffett for donating most of his eventual estate to charity. This would normally not be the kind of thing you'd expect conservatives to frown on, as it actually seems to validate many of their common arguments.

After all, philanthropy and charitable giving are what they'd like to replace the social safety net with. The government doesn't need to collect taxes to make sure people don't starve, we can just leave it up to billionaires to develop consciences in their advanced years.

And Warren Buffett wouldn't be able to be nearly so generous with his estate if it were subject to some kind of estate tax, would it? Of course not. Once again, left to their own devices, I'm sure the Hiltons and the Marses and the other multibillion dollar families in the country will see things Warren's way.

But Euteneuer doesn't see it that way, I guess. Because Buffett is giving his money to Bill Gates. Well, not ACTUALLY to Bill Gates. That would be the most misguided act of charity ever. To the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, which helps the developing world without being, well, rabidly Catholic about it. You know, supporting birth control. And at home, supporting Planned Parenthood. A little.

In case you're wondering whether Euteneuer is having a reasonable philosophical difference with Warren Buffett, allow me to dispel any doubt in your mind. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"The merger of Gates and Buffett may spell doom for the families of the developing world. Warren Buffett will be known as the Dr. Mengele of philanthropy unless he repents and ceases using tax deductible donations to promote a culture of death and desolation.

This is why I should be in charge of everything. First thing I'd do is have Euteneuer brought up on charges of crimes against analogy. "The Dr. Mengele of philanthropy"? Because Gates thinks maybe Africans would be better off if they wore condoms every once in a while? How fucked in the head do you have to be to read about someone donating a vast fortune to charity, and immediately think they're a Nazi?

Me, I just think he's pissed off that an avowed atheist (Buffett) and a lapsed Catholic agnostic (Gates) are making some of the biggest charity headlines in history, thereby ruining our reputation as selfish, godless bastards. I mean, how can we possibly care about our fellow man without fear of eternal punishment if we don't at least pretend to?

That's gotta rankle, especially to a fuckjob like Euteneuer. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see if I can figure out how to become known as the Dr. Mengele of making nachos.

Sharia, With Extra Cheese

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 22:26:25 -0600

Catholics, 2 March 2006

Memo to Thomas Monaghan: YOU ARE BUGFUCK, PIZZA MAN.

I mean, I've known for a while that the guy who started Domino's Pizza was a crazy right-wing uberCatholic who funneled dimes to Operation Rescue every time you got an order of wings. So much so that I made sure to not order pizza from Domino's once I learned about it, even though he doesn't run the company anymore.

Well, that and the fact that it tastes like wet cardboard that a tomato wiped its ass with. But still, there was principle involved too.

But now I wish I could get a time machine and some phone routing equipment and retroactively send all my pre-awareness Domino's purchases to Pizza Hut. Because Tommy Monaghan is taking my pizza money, and your pizza money, and the billions in everyone else's pizza money from the 80's and 90's, and building Ave Maria near the Florida Everglades.

Ave Maria is a university. Ave Maria is also the surrounding town. Ave Maria, if Monaghan gets his way, will be a town run entirely on the strict interpretation of the laws of the Roman Catholic Church. And since Monaghan is a billionaire, I'm guessing he's going to get his way.

First of all, and possibly most importantly, Florida is CRAZY ENOUGH. It's already got Jeb Bush and Walt Disney. Does it really need another cult leader exercising dominion over thousands of blindly worshipping subjects?

And make no mistake about it. If this were some fringe group trying to buy the town and impose their religious views - the purple sneaker castration people, or David Koresh, or, you know. Islam - Homeland Security would be there so fast you'd think a hurricane hit two weeks prior.

But Monaghan is rich, and Catholic, and in Florida, so he can control all the real estate deals and make sure nobody provides abortions, the cable doesn't carry any "pornography", and none of the drugstores sell rubbers. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don't want to be on the sidelines." - And what's worse, I suspect he thinks he's on the "good" side.

According to London's Sunday Times, "Sources close to the project said Monaghan was particularly disturbed by what he regards as the failure of western civilisation to resist Islamic fundamentalism." I trust I don't have to point out the incredibly obvious irony here. We're all grownups. We can all reach blatantly obvious conclusions. We can all simultaneously mutter "that crazy motherfucker" under our breaths.

Upwards of 7,000 people are already looking to move to Ave Maria. Which is the one part of this plan that I like. Because that's seven thousand fewer crazy fucking Catholics in the rest of the country. But in a town without birth control, 7,000 voluntary residents will quickly become 7,000 voluntary residents and 3,500, 7,000, 10,500, 14,000, or, if everyone that moves there are like the Duggars, FIFTY SIX THOUSAND involuntary residents, all forced to live under strict Catholic rule. It'll be like the Vatican, only with bigger bugs and a lot more dirty diapers.

But on the bright side, if your soul isn't saved in 30 minutes or less, it's free.

A Heaping Helping of Mea Culpas

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 11:09:54 -0500

Wingnuts, 14 July 2005

Richard. Rick. Dick. What is it about that name? Dick Cheney. Dick Morris. Richard Myers. Richard Nixon. Richard Roeper. Lots of high-profile assholes with that moniker these days, it seems. Hell, even Bush's doctor is named Dick Tubb, which is good for a whole doodle's worth of snickers. But the king of them all has got to be Rick Santorum.

Ah, Rick. Ye of the now infamous "man on dog" gay marriage analogy. The funny thing is, for a while there, it looked like maybe Old Frothy was trying to pass himself off as more of a moderate. When that didn't do anything for his slumping poll numbers, though, Rick hopped right back on his favorite dog and rode again as the American culture warrior we all know and despise.

He wrote a whole book, "It Takes A Family", blaming those liberal working woman feminist types for ruining the family with their educations and their careers and their inability to be satisfied staying home and raising the vast numbers of spawn that spring forth from their properly unfettered loins. The title is a dig at Hillary Clinton's book, "It Takes A Village", earning him two dozen Instant Conservative Points, redeemable for fine, quality Camp Gitmo merchandise at your local Wal-Mart. They're like Green Stamps for douchebags.

I'm sure Hillary appreciates Santorum's advice. After all, there's nothing we liberals need more than to be informed of what we're responsible for, so that we can feel appropriately guilty and chagrined about it. Similarly, I was very grateful to learn from Santorum that, as an East Coast liberal from way back, it's actually MY fault Catholic priests fucked little boys in Boston and the church covered it up.

It's an interesting story - one the brackets Santorum's brief stint with moderation. It starts almost exactly three years ago, in an editorial for Catholic Online. Maybe he thought nobody sane would see it there - if so, he was almost right. In the editorial, Santorum blamed the Boston-area pedophilia by priests on, I kid you the fuck not, the sick culture liberals created. ACTUAL BUGFUCK QUOTE TIME!

"The most obvious change must occur within American seminaries, many of which demonstrate the same brand of cultural liberalism plaguing our secular universities... Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."

He ends this editorial with a call to "Climb into Peter's boat and go into the deep!", which sounds like the kind of euphemism James West* might use in a chatroom, but is actually a Biblical reference to fishing, I'm told.

Since the Internet is forever, Santorum's psycho comments came to light recently, and he was called to defend them by the Boston Globe. Which he did. Taking a page from Alan Keyes, he defended his statements by making even more ridiculously wrong ones. A! Q! T!

"'The basic liberal attitude in that area... has an impact on people's behavior. If you have a world view that I'm describing... that affirms alternative views of sexuality, that can lead to a lot of people taking it the wrong way." By "taking it the wrong way", I can only assume he means "from priests", "after Mass", and "in the rectory". So to speak.

On the whole, it's not actually that different from the rampant homophobia and fearmongering these guys love to preach. The gays want to convert your kids! The gays want to fuck your kids! If you say it's OK for men to fuck other men, you're opening the door to all kinds of depravity!

Santorum just ratcheted it up a tad, implying that the gay agenda is so powerful, so insidious, that it reached up into the bowels of the Church hierarchy and turned otherwise isolated, pious, religious types into kiddie fiddlers. Oh, and it made Cardinal Law cover the whole thing up. And made the Pope transfer Law instead of punishing him. And somehow also managed to restore Law's reputation to the point where he got to speak at the Pope's funeral. I'm not sure how they managed that one, although there are rumors the decision did coincide with the first airing of Queer Eye reruns in Italian.

While we're at it, I'd like to apologize on behalf of the sick liberal culture for the Enron fiasco. It seems that our twisted culture of wealth redistribution is to blame. See, Ken Lay wanted to make some money, but he was afraid we'd tax it all. So he had to make more. But that'd put him in a higher bracket, and we'd take more. So he had to make more. But then we'd take more. It was a brutal, vicious cycle that spun out of control, and it's all our fault. Sorry about that. Also, we shaved your puppy. Our bad.

*You remember James West, right?

Strange Bedfellows

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 14:18:30 -0500

Main Column, 20 April 2005

Memo to liberal Catholics and wrestling fans: YOU ARE SUCKERS.

To the Catholics, I must ask. How does it feel, seeing how all those years of "changing the church from the inside" turned out? Pope Benedict XVI, maiden name John Ratzinger, head of the Inquisition, the hardest of the hard-line, the St. Louisest of the arch-conservatives. The new Pope stepped out on the Vatican balcony yesterday, saw his shadow, and you know what that means. Six more years without birth control.

And, as much as I'd love to tout my own brilliance from April 4, when I said "But if you're still wondering who they'll pick, allow me to spoil it for you. It'll be some European cardinal with conservative views who doesn't have any embarassing statements on the record anywhere. There'll be a couple of Western Hemisphere, non-white guys talked about the same way we talked about Colin Powell as president. You know, as cover. You have to interview everyone for the job so you look modern and stuff.", this really was a fucking no-brainer. Like the Log Cabin Republicans, or Tina Turner, you can hope they'll change all you want, but at some point, you gotta stop lettin' them come back.

Still, you have to admire, to a certain extent, the courage and bravery of the other candidates. I mean, they were the closest thing to a Rainbow Coalition the church could muster, but in the end, when push came to shove, they were just stained glass window dressing. I'm sure, at least, that they knew their chances going in. Unlike the breathless media analysts who've spent the last two weeks speculating on whether the Roman Catholic Church would break with tradition.

This gives me a new goal in life. To become famous enough that, when I die, someone on CNN or its future equivalent will speculate that the conclave chosen to replace me as the head of You Are Dumb Dot Net might pick someone who hates swearing to replace me. Roman Catholics, breaking with tradition? They're the most fetishistic sect on the planet. They love tradition more than altar boys.

So I guess it's time for that other Catholic tradition, waiting for THIS old guy to die in the hopes things will improve. Good luck with that.

And speaking of old, useless assholes who get way more attention than they deserve and are cheered by throngs of people who can't let go of tradition, why the FUCK is Hulk Hogan on my television again? Wrestling? Did I miss red and yellow smoke rising from a chimney in Florida?

Yes, Terry Bollea. Thunderlips. Mr. Nanny. The Hulkster. Back again, At age 52. Now, I know pro wrestlers have a difficult time with the whole "retirement" thing, and I should try not to begrudge ol' Hulk one more moment in the sun, but you know, I had to try not to begrudge him one last moment in the sun two fucking years ago, and he overstayed his welcome then. You'd need an attention span even more attenuated than mine to consider this a long-awaited comeback, that's for sure.

Now, many of you are not that aware of pro wrestling, and thus, you need an analogy to help you understand my ire. So let's take Michael Jordan. Let's assume that, 11 years from now, Michael Jordan decides to play basketball again. But he's let himself go, and can't really run, and can't really jump, and can't really shoot. But everyone on the other team lets him have a free path to the basket every time he has the ball. And every time he comes onto the court, the game stops dead for fifteen minutes while everyone in the arena cheers him and he strikes a half-assed version of that classic "Air Jordan" pose. That's what it's like every single fucking time Hogan returns.

Plus, I gotta look at him. He looks like someone managed to crossbreed Jack Palance and a tangerine, then shot the tangerine full of bovine growth hormone, and then somehow put a tank top on the result. The man is capable of four physical actions, and two of them are POINTING. Babe Ruth didn't get cheered that much for pointing. But that's the wrestling audience for you.

And to make matters worse, Hogan's coming back to fight Mohammed Hassan, a character who makes Eugene the Wrestling Retard seem like a much better idea in retrospect. Hassan, contrary to what you might think, is actually an Arab-American. From Detroit. Who, as a result of being treated badly by Americans who assume he's evil, has turned evil. The only thing dumber than that is when he wrestles a Canadian good guy, and the fans show their support for the Canadian white good guy by chanting "USA! USA! USA!" at the swarthy guy from Michigan.

Fucking geniuses, the lot of you.

Pope Pope Pope Pope Pope Pope Pope

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 14:26:05 -0500

Main Column, 4 April 2005

Pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope.

Don't mind me. I'm just trying to do that thing, you know? That thing where you keep saying a word over and over until it loses all sense of meaning and just becomes a random syllable pope pope pope pope pope pope pope pope.

It's not working. It's almost as if I've heard the word "pope" used in sentences so many times in the past two weeks that it's impossible to remove context from the sound. Can't imagine how that would have happened. Anyway, on the occasion of the Pope's death, I'd like to extend the following to what I'm sure are my many Catholic readers: a nice, hearty "big whoop".

Popes are to Catholics as puppies are to small children. They're cute, nice to have around, fun to dress in funny hats, and if one happens to die, well, it's down to the shelter for Pope #2! You'll be sad for a little while, but you'll have a new pope soon enough. And he'll be the same color as the old pope, and he'll have about as much hair, but he'll be younger and more sprightly and will bound around the world making sure nobody ever uses condoms. It'll be adorable.

But until then, because this is such an important event for the world, and because someone might have spent all weekend playing video games and watching wrestling instead of writing, here's a very special PopeCorpse News Roundup.

POLES WANT TO BURY POPE'S HEART WITH KINGS

That is not a metaphor. They apparently want to strip John Paul for parts so that they can get a little bit of dead Pope action in his hometown of Krakow, Poland. It's apparently a "keeping up with the Joneses* kind of thing, as Warsaw has Chopin's heart in an urn, while for the time being Krakow has had to settle for one of Mr. Spock's prosthetic ears. Apparently, in Old Europe, a Spock ear is not quite the powerful symbol of religious iconography we have here.

GUESSING GAME BEGINS ON POPE'S SUCCESSOR

Not for the Church, it doesn't. I guarantee you they've known for months who the new Pope would be. It's not like John Paul II drove his Popeswagen off a cliff or something. They've had a long time to prepare. But if you're still wondering who they'll pick, allow me to spoil it for you. It'll be some European cardinal with conservative views who doesn't have any embarassing statements on the record anywhere. There'll be a couple of Western Hemisphere, non-white guys talked about the same way we talked about Colin Powell as president. You know, as cover. You have to interview everyone for the job so you look modern and stuff.

In the unlikely event they do pick a Pope Of Color, though, that'd be fun. Then we could have a new slogan for America. "LESS PROGRESSIVE THAN THE VATICAN". Should just about fit on a coffee mug.

ROYAL WEDDING TO GO AHEAD DESPITE POPE'S DEATH

Which, thank goodness, finally answers the question "What will non-Catholics with plans for this week do?". Similarly, I would like everyone to know that if the Pope's funeral ends up being on Wednesday, I will still be watching "Mythbusters" as per my original plans. There is no need for panic.

WORLD GETS FIRST GLIMPSE OF POPE'S BODY

Ah, the headline, where decorum apparently trumps accuracy. We've seen the Pope's body for the past 26 years - waving, walking around, blessing people, even a great shot of the top of the pope's head peeking out from a giant window that I wish I could find. NINJA POPE. What we're getting a first glimpse of is his corpse. His DEAD body. But you can't put that in the headline or you'll get angry letters.

* In case you're still wondering what separates You Are Dumb from other politicomedic comedy Webcolumns, keep in mind that other, lesser lights in this pseudoindustry would not have been able to resist typing "Joneskis" here. While we do not eschew puerile ethnic humor as a matter of policy, we only go for the blatantly obvious when we can do so in a way that makes it look post-modern and ironic.

Tip Your Bishop, And Try The Crackers!

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 11:07:42 -0500

Main Column, 3 August 2004
Administrative Filler: Make every effort to catch a rerun, find a tape, or otherwise see the August 2 edition of The Daily Show. Jon Stewart's interview with Texas congressman Henry Bonilla is an absolute fucking primer on what's wrong with mainstream journalism today. After watching Stewart nail Bonilla to the wall with his own GOP talking points, you'll be left asking yourself, as I did, why it takes a FAKE ANCHORMAN to accomplish what the rest of the press corps seems to be dropping the ball on.
Some days, it all becomes worthwhile. All the toil, all the research, all the reading about evolutionary backwaters like Dayton, Tennessee... all of that work and effort and promotion comes to fruition when I get to type a single sentence of pure, unmitigated joy that will be read by dozens, nay DOZENS of faithful readers.
You know who's kind of a dumbass? The Pope.
Oh, I know. Technically, it's the legions of Cardinals who are running things right now between stints on Papal Drool Napkin duty, but still, ultimately, the Pope is the authority from whom the opinions of the Catholic Church are expressed, and, by logical inference, the Pope is kind of a dumbass.
It seems that in these troubled times, the Catholic Church has decided to tackle the issue that's been troubling the minds of the world of late - feminism. Yes, those feminists, with their demands for equality, are eroding the fundamental differences between women and men, and as a result, opening the doors to widespread acceptance of homosexuality, sexual polymorphism, and cooties.
Feminism apparently has "lethal effects", and, worse, tries to "avoid the dominance of one sex over the other". Although most news stories about the pamphlet in question contain limited quotations and sentence fragments, through my incredible Googletalents, I was able to find a more detailed excerpt from the pamphlet, written by Cardinal John Ratzinger, famous for playing Cliff Clavin on "Cheers".
It is the considered opinion of the Catholic Church that, as so ably noted by the sage Sinbad, star of Hollywood's "First Kid", which provided family-friendly entertainment to thousands across the globe, that women be different from men. Trying to undermine this fundamental difference is leading to the downfall of society.
For example, women, please explain this unto me. I, as must we all, do on occasion need to perform various ablutions before the Lord, occasionally in public facilities. Yet I do so alone, whilst you and your companions must rise up in unison and partake of your ablutions in pairs, as if you were boarding the famed Ark of Noah. What, pray tell, is up with that?
And indeed, though they may claim equality in all ways and all forms, we of the Church know that is not the case, and as a result, recommend to the dioceses... dioces... diocesen... you'd think I'd know the plural to that, being a Cardinal and all... anyway... no, ma'am, YOU suck. I don't come down to where you work and slap the altar boy out of YOUR mouth, do I? Anyway, we heartily recommend that under no circumstances do you give women the remote control device. My male brethren in the Catholic faith, are you with me on this one?
Acceptance of feminist beliefs lead inexorably to acceptance of the deviant homosexual lifestyle. I mean, have you SEEN unto these "feminists"? Not a one of them are pleasing to the eye. It is obvious to me that many of them are deviant homosexuals living a life of sin and degradation. For example, the one I met at the club last weekend that wouldst not dance unto me? Total lezbo.
Unfortunately, the audience went with His Excellency, Cardinal Carrot Top, who absolutely KILLED with 20 minutes of pure improv just using the Pope's hat as a prop. Cardinal Ratzinger was forced to leave the Vatican, and will not be the Last Cardinal Standing.

More Crackers, More Crackers

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 12:18:33 -0500

Main Column, 27 May 2004
Memo to David Pence: YOU ARE DEVOUTLY DUMB.
The Cracker Police are at it again. And I'm not talknig about Mississippi cops. No, it's Whack-A-Catholic time again, as the debate over who gets to munch the Godbiscuit heats up yet again. And this time, in my own backyard.
David Pence is rounding up a Pastry Posse, you see. He's not actually calling it a Pastry Posse, of course. Catholics are less fond of wacky alliteration than I am, which is probably for the best. Pence's Pastry Posse, like some rogue group of Atkins vigilantes, will be doing everything it can this Sunday to make sure no stinking sash-wearers get any of that sweet, sweet Mock Jesus in St. Paul, MN.
The sash, specifically a rainbow sash, is a new thing. In the past couple of years, on Pentecost Sunday *, gay Catholics wear a rainbow sash to Mass. It's intended to send an important message, a message of tolerance, a message of changing the church from the inside. The rainbow sash proudly states, "Even though most of you hate gay people and oppose everything we stand for, we still want to come by on Sundays and bring a hot dish to the potluck because our parents taught us to believe in this one specific iteration of Mr. Invisible Sky Buddy."
To which David Pence proudly responds, in essence, "If any of those freaky homos tries, to paraphrase one Macho Man Randy Savage, to 'Snap Into A Savior', I'll be up there with my big burly manbuddies to run interference, and possibly a pick of some kind, because even though pretty much every other Sunday they've been showing up without incident, this week I can figure out which ones are the fruits."
That was not an actual quote. That was merely a comedy device. In the event of an actual quote, there will be a short siren, a flashing light, and a representative from You Are Dumb Dot Net will appear on-screen to inform you that it is ACTUAL QUOTE TIME.
"At Catholic Charities, anybody who is hungry gets fed. But the Eucharist isn't like that. The Eucharist is a restricted meal. The Church has always said you don't come to Communion unless you believe in Christianity the way the Catholic Church has transmitted the tradition.'' - David Pence, who, upon uttering the phrase "restricted meal", makes me almost regret having made the one alotted Atkins joke up in paragraph three.
The actual methods by which Pence's Posse's Pastry Prevention will take place are unclear. Pence himself has ruled out tackling, presumbably because of the risk of gay cooties. He's also claimed to be committed to nonviolence. But there will be some form of "disruption". Perhaps there will be some sort of loud noise and visual distraction, or a kind of "Hands Across Three Pews" human chain. Or possibly we can glean some tactical information from the name of the group.
See, I've been calling them Pence's Pastry Posse because the actual name of the group is so astonishingly, hilariously bad that it needs to be presented in the proper context. The official name of Pence's Pastry Posse is.... The Ushers Of The Eucharist.
Done laughing yet? No? OK. I'll wait.
Feels good to get that out, doesn't it? Ushers of the Eucharist. I hope they have the little hats. And the flashlights. "Can I show you to your wafer, ma'am?" "I'm sorry, this section has been booked by an entire group of intolerant heterosexuals. We've got a few seats here in the back, if you promise to be quiet and not make a nuisance of yourselves." "Bride's party or groom's party? I'm sorry, but only one of each is allowed. This isn't Massachussets."
Unless, of course, they meant it as a reference to top-selling recording artist Usher, whose single "Burn" currently sits atop the... nah. That'd be DUMB.
* I have no idea what Pentecost Sunday is, as my first guess, involving the celebration of the price of tiny stones, is apparently not correct.

Catholics

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 12:25:16 -0500

Main Column, 17 May 2004
Memo to the Catholic Church: YOU ARE DUMB.
The Catholics are getting uppity again. I don't know what it is. Maybe John Paul's gotten his 90th wind. Maybe he just feels like he has to keep his pope hand strong. Or maybe, since it's been six months or so since any priests have gotten caught having sex with children, covering up having sex with children, or paying large sums of money for having sex with children, they think they get to throw some moral weight around again.
And when Catholics need to throw their moral weight around, but don't have the time to write an entire catechism, they turn to their favorite afterschool snack, the withholding of which is, for reasons that are inexplicable to me, a weapon of great power. I can think of dozens of places even rural Catholics could get saltines and cheap wine if they wanted to. It all gets transubstantiated in the end, anyway.
So, in their ceaseless effort to crush science, progress, and the pursuit of any knowledge not contained in their 2,000-year-old moral primer slash list of begattings, the Catholics have been seriously discussing telling politicians that support legal abortion or gay marriage that no, they cannot have their cracker, and no, they cannot have their wine, and no, you cannot pretend to eat Jesus because we're right and you're wrong. Nyah nyah.
And that's... problematic, but, you know, these politicians are out in public, with public views, and if they want to let their church influence them, we can all see that, and we can decide at voting time if we want the Pope's hand up the ass of our elected official or not.
But now, one Colorado diocese has decided that anybody who VOTES for a pro-choice candidate shouldn't get their cracker and Jesus juice either. Which should be very interesting in a country with a supposedly secret ballot. In all the coverage of this, nobody has bothered to ask how they're supposed to know who gets the cracker and who gets the shaft. Seems to me they're basically exchanging giving Communion to a whole bunch of unavowed pro-choice advocates for giving Communion to a giant pile of stinking filthy liars. But that's just me.
You may be saying to yourself... "Colorado? Vanguard of religious extremism? But aren't those lovely, mannered South Park boys from there?" Yes. Colorado is not traditionally the first state that comes to mind when you think of rampant religious extremism. But to help you with the cognitive dissonance, I've prepared a visual aid to show you where Colorado stands amidst the various idiocies of the U.S.:
As you can see, Colorado is a virtual epicenter of moronitude. You've got the crazy Mormons to the west, the entire Midwest to the northeast, Jim Inhofe just over the border in Oklahoma, and do I even need to mention Texas? No mitigating influences to the north or south, so you can see where poor Colorado, adrift in a sea of national idiocy, may find itself turning to rabid Catholocism in a kind of Lord of the Flies moment.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Not giving specific descriptions of the dumbness inherent in certain coastal areas does not mean the Tan Lands are magical enclaves where reason and intelligence thrive They are just not relevant to the current discussion. They'll get theirs in due course.
Still, the great things about Catholics is that, being students of the Bible, they don't have a problem with blatant self-contradiction, as Colorado bishop Michael Sheridan so aptly demonstrates in his directive. What starts with "A" and ends with "E" and makes the crowds all scream with glee? ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!
"As in the matter of abortion, any Catholic politician who would promote so-called same-sex marriage and any Catholic who would vote for that political candidate place themselves outside the full communion of the church and may not receive Holy Communion until they have recanted their positions and been reconciled by the Sacrament of Penance... the church never directs citizens to vote for any specific candidate."
Which is technically true. Using your supposed spiritual authority to intimidate and threaten people into not voting for unnamed people who just happen to have been in the news a lot lately for being Catholic and liberal is not the same as coming out and saying "JOHN KERRY IS THE ANTICHRIST!". However, in the great Venn diagram of life, those two sets are enclosed by a much larger superset, the superset we like to call DUMB.