The stupidity of forum posters

I shouldn't care what anonymous people think.

After all, they are just words on a computer screen. No faces, no back story. I don't have to worry about running into anonymous people on Twitter or in forums at a bake sale for church, or in the paper towel aisle at the Wegman's.

So the fact that I give a shit what anyone says online is stupid. Convoluted. Makes no sense. Yet here I was last night, furiously typing away at the Catholic Answers Forum at people ridiculing The Catholic Channel (Sirius XM 129).

The post (an old one at that) started with someone bashing news commentator Bob Dunning, who has a show on the station. Mostly from people who think that if you lean left on ANYTHING, it means that you somehow hate unborn children and burn Bibles for kicks and giggles. Then the thread turned into "The Catholic Channel has gotten so bad lately," and bla bla bla.

Thanks to my friend Dan, I was alerted to such nonsense and posted my own two cents. My issue with these commenters? Nobody gives any kind of solid evidence as to why The Catholic Channel is inane and horrible, confusing their own personal tastes with the Cathecism of the Catholic Church.

I fired off my own posts. One of which just asked someone to give specific examples of how TCC causes hate and slander in others, and the other ripping someone for calling the station bad and inane.

"If you dislike TCC because it's not your style, that's fine," I wrote. "Im happy that there are so many options to enlighten and entertain folks. God bless EWTN for the joy they give others! But don't you dare belittle a station that is a God-send to some of us and label it "inane." That attitude is the only inane thing here."


As Tim Kitzrow of NBA Jam would have said, "He's on fire!" Or "ugly shot!" depending on which side of the fence you might be on.

Part of me feels like I might have gone overboard with that last post, but the other part of me feels justified. Yes I'm biased: I love the personalities on the station. Especially Lino Rulli, whose show not only helped me convert to Catholicism, but also led me to Allicia, whom I will marry in nine days.

I don't think those people realize how much damage they do by those disparaging words. It poisons, in my mind, other good Catholic media folks. I know it shouldn't, but when you hear someone criticize TCC for no good reason, then turn around and say, "Oh but I love EWTN and Al Kresta!!!" how can you not think to yourself, "There's no way I'm tuning into those stations."

It's stupid, it really is, to punish other media types like Al Kresta just because of what his message board fans have to say. But my mind still connects those dots, and makes me NOT want to give others a chance.

My mind is a mess.

But at the end of the day, I suppose that criticism is guaranteed if you are doing God's work. And God knows TCC has influenced others besides myself to get back into the faith. So I shouldn't get so upset when I see anonymous posters who clearly lead lives so sad that they thrive on criticizing a station that brings joy to so many people. It's not like their words are going to erode all the good things TCC and it's shows do for people's lives.

Still, I just wish the stupidity of others would stop glaring at my brain so much.

Give'em Cigarettes too!

Picked up knowledge on this story from Bob Dunning's Across The Nation on SiriusXM's The Catholic Channel yesterday. Apparently elementary school students in Massachusetts will have access to condoms. According to WHDH-TV in Boston,

Under the new policy at Veteran's Memorial Elementary School, which has students from pre-Kindergarten to the sixth grade, condoms will be available for any student of any age that asks.

Any age? Well surely you don't mean Kindergarden through 3rd grade, right?

“I don’t know a magic age to put on it, do you?” said Dr. Beth Singer, school superintendent.

 Yes, yes I do. How about no age at all? HAHAHAHA Singer, you are crazy!!! So funny too! I remember something else that's funny. Cancer! OK, that's not funny either, although I can't imagine that Singer was serious.

Speaking of cancer though, let's take her idea one step further. Presumably, the school is giving out condoms because "Well the kids are going to do it anyways, why not protect them?" EXACTLY!!! Which is why we should be giving them cigarettes!!!

No really! Not the bubble-gum kind, but honest-to-God nicotine and tobacco! The kids are going to smoke anyways, so why don't we pass out cigarettes that are extremely low in toxins! And we won't call their parents, we'll just let the counselor make the call if the fifth-grade student is mature enough to handle smoking.

It's a genius idea that I should really look into trying to pull off.

The story goes on to say that parents can't say no to the policy, although an update courtesy of The Boston Globe says that condoms will only be made available to students in grades 5-12.

Two huge, glaring flaws in this story. First, a parent should always be able to say no. Yeah we got some bad apple parents out there, but mom and dad should still get a say in how their child is educated sexually. Two (and I'm stealing this point from Dunning), a fifth-grader wanting condoms for sex (as opposed to blowing it up like a balloon) should raise all sorts of red flags.

Presumably, the fifth-grader will be having sex with another student. Let's say the girl asking for condoms is a fifth-grader in a K-8 school. How do we know that she isn't being pressured by some 8th-grade boy who wants to **** anything that moves? Sounds like abuse to me, but the school would never know. And if you don't think that kind of thing could happen, you're crazy.

Hell, just this past February, a middle-school student in Oregon was charged with SIX counts of first-degree sodomy. To think that middle-school peer pressure doesn't extend toward the sexual realm is naive here in 2010.

And even if you think that the 7th-grader asking for condoms is mature enough to make sexual decisions, well, he/she is not. According to this study from the American Journal of Sociology, young girls and boys engaging in sex can absolutely decimate their self esteem. So just because your child might be ready, there's no way to know if his partner is.

Perfect solution. If a middle-school student is asking for condoms so they can have sex, call the parents. Let them deal with it, instead of a school run by a woman who is intelligently bankrupt.

And a thief too, since she'll probably steal my cigarette idea.