Just by the by, commenters on last week’s Exit, voice, loyalty thread who wanted to be deleted from the baptismal register of their churches may be interested in a 2003 ruling by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner. A man contacted the parish priest asking to have his name removed from the baptismal register, saying he had been enrolled in the church against his will and did not want the church to keep any of his personal data.
The priest found no record of the baptism – the man was living in Holland and seems to have had bad information – but suggested that a reasonable solution would in any case be to add a note to the record saying the man no longer wished to be associated with the Catholic church. The Data Protection Commissioner agreed, finding the priest’s suggestion both appropriate and considerate, and noting that the register was a factual statement of an event. Which seems fair enough from the data protection point of view, but probably no consolation to people baptised as Catholics who do not wish to be counted as such.
As to myself, I figure I’m better off inside the tent, pissing in. I did perform an act of protest, though. The day after Benedict XVI’s election as pope, I took out my shortest skirt, pulled on my highest heeled FMBs, and flounced the mile and half to work. It was one just as (in)effective as anything else I could think of and made road-crossing surprisingly easy.
{ 28 comments }
Barry 04.26.05 at 11:45 am
What are FMB’s?
Maria 04.26.05 at 11:49 am
Oh dear, it’s actually a rather rude expression that’s possibly only used in the UK. Suddenly I’m coming over coy…
des von bladet 04.26.05 at 11:52 am
You could always answer with jpegs. We like jpegs!
(It’s “Fuck-me boots”, derived from “Fuck-me shoes”, as first popularised by Germaine Greer commenting on, IIRC, then-Grauniad columniste Joanne Moore’s dubious feministe credentials, on Have I Got News For You, a satirical television programme. M’lud.)
RS 04.26.05 at 11:52 am
F**k me boots(1). Coy my arse as we say in the UK.
(1) only did that in case there are any silly restrictions in the comment software.
Morris 04.26.05 at 11:55 am
hmmmm…the expression I’ve heard in the U.S. is CFM’s — C=Come, M=Me, and F stands for the most naughty of all the 4-letter words.
Perhaps FMB means — F=same as above, M=same as above, and B=Boy (or maybe Bitch)
Is this correct?
des von bladet 04.26.05 at 11:55 am
But where they really the “highest heeled FMBs” (= the highest ones with heels) or the “highest-heeled FMBs” (= those with the highest heels)?
In these carelessly punctuated times of ours perhaps only jpegs can really settle this important point about which enquiring, if not especially wholesome, minds wish to know.
dave heasman 04.26.05 at 12:22 pm
“Germaine Greer commenting on, IIRC, then-Grauniad columniste Joanne Moore”
close, Des – Suzanne Moore – of whom little has been heard for a while.
Steve 04.26.05 at 12:45 pm
Aside from the acronym, you dissented on the selection of the new Pope by wearing a short skirt and high heels? You’re a nut.
Steve
jet 04.26.05 at 12:46 pm
I picked up Freakonomics and have been enjoying the subject of incentives. So as an incentive for jpegs, in exchange for said jpegs, those who desire them will take under strong consideration Maria’s choice Congressional candidates in 2006.
Hot pics of smart chicks in exchange for multiplied political power. An exhange made in heaven ;)
Dick Durata 04.26.05 at 12:51 pm
Hey, I tried the skirt-shoes trick and all it got me was a lot of abuse and a bunch of people trying to run me down. Is it because I’m not Catholic?
y81 04.26.05 at 1:23 pm
How did people know that you were protesting Ratzinger and Andrea Dworkin?
y81 04.26.05 at 1:29 pm
Obviously, I meant to say: “and not Andrea Dworkin.”
P ONeill 04.26.05 at 1:31 pm
Washington DC-based Church dissidents have the option of giving a supporting honk to the priest child abuse protestor who’s been outside the papal nuncio’s place for years. As an added bonus, it might annoy Cheney’s people as well, across the street.
Rich Skrenta 04.26.05 at 1:40 pm
” I took out my shortest skirt, pulled on my highest heeled FMBs”
That’s my kind of social protest.
yabonn 04.26.05 at 1:56 pm
I did perform an act of protest, though. The day after Benedict XVI’s election as pope, I took out my shortest skirt, pulled on my highest heeled FMBs, and flounced the mile and half to work.
Hasta la victoria siempre.
Henry 04.26.05 at 1:57 pm
Is that what that place is. This is the bloke carrying the signs on Mass. Ave heading up towards Tenleytown, nicht wahr? Didn’t realize that it was the nuncio’s palace he was picketing.
steve kyle 04.26.05 at 1:57 pm
note from the USA. My wife uses the term FMP’s which are “Fuck Me Pumps”
Apparently, you can get fucked without your boots on. Any kind of footwear will do.
Paul 04.26.05 at 2:41 pm
Hot pics of smart chicks in exchange for multiplied political power
Jet will happily trade his fantasies of political power to Maria in exchange for images enabling his fantasies of sexual power.
What a fine demonstration of the “information economy” at work.
Maria 04.26.05 at 2:58 pm
Jet, you are bad! Just as well I can’t get my camera pictures onto the computer as you’d be eyeballing a close up of my smelly running shoes.
And yes, the whole point of the ‘protest’ was that there was no point. Some political acts are instrumental, but this one was purely expressive. And highly enjoyable.
I can’t believe everyone’s so much more interested in profanity than data protection. And there I was thinking it’s me that brings the tone down around here.
John Emerson 04.26.05 at 6:05 pm
In Portland OR ca. 1980 there was a theoretical argument as to whether high heels or sandals were the proper FM footwear. As I remember, Birkenstocks were described as birth control shoes.
Barry Freed 04.26.05 at 6:15 pm
Um…to cop a line from the Cramps, what color panties were you wearing? Or was it a thong? Or maybe, no panties?
I can’t believe I just wrote that. And on CT* no less.
(That brings to mind the other meaning for that acronym.)
I’ll blame it on Spring, though that doesn’t obviate the pressing need for me to do penance:
Ave Maria…
Keith M Ellis 04.26.05 at 6:23 pm
I so enjoy Maria’s infrequent CT posts. I protest that they are not ore frequent than they are. Expressively.
Digital Amish 04.26.05 at 8:20 pm
My goodness! An interesting post that could raise questions about the future of the Catholic church in Europe and No. America where it is already losing market share. A discussion of a cultural schism inside the Church? No – almost total concentration on Maria’s attire. So much for intellectual discorse on the internet.
P.S. Next time Maria, how about posting a damn picture, you tease.
LogicGuru 04.26.05 at 11:25 pm
OK, when will the other FMB drop? I’ve seen tee-shirts saying “Benedict XVI–the cafeteria is closed” but otherwise not a peep. Are we waiting for clear provocation–an infallible pronouncement concerning the “complementary” character of the sexes, the “disordered” nature of same-sex relationships or the unfitness of Turkey for admission to the EU before the riots start?
I understand that fundamentalist Protestants are ecstatic about Benedict. Forget about those theological niceties–Papal Infallibility, salvation by Faith or Works, Purgatory, Immaculate Conception, Transubstantiation. The real cut between “people of faith” and the damned secularists is about sex and Social Security privitization.
nick 04.26.05 at 11:50 pm
All I’ll say is that I once changed my parish church (and began attending more regularly) because of a girl who wore boots to Mass. That’s sixth-form Catholicism for you.
Jon H 04.27.05 at 9:37 am
“OK, when will the other FMB drop? I’ve seen tee-shirts saying “Benedict XVI—the cafeteria is closed†but otherwise not a peep”
How about a t-shirt with a friar, and an altar boy, in their habits/robes/whatever, with the caption “The Roman Catholic Church. Home Of The Zipless Fuck.”
If you want to kick the offensiveness up a notch, it could use a picture of the pope instead of a friar.
Nabakov 04.28.05 at 5:52 am
That would be Triar Fuck, I presume jon h.
As to protesting, I’ve always preferred the old favourite of visiting a cathouse in rented vestments and asking if men of cloth get a discount on the day’s “special”. Then you flog ’em a few indulgences on yer way out.
JR 04.28.05 at 4:06 pm
Was the skirt plaid?
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