In my world, the Lair of the Catholic Caveman is required reading for every CCD class. Amy, can you start incorporating that into the lesson plans your teachers have to follow? Come on, improve my opinion of the office of the DRE!

The end of his post “The Lair of the Catholic CavemenAre Catholics Returning To A More Traditional Form Of Catholicism?”

And by the way, for all those “mainstream Catholic” blogs out there (and you know who you are) who literally have the hate dripping from your jowls towards anything and everything traditional, orthodox and conservative, I suggest you either get ready to update your templates, or find a nice Protestant denomination that suits your particular brand of heresy.

Never let it be said that this place is an echo chamber.

eD mURPHY graced an old post of mine with the following comment. Since I am all about diversity of opinion, not only do I allow dissenting comments, I tend to push them up into posts of their own so everyone can see them.

Am I not merciful?

AM I NOT MERCIFUL?

Your little treatist on Catholism promugates the stereotyping of our faith. The hyperbole that many Cathoics use in describing their Catholic schools, nuns, priests, and religous believes does a great disservice to us all.

Mr. mURPHY, thank you for providing some reasoning behind your comments. There’s nothing I appreciate more than someone taking the time to back up criticisms with facts.

My bad, you didn’t do that.

In any event, let’s take a look at the argument here.

My post has encouraged the stereotyping of the Catholic Faith.

New flash, eD, people stereotype without provocation. If it’s me personally that you’re worried about providing the legions of Church haters with fresh ammunition, I’d have to think you’ve got a bit too much time on your hands.

On a related note, it’s not a stereotype if it’s true. I don’t know where you get the mystic powers to know my life’s story, but that was a pretty spot-on accurate depiction. I wanted a certain Confirmation name and my mother point-blank refused. I went to the priest about it and he called her on the mat. It was brutal. I’m sorry they didn’t sit and have tea and discuss Persian poetry, but that’s not what happened. Deal with it.

Do you know what, eD? I like that “stereotype”. I like the fact that the parish priest was a benevolent despot who only got involved on things that touched religion when asked. I liked that whole “patriarchy” thing; I liked that there was another strong male role model besides my dad. Heck, I like the fact that in a neighborhood like where I grew up, you had several strong male role models, from the priest to the guy who just got out of college and spent his spare time working for free in the Rec Department setting up whiffle ball leagues and flag football leagues and helped make sure we had more to do than run the streets. I liked that the guy who ran the candy store was like an extra kindly grandfather who’d slip an extra Hershey bar in your bag. I liked that we had nuns who wore habits and Christian Brothers who did the same. I liked that we got smacked if we acted up, and I liked that the smart play was to never mention it to your folks, because you’d get an extra belt, “for whatever the nuns missed.”

Do you know what I can’t stand? I can’t stand people who whine or make jokes about how horrible the “old days” were. I only got a taste of the tail end of those days myself, so I can say to anyone who tells me, “You don’t know what it was like back then.”

“Yeah, but I know what it’s like now.”

We’ve had a generation of talentless hacks make something resembling a living recycling ruler jokes. I’m not angry with this; I feel pity. You see while most people laugh when folks whine about how roughly they were treated, we had a little name for folks like that. We called them, “pansies.” I mean, if you can’t get over a whack on the knuckles from twenty years ago, you must be one delicate little sunflower. Seriously, those people got what little character they do have from those beatings they got in Catholic school. Without those nuns, those guys would be up in bell towers with rifles, tears streaming down their faces:

“Daddy never hugged me enough”

*click-click* POW *click-click*

“Daddy never hugged me enough”

*click-click* POW *click-click*

My advice to guys like that is, “Try to grow a pair. You can’t buy them with your double latte at Starbucks.”

<Niedermeyer>Finally, do you know what I like most about those days? I like the fact that when I went to talk to my parish priest he didn’t try to bend me over his desk.

You wanna talk about people who promulgate stereotypes? Let’s talk about the whole, “priest nails altar boy” thing. Ok? Maybe those folks need your lecturing; I get plenty from my wife.</Niedermeyer>

So, eD mURPHY, let’s make a deal here. Why don’t you go google “priest molests boy” and contact each and every one of those guys to express your dismay. Then, after you’ve gone and got in touch with every pederast still living, then you may come here and whine at me.

PS. Spell check is your friend.

Just got this from the Lair of the Catholic Caveman:

In an exchange with Florida Congresswoman Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen on the HBO program “Real Time with Bill Maher” (big shocker there, huh?) Law & Order’s Richard Belzer claims that he knows more about war than the troops that have a combat tour already under their belt.

Ya know what, Rich? You don’t know enough about being an overly white, weird TV cop. In other words, James B. Sikking knows more about being a TV cop than you do. Is Law and Order the closest you’ve gotten to a firearm in your life?

Fake fake cop

Real fake Cop

I get a lot of traffic from Philadelphia to this site (go figure). It makes me wonder, “How many of these folks actually grew up in Philly?” With that in mind, I’ve put together the following quiz.

(Don’t answer in the comboxes. Send an email to Der_Tommissar at goowy dot com with them. The answers will be posted next week. The person with the most correct answers will be announced, and maybe even a prize will be given out.)

#1. If you’ve got a passion for fashion, and you’ve got a craving for savings….what should you do?

#2. Who’s the King of Matresses?

#3. Who owned the “Store of the Stars”?

#4. What did they sell?

#5. You’re at a Flyers game in the 70’s-early 80’s. Bobby Clarke is locked up with some random Ranger, and they’re trading blows. Someone yells, “Bite ‘em, Bobby!” Why is this funny?

#6. Spell the name of the Philadelphia football team.

#7. Complete the transmission related phrase, “Don’t get frantic…”
(Bonus: place the accent)

#8. “We do it just a little bit better.” who are we?

#9. What mayor is famed for being photographed in a tux with a nightstick jammed into his cummerbund?

#10. Where was the MOVE compound that done got blown up by mayor Wilson Goode, causing several blocks to go up in a massive firestorm?

#11. Who struck out Willie Wilson to win the 1980 World Series for the Phillies?

#12. What time was it when he did so?

#13. Who was “watching you” in the music video done in the late 80’s by the Philadelphia football team?

#14. These are tiny chicken wings, like a buffalo wing without the sauce. They’re heavily breaded and fried. What are they called?

#15. What’s the original route of the Mummer’s Parade?

#16. What UHF channel went off the air in the early 1980’s?

#17. In the late 70’s/early 80’s what 60’s TV sitcom aired on channel 17 at 1pm on weekdays?

#18. This top Philadelphia restaurant has a name that also refers to a type of early trade in the publishing industry. What is it?

#19. There was once a gentleman’s rule that no building would be taller than what?

#20. What was “reputed crime boss” Phil Testa’s nickname?

As most of you may (or may not) know, WestDesigns has merged with Digitally Essential (and Web Divas, for that matter). With the merger comes server changes.

We have purchased a dedicated server, and I will be moving all accounts hosted under my [old] reseller account to the new server. Hopefully, you won’t notice any changes whatsoever, but after the server move, it may take a day or two for DNS to propagate.

I for some of you, asking you *not* to post for the next 48 hours may be equivalent to asking hell for a cold front, but after the server move, don’t be surprised if you “lose” a post or two.

I hope to get everything moved over to the new server this evening, and make the appropriate DNS changes tonight. Depending on your ISP, this can take up to 72 ours to fully propragate (most are quick and you’ll see the new server within a few hours).

Again, hopefully, you won’t notice anything, but for you [rare] posting fools, a post or two may have to be reposted after the move.

Thanks,
Danalyn

From time to time I’ll be asked, “Did this really happen?” or “Did you really say that?”

I’ll say this. Unless I otherwise state, all my stories are true. They do describe actual situations and actual resolutions to said situations.

But do they all happen exactly as I describe?

I’ll put it this way. My stories have a lot in common with Irish songs. For as we all know, there are only three things you can change in an Irish song for it to still be the same song: the tempo, the music, and the lyrics.

I hope that clears everything up.

Oh, and I really did say, “beady little renewed eyes”.

There are days when I don’t play well with others. Usually, this occurs very frequently around folks who “do ministry” at your local Catholic church.

In keeping with the spirit of “Susie Day“, I was poking around at The Devout Life, when I saw this:

I just had a funny thought. I remember years ago when the parishes changed, “this is the word of the Lord” to “the word of the Lord”
…

Wouldn’t it be funny if they just changed it to “Word” and everyone chanted in response, “Yo!”

Once upon a time, I was a catechist. I was about oh, twenty-two at the time and something of a hothead (unlike the even-keeled, laid back guy I am today). My DRE urged me to read a few works by Kung and Shillerbix (I know that’s not how his name is spelled, and I know I could find the correct spelling easily online. However, he’s a heretic and therefore not worth the time to do so.) when I first was accepted. We got along swimmingly after that.

One day, I was called into the DRE’s office. Again.

“Tommissar,” says she, “I was walking past your classroom when I heard your students praying.”

“Well,” says I, “being as how this is a religion class I thought that would be a good idea.”

“Yes of course,” says she, “but it was how they were praying…the form of the prayer. We have a small problem here.”

“Sure now, we’re having a problem with the Ave? With the Hail Mary?” says I, in disbelief.

“Don’t put words in my mouth!” says she, quite irate. “You have your children saying:

Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amonst women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.“

“And it’s all that you were hearing while just passing the door?” says I. “I didn’t notice that you broke your leg. I’ll have my mother make a casserole for you to eat while recovering. That’ll be a nice Christian act.”

Ignoring the implications, she continued, “You’re upsetting the spirit of community among the children. All of the other grades say ‘are’, ‘you’, and ‘your’ instead of ‘art’, ‘thou’, and ‘thy.’”

“Why?”

“Because it’s archaic. You can’t expect children to understand that, so we’ve changed it. You’ll need to implement this in your class.”

I’m not an engineer. I don’t “implement”.

“Ok, if you can answer a question for me, I’ll be happy to change.”

And then, a phrase was born:

…if saying, “art” and “thou” and “thy” are hard for children to understand, why on earth are you people keeping, “Hail”? Who says that anymore? What, they can magically grasp “Hail” but not those other words? Explain this to me.

“Well, you see…..”

“No, you don’t get to say there’s no easy word to replace, ‘hail’. We both know that’s not true. After all, you can make it the ‘Hey Mary’. That’s easy to understand for the kids, right?”

Silence.

“Ah! You really would like the kids to be saying the ‘Hey Mary’, wouldn’t you? I can see it in those beady little renewed eyes. You people are counting the days until you can slip in the ‘Hey Mary’ on us benighted Catholics, aren’t you?”

“I really find your tone to be…”

“Hey Mary”

“Honestly, this display is beneath your..”

“Hey Mary!”

“If this is how you’re going to respond to reasoned..”

“Hey Mary! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to teach. Whenever you can find a replacement for me, you let me know. Oh, that’s right. You’ve renewed people in the Spirit, in the Spirit of not wanting to have anything to do with you people. Since you can’t find enough people to teach the classes with me helping, I guess it’ll be a while before you can find a replacement. God bless.”

A very Happy Birthday to Miss Hilary Jane Margaret White, spinster. For those of you who don’t know, Hilary runs a very nice blog by the name of The Devout Life. Please stop by and wish her a great day.

As my tribute to Hilary’s birthday, I include the following bit from the Lair of the Catholic Caveman, in reference to legends of Christ escaping the Crucifixion and living out his life elsewhere on this planet:

Then we have The Savior hangin’ out in England and Wales, undoubtedly ready to leave post-haste due to the horrid food. “Shall I boil your beef for you s’more, Guvnah? Were the jellied eels to your liking, Yer Lordship?”

Boiled Beef

Jellied Eels

Also, here’s a few excerpts from a couple of her favorite songs:

Happy Birthday, Susie!

Well, we’ve elected our new mayor here in Santa Fe, in a campaign which I think revolved around how illegal our occupation of Iraq is. Oh, and there was something about Wal-Mart too.

In any event, my candidate Donado Coviello/John Coventry/Danny Cabeza de Calabazo of Fat Bill and Me came up just short in his quest for Mayor with 77 votes, or .9% of the total tally.

Personally, I believe my blog should take credit for about 40 of those votes or so. I got the word out, John/Danny/Donado! I’m also going to figure that maybe 10 votes were swayed by the eloquent endorsement of his wife, Maya Blue. She has my respect, because I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to be married to J-D-D.

On the bright side, he can now focus his full energies on his campaign for governor.

Please stop by the blog and send your condolences to J-D-D.

Ok, actually last weekend was a good weekend.

I know you’re all wondering, “Why was that, Tommissar?”

Simple, last weekend was when signups were held for summer league soccer.

But you hate soccer, why is that so great?

Guess who wasn’t there and therefore didn’t sign up for summer league soccer?

If life was a musical, I’d be Gene Kelly right now.