I'd Rather Laugh with the Sinners than Cry with the Saints, the Sinners are Much More Fun

What an odd combination. Yet of things I happen to be interested in. The story of the extinction of the Thylacine or "Tasmanian Tiger" is a tragic one, and I am fascinated by the possibility of cloning it back into existence, though recent attempts seem to have fizzled out. Some Christians don't like the idea of cloning animals but if they're not human, I don't really see the problem. Why is that any more unnatural than domestication, using them for food, using them for clothing, etc?

Of course, in a now infamous incident in American Catholic history, Billy Joel was banned from Notre Dame for playing this song after the administration told him not too.

How ridiculous. As if, on the one hand, hearing this song was going to cause people to lose their faith and fornicate and as if, on the other, simply banning it from a concert is going to preserve all those good-little Catholic college students' (ha!) "innocence". But, as I was describing earlier, "guilt" and "innocence" go hand in hand as expressions of self-righteousness.

Just in itself the attitude of those administrators confirms the song's suspicions about conservative Catholic paranoia over sexuality (and about "the sinners" being much more fun; that song is awesome!) For me, the imagery is ironically more meaningful as a believing Catholic. But, maybe that's only because I am a Sinner too. Who knows, if I were part of The Remnant of the Saved and Wholesome that makes up most of traditionalist and neoconservative Catholicism...maybe it would horrify me just as much.

And yet, horrifyingly, Obama spoke at Notre Dame trying to find "common ground" on abortion. Decades later, of course. Still, I've yet to hear that Billy Joel's ban has been lifted...