There have been some jokes made about the new Pope the whole election process, and I have found them to be amusing.  Gideon's disppointment at not being selected and Kingbee's Cardinal Chad are 2 of the better ones I have seen just here at JU.  Both were insightful and funny.

But then there is trash humor.  Trash humor is meant to insult, not to evoke laughter.

Yesterday, the City of Richmond was treated to a dose of Trash Humor by a local talk radio host.  He thought he was being funny and witty.  Instead, he was just being mean and vindictive.

He started off his show by congratulating the new pope on his election, and then proceeded to play some cliips that were supposed to be the Cardinal making statements on dogma early in his career.  But they were not clips of Cardinal Ratzinger, but of Adolph Hitler.

It was not funny, and indeed his listening audience, almost to a person, did not call in to condemn him, but went straight to his boss.  His behaviour and that of his program producer were uncalled for and just plain mean.

In case anyone is wondering, yes, Pope Benedict XVI is German, and he even once was in both the Hitler Youth (as were virtually all German children of his age) and later in the German Army (he deserted).

But he is a man of God, who has chosen to devote his life to god and there is no evidence, not even rumors of any merit that suggest he was ever a Nazi or condoned or agreed with Hitler or his ideals.

The show and the authors of it, showed that you can easily cross the line when it comes to Humor. This was not humor, it was a vile and evil attempt to paint a good man with this sins of his ancestors.  To brand a whole people with the sins of a few. And it was wrong.  It was not only wrong, it was mean.

I dont expect everyone to fall all over themselves in adoration of the new Pope.  He has a tough enough job just following Pope John Paul II.  I dont even expect, altho I would hope, that everyone give him a chance.

But to tar and feather him as a Nazi simply by virtue of his nationality is hateful and wrong.  This Radio show host went beyond humor and into hate speech.  For that is the only way that it can be phrased.

If you want to know how bad it was, just imagine someone doing that to you.  Taking the voice of a hate monger and claiming that is you doing the talking.  How would you feel?  How would you feel if it was you mother or father that was getting this treatment?

The sad part is that the talk show host probably did think it was funny.  Why?  Perhaps because how freely some in this country now use the terms Nazi and Hitler to describe those whose ideas they do not agree with.  Yes, it is partially our fault for desensitizing the terms Nazi, Hitler, genoicde and Holocaust by using them flippantly and without any justification.

I would hope that everyone listening yesterday stopped and reflected on the, at best moronic, at worst hatefilled antics of this Radio Show host.  I Hope that everyone reading this will pause and reflect when the next time they want to call the oppostion Hitler, Nazis, Storm Troopers or what ever other ignorant and short sighted term that springs to their language challenged vocabulary.

When we can not even honor a man of peace with at least the benefit of the doubt, we have lost all claim to be called rational, intelligent and compassionate people.

And that depresses me even more than the hate that has started to bubble up about this man.