A Thousand Times No

Sometimes the folks over in mainstream media (”MSM”) just don’t get it.

Take, for example, an interesting piece in today’s edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer that focuses on a local group of cloistered nuns. Their convent lies in the heart of the city; I’ve ridden past it countless times on my bicycle without ever so much as glimpsing a wimple. Now, that’s cloistered.

Despite their old-school ways, the sisters will be receiving an award tomorrow for their “insightful use of technology,” an award they still will not leave the cloister to accept. Within the convent, the sisters have set up a webcam that streams images of a consecrated communion wafer around the clock. The “Wafercam” (my coinage, not theirs) now averages over a thousand hits a day from viewers all over the globe.

The Inquirer article doesn’t even mention the URL for the convent’s website, www.savior.org, until the tenth paragraph. And nowhere in the online version of the piece is an actual hyperlink offered to the site. Talk about burying the lede, new media-wise!

Depending on your luck with the random ad selector when you visit the Inquirer website, you might also have the opportunity to see Philly.com completely looking like ass. (No, I’m not talking about this.) Just scroll down the right-hand column until a box labeled “Philly.com Promotions” appears. See if you’ve gotten the red-and-white ad with all the floaty words. (If not, just click the “Refresh” button on your browser until it comes up.) Read carefully.

Yes, that’s right. Philly.com promises the chance to win lots of free goodies if you enter its contests. Neat stuff like zoo passes, fight tickets, and prizes. Oh, and “Premiers” — you know, like Wen Jiabao of China, or maybe Nikita Khrushchev. Lest you think I’m being excessively picky about spelling, they also promise the reader a crack at winning something called “Exibits”. Really.

The world is going to hell in a handbasket. A dictionaryless handbasket.

Should you feel the need for any more Holy Roman love, may I suggest a visit to fellow NaBloPoMo-er Dirty Catholic? Or perhaps a little Nun Fight from our friends, Paul and Storm? Pax vobiscum, nunc et semper.