Your RDA of Irony

Saturday’s Ramblings

Rambling 1:

Republican lobbyists are trying to extort contributions to the George W. Bush Presidential Library. The Bush Library sounds about as logical as the Gore Vidal Bowling Alley.

Rambling 2:

As you know, this is the 1494th anniversary of the death of Pope Symmachus. During the time of his pontificate (498-514), the chief talent of a pope was sychophancy. Italy was ruled by the Ostrogoths, and the Pope had to play up to the guys with the swords. At the same time, he couldn’t be too nauseatingly obvious about it. After all, at the time the unquestioned leader of Christendom was not a threadbare bishop in ransacked Rome but the Emperor in Constantinople.

However, Symmachus seemed more sincere in his grovelling to the Ostrogoths; so the Byzantine partisans conspired against him. They accused Symmachus of fornication. The Pope successfully defended himself by saying that he only had one mistress. In Italy, that evidently counts as celibacy.

Rambling 2 postscript:

Here is a surprise. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on Pope Symmachus omitted any reference to the fornication controversy.

Rambling 3:

The South could have avoided the Civil War with a little corporate tact. Instead of referring to its “guest-workers” as slaves, it should have used a more congenial term like “associates.” If Simon Legree had simply described Uncle Tom as an associate, a stakeholder or a team mate, why would Mrs. Stowe or Mr. Lincoln object to such a productive partnership?

  1. Rothgar says:

    Rambling 3:
    It works see the Jungle.

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