OK, so the big story is the death of Pope John Paul II. I'm not going to make a big deal out of it, because although I am Catholic, I have pretty much abandoned my faith a long time ago. But the dude deserves some props, and some criticism, so here goes.
Breaking the string of Italian Popes - that was huge. Maybe we thought it would open the door for there to someday be an American Pope, but it was more. Coming from Poland, his people oppressed by the Iron Fist of Soviet Communism, the Karol Wojtyla papacy was immediately about religion AND politics. And he used his position to help bring down the Soviet Union. Welesa could not have been successful without John Paul II. No matter how far you're up Ronald Reagan's ass, you have to recognize that.
And he did use his bully pulpit to highlight the hypocracy of the Western World on issues such as AIDS, famine, third-world poverty and the death penalty. Hey, he and I will never agree on abortion, but he's the dude in charge of religion, so he had to do what he had to do. He never backed down from a fight. Except one.
Why he didn't bring down the swift sword of justice on the culture of pedophilia in the American priesthood is completely beyond me. Yeah, there are priest shortfalls in America, but Christ, keep importing them from Ireland. Find me a Catholic parish in America with a pastor from Ireland, and I'll show you some parishoners that are tickled pink. Yeah, the lawsuits could have bankrupted the Church - but come on, you can't tell me the Holy Father went light on these fuckers for financial reasons. So that leaves only one thing - forgiveness. But that's bullshit - because while Christianity and Catholicism preach forgiveness, they also preach atonement and punishment. That's what the kneeling on beans and confession bullshit is all about.
So, I'll never truly understand why he didn't lay waste to the US Catholic leadership. If he had done that, he would have been the perfect Pope for his time. As it turned out, he was merely the best we could have hoped for.
The next Pope will have an enormous hat to fill. I won't care much, I no longer believe you have to worship a certain way and go through certain motions to earn eternal life. I no longer believe that death will be a joyous occasion that brings us home to Jesus. I genuine hate the hypocracy of American Christianity, which is heavy in condescension and condemnation, and light with compassion and forgiveness. But the Pope is important, he's the world's moral beacon, and he needs to not be an asshole. So I hope the Cardinals get it right. And I also hope they get some pitching and some outfield help.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Monday, April 04, 2005
The Trouble With Moe
Have you seen the story where two chimpanzees viciously attacked a visitor at an animal sanctuary? The chimps chewed off the dude's nose and severely mauled his genitals (ripped his balls off), and tore off his foot, before they (the chimps) were shot to death.
OK, we need to break this one down. First of all, some famous chimps.
Cheeta - starred in Tarzan movies and Dr. Doolittle. Never ate anyone's face.
J. Fred Mugs - NBC Today Show Mascot, 1953 - 1957. Never objected to being dressed in diapers.
Coco the Monkey - Animated chimp and cereal hawk from Kellogg's commercials, digs chocolate, but doesn't much care for goat cheese.
Mogley - Chimp on CNBC's "Dennis Miller Live". He doesn't do much, and since nobody watches the show, he can hardly be considered famous, but I'm thinking if someone should have their balls ripped out of their scrotum by a fellow primate, it shoud be the guy who built his comedic career on assaulting authority and then sold out to become a shill for the Bush administration. I'm hoping Mogley reads this and takes appropriate action.
Moe - Third party to the Chimpanzee mauling case.
More incident details:
Moe was being visited by his former "owners", who had brought him a birthday cake. Buddy and Ollie, two male chimps from an adjoining cage, escaped and savaged the male visitor. They were dragging the man's body down the road when they were fatally shot by a caretaker. The man's wife suffered a bite wound on the hand. One final piece of evidence as we try to understand this senseless tragedy - two female chimps - Bones and Susie - escaped from the same cage, but were not involved in the attack.
Possible Motives:
OK, so we know Cheetah and Coco, our loving TV chimp pals, could not do such a savage thing without a reason. And since they acted in concert, it can't be blamed on the temporary, single animal freak out (I love it when the lone elephant freaks out and rampages, that's so freaky and scary, it's brilliant), so there has to be an alternative explanation. Submitted for your consideration:
The Neverland Ranch Theory: Moe had been in the sanctuary for over a year. Perhaps Moe had been sent to the sanctuary because maybe someone kept plying Moe with wine-soaked pretzels. Maybe someone couldn't keep their hands out of Moe's diaper. Maybe someone shared giggle-filled showers with Moe. Maybe the memory of this made Moe a seriously fucked up chimp. Maybe Moe had spent the year recounting the abuse, and dealing with the pain. Buddy and Ollie, then, were simply taking the law into their own hands, and meting out some vigilante monkey justice.
The Cake Slight: Perhaps this was an example of a species conflict escalating badly. Buddy and Ollie took exception to the type of cake. "Bananna bread cake for a birthday? Why, because we're monkeys? Oh I get it. Would you like us to fling some shit for you too? Maybe we can make some cute faces, maybe do the hear no evil, see no evil bullshit for you. Because that's how we are, right. We certainly can't appreciate a nice black forest or german chocolate cake, because we're just primitive stupid fucking monkeys, right? White human devil, if this cage were opened, we'd....Great Ceasar's ghost, it is. Hey, come here, you specist bastard...."
The Female Factor: It is hard to understand why most press reports on the incident failed to mention the existence of Bones and Susie. This is hardly an insignificant detail. Bones, based on her name, is probably not a very attractive or self-confident monkey, so Buddy and Ollie have probably been working hard to win the attention of Susie. Susie is a fabulous and particulary troublesome chimp, and was probably putting the boys through some hellish courtship competition. There's only so many variations of a tire swing dismount a fella can perform without getting the monkey love, so when a new opportunity for Showtime presented itself, the chimps went nuts. In a lust-crazed frenzy to win her over and seal the goddamned deal alreay, the played "anything you can do I can do better" with the poor man. "I ate his nose, please fuck me". "No look, I ripped his foot off, that's better, please fuck me". "No wait, look, oh shit, look what I did. For christ's sake, I've ripped his fucking balls off. Look, I've got the man's balls in my hand. I get the buns, I get the monkey buns, for the love of Bonzo, I get the frigging buns!"
The Verdict: I'm going with a mix of one and three. No doubt, after a year of his whimpering about the alleged abuse, Moe was getting the sympathy of the ladies, and was no doubt an annoying rash to Buddy and Ollie. Buddy and Ollie likely were having their romantic advances thwarted with lines like "Oh, please, you think showing me that crooked pink joint's going to make me melt. Why can't you two be less neanderthal and more sensitive like Moe?" or "I wish Moe was in our cage, because I would love to hold him, he's been through so much, but he's so strong". Egged on by the troublesome Chimp Susie (Bones rarely engages in the banter, she's very uncomfortable with the sexual tension), the boys merely were trying to change the god damned story around this place. And they paid with their lives.
A tragedy indeed, but a tragedy for Buddy and Ollie. Sure, a man's lost his nose, foot and balls. I don't want to make light of that. No wait, I did want to make light of that.
Godspeed, brave Chimp warriors.
OK, we need to break this one down. First of all, some famous chimps.
Cheeta - starred in Tarzan movies and Dr. Doolittle. Never ate anyone's face.
J. Fred Mugs - NBC Today Show Mascot, 1953 - 1957. Never objected to being dressed in diapers.
Coco the Monkey - Animated chimp and cereal hawk from Kellogg's commercials, digs chocolate, but doesn't much care for goat cheese.
Mogley - Chimp on CNBC's "Dennis Miller Live". He doesn't do much, and since nobody watches the show, he can hardly be considered famous, but I'm thinking if someone should have their balls ripped out of their scrotum by a fellow primate, it shoud be the guy who built his comedic career on assaulting authority and then sold out to become a shill for the Bush administration. I'm hoping Mogley reads this and takes appropriate action.
Moe - Third party to the Chimpanzee mauling case.
More incident details:
Moe was being visited by his former "owners", who had brought him a birthday cake. Buddy and Ollie, two male chimps from an adjoining cage, escaped and savaged the male visitor. They were dragging the man's body down the road when they were fatally shot by a caretaker. The man's wife suffered a bite wound on the hand. One final piece of evidence as we try to understand this senseless tragedy - two female chimps - Bones and Susie - escaped from the same cage, but were not involved in the attack.
Possible Motives:
OK, so we know Cheetah and Coco, our loving TV chimp pals, could not do such a savage thing without a reason. And since they acted in concert, it can't be blamed on the temporary, single animal freak out (I love it when the lone elephant freaks out and rampages, that's so freaky and scary, it's brilliant), so there has to be an alternative explanation. Submitted for your consideration:
The Neverland Ranch Theory: Moe had been in the sanctuary for over a year. Perhaps Moe had been sent to the sanctuary because maybe someone kept plying Moe with wine-soaked pretzels. Maybe someone couldn't keep their hands out of Moe's diaper. Maybe someone shared giggle-filled showers with Moe. Maybe the memory of this made Moe a seriously fucked up chimp. Maybe Moe had spent the year recounting the abuse, and dealing with the pain. Buddy and Ollie, then, were simply taking the law into their own hands, and meting out some vigilante monkey justice.
The Cake Slight: Perhaps this was an example of a species conflict escalating badly. Buddy and Ollie took exception to the type of cake. "Bananna bread cake for a birthday? Why, because we're monkeys? Oh I get it. Would you like us to fling some shit for you too? Maybe we can make some cute faces, maybe do the hear no evil, see no evil bullshit for you. Because that's how we are, right. We certainly can't appreciate a nice black forest or german chocolate cake, because we're just primitive stupid fucking monkeys, right? White human devil, if this cage were opened, we'd....Great Ceasar's ghost, it is. Hey, come here, you specist bastard...."
The Female Factor: It is hard to understand why most press reports on the incident failed to mention the existence of Bones and Susie. This is hardly an insignificant detail. Bones, based on her name, is probably not a very attractive or self-confident monkey, so Buddy and Ollie have probably been working hard to win the attention of Susie. Susie is a fabulous and particulary troublesome chimp, and was probably putting the boys through some hellish courtship competition. There's only so many variations of a tire swing dismount a fella can perform without getting the monkey love, so when a new opportunity for Showtime presented itself, the chimps went nuts. In a lust-crazed frenzy to win her over and seal the goddamned deal alreay, the played "anything you can do I can do better" with the poor man. "I ate his nose, please fuck me". "No look, I ripped his foot off, that's better, please fuck me". "No wait, look, oh shit, look what I did. For christ's sake, I've ripped his fucking balls off. Look, I've got the man's balls in my hand. I get the buns, I get the monkey buns, for the love of Bonzo, I get the frigging buns!"
The Verdict: I'm going with a mix of one and three. No doubt, after a year of his whimpering about the alleged abuse, Moe was getting the sympathy of the ladies, and was no doubt an annoying rash to Buddy and Ollie. Buddy and Ollie likely were having their romantic advances thwarted with lines like "Oh, please, you think showing me that crooked pink joint's going to make me melt. Why can't you two be less neanderthal and more sensitive like Moe?" or "I wish Moe was in our cage, because I would love to hold him, he's been through so much, but he's so strong". Egged on by the troublesome Chimp Susie (Bones rarely engages in the banter, she's very uncomfortable with the sexual tension), the boys merely were trying to change the god damned story around this place. And they paid with their lives.
A tragedy indeed, but a tragedy for Buddy and Ollie. Sure, a man's lost his nose, foot and balls. I don't want to make light of that. No wait, I did want to make light of that.
Godspeed, brave Chimp warriors.
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