"Cautious restraint" versus "Voyeuristic intrusiveness"

I liked Bill Donohue's observations in comparing the media's treatment of Pope Francis and that of Pope Benedict. Excerpt:

There were 14 editorials on Pope Benedict XVI and 11 on Pope Francis. The difference can probably be chalked up to the familiarity of the former versus the unfamiliarity of the latter. But there were more similarities than dissimilarities.

Two segments of the population dominated the media’s interest in the two popes: homosexuals and women. In the 25 editorials, homosexuals were cited 13 times, and women 15. With the exception of a few editorials that gave faint praise to Pope Francis for not judging gays of goodwill, they were uniformly critical of the teachings of the Catholic Church on both subjects. Only two newspapers, USA Today and the Washington Post, did not mention either subject explicitly.

There is no other religion that is subjected to this kind of micro-scrutiny. The elite media react to Islam and Judaism with cautious restraint, and with voyeuristic intrusiveness to Catholicism. Yet when it comes to teachings on homosexuality and women, there is very little difference between the three monotheistic religions. Judaism is respected, Islam is feared, and Christianity—especially Catholicism—is loathed.

Of course one of my friends who I've blogged about is continuously sending me emails about how Pope Francis is pretty much the anti-Christ and Benedict is still the authentic Pope, though exiled by the gay mafia. The latest rumblings about relaxing celibacy mandates for the priests of the Latin Rite have him apoplectic. Personally, Pope Francis's style with the media reminds me of chasing parking lot gulls scrounging for old meat in back of the grocery store. It's amusing for the chaser and it keeps the gulls out of trouble for a bit.

Maybe it's some kind of seasonal disorder

I had blogged a lot about this phenomenon last fall, and my friend had pretty much stopped all the paranoid email; his last one was sent on 10/31/09. But he's back, and has just hit a font size of 36 as of yesterday when he sent a crazed rant about Monsanto. Another email about the great intelligence and sanctity of Alex Jones was delivered to my inbox today. So I'm speculating that this is something which happens whenever flu shots are advertised, although I will not pursue any more scientific investitigation at this time.

Good news on friend's font abuse

In the continuing saga of large-fonted conspiracy emails, we have some good news. My friend is down to 18-point Calibri which is 2 points lower than where he was at on October 10.

85 Points and Rising

Now for the latest installment in the continuing saga of intensifying insanity accompanied by increasing font sizes to morbidly large proportions. First I complained of font sizes in the low to mid 20's, then a sudden doubling to 48-point. But these seem like nothing at this point; they appear teensy next to what met my tired eyes this evening.

The typeface is Bauhaus 93. The size is 85-point. Click the image for the full effect of the actual size 85.


He definitely knows how to grab the attention, he even added a shadow effect on the red type. Maybe this dude could get into desktop publishing. He could do posters for reggae bands or video game packages or something.

The subject of of the font was, of course, the release of Alex Jones's new documentary Fall of the Republic. I wonder how much money Jones makes of the idiots who buy his crap?

Truther Friend Update

The friend I mentioned in this post is up to 48-point Times New Roman in his rants. Alex Jones is his new patron saint. His emails are barely readable. I wish I was joking. Lithium is needed.

Good definition of a "Truther"

I liked this definition from UD of 9/11 truther:

A crazy person who believes the US government committed 9/11. Truthers get their inspiration from a moronic documentary called "Loose Change" which provides no facts whatsoever and has been thoroughly debunked. People who disagree with the truthers are repeatedly called government shills since truthers have no logical argument to counter the evidence.

Truther: 9/11 was an inside job!
Sane person: Prove it.
Truther: There was no plane at the Pentagon, only a missile!
Sane person: There's dozens of witnesses and plane debris was found all over the place.
Truther: ...Well the WTC was a controlled demolition!
Sane person: Why did both buildings collapse from the point of impact then? Pretty crazy the explosives were in the exact spot the plane hit and didn't explode upon impact.
Truther: ...You're just a government shill! Enjoy your FEMA camp when the NWO rolls around!

It's by a dude styling himself troofers be nuts. And guess what? Troofers do be nuts. I know a guy who is a religious Catholic, very active, and was only a little bit looney before about 2 years ago. Then he "saw the light" and now he sends me 9/11 Truther stuff from Alex Jones et al at least twice a week. I'm on his list; he sends this stuff to everyone with a BCC, so at least it's semi-professionally done. As a bonus, I also get the standard fear mongering about H1N1... don't ask. The few times I've responded I get an all caps response back about how I should be asking the Lord to open my eyes to the truth and other meaningless platitudes worthy of question beggars.

To make his emails even easier for me to discount, he uses 20 point Calibri font on all his emails as a baseline. Recently he has obviously desired to urgently increase the urgency of his urgent message, so he has cranked it up to 24 point URGENT CALIBRI BOLD. I remember thinking "Hey, here's a new phenomenon: bitmap inflation." I felt like replying to tell him that using these large fonts is sort of like the Federal Reserve devaluing our currency by the endless printing of fiat greenbacks, but as usual I chickened out. I tell myself it's out of politeness and respect. But I really think he is full-blown bonkers to be broadcasting all these inanities.

One time he included an exclamatory AMEN! inflated to 100 points of inch-high black caps. Believing my light-fingered toddlers had attacked my precious notebook again, I instinctively checked my stash of Sharpies. But momentarily I realized the pious graffito was emanating from my liquid crystal matrix, so it was only the electronic equivalent of Black Crayola on Post-it―or possibly a mixed media collage using cardboard, Elmer's glue and headline typeface incised from the Akron Beacon Journal.

I'm probably overreacting to this poor old chap—he's getting up there in years—but it's on my mind because he just sent me more links to Infowars and Prison Planet and ended with a strained segue to The Chastisement™ and a call to conversion. All of this with zero percent insincerity, I'm fairly sure. I've learned that it's no use telegraphing that I'm not interested in this stuff because I know he feels called by God to blast his message to the ends of the earth via SMTP. How would he answer the Lord on Judgement Day if he took the name of a "lost sheep" off his email list? Still the conspiracy stuff just makes my head itch and I can't help reacting to some degree.