Photo Pope Op

Yesterday, in front of the Catholic church on State and Chicago, in front of the news vans and next to the flag-waving altar boys and priests holding their hands high, there were groups of laypeople holding signs with words magic-markered on them and pictures of Benedict XVI from the newspapers' front pages pasted to them. Two women's signs caught my attention. One was a picture of the new pope with a message proclaiming how he will "protect women's dignity". Another didn't have a pope photo, but it had a drawing of a collar and read, "We don't need a collar to bring about change". If you don't catch the irony of the first sign, you can read Jack Miles's remberence of how Pope John Paul II's respect for the dignity of women affected his own family (second half of the article), or you can just imagine having the activity and destiny of the sex parts of your body being in the hands of a man hundreds or thousands of miles away from you who is supposed to know nothing of the nature of bodies' sex parts and who has never and will never meet you or probably has no idea what living your life in your home in your country is like, and just feel that dignity was over you. As for the second sign, it has a lot in common with the "MO DRMA" license plate I saw today, both saying in their own stunningly proud ways that, when life presents you a plateful of shit, one should eat it clean and tip generously.