The Weekend Eudemon - Sunday
We Thought It Was a Joke
According to a January Associated Press dispatch, an outfit called Rent-a-Priest supplies independent Catholic clergy to perform Mass on cruise ships, even though the reason why some are independent is that they're no longer in good standing. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has apparently begun to screen out unqualified candidates for cruise line jobs. This, according to News of the Weird.
The Digging Continues
Vatican archeologists believe that they have identified the tomb of St. Paul in the Roman basilica that bears his name. Thanks to Marcvs the Bard for posting the story.
Cops
We watched about twenty minutes of VH1's TV show about the TV show Cops. (Yes, a show about a show. We're okay with it, but if we get the triple layer–a show about a show about a show–we'll Elvis the TV with our revolver.) Two surprising facts:
(1) Cops has been on for 17 years
(2) Most of the arrested suspects consent to their identity being disclosed. According to the VH1 show, the suspects want to be on TV, even though it'll be in the context of doing criminal–and usually dumb or vile–things. It's probably not much worse than the degraded exhibitionists on shows like Fear Factor, but we're not convinced that all the Marshall McLuhans and Neil Postmans of the world could fully explain it.
And why were we wasting time, watching a show about Cops? No good reason, except we're Americans and, to quote George Santayana, “Americans love junk." He also added: “It's not the junk that bothers me, it's the love.”
FBINAMBLA
One of the persons arrested during last week's NAMBLA sting first met an undercover FBI agent at a North American Man/Boy Love Association meeting. How would you like to be the illicit activities agent who pulled that duty?
"What's my assignment, sir? Disguise myself as a john and talk with call girls? Infiltrate a Swedish massage house? Set up surveillance on a sorority house allegedly engaged in prostitution?"
"No, Agent Reilly, we have something right up your alley . . .".
