Skip to main content

The Difficulty of Explaining Things to Women

115 of the Cardinals of the Catholic Church are still under eighty years of age, to they are eligible to vote for a new pope.  They were last seen sprinting for the Sistine Chapel where they will consult with God and each other, and elect a new Prince of the Church on Earth.

One can only hope they continue to move with alacrity. They have a lot of work to do.  They cannot afford to fiddle while Rome burns.

For instance, while the Cardinals have been gathering strength to do the work set before them, women everywhere have been taking advantage of their bowed heads and folded hands to foment revolution against the Divine Scheme of Things:  that is to say, women have been getting uppity.

At the United Nation, the Commission on the Status of Women has been trying to agree on a way to say that violence against women has to end.  Well, everybody agrees to that, don't they?  Almost.  Not quite.  More or less.  Or, they could agree if they were not trying to say that religion, and custom, and tradition cannot be used as an excuse not to do something about violence against women.

Now, it is not my place to say so, but why cannot women understand that it is not violence if it is religious custom, or if it is tradition, or the custom to keep women in their place?  First you have to get their attention, and then you have to explain tradition and custom and religion to them!  I suppose that getting their attention in the first place is the hard part, because religion and custom and tradition are pretty clear.  I suppose that is where the violence comes in:  just trying to get their attention so that you can explain to them what the Bible says, and all that.

Women know that there just might be a breakthrough point, here, while the Cardinals are sitting in the Sistine Chapel consulting with God and each other.  So they are pushing the issue at the United Nations.  The U.N., of course!  Pushy, pushy, pushy!

Delegates at the United Nations say there are three groups that are the obstacle to getting an agreement: Russia, Iran, and the Catholic Church.  In Iran, of course, it is the attitude of Islamic religion that is the problem.  And in Russia, it is probably the Islamic provinces that are the problem.  But in the Catholic Church, there are no Islamic provinces.  There are just those old men, some of whom are under eighty.  But they aren't paying attention, right now.  They have all those class-action law suits to worry about, and the cost of red slippers, and a lot of things.  But if they are alert, they will make it a quick election, and get back to work.

Broad shoulders!  A clear focus on what is right!  The One, True, Holy and Catholic Church has a lot of work to do!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard
1 comment
Read more

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back:  two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed!  Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore.  The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil.  We farmed, too, of course.  All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor.  Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

That's all we want: fairness! Not more guns and more war! Fairness!

The five police officers who were killed in Dallas are certainly not the officers who killed innocent citizens. There is more than enough tragedy to go around. "What is happening to our country?", Mari asked this morning. I had no answer.  We do have an answer.  We do not want to say it. There are lots of answers, all of them pertinent. We are a racist society, like most human societies. We are a society in the midst of enormous changes-- social, political, economic--and we do not know what to do about it. We are divided unsustainably into absurdly rich, and an enormous number of crumbling middle class families, and poor. We have guns everywhere; military guns, guns just for killing people, cheap guns, heroes carrying guns into churches and supermarkets, idiots who think guns ought to be allowed in bars and schools and ball games and beauty parlors and political rallies. Our political process is almost useless. There are good people in Congress, but there...
Post a Comment
Read more