New Games to Play

Now that the Olympics are over, you may find yourself with too much time on your hands and not a thing to do. Luckily for you, I’ve found two great board games that you can play with your friends and family.

Since one never knows when the next conclave will occur, you’ll want to get this game right away so that you’ll be prepared to take over the reins of the Roman Catholic Church when Pope Benny leaves terra firma. Behold, I present unto you, The Vatican!

Once you’ve reached the lofty heights of the Vatican, you may have to refresh your memory of some of those doctrines (papal infallibility, immaculate conception, etc.). I’ve got just what you need – Catechism of the Catholic Church!

What are you waiting for? Click on those links and add these games to your collection today.

– the chaplain

 

Saturday Snicker

– the chaplain

 

Sea World Slave Revolts

Tilikum, a whale who has been held captive at a Sea World park in Orlando, Florida, killed an animal trainer yesterday. Let me make it clear right now that I don’t want to minimize the tragedy of the trainer’s death in any way. According the Washington Post, she loved her job, she loved the animals she trained, and she loved and was loved by many friends and family members. Her death is mourned by many. Nevertheless, the manner of her death raises a moral issue for me; I can’t find any justification for the human practice of capturing and enslaving other living beings for our entertainment.

Dawn Branchaeu is the third human being that Tilikum has killed in the past 19 years. Methinks that Tilikum may not be overly enamored with the species that has enslaved him and trained him to do cute tricks for our amusement. Now, the Sea World management doesn’t have a clue what to do with Tilikum. He doesn’t have the requisite skills to survive in the wild, so releasing him to the sea would be the equivalent of a death sentence. I don’t know whether capital punishment euthanasia is under consideration; if it is, the Sea World PR people are holding their tongues about it. One option the Sea World management is considering is transferring Tilikum to another diocese amusement park.

I don’t know how to resolve Sea World’s Tilikum dilemma. All I know is that this story has made me think, again, about the morality of keeping animals in zoos, aquariums and amusement parks so that human beings may be entertained for a few hours a day. In the past two years I’ve visited the San Diego Zoo and the Georgia Aquarium. On both occasions I was mildly uneasy about the fact that I was enjoying nature in starkly unnatural, artificial settings. That unease has prevented me from visiting the National Zoo just down the road from me in Washington, DC. Tilikum’s story has compelled me to take a position on this issue. As of this moment, I am putting a personal moratorium on visits to zoos, aquariums and the like. I don’t know if I’ll change my mind about this in the future. All I know is that, for the time being, I can’t justify holding other living beings captive for my amusement. I mourn both Dawn Brancheau’s lost life and Tilikum’s lost freedom. Both losses were senseless and unnecessary. That’s the real tragedy of this story.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times reports that “A SeaWorld official said Wednesday the animal would not be put down.”

– the chaplain

 

A Pallette of Profanity for My Palate

Ciao! Come sta? Sto molto bene.*

Some of you may have noticed that two of my recent posts have dealt with taboo words. In one of those threads, ildi mentioned Rick Steve, a travel writer and tour guide whose image is that of, as she put it, “a clean-cut middle-class American.”

As it happens, the deacon and I will be traveling to Italy this spring (a factoid that I mentioned here). In preparation for our trip, the deacon gave me Rick Steve’s guides to Venice and Rome as Christmas gifts. This past weekend, I ordered three Italian phrase books from Amazon, two of which arrived yesterday. One of these was Rick Steve’s Italian Phrase Book and Dictionary. Eager to start learning some rudimentary Italian (it may be useful to know, at the very least, how to ask where the bathroom is (Dov’e la toilette? – if you must know)), I perused both books last night. I’m sorry to report that I have not yet committed them to memory. Give me a few weeks and I’ll get back to you on that (ha! I wish!).

As I neared the end of Rick Steve’s book, I was amazed and, I must confess, delighted, to come across this entry:

As musical as these words and phrases sound as they roll off the tongue, I still like the four-letter Anglo-Saxon words to which I am accustomed. For example, “dannazione” is, on my tongue, much more cumbersome than “damn it!” And “vaffanculo” sounds too pleasant to mean “fuck you.” Nor do I think I’ll ever get the hang of saying “merda” when a simple “shit” will suffice. I will admit, though, that “balle” is growing on me, and may soon be nearly as useful a word to me as “bullshit” is. There’s also a strong possibility that “sei uno stronzo” may become a handy substitute for “you are an asshole.” Who knows? Even though I’ve forgotten most of my high school Spanish, I may yet end up getting the hang of this foreign language stuff. In the meantime, I’d better hit the books and learn some words that are more suitable for mixed company.

Uno, due, tre, quattro…

– the chaplain

* Hi. How are you? I am very well.

 

A Nation of Juveniles

Yesterday afternoon, during the TV broadcast of an Olympic hockey game (the Swiss men’s team beat the Norwegian men’s team 5-4 in overtime), a sportscaster told a bizarre story. Actually, the story wasn’t bizarre at all – it was entirely believable in the brutal world of hockey; what was bizarre was the way he told the story, which hovered somewhere between infantile and juvenile. This is what happened.

The TV camera zoomed to a closeup of a Norwegian player wiping blood from his forehead; his head had met the edge of another player’s hockey stick and suffered the predictable – in fact, familiar – consequence of such an encounter. As viewers and sportcasters watched the player’s blood transfer from his head to his handheld towel, a sportscaster reported another injury this same player had suffered in a previous season:

He took a stick to a very rough spot for a male, if you know what I mean. He missed a lot of games because of that injury, and doctors thought, for a while, that they might have to cut away some parts of that rough spot, if you know what I mean.

I shook my head in wonder at the juvenile idiocy of this commentary. The player’s “rough spot” has a name – either his penis or his testicles. I apologize for my lack of specificity, dear readers, but that’s the best I can do at parsing exactly what the commentator was talking about. I can’t help wondering whether talking about this injury, even in such a vague, circuitous fashion, made him blush profusely. What kind of juvenile, puritanical nation are we when adults can’t discuss body parts without resorting to nonsensical euphemisms? Why is it so difficult for so many of us to identify penises, vaginas, breasts, or testicles, as easily as we identify arms, legs, toes and the like? I understand, and expect, that broadcasters will not generally use common terminology (which is sometimes considered to be – and sometimes is, in fact – crude) when discussing medical issues and anatomy. But, can’t they please call body parts by their proper, grown up names? Doing anything less than that makes them sound like juveniles. Moreover, listening to such linguistic nonsense makes the rest of us appear to be similarly juvenile. Worst of all, accepting this nonsense in public discourse makes it easy for all of us to think, as well as speak, like juveniles. We really need to grow up and start talking – and thinking – like adults.

– the chaplain