Top ten Pius Blog posts, March 2014: Politics, sex, comic books, music.

At one point, it felt like that my blog's top ten posts changes.  Which is most popular and which aren't.



These are the top ten all time best blogs, as of now.

Sex and Comics?

1.  Who would Captain America Vote For? An election special. (October 29, 2012) Politics has been a major selling point for the blog, it seems.  When I did this blog post in time for the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, I had no idea that it would become so insanely popular. But then again, given the next one on the list, I guess it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise.



2. Sex, DC Comics, and ... wtf? (October 3, 2011) You remember this, right? It seems everyone has read it, probably twice. It was a study of DC Comics and their mistreatment of two of their better female characters. It includes, sex, sex, and more sex. And writing.  This is post is over two and a half years old now, and still going strong. I wonder why ....



For that answer, meet me over at #3...

3  Disasters to Marvel At: A Comic Discussion.  One of the longest-running posts on this list (Nov 8, 2010), and constantly in the top ten, this was a brief look at the past five to six years of Marvel Comics' history of absolute garbage. Looking at the top three, I need to find a way to make my blog about comic books, sex, and politics.



4. Snarky Theology 4: "Things that go boink in the night." See? Sex sells. I just need to find out how I can sell a book over how it's not sexualized. That should be fun.  Anyway, I can credit my friend Jason for this title. I mentioned I wanted the Catholic position on sex. The title was the first thing that leapt to his mind. I guess it worked.  This has been constantly popular since March of 2011. Maybe people are stopping by  JUST for the well thought-out theological discussion on the sexual nature of the human person.



Or sex.

Meet Mandy.
MY "SCF."

5. SFCS -- Strong Female Character Syndrome (August 19, 2013). This is the most recent post on the list, and it surprised me. It amounted to a simple rant of mine in which I ripped someone a new one over her idiotic interpretation of women in films. It had some valid points, but used the worst examples EVER.



I got your strong female characters right here for ya.



6. Self defense review: Zombies, Women's self defense, Barbara Sheehan (10/26/11).  I'm not sure why this one is so popular. All of the links are broken, and can't be fixed.



7. Someone has jumped the shark: women and military scifi (January 23, 2012). Tor, who seems to have become my favorite punching bag, decided to take an open-handed slap to their competition, mostly through libel.



Libel? How so? As in: "Oh, all of THOSE people are sexist, but WE are as pure as the driven snow".... give me a break.



Again, a blog about politics and sex ... sort of.



Maybe I really should find a way to make this blog about sex, politics and comic books.

8. Black Friday blog: Book shopping. On November 15, 2013, I tried to cash in for friends of mine, mostly because I really liked their books, and because people really needed to buy gifts. Books are always useful ... okay, and because I wanted to easily hock my books on twitter. Is that so wrong?  Apparently not, because a LOT of folks have shown up to take a look at this one.



9. Music: the Eye of the Storm: Fenton  This is a bit of a surprise. One part Cruxshadows, and one part killer sheep, this has been up since June 23, 2011 -- when I was going a little nutty on posting everything at once.

10. Writing A Pius Man, Part 5: A Love Story?  Okay, this one I can't explain. At all. I have no idea why people flock to this one. Is it because it's romance? Is it because it's about writing?  Is it because I used to have an amazingly stunning woman on the post? Maybe. 

Sex, politics and comic books. Oy!

So, twas the week after the election, and all through the nation, you had 19-petitions to secede, from places as diverse as Texas to New York, a wave of people want to get the heck away from Barack Obama.



What does that have to do with this blog? Nothing. Nothing at all.  Except for the fact that the top ten blog posts of all time  for A Pius Man has to do with either sex, politics, or comic books.  So, somehow, I have to link up Obama's appearance in Spider Man with the latest sex scandal, and I will have the ultimate blog post -- especially if I have a musical interleud by Two Steps From Hell.



If one is to believe social media, there is no allowing for a middle of the road approach aht-wing friends are somewhat sane-ish (no one I know is completely sane), but some of the left-wingers were so loud for so long with some pretty heavy-duty insults, I had to defriend some of them, and blockatleast one altogether from Facebook.  There was a "worship Obama and watch only MSNBC" or "you're an evil, right-wing homophobic 1%-er with no human decency, and that goes double if you're Catholic."  And if you're Catholic, you're old-fashioned and stupid.



And after Obama won, it got worse.



And, of course, whenever someone was called out on it -- such as "I hold the belief you're pissed off about, you think I'm evil?" -- the reply of everyone is a standard, "Oh, I don't mean you!"  But after a while, when they make no distinctions between "you" the "friend" and all of those people who are evil for even holding an opinion contrary to their own .... yes, they do mean you. I mean, hell, when they say that you're a threat to humanity, you hate people (women, puppies and Christmas), and you start to get the impression that if a church filled with Catholics were blown up, they would celebrate, and maybe shed a tear or two when they found out you were in it.



After Kathey Giffords was shot by deeply psychotic Jared Loughner, we were all told that rhetoric kills, and we all have to be civil.  Where did that go?



If you're now wondering about my politics, I covered them here, so you can save your desparaging remarks.  Frankly, I'm on the side of civility, and right now, the loud, utterly psychotic ranting is coming from the left side, and I see no one on the left throwing a net over their more insane members. Read through the article on my politics and when I'm no longer being labeled as evil for even having opinions on these topics, then we can talk.



Now, if the current atmosphere keeps up, I'm sure I can get more blog viewers by tacking hard to one political end or the other. I'd rather not, because I like holding onto what sanity I have with both hands, and maybe my teeth.



I'm also sure I can get more readers by introducing sex as a topic more often... but, again, I'd rather not.



And I stopped reading comic books a while ago.



If I do not hear back from Chesterton Press by the end of the year, I will give self-publishing a try on A Pius Man.  It'll take me a while though. So, we'll see what goes on here. And, with any luck, it'll work.   But I'd much rather not. Really, I'd rather not.



I'm out. And I'll talk to you all later. Hopefully, I'll have a topic next time, as opposed to these vague meandering posts that barely have a point.

Osama's death. One week later.

If you are sick and tired of listening to anything to do with Osama bin Laden, I recommend my short story from Saturday, "One Way to Stay Out of Jail." It has action, humor, and staying one step ahead of both cops and robbers.  Enjoy.

Now, onto this week ......

As more and more details leak out about Osama bin Laden's death, the situation becomes more, um, interesting.

I will, for the moment, ignore conflicting reports.  One report had Osama using a wife for a human shield. Another said he was simply shot outright, and the wife was still alive. We had help from Pakistan. Pakistan knew nothing about it. Pakistan supports our efforts, Pakistan threatens to blow us out of the sky if we ever do that again .....  One report by Eric Holder said that bin Laden's assassination was in "national self-defense." Bin Laden wasn't olding launch codes to a nuclear arsenal, and, to some accounts, didn't even have a weapon inside the mansion he was living in. If this was "national self defense," it must have been a "preemptive strike."  Or it was simply an assassination. So, we'll see exactly how the details shape up in the long run.
[More below the break]

Catholic Conspiracies II: Revenge of the Vatican Ninjas.

Last week, I mentioned that the vast, massive conspiracy theories about the Catholic Church amuse me. I discussed some specific issues and theories, but I find them all funny, almost no matter the details. Why?

Dear God in Heaven, where do I start?



The theories are so ludicrous, I hardly know where to begin.



SECRET SOCIETIES



One running theme of most of the conspiracy theories is that there is a “conspiracy of silence” running around within the Vatican, the hierarchy, an order, pick one or all. This pops up in almost any fiction where a Catholic priest appears.



Given the news of the last decade, anyone should see an immediate problem. Not only does the Church of Rome write everything down, they never throw anything out. This is a bureaucracy that has held onto the divorce petition from Henry VIII of England, written in the early 16th century.  We've held onto it for nearly five hundred years, and we haven't thrown it out yet.



If there were a conspiracy in the church, there will likely be paperwork to document it, and they'd hold onto it with their dying breath. Bad habit for a conspiracy.



But, the way I look at it, the Vatican is essentially the world's biggest marble office building, complete with Dilberts and the occasional pointy-haired boss … or pointy-hatted boss.



In the current day and age, any bureaucracy can keep a secret for a few years. But two thousand? Really?



My major problem with that idea isn't so much a matter of my religious background (Catholic), my educational background (history and Philosophy), or anything of the sort. Bureaucracies tend to leak like a sieve. Even the army and law enforcement.



The FBI spawned Deepthroat—a loser who got passed over for promotion.



The Pentagon—Pentagon papers, anyone?



Most intelligence agencies have politicians in the mix somewhere, so that'll screw over practically anyone …



You can have whistle blowers in practically any organization...



The Catholic Church is also a bureaucracy. One disgruntled employee is all you need. End of secret.



Last week, I mentioned that one organization in the Church people like to pick on is the Society of Jesus, a.k.a., the Jesuits.



The Jesuits started as a missionary order, and tended to go out to new worlds, seek out new civilizations, boldly go where no man had gone before … and sometimes get eaten by the locals. Now a teaching order, they've spawned more stupidity than orthodoxy in the Church. If you look up Liberation Theology, Jesuits had a hand in spawning that steaming pile of theological gruel--a gruel that has been banned by every Pope since its inception.



The other order that conspiracy theorists like to shoot at is the Opus Dei … Where do I start? According to reporter John A. Allen, all you need to do to get the Opus Dei to open up is buy them a few rounds. Then the trouble becomes trying to shut them up.



And the biggest problem with using them in a conspiracy: Opus Dei is primarily a lay organization. Of it's nearly 90,000 members, only 2% are priests. I'm sorry, a Catholic organization of civilians are going to be privy to ancient secrets and conspiracies? There is a disconnect here.



THE MUSCLE



Also, I have another problem, one that has great big flashing red lights. All of these big secrets, threats to the Catholic Church, maybe even all of Christendom, are being eliminated. Lives are snuffed out, voices silenced.



Depending on who you ask, Catholics killed President Lincoln and JFK, and we're pulling the strings behind President Obama.



With the tinfoil helmet brigade, the Vatican is so scary, covers up so much, silences so many, controls so much of the planet even in THIS day and age.  Then we have to have muscle men.  We must have kneebreakers  This must mean that the Pope has his own personal assassination squad. People to kill at the nod of his pointy hat … wait.



Matt's Vatican Ninja rendering

Does this mean … that the Vatican has Ninjas?



Hmm, Vatican Ninjas … I wondered why all of those ancient Soviet leaders dropped dead after John Paul II was shot.

I can see it now. Dark, shadowy figures clad in the blue and gold colors of the Swiss Guard. Each of them either Swiss with Special Forces background, or former soldiers who join the priesthood. Once they join the shadowy ranks of the Papal hitmen, they are taught to kill up close with a rosary-garrote. When you turn your back, they smack you over the head with a halberd.  For longer distances, a boomerang shaped like a cross comes out of the darkness and takes down armed guards (It worked in the video game Castlevania).

 

And maybe, just maybe, they can have Throwing Stars of David for every time they worked with the Mossad.

Vatican Ninjas would be awesome!

I want my Vatican Ninjas!

Sigh … I guess I'll have to write my own.

How would I do it?  Simple: the Catholic Church has a screening process to weed out psychos, pederasts, etc.  That's why the majority of bad priests were ordained before the new screening process was installed (I say "new screening process", but it came out in the early 90s).  If I wanted to create actual Vatican Ninjas, I would forward all of the "psycho" pile to a special division, where they can weed out the "special" ones, ones that can be sent to training to Kill For the Lord!  Muahahahaha! 

Problem: who wants a psycho as a hirling?  Seriously?  While the priesthood MUST, statistically, get some nutjobs applying to their ranks, who'd want to bring in a crazy who's impossible to control?  I mean, that's as out there as having an assassin who is a psychotic albino monk with a bad limp ....



Oh, wait, nevermind.

The biggest problem: back to the pointy-hatted Dilbert boss, and the Vatican bureaucracy.  If there were Vatican Ninjas, there would be enough memoirs from them by now to fill a library.

End of the day, the vast conspiracies around and about the Vatican are laughable. In America, our Bishops don't have the charisma to lead a pack of vampires to a blood bank.  Trying to get people to actually teach the faith correctly seems to be impossible (my Catholic schools were nothing to write home about). We can hardly get Cardinals to line up in a row, or organize halfway decent public relations, yet the Vatican is supposed to be leading the charge to take over the world.

Right now, I would sooner believe in a "conspiracy" once jokingly suggested to me by R. Hendershot: that Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer are in a plot to overhype their books to the entire universe.

However, if there is someone out there in charge of accounting for this vast, Roman Catholic conspiracy, I want a paycheck. Thank you.

 

And this is my rendering of a Vatican Ninja.

This is why I'm grateful to Matt.

And what am I going to be doing tonight?

Why, what I do every night …

TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!!!



On paper.

With my Vatican Ninjas.

Muahaha.

Catholic Conspiracies: The Illuminati Polka and the attack of the Vatican Ninjas.

 

I have decided to make this a comedy posting. Why?



Recently, I went looking for a book on one end of the crazy spectrum. The book had been (loosely) based on an episode during World War II, and it was supposed to “prove” that Pope Pius XII could not qualify as “Hitler's Pope.” Instead, this conspiracy theory had Pope Pius XII using the Jesuits to assassinate Adolf Hitler in World War II.



It was called Vatican Assassins.



On the one hand, it really covered an actual incident during the war: where German Generals who wanted to kill Hitler had expressed a desire to use Pius XII as an intermediary. The Generals thought that Pius XII could be a neutral party when talking to the British, laying the groundwork for a truce after they had assassinated Hitler. Obviously, the plan didn't work, since Hitler killed himself years later.

Vatican Ninja, by Matt

On the other hand ... Vatican Ninjas?  Are we serious?

Okay, Vatican Ninjas would be cool, but that's next week....

Or I can show a very well done photo by Matthew Funtime, for extra gratuitous coolness....

As for Vatican Assassins, I had originally stumbled across this work six years ago, when I first researched the entire matter of “Hitler's Pope” for a graduate paper. This was a few months before I even started writing A Pius Man. Perhaps an entire year before the book.

Recently, I wanted a laugh, and I wanted to see if anything had happened with this particular nutjob and his Vatican Ninjas.



So, I put Vatican Assassins into an Amazon search, and then Google …



Oh my dear God, the results I got…



Eric Jon Phelps: Vatican Assassins: Wounded in the House of my Friends. This, um, interesting work exposes THE TRUTH, about how the Jesuits killed President Lincoln on the orders of the Pope. They also assassinated John F. Kennedy. (paging Oliver Stone, someone is stealing your plot).  It includes a "History Of The Jesuit Order" … I don't even know where to start on this one.



Vaticanassassins.org: which discusses “Obama's White Papal Masters.” Apparently Rome has taken over the White House; I didn't know that we supported the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell.



Thewatcherfiles.com: “Vatican Assassins Ordered Attack on WTC World Trade Towers.” Again, the head of the Jesuits is to blame here. The dark, mysterious figure of “The Black Pope,” who everyone knows about (the colors of the Jesuits are black … and black … he lives in Rome, hence “Black Pope”). Proclaimed as welcoming “the New World Order,” a catchphrase of nutjobs for, at a guess, longer than I've been alive.



Also in books, I got: The Entity: Five Centuries of Secret Vatican Espionage.  The "Entity" is supposed to be the Vatican spy service.  The description?

"The Entity has been involved in the killings of monarchs, poisonings of diplomats, financing of South American dictators, protection of war criminals, laundering of Mafia money, manipulation of financial markets, provocation of bank failures, and financing of arms sales to combatants even as their wars were condemned, all in the name of God. The contradiction between God’s justice and Earth’s justice, Christian beliefs and Christian power all fall before the motto of the Entity: With the Cross and the Sword."

Nod very slowly, and back away.  Someone here is a little crazy.

Another book: The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia.  Obviously, written by someone who saw Godfather III



WTF?



And, a classic: a 1983 “Secret History of the Jesuits.”   In this book, we are apparently not only responsible for one, but two, count 'em, two world wars.

I'm going to give you one guess, and only one guess: what is the ONLY offensive thing I have found in all of these crackpot conspiracy theories, strange, delusional fantasies, and utter comedy routine?  If you have guessed that it is the image on the right, you guessed correctly

So, at the end of the day, instead of finding a ludicrous conspiracy theory based (very) loosely on an actual event (and that hit every branch of the crazy tree on the way down), I found a whole bunch of borderline schizophrenic theories, brought to you by the tinfoil hat brigade.

Now, it might be me.  It might be I'm strange.  For the most part, I find these people funny. Then again, the theories are so ludicrous, I hardly know where to begin.



At random, shall we start with the Jesuits assassinating President Lincoln? I don't know why the Catholic Church would want to kill him, but before even reading the book or the rest of the book's description, I'm already laughing. Why? Because President Lincoln requested that the Vatican create American Cardinals, moving the United States out of missionary status. Lincoln wanted the Catholic Church in town as an actual establishment. Considering that this was within the decade before Thomas Nast's anti-Catholic propaganda were popular, I can only think this is the closest a non-Catholic like Lincoln could get to being supportive of Rome.



Or, we could look at President Barack H. Obama's "White Papal Masters"..... how anyone can say it with a straight face is beyond me.  As a Democrat, last time I checked, Obama supports abortion in America. He supported the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Funny, I didn't know that Rome supported either of the above.



So, let me get this straight: the Vatican kills people who support us (Lincoln) and controls people with principles that are the opposite of what it publicly postulates …



And, of course, the Vatican started World War II .... a war that tore apart and butchered six million Polish citizens, half of whom were Catholic.  Because, after all, it's an institution that's been around for soooooo long, it can afford to lose three million people like that.



I'd continue, but I'm too busy laughing.  The authors of these various works might have had less than savory motives, or they might even believe this drivel.  If they believe it, they have my condolences, and my suggestion that they see a good shrink. These are almost as stupid as Godfather III, where the theory was that Pope John Paul I, who died within a month of being elected Pontiff, had been assassinated by the people involved in ripping off the Vatican Bank. (Let's completely ignore that Albino Luciani, before becoming John Paul I, had a crappy medical history; if anyone knew what sort of shape he had been in, he would never have been elected. But you can't talk some people out of a good conspiracy.)



And you thought people had a lot of conspiracy theories about the Illuminati.



This is so bad it's laughable. Not to mention that the Jesuits, the root of all of the conspiracy theories, have basically been running amok with “Liberation Theology”-- a concept that had been condemned by the Pope. So, the Jesuits, “the spooooooooky Vatican assassins,” have been at odds with the Popes for at least thirty years. Maybe forty.  And, somehow, the Popes of that time period were not, and have not, been assassinated. Hmm, funny that.



As my friend Jason noted, when I first told him of this blog idea, “[T]he only [C]atholic conspiracy I can buy is that 'Yes, we want Notre Dame to win in the NCAA'. But that goes without saying.”



UPDATE: Part 2: Revenge of the Vatican Ninjas.