denial ain't just a river in egypt

Did you know that excommunication does not deny clergy the capacity to perform sacraments in THE CHURCH? So if you choose to excommunicate a member of your clergy all you're doing is giving him the silent treatment.

Gloria gave Archie the silent treatment All in the Family.

Maybe what is missing for the THE CHURCH is a laugh-track. A laugh-track would definitely help with its ratings because people will realize that this is all a joke. There's no other way to look at this is there? You can't rescind a punishment that isn't really a punishment in the first place. The silent treatment is not punishment. What if people just stopped talking to Conrad Black? Or Bonnie and Clyde. Or the Exxon Valdez? Or Starbucks?! Would anyone feel vindicated?

Imagine....

(The See and Me is filmed in front of a LIVE studio audience.)

Roll montage. Begin title track. The title track is played on an organ and sung to the tune of Those Were The Days from All in the Family:)

Boy, the way Vivaldi played. Songs that made the Easter Parade.

Guys like us, we had it made. Those were the holy days.

Didn't need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight.

Gee, our old Mobile ran great. Those were the holy days.

And you know who you were then. Nuns were girls and priests were men.

Mister, we could use a man like Moussolini again.

People seemed to be content. Fifty dollars paid the rent.

Freaks were in a circus tent. Those were the holy days.

Take a little Sunday spin, go to watch A.S Roma win.

Have yourself a holy day that cost you under a fin.

Hair was short and skirts were long. Salieri really sold a song.

I don't know just what went wrong. Those Were The Holy Days.

Act 1: (the character of Archie Bunker is now being played by Bishop Williamson)
In our first segment Archie says something stupid and Gloria tells him he is an idiot. As punishment, Gloria kicks him out and locks the door not realizing that Archie doesn't really care because he can sleep at the lodge with his buddies, who are equally ignorant.

Commercial break for beer and militia.

Act 2: Edith wipes her hands of any blame on her apron. Michael reminds Gloria that everyone down at the lodge feels sorry for Archie because he was excommunicated and has no place to go. The silent treatment may have the opposite effect that she intended. People may rally around Archie and he will win NEW friends. Gloria cries. Wahhh.

Commercial break for fast food and freshness.

Act 3: Despite the fact that Archie has not apologized, Gloria tells him he can come back home and bring his new friends with him. Archie moves back in realizing that there are no real consequences to his behaviour as long as someone thinks he might be sorry. We find out he had the key to the back door the whole time. Everyone laughs.

Fade to black. Roll credits over choral music.

See? It's just that easy to make it Sweep-week ready.

Essentially, Bishop Williamson was reinstated because he can still ordain people into his highly traditional sect. He still has power even if he's excommunicated. The See wants to make certain BW doesn't continue to ordain priests in order to grow his clique like a Chia pet. He's keeping his enemies close by pardoning them. Not sure that is the best strategy if you want to be taken seriously. Or liked. If the Catholic church is going to get better Neilsens it's going to need a make-over. Sitcoms are a thing of the past. Reality TV is where it's at. So...

Here's an idea - instead of doling out bogus punishments like excommunication maybe THE CHURCH should start holding their ordained responsible for their actions. Use the same methods on the ordained that the ordained have used on others throughout history. Back in Medieval times punishments included the compression of the limbs by special instruments; injection of water, vinegar, or oil, into the body of the accused; application of hot pitch; placing hot eggs under armpits; tying lighted candles to the fingers, so that they might be consumed simultaneously with the wax; letting water trickle drop by drop from a great height on the stomach; or watering the feet with salt water and allowing goats to lick them.

What's that you say? THE CHURCH did no such things? Well, you could deny that too.

paraphenylenediamine rhymes with ...

Each strand of your hair is made of shaft and a root, which is surrounded by a tube of tissue under there, called the hair follicle, which contains a certain number of pigment cells, which continuously produce a chemical, called melanin, that gives the growing shaft of hair its colour. That may be a run-on sentence but at least we got the basics over with.

The dark or light colour of someones hair depends on how much melanin you have going on. Melanin comes in TWO delicious flavours: eumelanin, which is dark brown or black, and pheomelanin, which is reddish yellow.

As we get older, the pigment cells gradually die, which means less melanin, which means gray. BTW plucking doesn't help because once the cells are dead and they aren't going to start producing melanin just because you pull them out. You can't yoink your cells back to life, just like you can't yell someone back to life. Stop screaming.

It's genetic so if you've got a gray parent, you'll go gray. Why your parent is gray and your neighbour's parent isn't gray is a mystery. With all the money required to sew ears on to the backs of mice who has budget to figure out what makes some people salt and pepper heads. From the time that a person notices the first gray strands, it can take ten years or more to complete the process of complete hoariness.

M'kay.

So I have at least 10 years.

So what about Marie Antoinette

You're right! She was sentenced and executed post-haste so what was up with Mary's coiff? Well...hair is dead no matter what and that means whiteness cannot travel back down the shaft - whiteness has to start at the root. This means that hair can only turn white as fast as it can grow. And there are no modern cases of anyone having a case of the overnight-whites due to stress. So when you look at it, the stress would have to be a stress caused by accidentally dropping a gallon of bleach on your head. That would be stressful. And it would turn your hair "white" but not really. Especially if you have dark hair. It goes yellow, not white. The yellow color you get from bleach is the natural colour of keratin, a protein in your hair.

So regular "going to get your head lopped off" kind of stress isn't enough to do it.

There are theories that Marie may have had a medical condition termed diffuse alopecia areata, which can result in sudden hair loss. (In maybe a few weeks.) For people who have a mix of dark and gray hair, the uncolored hair is less likely to fall out. So if she was salt and pepper to begin with it might have LOOKED like she went totally gray overnight. She was wearing a hat when they killed her anyway so WTF? It's probably just a rumor.

But if you ask me the stress of going gray is enough to make the process go faster. And unless you're THERE, unless you're finding more and more gray, you just don't know yet. You just don't know what it feels like. I say that because I've been there (back there in time) and said to someone who complained about gray hair "Oh, come on. It's distinguished." And now I can't get to the hair salon quickly enough.

How does that permanent colour thing work?

Most permanent hair colors use a two-step process (usually occurring simultaneously) which first removes the original color of the hair and then deposits a new color. You remove the colour with something like bleach or ammonia or hydrogen peroxide. It is an IRREVERSIBLE chemical reaction. That is why they call it permanent colour. The bleach oxidizes the melanin molecule rendering it colourless. Once the cuticle is opened with something like hydrogen peroxide, you can add colour. Because it's open. Pretty simple when you think about it. Alcohols and conditioners close the cuticle after coloring to seal in and protect the new color.

You'd have to wait for that to grow out so if you're sentenced to the guillotine, you can be certain you'll look your very best on d-day.

But why is gray hair wiry?

Hornification. Less antioxidants in there. Cell division. Increase in hair shaft diameter. Hair becomes wiry. Jesus, look it up. Do I have to explain everything?

Why am I blogging about this? Right. Paraphenylenediamine is supposed to be bad for you. But you know what? So is the stress of going gray.