Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Masonic Facebook groups agree to moratorium on ring posts

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Prineville, OR - After several months of negotiation, the largest Freemasonry oriented Facebook groups have agreed to stop allowing members to post anything about their rings.

"This will include questions about buying rings, pictures of your grandfather's ring, some ring that you picked up from a pawn shop, and especially, questions on how one should wear those rings," said Juan Valdez, admin at The Broken Column.

"The problem with those rings posts," explained Chuck Harpy, admin at All Things Freemasonary, "is that they quickly devolve into name calling threads, with guys slinging around the 'clandy' label, and other accusations. Invariably, within several hours, we have to shut down a thread because of the unmasonic behavior. Masons who are gentlemen in the lodge room can be absolute jerks online, you know."

The Past Bastard asked what the members of these groups thought about this agreement.

"There ended up being surprisingly little disagreement after everybody thought about it," said Art Vandelay, member of the Masonic group. "Ring questions take up a lot of valuable time that could be spent discussing really important Masonic topics, like fundraising, raffles, dinners, and things like that."

"I'm all for it," said 'Sandpaper' Housatonic, who describes himself as the resident gadfly on World Wide Freemasonry. "Besides, I'm sick of all the arguments about which way to wear your rings. Everybody knows it's points in, and anyone who disagrees is probably not a real Mason."

Friday, February 16, 2018

Rhetorical Voices: What did you think about the BBC article on women Freemasons?

The Past Bastard interviews random members from random lodges on random topics of Masonic importance. 

Question: What did you think about the BBC article on women Freemasons that's been making the rounds on FaceBook recently?



Drew Mallet: Past Master, Intemperance Lodge No. 420: 
"Wait, women Freemasons? Oh, hell, no! Know what would happen if we let women become Masons? My wife would join, and that would totally ruin my party time. I keep taking all these Secretary gigs to get out of the house; think I want my wife yammering at me every night?"


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Katie Wood: Princess Marshall, Sha-Na-Na Temple, DoN:
"Oh, I don't really do that Facebook thing, except to look at the cat pictures and cute videos. Did you see the one last week with the kittens trying to climb the couch? That's my new favorite. And isn't BBC some kind of English Channel? Oh, that's funny -- English? Channel? Get it?"




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Maury Steinberg: Grand Scribe, Lost Key Chapter, No 78:
"I remember women from college. We used to have things called 'mixers' and they would bus the girls in from Bryn Mawr or something, and they acted all snooty, and would only dance wiht the jocks, while we engineers got ignored. You say they want to join our fraternity, now? I'm thinking that our fraternity is doing just fine without them. And if that Jane from Smith wants to join, well, you can tell her that she can just keep walking, you get me?"

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Rhetorical Voices: Does your lodge serve canned or frozen green beans with dinner?

The Past Bastard interviews random members from random lodges on random topics of Masonic importance. This week, we explore green beans, a staple at all Masonic lodge dinners. 

Question: Does your lodge serve canned or frozen green beans at your lodge dinners?

Antonio D: Past Master. Corinthian Lodge No. 357: 
"We used to serve frozen green beans, but then the freezer broke back in 2008 and old Bob Dobbs, remember him, right? Oh, yeah. Well, Bob was going to donate the freezer that he had in his basement, but then he died, right? And then his kids took the freezer, so we just never got around to replacing it."






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Kathy C: Worthy Matron, Naomi Chapter No. 24 OES:
"I'm glad you asked, because one of  our members, Clara, accidentally bought a case of canned green beans from Costco, and it looks like after three years we're finally going to be using them up by the end of June. I guess we'll have to take a vote on whether we're going to go with canned or frozen again, and we'd better start planning now."


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Kirby V: Senior Warden, Fudge Ripple Lodge No 4332:
"Yeah, umm, I don't remember since I never touch the green things on my plate, anyhow. I mean, I'll pretend to eat green beans at home when my wife cooks, but hell, the reason I go to lodge is that I get to do those unhealthy things that I can't do at home, know what I mean?"