Can I be the only one...

to notice Benedict the Umpteenth has become sponsored? The embroidered badges and sown on logos were a bit of a giveaway but it didn't really click until I looked at today's list of newly ensainted saints. When I was young the minimum criteria for saintdom (and I mean minimum) were: be dead at least a thousand years plus your death had to have been particularly unpleasant. You know the sort of thing, hot poker up the bum, tongs in the gizzard, something involving a wrench. In my catholic youth Saints were tough cookies, they were no nonsense don't fuck with me sorts. Adorning the various churches I frequented as a child were statues, representations in stone of these heroes, and everyone with a scar, a five o'clock shadow, reddened knuckles, even the women saints looked like bag men for the Mob. These were the type who laughed in the face of torture, spat in the eye of fear, wiped snot on the cuff of destiny, they died for what they believed. So it comes as a bit of a shock to learn it's now possible to sponsor a Saint. Of the five ensainted today three are supported by drugs companies, one by nuclear power and one by an unnamed cartel from Bogota. Never one to miss a trick the companies want some return for their investment so, as they say, everything really is in the name. Apparently Saint Exlaxica will become known as an efficacious treatment for all things relating to innards (her award winning logo "And Nothing Shall Linger" is seen by the industry as a marvel of brevity) Saint Viag of Ara speaks for itself and dying him blue was a nice touch and it seems cobalt does come off with vigorous scrubbing; Saint Beelzibub of the Black Lung I think demonstrates a tobacco industry still out of touch with public opinion. I did like Saint Radiumumhum represented as a small glowing child able to manage the average family's heating, lighting and contraceptive needs. Finally Benny the U should do something about the talc on his upper lip, it is not becoming especially when declaring Saint Charles of Medelin as the only one who didn't like either dogs or people with obvious colds.

So that was it today for Catholicism and sponsorship. Looking at some of the early rushes for the morning's press I see that George Bush has floated the idea of sponsoring hurricanes. No more Wilma and Katrina, nope if the Republicans get their way hurricanes are to be branded like everything else. Imagine it, Coca Cola did this? Wow! Or in an attempt at the teenage vote, 'Pepsi? Damage teeth? Psshht! You should see what it can do to your neighbourhood." Anything under category three is to be reclassified as Lite.