Thoughtless for the Day

Fabulae Pontificalis (Today's episode: Pope 9 From Outer Space)

In January of 897 CE ex-Pope Formosus was placed on trial by trial by the
present Pope, Stephen VI. Now, one Pope conducting the trial of a former
Pope is an unusual event. It becomes even more unusual when you consider
that Formosus had been dead for over a month. And it becomes extremely
unusual once you learn that, despite being a corpse, Formosus attended his
own trial.

I can see that a small amount of explanation is called for.

Back in the day, back to the council of Nicaea in 325 CE to be precise,
Bishops were barred from being elected Pope. The logic behind this was
that being the Bishop of some other municipality as well as the Episcopus
Romae was pretty much the same as having two wives: An odd analogy for men
who weren't allowed to get married. Cardinals, by the way, didn't appear
on the scene until the eleventh century, and the swimsuit competition was
eliminated from the Papal Conclave in 1978.

The rule keeping Bishops off the throne of Peter was rescinded by Pope
Marinus I (Pope from 882 through 884 CE); this cleared the way for
Formosus, who was at that time Bishop of Porto (Motto: "The city that
never sleeps…and is, therefore, rather cranky.") to be elected CEO of the
Catholic Church in 891.

Formosus would reign for five years. He was succeeded by Boniface VI, who
may have the shortest Papal tenure on record: a measly fifteen days.
According to the Annales Ecclesiasticae (written in the sixteenth
century by one Cardinal Baronius), Boniface VI was "a disgusting monster"
who was deposed on charges of adultery (?) and homicide.

Boniface VI was followed by Stephen VI (896-897) who had long despised the
late Formosus thanks to certain political alliances that the former Pope
had formed within the Frankish Empire. Now that Stephen was wearing the
pointy hat the time was ripe for revenge.

Remember that old rule about Bishops not being allowed to become Pope? Well
Pope Steve-O used that as a pretext for putting the recently buried on
trial. So Formosus, in what has since become known as the Cadaver
Synod, was disinterred, redressed in his pontifical vestments, and
propped up in a chair: not unlike Norman Bates' mom in Psycho A
deacon was placed next to Formosus and assigned the duty of answering any
questions which might be posed to the corpse. Despite this top-notch legal
representation, Formosus was found guilty of perjury (WTPFMYV?) and a few
other miscellaneous crimes.

And then came the penalty phase of the trial.


Formosus' papal garments were ripped (Chippendales-like) from his body;
three of his fingers (the ones he'd used for consecrations) were hacked
from his right hand before his corpse was tossed into a grave in the
strangers' cemetery: from where it was unceremoniously removed a few days
later and chucked in to the Tiber.

So, does this mean that Formosus isn't buried in the Vatican? No. An
industrious/amphibious monk leap into the river and saved (like on
Baywatch, but without the fake tits) the body Pope Formosus. A few
months later, Stephen's successor had Formosus re-interred in St. Peter's.

Successor? A few months later? What happened to Pope Stephen VI? Well,
the Cadaver Synod was considered a little too over-the-top by the people
of Rome who, in angry mod mode, deposed Stephen and sent him packing off
to prison…where he was later strangled to death by an assassin.

_ . _

Hey Pope-oholics, I hope you enjoyed that because it's Fabulae
Pontificalis Week here at RATYHTL. I'll be sharing with you the sort
of Papal history that the Church (and nearly every news program) would
rather forget.

_ . _

Bonus Phun Phact: Cardinal Baronius, the aforementioned author of the
Annales Ecclesiasticae, referred to the above epoch in the Church's
history as "the obscene decade". In fact, things had gotten so bad during
the 800's that, according to John Potter's History of Christianity
that priests, completely ignorant of Latin, were not baptizing babies
"in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti"but instead were
babbling "in nomine Patria et Filia et Spirita Sancta " ("In the
name of Patricia, the daughter, and the holy female spirit")



Rodney on 04.16.05 @ 03:22 PM EST [link] [No Comments]

Comedy, thy name is "Suzanne".

Hey there, Liberal Elite, check out this episode of The Paul Kircher Show
during which I completely lose my composure thanks to a reference to
Seeking Solutions with Suzanne.

By the way, for $100 and some change (teh bestest $100 and some change
that you'll EVAR spend) you can take part in National Geographic's Human
Migration Project. If enough of us take part in this, we may be able to
find out where our tribe originated.
_ . _


_ . _

_ . _


_ . _


Real questions and answers
from the Ayatollah's official website

Today's Question

Is it allowed to eat at McDonald restaurant?


Answer: You are allowed to eat those meals which do not contain
meat. And you can eat meat also, if the seller is a Muslim and that the
seller has made sure that the meat belonged to an animal that had been
slaughtered according to Islamic conditions.

[Vincent: And you know what they call a... a... a Mayor McCheese in Baghdad?
Jules: They don't call him Mayor McCheese?
Vincent: They call him Mullah McCheese.
Jules: Mullah McCheese. What do they call a Whopper?
Vincent: I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King.]
_ . _

_ . _


_ . _






She slayed the compitition in Witches Are Bitches, Cuntesses of
Monte Krisco, and 1,001 Ways to Eat My Jizz, Part 3: Biscuits and
Gravy Edition (Oh... dear...Christ...)

While she just slayed.

Happy birthday to ...

Ashley Shye who turns 34 today.

And to Sarah Michelle Gellar who turns 28




The ancient Greek word of the day is:
pagh - trap, snare

If the above word looks like ippojshit to you,
then you need to go here
and download the SPIONIC font for either MAC or PC. Dude.


The Latin word of the day is:
famulus - attendent





Rodney on 04.14.05 @ 04:16 PM EST [link] [14 Comments]

Everything that rises must submerge

I'm hoping, for your sake, the answer is "no", but have you ever seen
The Larry Elder Show? To be honest, I've only seen about half of an
episode; yet I feel resoundingly confident that I will avoid future airings
with the same zeal with which steer clear of the Lilith Fair.

Larry (who, in a move doubtlessly intended towards marketing his own brand
of ipecac, likes to call himself "The Sage from South Central") is often
described as a Black Libertarian. I have my doubts about that: the
Libertarian part, that is (as for being Black, I'm willing to take Mr.
Elder's word on that). From What I've seen of his show (again, only a small
segment, but I only had to catch 10 minutes of Carnivale to know
that show was going to drag like J. Edgar Hoover on a Saturday night on
Fire Island) and what I've read about him on the web, Larry strikes me as
more of a Republican than a Libertarian (actually, he strikes me as a bit
of an asshole too). This would, of course, make him the only Black
Republican in the media who's never received a check from the Bush
administration.

And while we're on the subject, have you ever noticed that the White people
who are always shocked by Black conservatives are the White people who
didn't grow up around many Blacks? I was raised in a town that was
predominately Black (as well as predominantly being a shit-hole), and I not
only do I know the words to every Motown song written between 1963 and
1969, but I can also attest to the fact that the only issue on
which most working class Blacks are liberal on is Affirmative Action for
Black People. That's it. Death penalty? They're for it. Gay marriage?
They're against it. See, this is what happens when you force people to
live amongst Southerners for four hundred years.

But Larry's politics have very little to do with why I plan on never
watching his show unless I am monetarily compensated for doing so. The
reason I so strongly disliked the few minutes of The Larry Elder
Show that I caught (The same few minutes that make me an expert on
the in's-and-out's of the program) had to do with the audience's
sheep-like need to applaud every statement the guests made: even if those
statements were contradictory. "The Black man is being held down by the
White man!" Wild applause. "The Black man is being held down by the Black
man!" Wild applause. "The Black man is being held down by the Blue Man
Group!" Wild applause. At first I thought that the audience was being
instructed to applaud in five second intervals until I realized that no
"applause" light could stand such punishment without bursting into flames.
I have a pretty lengthy list of complaints about Bill Maher (The foremost
being that, despite being the most widely read blogger in the world, I've
never been asked to be on his show), but at least when his audience
mindlessly applauds a sound byte he scolds them for being morons.

Anyway, the topic of the show I happened to chance upon was "Is School
Failing Our Kids?" Larry seemed, no surprise here, to think that public
schools were basically factories for turning out Godless junky prostitutes
and that home schooling was the only reasonable alternative. Larry's
audience either thought that public schools or home schools were the way
to go, depending solely on which guest was speaking.

The show featured a woman named Lavonda who had pulled her daughter (whose
name I hope isn't "Precious". I hate that name even more than I hate the
name "Unique": which a friend of mine claims to have seen spelled
"You-neek". I'm sure that by now you've heard the Urban Legend about the
classroom containing five girls named "Unique". Thank Hubbard that White
people don't give their kids stupid names like "Cody", or "Dakota", or
"Ashley Amber" or "Madison", or "Clementine", or…) out of public school
and was home schooling her because, as Lavonda claimed, "The public
schools teach Black kids, from day one that their ancestors were
slaves."

From day one?

"Good morning boys and girls, I'm your teacher, Ms. Johnson. Before we get
started on learning our ABC's, I'd just like to take a minute to point out
that LaShanda, Darnell, and Tamika are all the descendents of slaves. Oh,
and if any of you need to use the restroom, please raise your hand:
especially you Polocks."

In what I'm certain was a rare moment of clarity, Larry Elder turned to
Lavonda and said, "But [you daughter's] ancestors were slaves." To
which the choosy mother who chose Jif replied, "Not back in Africa."

Lavonda is apparently laboring either under the misconception that all
African tribes were modeled on equalitarian communes or under the delusion
that the majority of Africans were freemen. Look, everybody likes to think
that they're descended from Kings, war heroes, or Screamin' Jay Hawkins,
but the facts just don't back that up (although the odds of someone being
the descendent of Screamin' Jay are surprisingly high. By the way, White
people are so into the offspring of the famous trip that some Medieval
English folk took the names of the heroes of the Robin Hood legend. That's
why today in the phone book you'll find Robinson [son of Robin Hood],
Williamson [son of Will Scarlet], Johnson [son of Little John], and - my
favorite - Tucker [son of Friar Tuck].). For the predominance of human
history (until the late 19th century), slavery was the condition under
which most of mankind lived. And that's not even taking into account
variations on slavery such as Serfdom, Indentured Servitude, and
working for Wal-Mart. The odds that you, gentle reader, are descended
from royalty or, for that matter, from someone who didn't gather dung for
a living, are astronomically low.

And while we're on the subject, I'm sick and tired of youngsters who have
Just read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States
going off about how rich White guys stole America from the Red man. Yes,
the genocide of the Native American population was one of histories
greatest crimes and completely unpardonable, but never forget that
American Indian's society was based just as much on wealth and heredity
as was that of the Europeans who conquered them. So, technically, rich
White men stole America from rich Red men.

As for me, I'm one of the few people who've come to grips with the reality
that my ancestors were slaves. On my father's side, my ancestors were
filthy, illiterate Germanic barbarians (and that's only going back two or
three generates: badda bing!) who were either slaves within their own
tribal system or were slaves to the Romans. My ancestors on my mother's
side were doubtlessly slaves within their own social unit on the Orkney
Islands. Oddly, these people were considered so uncouth by the Romans that
the Emperor Hadrian constructed the first known "gated community" to
separate eos from the civilized world.

Does my family bear the Romans any grudge for either enslaving or ignoring
our animal skin-covered predecessors? Hell no. In fact, both my sisters
and I have married Italians. On our anniversaries we each present our
respective spouses with a German chocolate cake and say, "I'm sorry about
that incident in the Teutenberg Forest."

So Lavonda, if your reading this (and since RATYHTL is the most
widely read blog in the world, there's a good chance you are) I suggest you
set you daughter down and say to her, "Honey, it's true; our ancestors were
slaves. But, you know what? : So were everybody else's."


_ . _

The Latin word of the day is:
eos - them


- Addendum -

The historian Stabro, writing during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius,
listed the chief exports of Britain as "gold, silver, iron, skins,
slaves, hunting-dogs, corn and cattle."




Rodney on 04.13.05 @ 07:02 PM EST [link] [16 Comments]

DING DONG THE PIG IS DEAD!

Shambling Mound slain with +2 sword of osteoarthritis.

Sorry about not posting anything yesterday, but I've been busy celebrating
the death of totalitarian ham-beast Andrea Dworkin (as well as building a
new wall in my hortus). Dworkin, who was 58, died from reaching critical
mass and collapsing in upon herself. She is survived by her partner, a
woman with the unusual name of "John" and perhaps the strongest stomach
which nature has ever granted a human being.

Now, before I launch into my thoughts about Dworkin (who will be buried
with an apple stuck in her mouth), I want to warn you that I don't want to
see any comments suggesting that my remarks about Dworkin's hulking girth
(and they will be numerous) is a cheap shot. I'm just following in the
long tradition of people who considered Dworkin to be an animated dung heap
. One writer for the London Review of Books said of Dworkin: "[she]
hates men and sex" and is "overweight and ugly". To which the Feminist
behemoth replied, "I almost wanted to call the man up in a spirit of
friendship and say 'please don't burn your Balzac'. I wanted to say:
'please, don't go through your library and tear up the people who you don't
want to go to bed with'. Male writers just never get treated that way, it's
disgusting."

That would be a valid point had Balzac worked to cultivate the image of
being as attractive as the scum scrapped from the bottom of a barrel. He
didn't, but Dworkin did. She worked harder at being unattractive than Joan
Rivers has at looking like a medical school cadaver. In other words, if you
have a doctor implant antennae in you head, don't bitch when people call
you a Martian.

Gloria Steinem once said of Dworkin (remember; I'm not making this
up), "In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human
race to evolve; Andrea is one of them."

WTPFMYV? Dworkin, one of the "of writers who help the human race to
evolve"? The same Dworkin who once mooed, "Intercourse remains a means,
or a means, of physiologically making a woman inferior: communicating to
her, cell by cell, her own inferior status ... pushing and thrusting until
she gives up and gives in - which is called surrender in the male lexicon."

Well, yeah, if it's done right. My beef, if you'll pardon the pun, with
Dworkin has always been over pornography. In my learned opinion, the
worst thing that you can say about pornography is that most of it
isn't very original and it fools pizza deliverymen into the false belief
that they will be bringing their pies only to Sorority houses where they
we be met at the door by scantily clad coeds: instead of a more concrete
scenario involving trailer parks and aged White supremacists. Dworkin, on
the other hoof, was a tireless campaigner against pictures of boobs.
Dworkin once said, while under oath, the following about porn:
"Pornography is used in rape - to plan it, to execute it, to choreograph
it, to engender the excitement to commit the act."

Got that? There was no such thing as rape before the Sports
Illustrated Swimsuit Issue hit the news stands. Any questions?

The great irony here is, of course that Dworkin's books were banned in
Canada under the anti-porn laws which she helped to write. Stupid cow.

And why is no one discussing the fact that Dworkin lied about being raped?
Back in 2000, Dworkin claimed that she had been drugged and raped by two
men in a Paris hotel room. Dworkin never contacted either hotel security
or the police, offered inconstant accounts, and provided no evidence (when
all that she would need to produce to convince me would be the copious
amount of vomit that would be the inevitable result of two men gazing upon
her walrus-like body).

Is there any more egregious insult to the millions of women who have been
raped than this? And yet Dworkin will be remembered as a crusader for the
rights of women by the two or three people who gather around her huge grave
when here piano case-sized coffin is lowered into the ground.

_ . _

Special Andrea Dworkin Edition

She she redefined Feminism in Big Black Beef Stretches Little Pink Meat,
Rectal Rooter 7, and Guns and Rough Sex.

While she fought for women's rights in Sorority House Slaves and
Foot Power II!

Happy birthdays to ...

Mandy Bright who turns 27 today.

And to Jewel Marceau who turns 30




The ancient Greek word of the day is:
bia - force, violence

If the above word looks like ippojshit to you,
then you need to go here
and download the SPIONIC font for either MAC or PC. Dude.


The Latin word of the day is:
hortus - garden






Rodney on 04.12.05 @ 12:04 PM EST [link]