Tetherd Cow Ahead

About a quarter of Australia’s population is self-declared as Christian Catholic.* Over the last few decades, the younger part of the population has been demonstrating a slow inclination to drift away from the conventional Christian Church (and indeed, organized religion altogether) but in about 20 days time in Sydney, the Catholic Church will attempt to reddress that trend by exerting its influence over the waning faith of the young people of Australia and holding an event that they are calling (some might say duplicitously) World ‘Youth’ Day.

Tourism New South Wales’s ‘Sydney’ page breathlessly gushes:

New South Wales looks forward to welcoming young people for World Youth Day 2008, the biggest event to be held in Australia, ever.

Poster and radio advertising around Sydney is urging people who are ‘not involved’ with World Youth Day to take a holiday or stay off the roads. The NSW Government is spending a small fortune on the event and the Catholic Church, notably the oleaginous and unpalatable Cardinal George Pell, is of course smirking all over the media.

I’m not entirely sure why, but if it is true that this is ‘the biggest event to be held in Australia, ever’† this makes me incredibly depressed. I intended to make this post a kind of jocular look at a silly phenomenon, in keeping with The Pope’s Cologne and Mother Teresa’s Breath Mist, but you know, I just don’t find it funny that at the beginning of the 21st Century, a two-thousand year old superstitious belief system has enough currency (metaphorically, practically and politically) to bring an entire modern city to a standstill. It’s particularly disheartening that this exercise is nominally aimed at young people – it’s hard not to be cynical about such things.

I often hear the argument, when it comes to religion, that it does no harm, and people should be able to make up their own minds about what they believe. While I disagree strongly that religion does no harm, I certainly approve of the concept that a person should be able to make up their own mind about it – with the caveat that they should also be given the tools to make their decision an informed one. This particularly applies to the young.

The Catholic Church has never been particularly squeamish about converting non-believers so I don’t expect that an event masquerading as Australia’s Biggest Sleepover is going to even register a blip on their moral radar, but in my opinion this is a sneaky, disingenuous ruse to attempt to lever more religious thought into a country that has been until recently making a slow but encouraging trek toward secularism (inherited religions notwithstanding).

I put this thought to you Cardinal Pell and Pope Benedict: if you’re really confident that God will come through with the goods, and you are morally committed to the betterment of young people as you claim, concentrate your efforts on giving them a proper education and the ability to make up their minds based on what we know to be true instead of attempting to indoctrinate them with intangible, absurd mythology while they are still impressionable. Give them the data and the brain tools and let them decide, when they come of age, whether or not to believe in a two-millennium-old fairy tale.

Surely, if you are right, and God really does exist, then you have nothing at all to be afraid of.

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*Statistics from the 2006 Australian census.

†I guess it depends on your definitions of ‘biggest’, ‘event’ and ‘ever’…

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While we’re on the subject of religious personal hygiene products… this just in courtesy of JR:

You can buy it here. Confuse Creationists today! Wear the Pope’s Cologne and have breath like Mother Teresa, whilst being an atheist!

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I’m pretty sure this is a joke. Thing is, with religion, you just can’t tell.

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Sheesh. The Catholic Church only ever really had one original idea and even that wasn’t terribly popular. Now they (or someone using their credentials anyway*) has gone into competition with Tetherd Cow Ahead and is treading on our turf…

PZ Myers over at Pharyngula brings to our attention a recent product to hit the Perfume Department shelves: The Pope’s Cologne. Long time readers of The Cow will know that this is well-worn territory in these parts, after our introduction in May 2006 of Lamb of God and prior to that (because we are not at all partisan here in The Cow Perfume Laboratories) of Satan’s preferred cologne Brimstone.

The Pope’s Cologne website claims to have in their possession the ‘private formula of Pope Pius IX’ and spruiks it as an “aristocratic, Old World cologne with suprising freshness…”. I hope their perfume chemistry is better than their spelling, but somehow I doubt it.

And we must wonder at the ‘suprising’ freshness. Why surprising (presuming that’s what they were trying to spell)? Is it because Pius IX is renowned as a smelly old bugger? Or did they whip it up out any old stuff they had lying around and then excitedly proclaim “Hey! Who’da thought turps and orange peel with a dash of kerosene would smell, like, fresh?”

The San Francisco Chronicle tells the story of the perfume’s rediscovery by Dr. Fred Hass, a general practitioner from California:

Hass found the purported recipe about seven years ago in a limited-edition 1963 cookbook published in the United States. The cookbook says the recipe is believed to have been passed down by the family of a French general who was in Pius’ papal guard.

One night, after a few glasses of wine with friends, he decided to make the concoction in his kitchen.

‘After a few glasses of wine with friends…’ Uh-huh. Lot’s of ‘great’ things happen like that.

“It was very pleasant,” said Hass’ cohort, Hank Sandbach of Sonoma, a retired vice president of Nabisco. “To think, if you close your eyes you’re in the presence of the pope. And if you splash a little on you get something even headier.”

Whoa there Hank! What exactly are you suggesting by that? Are you thinking, perhaps, that you chaps might have undersold yourselves there, now that the SF Chronicle has interviewed you, and that you should have tried, maybe, for God’s Perfume?

Here’s what Hass, undoubtedly aided by Hank’s expertise at the helm of Nabisco, came up with for the catchline for his scent:

The Pope’s Cologne ….a fresh new fragrance from the past.

Fresh. New. Two words not usually associated with the past. Usually things from the past are Old and Dusty. But hey.

Thing is, seeing as Pius IX was the Pope who declared Papal Infallibility as official Catholic Dogma I’m just suprised they missed the obvious marketing line:

The Pope’s Cologne. You simply CAN’T fail to impress.

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*Despite the use of one of their figureheads, the Catholic Church doesn’t appear to have anything to do with this venture.

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Oh, please Spaghetti Monster! Let this one prophecy be accurate!

The little Commentary discussion we’ve been having about humour here and at one of my favourite hangs in the blog-o-sphere The Joey Polanski Show over the last couple of days, has prompted me to consider something that I never thought I’d find myself doing on The Cow, and that is attempting to explain something from the point of view of The Cow’s funny bone.

As you know, my mind turns to musing from time to time, about matters big and small, and when I’m not dreaming about helium-filled donuts, concocting perfumes that Satan might wear, or excoriating Scientologists, I sometimes find myself pondering the really BIG questions of the universe. Like ‘What is it that makes us laugh?’

Joey’s post a haff-dozn jokes I wishd I coud take creddit for attracted a whole swag of japes from the Polanski Show cast, most of the gags pretty darn funny, a couple of them brilliantly so, some of them definitely on the long-paddock side of politically correct, and a couple yer usual run-of-the-mill pub jokes. I posted a few of my own favourites but I was reluctant to put up my most favourite, The Bee Joke, because I know from experience that about half the people I tell it to just don’t find it funny. At all.

So I told Joey I’d put it up on The Cow instead, and corral the humour in its own stockyard, so to speak. In the Comments on The Bee Joke, Joey told what I will call The Centurion Joke as a riposte, and, it is (in my mind anyway) exactly in the same vein of humour as The Bee Joke.

I never really feel the need to defend or elaborate on my humour here on The Cow. After all, it is my joint and if you’re here drinking my beer I expect you to laugh at my jokes. Even if it is just out of politeness. Sometimes I know that I really do make you laugh (mostly because you tell me), but very often I don’t have a clue how funny anyone really thinks my writing is*. And since I like The Bee Joke a whole lot, I’m pretty obviously not the best judge of what other people find funny…

Of course, Tetherd Cow Ahead isn’t really meant to a repository for just my sense of humour, but because I find humour one of the most important things in my life it is inevitable that The Cow, being a fairly good representation of my character (I think), will end up with its fair share of gags. And, the current banter at The Polanski Show notwithstanding, mostly I try to keep my shtick as original as I can. In some cases the laugh-quotient has largely been reasonable as far as I can judge (like my ‘God Creates‘ series and my Annunciations), but there has been one notable lead balloon in the Cow Comedy Cavalcade, and yes, those of you who are regulars have spotted it already: ‘Safety Craig‘.

Sadly, no-one really ‘got’ Safety Craig. It may be just the way I told it, but I think probably it’s because the humour in Safety Craig is kinda like The Bee Joke and The Centurion Joke. And like those two gags, I doubt I can really explain Safety Craig, but I’m going to give it a shot:

For a number of years while I was living in Sydney I used to see a handyman truck around my neighbourhood – ‘Jim’s Mowing’ I think was the name of the business. It featured a do-it-yourself low-rent tone dropout picture of Jim and some ‘handpainted’ style text: ‘Jim’s Mowing: Ph: 12 34 2323’ or something. I just used to assume that ‘Jim’ was some local guy who was a bit better organized than your average tradesman.

Well, on moving to Melbourne, I discovered that Jim lives here as well. Only, in these parts Jim has a painting business. And a pet-grooming business, a plumbing business, a fencing business, a roofing business, a tiling business and even a permaculture business. Jim is one busy guy.

As you have guessed, ‘Jim’s’ is a franchise. Only, it’s a franchise that’s trying really hard to not look like a franchise.† Now, when I figured this out, I started to look at all the other businesses around that use these ‘posterized’ generic faces combined with some homely first-name for their logos and I realized that they are all franchises! In a weird and subtle way, the Reverend A, who likes to pride himself on his high quality skepticism and incisive critical thinking had been duped by a ploy so vacuous and insipid that he is almost embarrassed to admit it!‡

And then one day, now alert to all these cleverly constructed ‘cottage industry’ style companies to-ing and fro-ing across suburban Australia (and I have no doubt across the entire entrepreneurial world) I saw a display set up in a mall for ‘Safety Dave‘.

Something went ‘ping’ in my brain.

Now I’m sure that Safety Dave’s products are all worthwhile, just as I’m sure Jim, and Bob, and Carol, and Ted, and Alice, and all those other franchise denominators provide service of fair enough quality. Otherwise they wouldn’t still be in business. But the thing that made me feel slightly unsettled was that ‘Safety Dave’ and all these other friendly chaps and chapesses weren’t actually telling the truth about themselves. Well, not so much not telling the truth as letting the customer think something about them that wasn’t exactly accurate. And Safety Dave was asking us to put our safety in his hands…

Hence the invention of ‘Safety Craig’. The point is, of course, that Safety ‘Craig’ can’t get away with being anonymous, so instead of following the instinct to ‘trust’ him, as we might with ‘Jim’ or ‘Dave’ we must make our brains wary of his advice. And his advice is the kind our parents used to offer when we were kids, and is, on the whole, pretty much good sound advice, if a little annoying. So the contrast between those two things was supposed to be funny.

Like I said. Lead balloon. But now you know.

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*I’m talking about when I’m trying to be funny, of course. I don’t count the possibly numerous occasions on which people have found my serious ponderings mirthful.

†These days Jim’s looks a fair bit more corporate, and the logo a bit more ‘stylish’ as you can see by their website, but it wasn’t always so.

‡And so you see: such is my commitment to The Cow, that I am prepared to endure public ridicule in the service of truth!

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