Sh*t Priests and Ministers Think

1. Could the organist possibly play this hymn any slower? The “grace” is rapidly losing its amazingness.
2. (During a pastoral counseling session) You think you have problems? Let me tell you about mine!
3. I wonder how many more tedious Parish Council meetings I’ll have to endure before I retire?
4. Please stop the overly dramatic reading of the Epistle. It’s not as if you wrote it yourself.
5. I hope Deacon Jones doesn't blab that he saw me in Hooters last Saturday.
6. I hope the bishop doesn’t have any spies around here.
7. I hope the bishop doesn’t read my blog.
8. The homemade cookies are nice but can’t someone give the rector a nice bottle of bourbon for Christmas?
9. How does a twit like Joel Osteen get tens of thousands of people to show up on a Sunday morning while I’m lucky to get 200 or 300?
10. I'll do a five-minute sermon; and finish in time for the Titans' kickoff. I'll be popular with the guys.
11. (When visiting another church on a rare Sunday off) Why would anyone possibly come to this place? What a dump!
12. “What time is the Easter service?” does not qualify as a pastoral emergency. See you at Christmas.
13. 40DD. How great thou art, Jennifer.
14. (Musing at coffee hour as you can’t remember any names) Why is it that all children under the age of five look alike as do all gray-haired ladies?
15. Will there still be a Pension Fund when I'm eligible, or will I have to be a bouncer in a honky-tonk?
16. Why don’t they make homiletical candle snuffers to be used when the assistant/seminarian’s sermon loses its focus?
17. I wonder if we get wi-fi in the manse?
18. Must that guy in the fourth row be a split second behind on every congregational response? I wonder if I can summon an usher using mental telepathy to have him removed before the Nicene Creed?
19. If you gave up that membership to the country club, maybe you’d be able to “afford” a pledge greater than $5 per week.
20. A monkey could have done a better job arranging those flowers on the altar.
21. It’s not that the microphones “don’t work as well as they did when Father XX was the rector,” it’s that you’re going deaf.
22. This meeting better end before “Modern Family” starts.

Elkhorn, Montana

I've touched on the less statesmanlike variety of politics lately; so as a change of pace here is a picture from a real Montana ghost town, Elkhorn. This imposing building is Fraternity Hall. I guess Greek life existed even in the Wild West.

The story was that the building was a place of entertainment for the miners. Boxing matches, music, and dances were held there. A unverified story was that once two men got into a fight over what kind of music the band should play, waltzes or square dancing music. The proponent of square dancing shot the waltz fan, and was hanged for it. I didn't know Strauss had that kind of potential for homicide.

The Legislative Antics of Stacey Campbell

Well . . . . shoot! I move away from Tennessee and things start to get interesting. Politics and theatre do a wicked dance together that makes the National GOP Forever Debating Tour look insipid by comparison. Dignity, like Baby, gets put in the corner of this Show of Shows in the Vol State!

State Senator Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) seems to make a continuous one-man show of amusement for Volunteer State residents and ex-pats. This, dear folks, is the fella who introduced legislation to allow any full-time faculty member or staffer at a public university to have a concealed weapon on campus if they have a handgun-carry permit. Wow, just what is needed: armed profs loaded for bear or reluctant freshmen. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the bill was lost in the process.

Not being content with doing this fine legislation, he introduced the "Don't Say Gay" bill, prohibiting the teaching of any form of sex in elementary school classes except for boy-girl sex. He also downplayed possible bullying of gay and lesbian children, declaring that "that bullying thing is the biggest lark out there."

He gave a radio interview in which he is quoted "most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community -- it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.... My understanding is that it is virtually -- not completely, but virtually -- impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex...very rarely [transmitted]." What a mixture of strange conjectures and luridness. I am not sure of his sources of information, but they're quite unrelated to the true facts.

His radio remarks produced a firestorm of criticism nationwide; some quite deservedly pointed. He succeeded in making Tennessee the laughingstock. One irate restaurant owner refused him service at Brunch. Good for her!!!!

His saga gets stranger. A few years ago he was thrown out of UT's Neyland stadium because he came to a football game on Halloween wearing a Mexican wrestler's mask, despite explicit warnings by UT not to wear masks to the game.

Hey, what's going on? Republicans are supposed to be white bread sticks on the mud; looniness is the perogative of the Democrats. Can this being a State Senator be some form of cosmic joke on the state? I noticed that his senatorial district includes the University of Tennessee in it. Could mischevous university students have elected him as a prank on the State? This serves as a comfort to me to know that the State is not completely insane, and that undergraduates are still capable of doing strange things that shock adults.

I'm in a great mood today. I was gloriously laid by my boyfriend last night and I had a wickedly sinful hearty breakfast. I have a grin on my face as big as the Bitteroots!

P.C. in Athletic Teams

Here's a little bit of wackiness from Utah: P.C. in sports team names gone amuck.

The story line is simple: Student body votes on a team name; the school district overrules them, saying it's disrespectful. A little P.C. So whose sensibilities were being spared?

Would-be Corner Canyon High School is due to be finished in 2013. The students chose the Cougars as their mascot — a name that the principal, the unfortunate Ms. Bailey said carries an ugly connotation that is disrespectful to women.

Whoa! Cougar is disrespectful to women?

In popular culture, the cougar is a sexually aggressive middle-aged woman who attracts younger men. Someone should have sent copies of the memo from them to the University of Houston and Brigham Young University!

The school board, helpful to a fault, changed the team name to Chargers। Like the San Diego Chargers. Perhaps they should have also referred to this handy guide:

Cougar (sex reference)

Bear (gay sex reference)

Trojan (condom reference)

Indians (Ethnically offensive)

Bulls (offensive, too much like BS)

Hawks (might be seen as making fun of conservatives)

Kings (celebrates totalitarianism)

Giants (offensive to those with growth abnormalities)

Bullets (too violent)

Warriors (too violent)

Where You Can Pee in Tennessee

The General Assembly of Tennessee may go officially on record regulating where its citizenry can tinkle. Specifically, if a person is to use a public restroom, he or she must use the bathroom in which the sex on your birth certificate matches that of the sex on the sign on the bathroom door. No, this is not a spoof.

State Senator Bo Watson of Chattanooga wants to fine anyone using the wrong sex bathroom $50. While Watson's bill's intended effect is to keep drag queens out of the ladies' room, it also makes it illegal for little boys to go to the bathroom with their mother or for women who are sick of waiting in a long bathroom line to use the men's room when it's unoccupied. The ban on crosssex peeing is absolute.

The proposed legislation states:
where a restroom or dressing room in a public building is designated for use by members of one particular sex, only members of that particular sex shall be permitted to use that restroom or dressing room.

I can imagine myself being with my knees firmly together, seeking to wantonly pee in the men's room of a cafe, voiding in a guys' loo in a Memphis fern bar, and (as the piece de resistance, doing it in the Senate's men's room in Nashville. I need Volunteers to do this massive civil disobedience with me! Tinkle rights for all.

I'm glad I'm from Tennessee, where both sexes and cross-dressers can still use the woods option. What's good for the bears should be okay for us. Or will there someday be separate woods for women and men, with admittance based on birth certificate.

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An additional manifestation of legislative stupidity from Nashville comes in the form of the "Don't Say Gay" bill to be discussed today. Specifically, it forbids mentioning in elementary school any form of sexual orientation except heterosexuality. Why don't they also change the name of Gay Street in Knoville while they're at it?

Hillside Letters

Some western communities have the initial of a town or a school on a nearby hillside. Among the illustrations of this is the large "V" for Virginia City (they weren't ambitious enough to do a "V.C." or they were too busy hanging outlaws) and the large concrete "M" representing Missoula, which can be easily seen on Mt. Sentinel (see below). While these were originally made as reflections of community pride, in recent times some environmentalists have complained that they mar the landscape. Because of this, a waning of community pride or boosterism, these hillside letters in many locations have fallen into states of disrepair.

There's also a legend about one: It seems that one of the Schools of Mines has a rivalry with another institution. On one occasion they used dynamite to blow up the opposition's hillside letter!

Wikipedia gives us a list of these hillside letters. Enjoy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hillside_letters

Here's also a link to a parody site. See the Jan. 6 entry: Tennessee resolves not to make ridiculous headlines in 2012.

http://www.notsville.com/

Proudy Sculpture

When it comes to public art, the typical viewer is often amazed as to what gets erected. This one in Prague is just too astonishing for words; but I'll describe it: two brothers, standing in a basin shaped like the Czech Republic, and voiding their bladders while doing so. Supposedly, you can send an email message ad get the bronze guys to pee your name in the water.

I can only speculate on how such an artwork might be received in the United States. This is definitely related to place in question. I can imagine the Midwesterners or the Bible Belt crowd saying that it's obscene, the Bostonians thinking it's in abysmal taste, and New Yorkers considering it to be a suggestion.

Chicago and Seattle have public art, some of which is regarded as innovative, such as the Picasso's in Chicago. Tennessee had abstract art placed at several of the welcome stations to the Volunteer State, and they seem to be enjoyed or at least tolerated. However, big issues with regard to public art are these:

a. Who's going to pay for it?
b. Who decides whether an effort is art?

I can see the liberals and conservatives going on about this, particularly since both have dogs in that fight!