DUNG AND DEATH

Now, there's one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home, and you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II?" -- you won't have to say, "Well, I shoveled s--t in Louisiana." George Patton

Doubtful Dan unwittingly telegraphs so much in his "Bishop's (?)  Corner"-- in addition, of course, to the weekly weather almanac. Since he wears a contemptuous heart on his sleeve, the dirtbag can't help revealing his real opinion of the overburdened souls who waste so much of their treasure and lives on his moribund cult and spendthrift junketeering. Last week's message, with its foul -- or should we say fowl? -- scatological allusions, is a perfect example.

It's a nasty subject, and we're revolted that Dannie brought it up, but comment we must.

As Dan-O announced the passing of a Gertie, he couldn't resist humiliating the deceased. (He's always got to demean others, even supporters.) Instead of eulogizing the man's virtues in elevated terms, Dunghill Dan focused on the late gentleman's membership in the "shovel brigade," the cult's now disbanded chain gang that cleared the path for Dannie's showy processions by "shoveling away the goose droppings in all weather."

Gag us with a spoon! Of all the good deeds this soul must have performed in a lifetime of thankless service to the ungrateful cult masters, what on earth possessed Dannie to single out his removing the accumulated splats of pathogenic, parasite-infested goose excrement? Did "One Hand" honestly imagine so repulsive an image to be a fitting, tasteful memorial? Is that how the man's grieving children and grandchildren want him remembered? Or was His Gracelessness trying to intimate that people should be happy to do anything for him?

Look: we don't question the humility of someone who, for the love of God, undertakes such a filthy, debasing assignment. May a heavenly crown be his. Our objection is that work-shirking Wee Dan, who would never lift a finger in so lowly an effort, chose to memorialize this man by choosing -- in the Sunday bulletin no less, mind you -- this particular contribution among the many the gentleman surely must have made.  At a time when bereaved family and distraught friends anticipated a noble, uplifting reminiscence from their cult leader, Li'l Dan chose to leave them with the lowliest, most ignoble of images of the dearly departed, as if he mattered for nothing more than keeping Dannie's shoes -- and sensibilities -- unstained.

Although "One Hand" expressed rhetorical amazement at such an "act of penance," we question whether he or his sidekick, the Checkmeister, would do the same. (Such penance is for the "little people," you know.) The dirty work, however, apparently still needs doing, for Wee Dan wrote, "The shovel brigade is no more, and we Rosary marchers have had plenty of opportunity to get in a little Fatima penance along with our processional prayers." 

We're puzzled at this remark. Instead of stepping in the goose crap and calling it penance, why not remove it yourself before the procession? You'd still get to do your penance, and you'd have made the trek more edifying for the faithful processionists. As for us pragmatic Readers, we'd rather hose the nasty goop off the blade of a long-handled shovel than scrape it from our dress shoes!

The laity have seemingly wised up and won't help out any longer. They know their master won't do the things he asks of his followers. (Real leaders eat last and lead by example.) Perhaps that's why Dannie frantically implored

Almighty God to raise us up five, ten, fifteen more such men; examples to others, strong in their faith, active in church, generous in giving of themselves. The work must and does go on, and we must go on, but this is the help we require, and beg of God’s grace.

It looks like Wee Dan's reached the end of his rope: he's running out of pliant serfs, and unless he gets some more, he might have to work -- or retire. The cult's menfolk must have figured out that they're being used. Yeah, sure, you still hear from some of the old timers the empty bar talk, "I'd go to hell for 'Bishop' Dolan," but plainly these brash loud mouths won't shovel bird poo for His Delicacy. (If they keep on stroking Wee Dan's big ego, these brown-nosers may get a chance to make good on their boast to journey to the nether regions. And then these adulators will most likely end up in Bolgia 2.* Wouldn't that be ironic!)

After the SGG School scandal, Dannie and the Cheeseball can no longer easily dragoon the laity into doing work they themselves avoid, nor will they lower themselves to serve as an "example to others" and pick up where the "shovel brigade" left off.  Therefore, we ask, Why doesn't "One Hand" order his three doubtfully ordained, younger stooges to grab a barn shovel and get scraping. After all, isn't there a proverb that says, "many hands make light work"? You may have noticed, too, that one of those goofballs clearly could use the exercise. The added benefit is he might be kept so busy he wouldn't be able to make a fool of himself on Restoration Radio.

Dannie, however, is always resourceful when it comes to avoiding unpleasant work that he can't make others perform and for which he's unwilling to pay. (He knows those young louts of his would bristle at the command, and with his Mexicali, Mexico, trip looming on the horizon, he'll want to keep every penny for himself.) Like every challenge, it looks as if he'll just bury his head in the sand. As Dan pondered, probably in hopes of shaming someone into volunteering:

 I have been vaguely thinking about moving the procession across the street next year, where it is a bit quieter. That way we would not have to compete with the cars and traffic – and geese.

That's just like Do-nothin' Dan. If someone won't do it for him, and he and his clown crew haven't the stomach for the work themselves, he hides from the problem -- just as in November 2009. Good from him! Although his bad decisions five years ago assured that the cult center will never become a "sermon in stone," it now has a good chance of becoming an "oration in ordure."

DON'T LET YOUR EULOGY READ:

"HE SCOOPED GOOSE POOP FOR DUBIOUS DAN."

GET OUT OF  SGG TODAY!

* The wry commenter who sent us the Italian verse fable of the toad and the hen will surely have caught our allusion to Dante's Inf. xviii. 113-117 and the punishment of flatterers:  Vidi gente attuffata in uno sterco,/Che dagli uman privati parea mosso:/E mentre ch'io là giù con l'occhio cerco,/Vidi un col capo sì di merda lordo,/Che non parea s'era laico o cherco.  (Le Opere di Dante Alighieri, ed. E. Moore and P. Toynbee, Oxford University Press, 1963). We translate literally: I saw people immersed in a dung/That appeared sloshed from human latrines:/And while I search with the eye down there/ I saw one with a head so soiled with fecal matter,/That it did not appear if he was layman or cleric.