EWTN
5817 Old Leeds Rd.
Irondale, AL 35210
(205) 271- 2900
viewer@ewtn.com
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Last week, having fallen asleep watching EWTN, I woke to the
sound of Bishop Sheen's Life is
Worth Living
[Gloom, Laughter,Humor]. It began with B.Sheen cocking his
yarmulke
off to the side to get a laugh, and saying he once knew a Bishop who
wore his cocked forward to hide the fact he's lost his hair.
Anon, he
rued that today we can no longer tell jokes about Jews, Italians, etc.;
and what a shame we had lost capacity to make fun of ourselves.
This resonated. As a kid in Chicago,
attending
St. Francis Borgia, our homework assignment every Monday was to watch Life is Worth Living. We were
grilled the next day by Father Theissen, lest we had instead
played hooky
and watched Sid Caesar—like our public school brethren did.
Our parish
was a melting pot of Italian, Polish and Irish. Ethnic humor was
a
staple; nobody took offense at being lampooned by "Dago" or "Polack"
jokes. Of course, being called a stupid 'Mick" by someone you
didn't
know was a fighting offense; it was all in the intent. Then came Political Correctness, the movement
pushed by educators like Donna Shalala to control speech; but
I digress.
I tried to record the audio from the beginning, but was watching (Live Broadcast)
on my iPad (using the EWTN app), and couldn't go back. I checked
to
see if it was scheduled for repeat, and yes! Saturday, March 29
at
6PM! Click-click I scheduled it, and was on hand to watch it
live.
Guess what?
In an act of bodacious irony, it seems that somebody at EWTN deemed the
"cannot tell jokes about
Jews, Italians, etc" segment
inflammatory, and cut it. You can tell where it was cut because
the
empty space is filled by replaying the opening "tilting yarmulke"
segment. Not only is it confusing, it's—well, it's cowardly to
censor
the words of someone as celebrated as Bishop Fulton Sheen
in order not
to offend the professional
offended classes.
Have I missed something? I'm hoping this was an unintentional
glitch,
and the original unedited video will be rescheduled, or at least
offered for sale. I'm blogging this, so I hope to hear a "live"
explanation response.
Sincerely .... The Real King of France
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Mel Brooks could not possibly have made Blazing Saddles in the current PC environment. Nor could black comediens like Flip Wilson or Richard Pryor make it in today's market. Bill Cosby is in exile for speaking truth to power. I'm not sayin' fire hoses and poll taxes were good, but we have lost something of ourselves in the past couple-three decades and we are N-O-T the better for it.
ReplyDeleteYou bunch of PC bullies! Oh, I didn't say that did I? Can I say that or will it offend aggressive overbearing behavior type individuals who like to push around others? What the heck, we need more Carlos Mencia's who will joke about anybody including handicapped people. And tell you to get over it because we are equal.
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