Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 12:40pm

PopeWatch: Beanies

 

 

From the only reliable source of Catholic news on the net, Eye of the Tiber:

 

It was announced today that the Swiss Guard’s uniform will be changed to a more modern hipster look.

Pontifical Swiss Guard Commandant Daniel Anrig told Guards gathered at the annual When Do We Get To See Some Action Jamboree that the traditional “uniform” worn by the Knights will be replaced so as to be more appealing to millennials.

Instead of the well-known European Renaissance-style uniform, the average member of the Swiss Guard will be wearing a pair of skinny jeans, a beanie, and a leather jacket “no matter how hot the temperature gets in Rome,” Anrig said. Anrig did not specify whether swords would be replaced with scarfs or whether they would be replaced with pens in case “the muse strikes and gives them the inspiration to write the next Infinite Jest.”

“I have decided that the time is right for a modernization of the Swiss Guard Uniform,” Anrig said. “From now on, along with skinny jeans, beanies, and leather jackets, the preferred dress for the Guard will include v-necks or flannel shirts, vintage sneakers, bow ties, and black squared frames for glasses whether Guards wear prescription glasses or not.”

Swiss Guard David Adank told EOTT via a shrug of the shoulders this morning that, though a little bit nervous and hesitant about the change, he welcomes it with open, sarcastic arms.

“Whatever,” Adank went on to say before departing to an undisclosed coffee shop.

Another member of the Swiss Guard, Toby Caspari, told EOTT that he was worried that he would be expelled from the Guard since he struggles growing a proper mustache.

“I guess it’s the mandatory mustache that I’m most afraid of,” Caspari said. “I’ve never really been able to grow one, and all everyone’s talking about is what type of “stache wax” to use. Whatever, maybe I’ll use a fake. I trust the commandant’s judgment. I think skinny jeans really helps to show a striking, imitative image of Christ because he was kind of a hipster in his own way. He too didn’t care what people thought. But at the same time, he wanted people to notice him, but at the same time not notice him, if you know what I’m saying. You know what I’m saying?

 

The Vatican refuses to confirm or deny that the person responsible for the Swiss Guard makeover is the same person responsible for the Knights of Columbus makeover.

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Don L
Don L
Saturday, August 5, AD 2017 6:19am

“…a leather jacket…”
I misread that as “a feather jacket” and before I could chastise myself…I decided I was merely ahead of the next update.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Saturday, August 5, AD 2017 6:35am

This is EOTT satire after the recent news announcement of the K of C changing their 4th degree uniforms to look more like UN soldiers:

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mbunson/new-uniforms-for-the-knights

I responded to the announcement of this change with the following venting of the spleen on Facebook:

The US Navy tried this crap. Major changes to the enlisted sailor uniform uniform took place in 1973. There was a movement to have enlisted uniforms appear more “distinguished” and “modern.” The traditional uniform of bell bottoms, neckerchief and dixie cup hat were replaced with suits and ties and a police officer style hat that were more in line with CPO and officer regulations. The idea was to present the modern Navy as a unified force, but these changes were NOT taken well and were largely reversed by 1980. Today the enlisted sailor wears much what he did during WW II – bell bottoms, neckerchief and dixie cup.

Yes, a great many bad ideas we see in industry or the Church the US Navy has tried to implement at one time or another, in one way or another and it has abysmally failed, sometimes spectacularly. Rule of thumb: if it’s a bad idea, then the Navy already tried it. The change in uniform to modernize back in 73 is one example. Today’s allowing women on submarines (analogy – deaconettes and priestesses) is another and that innovation will eventually blow up in the Navy’s face (think about it – a women gets pregnant on a 3 month undersea voyage and her fetus is next to a live reactor core – utterly stupid). Another example is a bit more technical and related to my field of nuclear power.

The Navy wanted to get rid of the expense and maintenance of control rod drive mechanisms for nuclear reactors. So it built a reactor in Ballston Spa, NY called MARF without control rods (think barf, though the acronym stands for Modifications and Additions to a Reactor Facility!). Instead of neutron absorbing control rods, the reactor had gadolinium tubes in the core that would fill with water to make the gadolinium absorb neutrons and empty to allow neutrons to cause fission in uranium and make heat (and hence steam via the steam generators for the turbines). Damn thing was difficult as hell to bring critical – even slight water level changes in the tubes made wild reactivity swings. Bad. Very bad. The freaking piece of junk was thankfully never installed on any ship or submarine, though it still runs today (less than 20% of the time if that) for materials testing. Can you imagine doing angles and dangles on submarine maneuvers at a 1000 ft depth and having the reactor first shutdown and then go screaming into the power range uncontrollably all because water level in the tubes sloshes around? Another dumb a$$ idea the Navy wisely $h1t canned.

Well the story doesn’t stop there. Some commercial reactor designers today who want to be known innovative and at the ever piercing tip of the vanguard of pioneering advancement would likewise want to get rid of control rods in their designs and use just soluble neutron poison in the reactor coolant to control core reactivity. The Navy already tried getting rid of control rods and it doesn’t freaking work! Yes, albeit for different reasons that I won’t specify here, but I was a reactor operator (RO) and any RO worth his sea salt (especially he who stood watch at MARF in Ballston Spa) damn well knows it won’t work.

There is a reason for tradition. Sometimes solutions to the problems we have were already worked out by people smarter than us long ago.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, August 5, AD 2017 7:28am

Thank you LQC

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Sunday, August 6, AD 2017 5:24pm

Well, putting women on surface ships blew up in the Navy’s face when they started putting women on auxiliary ships like destroyer and submarine tenders. Instead of learning their lesson from that disaster, the Navy just built a bigger bomb by putting women on combatant ships.

To be sure, there are women who served well aboard ship, but I have spent enough time (five and a half years to be exact) serving aboard Navy ships to know that it is no place for a woman. Apparently, many women agree seeing as how many of them would deliberately get pregnant to get transferred to shore duty.

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