Happy St. Patrick's Day

I'm not Irish and I'm not a practicing Catholic, but how can you not love a holiday dedicated to the patron saint of alcoholics? I can get behind a holiday that revels in public drunkeness. I just wish the holiday fell in a warmer month.

Among holidays I have to rate St. Patrick's Day somewhere in the top five. It definitely tops Valentine's Day (too expensive), Sweetest Day (too stupid), Arbor Day (go green and plant a tree or drink green beer? Hmmmm...tough call) and Mother's and Father's Days. Spent last year's St. Patty's Day in Cleveland where downtown became a massive drunk fest. This year's St. Patty's Day is unique in that it falls during holy week meaning that good Catholics can't partake in the "feast." Not being a good Catholic I can do whatever the hell I want.

Ya know if the Catholic Church had a St. Patty's Day vibe year round, I bet it would boost their dwindling attendance numbers. If a sports team had the declining attendance the Catholic Church does, they'd be forced to relocate. They need to create a party atmosphere where God and faith are something to celebrate than dread and fear. Here's some other ways the Catholic Church can modernize and boost the number of members:

Let priests get married-lets face it, after the epidemic of priest molestations, this would go a long ways toward restoring the faith of the flock. Plus, if you've never been married how can you counsel those who are married. Being married is a lot like being in war. If you've never been there, you don't know what its like.

Let go of the hatred of the divorced-This is really a bad business practice by the Catholics. Just because I'm divorced doesn't mean my money's no good. Should you really be rejecting a customer just because he came home and found his wife banging the mailman and divorced her?

Encourage the use of birth control: The world is overcrowded and there are lots of diseases out there. This is probably the edict of the church that gets broken most often anyway.

Public executions-In addition to allowing priests to get married, if a priest is found to have molested children, have public executions in the Vatican. Show us you mean business when you say you're going to crackdown on this kinda stuff.

New nun outfits-Bad habits are hard to break (there's a joke in there)....Isn't it time we outfitted our nuns in some outfits? Surely the Vatican can team up with some top designers and come up with some fancy new colorful outfits. Hey, I like to wear black as much as possible too but maybe more people would turn out to church if you lightened your look. Quit being so dark and gloomy.

Tastier sacraments-I've proposed this idea before but if you're serving the body of Christ, shouldn't it be the most delicious thing you've ever tasted? If you're eating something that is supposed to symbolize Jesus shouldn't you be left wit the desire to have another bite than to want to spit it out?

One last note on the Irish...despite making many fine contributions to pop music, the Irish haven't done much in the way of metal. Surprising really when you think of it. Metal is working class music and the Irish are the very definition of working class.

Just a quick update on Kbone Aid....so far we've raised $1.25. Only $5498.75 and Kbone will be able to enjoy an hour with one of Eliot Spitzer's girls. C'mon people...dig deep and make this wish come true.

I'm off to dye the Scioto River green....when it floods later at least it'll be festive.