Sunday, April 22, 2007

With religious fellow travelers like this ...


Oh, dear. Apparently, even Kathy Shaidle's fellow Catholics have had enough of her:

Earth Day is crap, or: My last column for Our Sunday Visitor

Actually, that's not technically true: they wouldn't run it so I quit. I bet they're pretty thrilled right now, all things considered...

Now, I'm not normally a quitter; I've stuck through day jobs and freelance gigs in spite of heroin addict bosses and bounced pay cheques and 2-hour commutes (each way). But OSV was almost always asking for changes, and, frankly, the ROI just wasn't there.

So what was the problem, Kath? Oh, right ...

This time, they wanted me to "tone it down." And my "tone" is pretty much all I got.

Good point, Kath. When your literary output is utterly lacking in anything resembling facts, logic or reason, go with tone. Hey, it's carried you this far.

P.S. I'm fairly certain that having to manage Kathy Shaidle would be enough to drive me to heroin, too.

12 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

When they asked her to "tone it down" they were just being nice. She's an idiot. Look at this beaut:

You see, environmentalists hail mostly from wealthy First World nations. They're really concerned less with "saving the planet" than assuaging their guilt about their own relative affluence

While that's true of a few, that's not a generalisable observation; not at all. That she thinks she can get away with this only shows that her aggressive sollipsism is completely impenetrable.

Anonymous said...

Tiggy, you really should try to spend less time with your tongue shoved so far up CC's arse. It can't be healthy.

Rev.Paperboy said...

CC is right on at least two counts, having to work with, much less supervise the Church Lady would drive almost anyone to heavy drug use and her work is almost always blissfully free of facts and logic. Tone is all she has and I'm guess "Our Sunday Visitor" is probably tired of shrewish, defensive, shrill and angry.

Ti-Guy said...

Tiggy, you really should try to spend less time with your tongue shoved so far up CC's arse. It can't be healthy.

One of Kathy Shaidle's Catholic/Christian admirers, no doubt. Her flying monkeys must be a real source of shame for her. They should be, in any case. Maybe she'll have cause to reflect on that in Purgatory, to which she's accumulating additional years with each sentence she writes.

Balbulican said...

Ms. Shaidle is right up there on my personal skin-crawl list with...well, the other folks high on my personal skin-crawl list. I don't think I've ever read anyone who spreads so much venom in the name of the religion of love.

As an atheist, I guess I'm not going to get to sit in on the Last Judgement where Ms. Shaidle gets to explain to her creator how her hatred served his purpose. I'd almost convert for that.

Ti-Guy said...

If you're looking for a Catholic in good standing to baptise you, Balbulican, don't hesitate to ask. As you said the payoff will be worth it.

...oh, shit. I just added to my own Purgatory for indulging in Schadenfreude. Oh, shit...I shouldn't have sworn...

Scotian said...

"As an atheist, I guess I'm not going to get to sit in on the Last Judgement where Ms. Shaidle gets to explain to her creator how her hatred served his purpose. I'd almost convert for that." Balbulican11:35 AM

One of my favourite conversations with my folks about this sort of thing is that we all agree it would be priceless to be an observer when they come to the pearly gates. To watch them striding confidently expecting not just to get in but to be rewarded for al their hard work as "good devout Christians fighting the hordes of unbelievers out to destroy them". To watch Saint Peter take out his book and note all the instances of hate they spewed, all the times where instead of turning the other cheek they ripped of the cheeks of others, indeed generally perverted the message of Christ and are bound to Hell for eternity to consider all that they did to sin against God/Christ. Then to listen to their wails of "Unfair!" "But WE are the real Christians and not those pansy assed morons that actually believe in the message of love, tolerance and acceptance of your fellow human being!".

Indeed, this was something we snickered over during our last Christmas dinner. Well, snickered over after bemoaning that such people think they are good Christians to begin with. I once showed KS's blog to my folks, who are good Catholics themselves, and they were absolutely horrified, insulted, and appalled that she claimed to speak for "real" Roman Catholics. They found her to be one of the most offensive insults to their Faith since JPII tried to forgive the children for sexually tempting the priests back in the 1990s when the sexual abuse scandal was in full swing.

Balbulican said...

Tig, just let me know by posting. As a baptized Catholic, you're good for either heaven or purgatory. As an atheist, I know where I'll be. The good news is, you can still blog in hell. The bad news is, the ISP is Rogers, the connection is dialup, and the only site available is Canadian Sentinel.

Balbulican said...

Scotian, exactly how I feel. As a spokesperson for the Religion of Love, she's every bit as credible as Osama Bin Laden speaking on behalf of the Religion of Peace.

Scotian said...

Balbulican:

One of the things I find particularly hard to take about movement conservativism's religious component is that they think they alone know the truth, they alone know who is a "good" Christian/Catholic, that they know whether I believe or not believe regardless of what I might have to say on the matter, just in general the way they pervert a faith based on love, acceptance, and tolerance. While I left the RC in my late teens, I did not leave angry or with contempt/hatred for it. Indeed, that was one of the things my folks were initially concerned about, and they were much relieved to find that I had no ill will for them and their faith. It simply was not the right path for me, but at heart I still share the same fundamental values of tolerance, acceptance, and consideration of my fellow human beings, which for them was what really mattered.

As they told me back then God would care far more for the essence than the form. IOW that God would care far more for the intent of my actions and how ethical I was than in whose name it was, a belief I am more than happy to share. Those that do good in the name of evil have still done good, those that do evil in the name of good/God have still done evil and harmed/worked against the good/God. Why that appears so hard for so many of these so called devout Christians and Catholics like KS and company I will never understand. Clearly they fell asleep during Sunday school and the various rituals like baptism, first confession, confirmation, etc. Otherwise they would understand that the hate and bile they spew supposedly in the name/service of defending God and Christianity is not Christian in nature, is not God's desire, indeed perverts God's desire and will only earn then pain and sufferring in their expected afterlife. Christ was a avatar of peace, tolerence and respect of all human beings regardless of their differences in appearance and beliefs and not some muscular fighter out to convert via the sword, plowshares yes swords no.

This is why I tend to get a little irked when I am told I hate religion, that I hate faith, that I am out to destroy all believers simply because I believe in the premise of separation of church and State. Even without the American example I was raised by a mother that had grown up in Duplessis (sp) Quebec and heard first hand about just how that close link between the Church and State worked against the interests of the citizen. This is why I find the idea of compelling faith through the uses of the tools of State to be an affront not just to my secular sensibilities but to my spiritual ones as well. According to Christian teachings God gave humanity the ability to reason and free will, I rather doubt then the idea was to create systems of governance that reduced/took away either let alone both. However, try telling that to those like KS. *sigh*

Mike said...

"As a spokesperson for the Religion of Love, she's every bit as credible as Osama Bin Laden speaking on behalf of the Religion of Peace."

Oh man, THAT needs to go on a T-shirt with KS face...

Online Editor said...

Bottom line is, and maybe this is why she and OSV actually parted ways, she is just making shite up here, classic right-wing make up your own facts since it makes your cynicism and condescension so much easier to justify strategy. Has she any evidence that US Senator Gaylord Nelson or his underling Denis Hayes actually had any idea that April 22 was Lenin's b-day, much less that they wanted to surreptitiously celebrate it? Could it be that, as Nelson and Hayes have stated, they were commemorating the April 22 b-day of Julius Sterling Morton, the founder of US Arbor Day? Gosh, if that is actually the real-word truth, not the Fox news alternative reality because it makes our hare-brained arguments easier "truth," then she is committing a fundamental disservice as a journalist, spreading falsehoods, probably things she knows to be falsehoods. She probably picked up the Lenin connection from some right-wing internet echo chamber and ran with it without doing the primary job of a journalist, check the story, confirm the facts. ("If your mother says she loves you, check it out!")