Things That Piss Us Off About This Morning's Guardian Article (2) - They Admit the Pope Is a Billian Times Smarter Than They Are, But Not Really, Ya Know?
There was a time on this blog when we didn't say things like "douchebag" or "retard" because we still believed that in a civilized society those seeking to contribute to deliberation ought to, even in the worst situations, write forcefully but always with aplomb. Those times were really nice, and everyone talked about how funny it was to photoshop pictures heads of frogs on cats. Nowadays, it's wall to wall with these kinds of retards:
Pope Benedict is being portrayed as a naive, shy scholar who has accidentally antagonized two major world faiths in a matter of months. In fact he is a shrewd and ruthless operator, argues Madeleine Bunting - and he's dangerous... Some say this was a case of naivety, of a scholarly theologian stumbling into the glare of a global media storm, blinking with surprise at the outrage he had inadvertently triggered. The learned man's thoughtful reasoning, say some, has been misconstrued and distorted by troublemakers, and the context ignored.
But such explanations are unconvincing. This is a man who has been at the heart of one of the world's multinational institutions for a very long time. He has been privy to how pontifical messages get distorted and magnified by a global media. Shy he may be, but no one has ever before accused this pope of being a remote theologian sitting in an ivory tower. On the contrary, he is a determined, shrewd operator whose track record indicates a man who is not remotely afraid of controversy. He has long been famous for his bruising, ruthless condemnation of those he disagrees with. Senior Catholic theologians such as the German Hans Kung are well familiar with the sharpness of his judgments.
We are happy to see that journalists - who, for those of you keeping score at home, are publishing articles like 'we just don't know if the Pope's apology will soothe the lunatics' - have stopped accusing multilingual 180 IQ theology scholars of being naive and sheltered. Doesn't mean that we don't want to see the condescending little pricks from the NYT...
"Benedict is used to writing his own speeches, and several Vatican officials said he wrote Tuesday’s address, one of the most significant of the papacy, by himself. The officials said there was concern in the Vatican before he delivered it, both about the reaction among Muslims and how the news media would portray the passages relating to Islam. That concern was relayed up the chain of command, the officials said, but it is not clear if it reached the pope... many experts also said that did not have enough experts on Islam to gauge reaction to any papal statements. "They have nobody to really ask," said the Rev. Thomas Michel, secretary for inter-religious dialogue for the Jesuit order of priests. "Whoever looked at it and let that go through is someone who doesn’t understand Muslims at all."
... and the BBC...
The BBC's David Willey in Rome says Pope Benedict, a theologian who has led a sheltered life in the Vatican for more than two decades, may not have understood the potential implications of his remarks. He says the Cardinal Bertone, the newly-appointed top Vatican official, faces the task of serious damage control in the coming days.
... hung up by their smugly superior fingernails until they can successfully recite the recitations of faith of Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam in at least two different languages each. Because you know that Benedict can at least do each of those prayers in one language, and they're smarter and more cosmopolitan than he is, right? So hang them by their fingernails, and six prayers, one in each language. Good luck with the Shema.
Now the new meme. Old meme: weak and stupid. New meme: cunning and evil. Children take note: there are only so many ways to demonize a human being or group of people, and the Jews have seen them all. This "weak/strong" thing is old hate. Wait until they accuse him of running the US government and seducing Arab women. THEN he'll be in trouble.
Pope Benedict is being portrayed as a naive, shy scholar who has accidentally antagonized two major world faiths in a matter of months. In fact he is a shrewd and ruthless operator, argues Madeleine Bunting - and he's dangerous... Some say this was a case of naivety, of a scholarly theologian stumbling into the glare of a global media storm, blinking with surprise at the outrage he had inadvertently triggered. The learned man's thoughtful reasoning, say some, has been misconstrued and distorted by troublemakers, and the context ignored.
But such explanations are unconvincing. This is a man who has been at the heart of one of the world's multinational institutions for a very long time. He has been privy to how pontifical messages get distorted and magnified by a global media. Shy he may be, but no one has ever before accused this pope of being a remote theologian sitting in an ivory tower. On the contrary, he is a determined, shrewd operator whose track record indicates a man who is not remotely afraid of controversy. He has long been famous for his bruising, ruthless condemnation of those he disagrees with. Senior Catholic theologians such as the German Hans Kung are well familiar with the sharpness of his judgments.
We are happy to see that journalists - who, for those of you keeping score at home, are publishing articles like 'we just don't know if the Pope's apology will soothe the lunatics' - have stopped accusing multilingual 180 IQ theology scholars of being naive and sheltered. Doesn't mean that we don't want to see the condescending little pricks from the NYT...
"Benedict is used to writing his own speeches, and several Vatican officials said he wrote Tuesday’s address, one of the most significant of the papacy, by himself. The officials said there was concern in the Vatican before he delivered it, both about the reaction among Muslims and how the news media would portray the passages relating to Islam. That concern was relayed up the chain of command, the officials said, but it is not clear if it reached the pope... many experts also said that did not have enough experts on Islam to gauge reaction to any papal statements. "They have nobody to really ask," said the Rev. Thomas Michel, secretary for inter-religious dialogue for the Jesuit order of priests. "Whoever looked at it and let that go through is someone who doesn’t understand Muslims at all."
... and the BBC...
The BBC's David Willey in Rome says Pope Benedict, a theologian who has led a sheltered life in the Vatican for more than two decades, may not have understood the potential implications of his remarks. He says the Cardinal Bertone, the newly-appointed top Vatican official, faces the task of serious damage control in the coming days.
... hung up by their smugly superior fingernails until they can successfully recite the recitations of faith of Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam in at least two different languages each. Because you know that Benedict can at least do each of those prayers in one language, and they're smarter and more cosmopolitan than he is, right? So hang them by their fingernails, and six prayers, one in each language. Good luck with the Shema.
Now the new meme. Old meme: weak and stupid. New meme: cunning and evil. Children take note: there are only so many ways to demonize a human being or group of people, and the Jews have seen them all. This "weak/strong" thing is old hate. Wait until they accuse him of running the US government and seducing Arab women. THEN he'll be in trouble.
