How about protecting your sorry ass from people who will gleefully do
Posted on 09/20/2004 9:54:32 AM PDT by Area Freeper
As demonstrations go, it was decidedly low-key: a lone man standing silently against a utility pole, occasionally holding up hand-scribbled poster boards.
Fans at the Camp Hill-Bishop McDevitt field hockey game yesterday afternoon paid little attention to the slight, bespectacled protester as he stood between two sets of bleachers at Camp Hill's Fiala Field.
But Carl H. Silverman insisted his one-man campaign against Bishop McDevitt High School's team nickname -- the Crusaders -- was a success.
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"It gets my point across," said Silverman, who occasionally cheered for his daughter Sara and her Camp Hill teammates.
Silverman's point, he said, was that the term Crusaders refers to medieval military expeditions by Christians who "killed thousands and thousands of people with the encouragement of the Catholic Church."
"The pope apologized for the Crusades, yet these schools continue to use that term," Silverman said. "It is time they realize what they represent."
In a letter to McDevitt principal Sister Mary Anne Bednar, Silverman also complained about the school's Web site, which refers to the school seal as "the shield of a Crusader, which serves to protect us from the secularism of the world."
"If they don't like the secular world and secular schools, they don't have to come here," Silverman said.
Bednar said Silverman took that phrase out of context. "It is not about public school vs. catholic school," she explained. "It's about protecting from the wrongs in the world."
Silverman's protest did not go unnoticed.
Camp Hill School District officials moved player benches away from the crowd, and a borough police officer patrolled the parking lot. The officer said the department does not usually patrol field hockey games. School district officials declined to comment.
Most fans, though, seemed focused on the game. Few even appeared to look at the signs, which were illegible from across the field.
Bednar said this is the first time anyone has taken issue with McDevitt's nickname. The school has no plans to change, she said.
Silverman also is calling on the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association to ban the nickname. A PIAA spokesman said he was not aware of any complaint and doubted the state's sanctioning body would get involved.
"That is a local school decision," said Bob Lombardi, PIAA associate executive director.
In 2000, Wheaton College in Illinois changed its team name from Crusaders to the Thunder after students petitioned for a change. Earlier this year, the University of Incarnate Word in San Antonio also dropped the Crusaders moniker.
Crusaders remains a popular team name, though, ranking in the top 10 among colleges. Included in the 28 colleges using the nickname are Alvernia College in Reading and Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove. Both schools previously considered switching.
In 1999, Silverman sued the Hagerstown Suns minor league baseball team over a promotion that gave fans a discount on Sunday tickets if they brought a church bulletin to the box office. The team settled, extending the discount to any meeting bulletins.
"I have a history of protesting things," Silverman said.
No McDevitt fans would comment on the protest. Bednar said Camp Hill school officials, coaches, players and fans were "helpful and welcoming" to McDevitt's team.
A number of Camp Hill fans said they did not feel Silverman's sentiments were shared by the community.
"It doesn't reflect the opinions of the majority of people who live here," said Debbie McLanahan, a McDevitt graduate whose daughter Shannon is a sophomore forward for Camp Hill.
Plus, he's stupid.
Good thing he's not in Worcester, right next door to "Orson."
i thought it was named after the rabbit.
Like my buddy would say "LAHOOOOOOOOSER!"
That travesty they have up there now ain't Orson. The real Orson was 20 feet tall.
BTW, some LA Times author tried to get the Cross to change their mascot not long after 9/11. The Cross told him to get bent.
The Crusades were defensive military operations against a hostile power whose aim was the conquering and subjugation of all who held differing religious views. The Crusaders merely sought to recover holy lands that had been Christian before they were occupied, and they fought at the invitation, in fact the entreatment, of the rightful owners of those lands. If the Byzantine Empire had not declined, there would have been no reason for them. Ultimately, because the Crusades failed, the Christian powers were forced to fight further desperate defensive battles against the invaders in the heart of Europe, at Vienna, battles they very nearly lost.
More schools should have the nickname "Crusaders," to honor those valiant men.
It brings back the phrase, "in the old days, we would settle this with a couple of baseball bats and a sock full of quarters".
I hear the moniker Infidel Hordes is up for grabs.
You don't have to be Catholic to appreciate the fact that if it weren't for the Crusaders, we might be speaking Arabic right now.
BTW, did you happen to watch any baseball this weekend?
I caught a bit of Friday's, couldn't bear to watch the other 2. I do not have the ability to sit and watch TV when it's daylight and my 4 daughters demand my attention. Besides, the race was on yesterday , as were the Patriots.
OK, so you got 2 out of 3 on us, keep rubbin it in. lol. Let's see how we do at Fenway.
Ah, the tolerance of the Left...
Good! For a moment I thought they might collapse under the pressure of such a massive protest, and the eloquent conscience and higher moral ground of a postmodern liberal, and change their name to the Jihadists.(sarcasm)
Silverman's point, he said, was that the term Crusaders refers to medieval military expeditions by Christians who "killed thousands and thousands of people with the encouragement of the Catholic Church."
Mr. Silverman obviously has a comprehensive view of history, does he not? Try this on, Mister Silverman, courtesy of Winston Churchill (as opposed to "peace in our times"-Neville Chamberlain): "Mohammedan law...must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men...(the) influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith...and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science...the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome." (And NO, I do NOT condone ALL that the Crusades did!)
How about protecting your sorry ass from people who will gleefully do
"Silverman's point, he said, was that the term Crusaders refers to medieval military expeditions by Christians who "killed thousands and thousands of people with the encouragement of the Catholic Church."
Silverman should go stuff it where the sun doesn't shine.
I have it up to here with these idiot protestors who complain about everything - Indian Names, Crusaders, hunting scenes, you name it.
I LIKE Crusaders - I LIKE them a lot. Sure, they made some mistakes - but nobody's perfect. They flushed the Muslims out of the Holy Land for a few years and gave them a taste of their own medicine.
They flushed them out of Spain and Southern Italy and parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Too bad they weren't around in 1429, they might have stopped madman Mehmet and saved Constantinople and we wouldn't be reading about nutacse Turks trying to block the re-opening of some monastery or seminary out there.
Silverman, I'm fed up with people like you who continually have to rant and rave over some wacko cause because, as another poster put it so well, you have too much time on your hands.
If people like Silverman had their way, we ALL would wake up, drive to work in our boring fuel efficient cars, slave at some mindless boring job, and then drive home, eat our vegan diet - alcohol free and cholesterol free of course - with no salt or sugar, watch some ridiculous sitcom and then go to bed. That's their perfect world - 1984 - right here and now with all of us acting, dressing, thinking and behaving like the same kind of mindless zombies.
So Silverman - SHOVE IT!!!
My high school, Archbishop Riordan in S.F., uses the Crusader as its mascot. After 9/11 I have conspicuously displayed their pennant in my rear window proclaiming "Crusaders". You're damn right that it implies armed conflict against Islam. Read you're history, they almost conquered Europe with "the Koran or the Sword". They are as big a threat to western civilization today as they were then. Only this time we are supplying them with the technology to finish the job.
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