Humor

When Spanish octogenarian Cecilia Giménez botched the restoration of a famous, century-old mural by painter Elías García Martínez, she hardly expected the “restored” image (which at present looks sort of like a teddy bear, or a very hairy monkey) to become a meme that would blow up on reddit, 4Chan, and Twitter. But ever since late August, Ecce Homo has become a tourist attraction, bringing scores of Internet jokers to the Santuario de Misericordia Church in Borja, Spain. These tourists are bringing all of their euros, and now Giménez, who earlier claimed she was having anxiety attacks from allthe press coverage, wants a cut.

According to the northern Spain newspaper El Correo cited by TechDirt(which was tipped off by Twitter user @sinkdeep), tourists started flocking to the church, but weren’t leaving any donations. So to prevent the disruptive hordes from overtaking the church, the Santi Spiritus Hospital Foundation, which owns the sanctuary, started charging a fee to visitors wanting to see Ecce Mono, or Behold the Monkey as it’s now jokingly dubbed. In just 4 days, the Foundation made €2,000, (or about $2,600).

El Correo says this has angered Giménez and her family, and they’ve sought lawyers to win royalties for her work, which epically ruined a prized fresco of Jesus Christ. It seems the Santuario de Misericordia Church intends to defend its earnings as well, and has retained lawyers. Luckily, though, Giménez is not charging the millions of Internet users who have shared and spoofed her painting all over the world with copyright abuse.

Via Ars Technica

Yes it is Talk Like a Pirate Day once again and the Ironic Catholic has released a new translation Psalm 42, New Revised Pirate Version.

As one of my favorite Psalms here is a taste of the translation.

1 As th’ jolly roger longs fer streams o’ water,
so me soul thirsts pants fer ye, me God.
2 Me soul thirsts fer God, fer th’ liv’n God.
When can I go an’ meet wi’ God?
3 Me tears have b’n me burgoo day an’ night,
while people say t’ me all day long, “Where be your bleedin’ God, bucko?”

To join in the fun I tweeted:

How does a Pirate become a Catholic? Via ArrrCIA

— ➡️Curt Jester⬅️ (@CurtJester) September 19, 2012

What do you call a Pirate who rejects the humanity of Christ? An Arrrian.

— ➡️Curt Jester⬅️ (@CurtJester) September 19, 2012

What language is used for the Pirate translation of the Bible? Arrramaic.

— ➡️Curt Jester⬅️ (@CurtJester) September 19, 2012

"What is truth?", Talk like a Pilate Day

— ➡️Curt Jester⬅️ (@CurtJester) September 19, 2012

My job is too big for one man, says Archbishop of Canterbury

Pope Benedict XVI says “Tell me more about how a church with 80 million members and shrinking is too big for one man.”

BOSTON (CBS Connecticut) — The National Atheist Party is canceling its secular convention due to a lack of funding. Troy Boyle, the party’s president, announced on its website won’t be holding NAPCON 2012 in Boston in October because it would bankrupt the group.

“After this year’s amazing Reason Rally, and flush with our successful recruiting and a spike in donations, we decided to hold our OWN secular event. NAPCON 2012 was supposed to be our biggest and best public event; our chance to show the U.S. that we could fund and organize a large, noteworthy and impressive ‘Secular Summit’ that would attract media buzz and even more interested members and donations. The reality is that we can’t,” Boyle said in the press release. “The donations simply aren’t there and if we went ahead with the event as planned, it would bankrupt us.”

The second annual convention was supposed to consist of several speakers and musical acts over two days, as well as giving away free prizes to fellow atheists.
Boyle blames a lack of donations and sponsors, along with several prominent people backing out of the convention.

There really should be an alliance between the Catholic Church and the National Atheist Party – we could call it CATNAP.

Via Al Kresta

It is hard not to laugh at this story about a Catholic Cathedral.  Not only over the subject but the english translation of the story.  Though the security concerns are no laughing matter.

The St Theresa’s Catholic Cathedral Church, Nsukka, Enugu State, has barred women from wearing big headgears and carrying hand bags to Sunday service. Rev. Fr. Uche Obodoechina, the Cathedral Administrator, who announced this during Sunday service in Nsukka, said that the ban takes effect from Sept. 9.

Obodoechina said the measure was being introduced to ensure the security of worshippers. According to him, the big headgears, in most cases, made the identification of persons during Sunday service difficult.

He said the headgears (popularly called canopy) turn to a ‘barricade’ when many women putting on big head gears stay on a roll during service.

“Please, in view of the present security challenges, the church has urged women to stop coming to Sunday service with big headgears and bags to enable security men know when bomb will be smuggled into the church. The church has directed security men at the church gate to seize big head ears and bags from Sept. 9. This measure is aimed towards enhancing the security of the faithful during Sunday mass.”

 

What they need is a more collapsible hat.  I saw a video today demonstrating what you can do if your hat can cause difficulty when getting into a car.

I’m not going to keep going on and on complaining about the Al Smith dinner. His excellency made a prudential decision that I disagree with, but it was his discussion to make. There has been a lot of hyperbole about how we can’t trust him anymore, etc. I just don’t join that camp.

So instead of griping I might as well have some fun concerning this. Creative Minority Report beat me to the fun part as they have “10 Suggestions for Obama at the Al Smith Dinner“. For example:

8) If President Obama doesn’t like what he’s served, the Cardinal should offer an accomodation meal which is exactly the same meal just served a little while later.

Now some think that His Excellency is being wily in the President Obama invite and will let-him-have-it at the dinner. The Cardinal is not so bad a host that he would resort to such a tactic and one that would just get overwhelmingly negative reporting. You just don’t sandbag guests regardless of the guest.

But that doesn’t leave off Matthew Archbold’s examples of demonstrative examples.  I would suggest some of my own.

• Tell the President that there is a Al Smith Mandate where the price for the dinner is $1,000 dollars and the proceeds all go to a fully pro-life cause.  Now if the president feels the money going to a pro-life organization violates his conscience, the Cardinal could just send him a bill of $100 a day until he gives in an pays the dinner mandate.  If he still objects we will report an accommodation has been made and of course we still send him the same bill of $100 a day.  After all if the $100 per day tax/fine is good enough for businesses it is good enough for the President.
• Provide a large silver basin full of water at the President’s table.  If he asks what it is for “To wash your hands and recite ‘What is truth’.”
• Change the name of the event from the “Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner” to the “Alfred E. Neuman Memorial Foundation Dinner” We can go from “Be not afraid” to “What me worry?”  The Mad Magazine  mascot is really much more fitting and based on the President’s ears he might even be related.
• Have fun names for the menu items such as “Sensible Conscience Clause Chicken”, “1st Amendment Applesauce”, “Freedom of Religion Ricotta” , “Mints wrapped in condoms (every meal requires condiments)”,  and the band can sing “Losing my freedom of religion”
• Sitting at the President’s table we could have people dressed up as St. Thomas More, St. John Fisher, and other martyrs of religious freedom.

Finally a barrier of entry is broken for some people concerning ebooks.

“The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world.” Karl Lagerfeld This tells the story of a passion and a twisting plot to put the particular bouquet of freshly printed books in a bottle. Gerhard Steidl was first alerted to the importance of the smell of a book by Karl Lagerfeld, prompting a passion for paper and the composition of a scent on the pages of a book. To Wallpaper* magazine the pairing of the publisher with the perfumer seemed a natural partnership and so the idea for Paper Passion was born. Wallpaper* magazine commissioned master perfumer Geza Schoen to create a fragrance based on the smell of books to be part of the Wallpaper* magazine Handmade exhibition in Milan.

This is an opportunity to celebrate all the gloriosensuality of books, at a time when many in the industry are turning against them. The idea is that is should relax you, like when you read a book, to a level of meditation and concentration. Paper Passion has evolved into something quite beautiful and unique. To wear the smell of a book is something very chic. Books are players in the intellectual world, but also in the world of luxury.

Just spray it on your Kindle, iPad, phone, etc.

So when are they going to have the car air fresheners version so you can drive around smelling a library?

Via God and the Machine