Yesterday, while shirking work as usual, I was watching CNN Newsroom. Among stories like the 9 firefighters perishing in a blaze and some no-name actress getting knocked up was something rather interesting. The Vatican has released a list of Ten Commandments...for Driving. Suffice it to say, the implications of this announcement are both disturbing and hilarious.
CNN lead into the story, in the same campy, unprofessional nature that has encapsulated their quality as of late, by playing AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." This is one of those moments where one says to oneself, "Ugh, here we go," and this was no exception to me. The second CNN tries to be funny by playing classic oldies that have some slight connection to the story, you know it's going to be some corny-ass fluffy human interest story that no one really cares about or has any affect on anyone's life.
But they had valid reasons for playing the song, Don Lemon assures us:
LEMON: The reason we played that music, "Highway to Hell," the Pope wants you to avoid road rage.
Does he now? See, I always figured that the Pope wanted people across the globe to drive like goddamn lunatics, firing guns at those who cut us off and picking off small children as they walk to school. "Pedestrians have the right of way," my ass!
Oh, but it gets better:
LEMON: It's kind of funny but its[sic] serious. Cars are such a big part of modern life, the Vatican, get this, has issued a ten commandments of driving. It calls for motorists to exercise a heavenly host of Christian values. Bear with me. It's quite a long list, but lets hope we get through it.
First of all, I love being able to correct the grammar of an official CNN Newsroom transcript. It makes me feel like I'm smarter than CNN. But that's not a huge feat these days. "Its" is possessive, CNN stenographers! "It's" is a contraction of "it is!" Seriously, why do these people have a 24-hour news network?
Anyway, back on topic. The Vatican has all of a sudden issued a list of Commandments for drivers, because the Vatican suddenly wants "motorists to exercise a heavenly host of Christian values" on the road. Unlike everywhere else, of course. Seriously, when your faith calls for you to "exercise a heavenly host of Christian values" everywhere on a daily basis, doesn't your car already apply? Why write a specific list of rules for this? Did the first 10 Commandments fail to cover all the bases? I shall get back to this later.
And, really, I love how Don Lemon finds this so asinine. "It's kind of funny?" "Get this?" "Bear with me?" Seriously, this guy thinks this is stupid as I do, and I'm sorry, I find that robustly hilarious.
But, without further ado, here it is, the unabridged Ten Commandments of Driving:
1. You shall not kill.
2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.
5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
7. Support the families of accident victims.
8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
10. Feel responsible toward others.
This is just too rich. Let's first study each commandment with scrutiny and cynicism, which will show why this list is essentially useless:
"1. You shall not kill." - Already one of the first Ten Commandments. It is also a law.
"2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm." - TRANSLATION: Don't kill. Same as Number 1. Useless.
"3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events. " - This reads less like a commandment and more like a fortune cookie. Lucky Numbers: 23 14 6 9 52 4.
"4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents." - This one is actually a good idea. But it doesn't need to be restated. Christians are urged to help their fellow man anyway, why do you need to tell them to do it on the road, too?
"5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin." - This one really amuses me for some reason. I can't really imagine someone using a car as "an expression of power and domination" without thinking of some crazed car-themed supervillain.
"I, Dr. Destructi-Truck, shall conquer you puny mortals in your weak hybrid cars! Bow before the might of my Hemi!"
And the addition of "and an occasion of sin" is also very funny. It is a tacit forbidding of, essentially, back-seat lovin', which is the spot where roughly 73% of all unwanted births are first conceived. Jesus, that Pope is just hellbent on keeping kids from fucking, isn't he?
"6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so. " - TRANSLATION: Don't let others drink and drive. Also illegal anyway. And why the need for distinguishing between "the young and not so young?" Just say "anyone." Age doesn't really apply as much to drunk driving as you might think, Pope.
"7. Support the families of accident victims." - Again, a good idea. Probably the only thing I don't have anything cuttingly witty to say about it.
"8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness." - Oh, here we go. Does the Vatican really think this will fly? We're a litigious people, not a forgiving one.
"Oh, hello. You must be the motorist who ran a red light because he was late meeting his friends at the bar, and who plowed right into the driver side of my car, which crushed my legs and broke my spine, which will necessitate years of expensive physiotherapy and astronomically costly prosthetics. You ruined my life and my livelihood, you've paralyzed me from the waist down, my wife left me because I can no longer please her, and I'm essentially the lifeless husk of a once-proud man, forever doomed to live the remainder of his life as a ward of the state. But, hey, let's let bygones be bygones. No harm done."
Pope Benedict, I will pay you a million dollars if your commandment ever warrants this exact response.
Also, this commandment implies that you're a third party, getting these two together to talk forgiveness. What business is it of yours, Christians? Let the courts handle it.
"9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party." - This one is sort of vague (like the entire Bible), but I presume that it refers to children. That's what booster seats are for. We already force kids up to age 9 to use them. How much more humiliation do you need to put them through?
"10. Feel responsible toward others." - And it is shit like this that has people like Scott Zimmerman taking on the self-imposed role of missionary to convert "heathens" like myself. I already get emails from the jackass, now he's supposed to yell the bible at me out his car window?
And those are all the commandments. And one has to wonder, with the Vatican bothering to make this list, what are the implications?
I wonder if the Vatican NEEDED to make these rules, that Christians were murderous felons on the road. Did Christians forget the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" when behind the wheel? Seriously, why Vatican, why? What is the need for this useless list?
Secondly, can one really call these commandments? I thought the first ten commandments were from the mouth of God himself. Unless... what if God spoke to the Pope? Maybe he went into some secret Pope cave or something and God said to him "My faithful servant, your Lord has a mission for you. You are to present the world with another ten commandments, each one more asinine than the one that preceded it. And they shall pertain to...oh, I don't know...how does driving thrill ya?"
You know what I think? I think this list is a knee-jerk reaction to the recent attempt on the Pope's most precious life:
That right, someone tried to jump the Popemobile (oh, "Popemobile," how outrageously funny you are). It's all so close together, this has to be the reason. That or the Pope is genuinely concerned about road safety. But since road rage has existed for decades before this, and since the original Ten Commandments and the general Christian values Chrisitans are supposed to adopt should apply to the road as much as anywhere, I have to think that at best this was the straw that broke the camel's back. "This is it, I could watch as millions of good people die on the road each year, but someone tried to get into MY Popemobile? THIS SHALL NOT STAND!"
It's really the only way I can see why he would think anyone would take driving advice from a man who is chauffeured around in the back of a bubble car his whole career.
- Silent G
TOMORROW: Part 2 of Holy Rollers! How has the new commandment affected the world? CNN, again, bothers to tell us!
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