__
                    __ _ / _|_ __ ___
           _____   / _` | |_| '_ ` _ \   _____
          |_____| | (_| |  _| | | | | | |_____|
                   \__,_|_| |_| |_| |_|
                   Another Foggy Moment

 These are the continuing adventures of a typical resident
 of the self-proclaimed center of the Pugetopolis universe -
 Seattle. Most are true stories but some are made of whole-
 cloth. I ain't the Mayor, the Governor or a Big Shot. Just
 another Working Stiff with a Bad Attitude.

    ------------------------------------------------
    WARNING: This is not a Child-Proof Neighborhood.
    If you're a kid - scram!, beat it! you little
    punk before your Old Lady catches you and calls
    the cops. They'll throw you in the Big House in
    Walla Walla and won't let you out until you're
    89 years old. There. Don't say I didn't warn you.
    -------------------------------------------------

                          - 131 -

 It was 63 years ago this past Wednesday that State Represenative
 D.L. Underwood roused from his slumbers in the State House to
 begin howling for an immediate investigation into communistic 
 activities at U Dub. Professor Harold J. Laskey, a British Marxist,
 had just been hired on to teach Economics. To dispell any doubt 
 about his philosophical inclinations, Prof. Laskey had published 
 an article in The Nation magazine entitled "Why I Am A Marxist". 

 Brother Underwood's desperate howl of lamintation was somewhat
 complicated by the embarassing fact that the Reds of Russia
 were our allies at the time as we were attempting to defeat 
 Adolph Hitler's Nazi Germany. Not only was U Dub playing footsy 
 with the Commies, so were General Eisenhauer, President Roosevelt
 and Sir Winston Churchill. Consider Brother Underwood a man ahead 
 of his time - a simple case of premature political ejaculation.

			     *

 Speaking of the Old Folks Home in Olympia...get a whiff of State
 Senator Hochstater's S-3206.2 presently up before the Education
 Committee for consideration. He wants to ban evolution from the
 cirricula of the state's schools. Not so much as a peep out of
 The Little Stinker, our Guv. Maybe our Gubnatorial dwarf likes
 the idea. He believes in ghosts and demons enough to keep one of
 our County Mounties locked up for satanic abuse of his kids even
 though his kids say he didn't touch them. You can never be too
 careful with those devil-worshipers eh. They lie a lot. But it 
 would be nice if he woke up occasionally and acted like a Governor.

		             *

 Attorney-General Ashcroft's command to his flunkies that all
 partially and completely nekkid artwork in the Justice Buliding 
 be covered up, is amusingly being flogged as because of his
 religious sensibilities. He's not religious. He's just a common, 
 ordinary prude. It's a standard trait of sexually-repressed
 fascists. Hitler and Joe Stalin shared Comrade Ashcroft's 
 aversion to naked human flesh. Obviously he's one White Man 
 in sorry need of a good blow job. Maybe Trent Lott can fix 
 him up with one of his Babes.

			     *

 If you get off on tormenting helpless people, why not drop by:
		http://neurosis.mit.edu/foo
 where you can display a message for people using the bathroom
 stalls at MIT. They got a nice status board so you can see which
 ones are occupied or how long they've been unoccupied.

......................................................................

 "Money, only green linen paper, is indigestible for all autopoietic
  entities like us who lack lignases."

                     - Lynn Margulis -
                         Biologist                        

......................................................................

			  THE VINNIE

 It was surprising to see the local News Nazis whooping it up
 about the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier returning to 
 Bremerton. Normally they don't even bother mentioning it. 
 Seattle is, afterall, the city that snobbishly blew off the 
 Navy when it expressed interest in establishing a new base 
 here. The flag-waving patriots at the Hooterville Yacht Club 
 didn't want any drunken sailors roaming our streets, molesting 
 our womenfolk. The base went to Everett instead.

 I recently worked with one of the Vinson's former Bluejackets.
 He showed up for work about 6 months late and got canned.
 He liked the company on-board but said the Navy sucked. The
 Vinson typically only retains about 10% of her crew each year.
 That's very nearly an annual crew turn-over. It's a big, 
 impersonal ship in which people quickly become faceless numbers. 
 Drugs, gangs and random acts of violence among her crew of
 5,000 are as common as they would be in any small American town. 
 The hours are long and boring, the work difficult and dangerous. 
 The Navy doesn't like to talk about work accidents on board its 
 ships but, with all that exotic equipment, constant crew turn-
 overs and no significant safety accountability, you can bet
 there are plenty. And aside from work, there isn't a heck of 
 a lot else to do. People don't interact like they do in a normal
 town. Liberty ports in exotic locations don't even begin to make 
 up for it. 

 All this takes its toll on the Lifers. It's notoriously hard 
 on marriages. With a husband taking off for months at a time,
 wives become quickly estranged and kiddies forget what daddy
 looks like. The pay is crap, the benes lousy and promotion
 slow coming. Many Navy families are forced to resort to food 
 stamps. Meanwhile the Generals and Admirals tool around in
 air-conditioned limos and government jets, using the crews of
 nuclear subs to entertain their friends, as they try to line
 up a cushy directorship with a military contractor to ease 
 their retirement years. Corruption and cronyism are endemic.
 Their Apparatus corrupts honorable men. 

 Those who bug out, rapidly find their training and experience 
 is next to worthless in the Real World. Aside from the Feds 
 and pooch-screwing operations like U Dub, where nobody really 
 cares whether you do a good job - places where profits/losses/
 competition/customer-service are unknown - are about the only 
 joints that value their services. And even then it's more for 
 their willingness to work cheap with few benes, their profound 
 anti-unionism and willingness to timidly eat whatever crap the 
 boss dishes  out, than it is for their talent or experience. 
 The imagination and initative so vital to success in the Real 
 World, aren't virtues of the military workplace.

 Retention rates are significantly higher on small-crew ships
 like the frigates and fast-support vessels. Even with the 
 military's notorious cliquishness, the crews are large enough
 to accomodate everyone. But being 'odd man out' in a small,
 tight crew, like those of the Trident nuke subs at Bangor, 
 would all but guarantee your life would be hell. Those guys
 are spam-in-a-submerged-can for 3 months at a shot. There's 
 no such thing as going home at night or getting away for the 
 weekend. They're lucky to get a whiff of fresh air occasionally.

 It's likely what happened with Ernesto the Wire-Clipper at Sub
 Base Bangor. The social isolation of being cooped up with a bunch 
 of people who won't talk to you or smile at you would be sheer 
 torture. It'd be like solitary confinement with a group of 
 deaf-mutes: there's people there but they aint' listening to
 you and don't wanna  talk to you. It's my guess that's why he 
 sabotaged his own ship to avoid going out on patrol again. 
 Handed crazy circumstances, people often react in crazy ways. 
 He was hitting drugs pretty heavily at the time as well - a 
 sure sign of someone trying to escape a Bad Scene. 

 Not that the Navy cares. They didn't bother asking him. They
 botched his sabotage trial so bad they had to do it all over
 again. Bluejackets are a dime a dozen as far as they're 
 concerned. One of them goes bad, just throw his ass in the
 brig and grab another one. So what if they screw up some kid's
 life burdening them with an eternal DD. Once he's out the door - 
 he's somebody else's problem. Navy courts routinely determine 
 guilt and innocence, not by facts and evidence, but by the 
 rank of those involved. A Navy Commander at Bremerton was 
 TWICE nailed for sexually molesting sailors and walked away 
 with little more than a slap on the wrist both times. The 
 thought of those bungling idiots running secret tribunals 
 would be funny if it weren't so crazy.

 And the Navy has traditionally been the most racist and sexist
 of all our military services. They've learned to be subtle about 
 it now but the attitude hasn't changed significantly. While you
 would commonly find black sailors in the lower ranks, I doubt 
 if you could find a single black officer commanding any of 
 the ships in our Navy. The old Crackers in the Goat Lockers 
 wouldn't stand for it. And don't even mention women. The gals,
 controversial crew members on our surface ships, aren't even
 allowed to crew the subs, though other nations like Australia
 and Canada, long ago went to mixed crews. Canada even boasts 
 a woman skipper. The Old White Boyz On-The-Take Club. That's 
 our Navy.

 But you'll hear none of this from our News Nazis or the members
 of local Congressional Joboise. They're all RAH! RAH! RAH! GO 
 HOME TEAM! As long as those Bluejackets catch the ferry for 
 Bremerton on-time and stay out of sight and out of mind - they're 
 heroes. It not like any of that crowd actually gives a damn about
 them or their welfare.

.......................................................................

 "But Mark! Active Evil is better than Passive Good. This angel,
  who has now become a Devil, is my particular friend."

                        - William Blake -

.......................................................................

                            ROE v WADE

 Walking through the U Dub campus on Tuesday (the 22nd), I noticed
 a small, printed note in the midst of one of the bushes alongside
 the path. I didn't think much of it but began to notice many more
 as I went along. Hmmm!? What could this be, me thinks. Finally, my
 curiosity got the better of me and I stopped, strapped on my specs
 and stooped to take a look. 

 Each note was on a metal clothes hanger and on it, was the name of 
 a woman who allegedly died while performing an abortion on herself - 
 using a clothes hanger. That was the traditional method for those 
 who couldn't find a doctor who would do the operation or couldn't 
 afford one. The occasion for these hangers and notes, was the 
 anniversary of Roe v. Wade. 

 I come from the generation that straddled birth-control pills. Sex
 was a dangerous proposition. In fact that was part of its attraction
 for those of us who were at that age when it was difficult to think 
 of anything that DIDN'T turn us on. A lot was on the line. We didn't 
 know casual sex. One little slip-up and you were a Daddy. Some tried 
 to run but most were far too slow or too scared to try. The vast
 majority simply resigned themselves to their fate. Marriages were 
 commonly built around, not love and/or affection, but necessity. Few 
 of us came into this world by design - most of us were accidents.

 Birth control was almost exclusively a matter of either a guy putting 
 a Rubber on his Willy or coitus interuptus. There were no pills, 
 lotions, foams. There were interuterine devices but the difficulties 
 in procurring them made them primarily for married gals only. It was 
 something of a status symbol to whip out your wallet with that prominent
 ring in bas-relief on one side. It was the sign of a Studly Player. The 
 kind of guy who boasted of seeing 'more ass than a toiletseat'; who would 
 sagely advise his understudies "the bigger the cushion the easier the 
 push'n". Etc. The proof of prowess being: there were no little pregnant 
 Mamas out looking for him. He took precautions. He had his cake and ate 
 it too. We saw this as a Good Thing.

 I remember when birth control pills first kicked in. The object of my
 affections at the time was really into it what with charts, diagrams
 and an extended library of research material. She was like a freak'n
 scientist. I just kept asking, "You SURE this stuff works?" I like kids.
 I truely enjoy their company far more than that of adults. Their curiosity
 and no-holds-barred attitude of inquiry is refreshing. But not 24 hours
 a day. I haven't got the patience for it and my lifestyle has never 
 been accomodating to the notion. I don't count it among my regrets.
 
 The Abortion Debate isn't really a debate at all. It's really more
 like a War. People are killed and injured because of it. At a time
 when they should be exploring and brokering a compassionate, thoughtful, 
 Christian solution, the churches are instead hunkered down in their 
 foxholes taking pot-shots at anyone who looks vaguely enemy-ish. Their 
 concerns about the sanctity of human life and our spiritual worth, are 
 valid and important issues. But they've failed miserably at pursuing 
 them. Few take the churches seriously. The Vatican in particular with 
 its insane insistance on no form of birth-control whatsoever in a world
 where poverty and war caused by overpopulation have produced profound
 and rampant human degradation, has led many to believe the churches are 
 irrelevant and have nothing constructive to contribute. As so often 
 happens, the baby is getting thrown out with the bathwater. The issues 
 of the sanctity of human life get dismissed as also irrelevant. As a 
 result, the anything-for-a-buck scientists now have a green light to 
 treat their fellow humans as little more than Meat Machines.

 One of my past lovers had an abortion once. She was kind of sneaky about
 it and completely left me outta the loop until it was a Done Thimg. I
 felt somewhat betrayed, though having a kid was the last thing in the
 world I wanted at the time. While the topic of kids never came up for
 discussion, you never know what kind of invisible vibes you're sending
 out. Maybe it made a difference in her decision. Afterwards, the idea
 of considering her some sort of Babykiller would have seemed bizarre
 if not insane. Kids are forever. Don't have 'em unless you're willing
 to spend the rest of your life living with them and have the wherewithall
 to do it properly.

 While RU-486 has largely rendered the abortion debate moot, our pols
 and judges have never been good at recognizing when they have become
 irrelevant. They of course insist on pretending they're in charge and
 are happily willing to destroy a few lives to perpetuate that fantasy.
 Like a dog chasing its tail they will spin around eternally trying to
 answer the unanswerable, unresolvable question: when do we become
 human beings?

......................................................................

 "More than any other people, we Americans are afraid of one another."

			  Wendell Phillips

......................................................................

                         'OL YELLER'S TWAT
                  (aka The War Against Terrorism)                 

 A month ago it would have been extremely unlikely to have run into
 a single normal person who had ever even heard of Enron. Now, all
 of a sudden, our News Nazis have flooded the Public Mind with it,
 pushing everything else right off the Media map. Maybe its got 
 something to do with our military's failure to protect us at home, 
 it's failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, its failure to 
 capture or kill Taliban leader Mullah Omar; its failure to destroy 
 the Taliban; the discovery that the anthrax used in the recent deadly
 attacks came from the U.S. Army; and the embarassing new Death Camp 
 in Cuba where who knows what abominations are being performed in
 our name. Enron has the stink of Red Herring about it. Suspiciously, 
 both sides of the political spectrum seem to welcome the diversion,
 albeit for different reasons. As always - none of the guilty will
 ever have to worry about paying for their crime. 

			     *

 A widow recently went to our newly reopened embassy in Kabul,
 Afghanistan petitioning for compensation. Her family, home
 and all of her possessions had been destroyed by one of our
 bombs. She had been left homeless, destitute and alone by the 
 people of the United States. The brave Marine who heads up
 the embassy, blew her off and told her to get lost. He could
 not be bothered listening babbling Rag Heads like her. 
 Ordinarily that would have been the end of it.

 Except there was a woman there. She was one of a group of 
 Americans, all of whom had lost someone near and dear to
 them in the attacks on the World Trade Center towers in
 New York City. She had lost a nephew. They had come to Kabul 
 to act as intermediaries for Afghani civilians who had been 
 victims of U.S. military attacks on their homes. This woman 
 took the Afghani lady aside and listened to her story. She 
 then helped her draft a formal petition for compensation. 
 Once it was finished, the American woman went to the embassy 
 and handed it to the same brave Marine who had blown off the 
 original petition. He knew better than to try blowing her 
 off - he'd get his ass kicked and severly damage his chances 
 for promotion if he had. He timidly took the petition.

 Evil, like that which was done in our name in Afghanistan or
 that done to us in New York and Washington, is not defeated 
 by fighting it. It's defeated by doing Good. 

			      *

 One of the more disturbing aspects of President Yellowbelly's
 TWAT is the complete lack of any comprehensible verbage. He
 and his flunkies continuosly emit what can only be described
 as gibberish. We'll take no prisoners, yet we have thousands
 stashed away for torturing in Cuba (with Mr. Castro's consent
 we are assured). This is a war, yet no attempt has been made
 to have a state of war declared by the only body authorized to 
 do so - Congress. On and on it goes. It's more like the
 hallucinagenic plot-line of a TV sit-com than something from
 the Real World. What's amazing about it is that it seems to be 
 deliberate. You can't argue with them if you can't figure out 
 what in the hell they're talking about. Our bold new approach
 to social engineering: act crazy.

 The least significant bit in this byte is the American people.
 We are frankly being treated like mushrooms - kept in the dark
 and fed bullshit. And all indications are that we seem to prefer
 it that way. As long as TWAT doesn't translate into higher taxes, 
 and/or a military draft, we're game to keep our mouths shut and 
 behave ourselves. Unless something costs us money or results in 
 our kids coming home in body-bags, we just cynically ignore it. 
 Even massive layoffs and a recession don't register as long they're 
 happening to somebody else. No one seriously believes or trusts 
 in our political leadership any longer except News Nazis and 
 other drooling retards. Nor do we have any confidence in our 
 military's willingness to protect us after 9/11. It's all far, 
 far beyond our control.

 I can't help but get the feeling that I'm witnessing the final 
 days of the American Dream. The present circumstance is so totally
 out of the ordinary it defies comparisons. 
  - our first unelected President forced on us by the Supreme Court;
  - coming under direct attack for the first time in 200 years 
    and our military just stood there and watched without lifting 
    a finger to defend or protect us;
  - extra-legal concentration camps in which American citizens, 
    immigrants and dissidents are incarcerated, stripped of even the 
    most basic of legal rights, merely for the color of their skin,
    their religious beliefs and political views;
  - secret military tribunals as a 'normal' part of our judicial 
    process; 
  - we've just trashed a nation that had nothing at all to do with 
    the attacks for no other apparent reason than blind revenge; 
  - Concentration Camps in which foreign nationals flown in from 
    thousands of miles away are tortured by our Paycheck Patriots
    and subjected to heaven only knows what abominations.
 And all the while our News Nazis are jumping up and down with their 
 fingers in their ears yelling LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING!. What
 in the hell is going on here? Nothing quite like this has ever 
 happened before all at once. It bears more resemblance to Nazi 
 Germany or Stalinist Russia than America. No one ever thinks it 
 could happen to them - until it's too late.

......................................................................

			MONTLAKE MUTTS

 Take me out to the ballgame...take me out with the crowd...

 Yes, once again even while the world is going to hell in a hand
 basket it is baseball season in Mudville. On February 14th Coach 
 Knutson's Puppies open the regular season with the traditional 
 trip to someplace else where it's drier and warmer - Arizona. You 
 can see why they pay this guy all those Big Bucks. He knows what 
 he's do'n. The last place in the world you wanna try to play ball 
 is Seattle in the middle of our February Monsoons. But before you 
 know it (March 1st - Utah) the boys will be lined up again at the 
 fence Hack'n big, green, greasy-look'n Loobies out on the turf to 
 show their loyalty to the Home Team as the Canadian geese off
 Lake Washington swoop in low to drop a few strategically placed 
 smart-bombs on the terrorists below. 

 The Mutts managed to squeak into Baseball America's top 25 just a
 nose ahead of the baseball juggernaut of Rutgers. Where's that?
 Oh yeah - back east somewhere. Only a couple Pac 10 teams are ahead
 of them in the ratings: Stanford (#1), USC (#4), CS Fullerton (#15),
 Arizona State (#18), CS Northride (#22). Which, come to think of 
 it, doesn't leave much of anybody for the Mutts to lord it over 
 except the Fight'n Farmboys of Wazoo. Almost the entire lineup from 
 last year is back again. A rarety in college ball. They busted out 
 of the gate real good last year, but petered out at the end. Maybe
 they'll level it out this year and surprise a few people. None
 of the Mariners will show up to watch, that's for sure. They'd
 have to fly in from Japan. And Loserville Lou is too busy trying 
 to think of new ways to Blow It Bigtime again this year.

......................................................................

                      MONDO VATICANO

 With Pope Ratso the First (aka Cardinal Ratzinger) whispering cues 
 and giggling behind the curtain, Future-Super-Saint JP-2 shuffled  
 his walker out to the Big Mic in the Vatican Ballroom to announce 
 an urgent message: the Internet is loaded with depravity and he 
 wants the world's governments to put a stop to it immediately. This 
 startling and unexpected message was afterwards met with a universal
 chorus of Huzahs! from such diverse groups as the Communist Party 
 of the People's Republic of China to the Ayatollahs of Iran who 
 all feel exactly the same way. In fact every fascist tyrrany in the 
 world, both religious and secular, enthusiastically endorsed JP-2's 
 call for a Cyberspace Cleansing. Kind of makes you glad it ain't 
 the Good Old Days when this goofball's predecessors were calling 
 the shots in Italy.

 While mentioning that the Papal Poobah had recently used the Net
 to send an email, the News Nazis were nice enough to not to mention 
 that it was an apology of the sort he normally delivers personally. 
 An apology for gross sexual abuse of children in Church residential
 schools in Oceania. Oh well. It was only a bunch of Colored kids. 
 No point in wasting planefare on them. And certainly not the sort
 negativism the News Nazis want to diseminate. It would upset their
 hallucinagenic ambiance.

			+	+	+

 Off the U.S. Capital Building's rotunda is an area known as
 The Statuary. That's where the famous Will Rodgers statue is
 that everybody likes to rub the foot of for good luck. Been
 there, done that. Each state is allowed two statues. One of 
 the Washington state statues is that of a nun - Mother Joseph 
 (aka Esther Parizeau) of the Sisters of Providence. Her unusually 
 masculine religious name resulted from her choosing her father's 
 name when she took her vows.

 Mother Joseph was a rather extraordianry woman. She came out
 here from Canada's French-speaking province of Quebec in the
 wild and whooly Early Times when this region was just beginning 
 to settle and places like Seattle were little more than villages. 
 Her distinction is that she built 29 schools and hospitals here. 
 I don't mean 'build' in a figurative sense. Not only was she 
 a willing and able carpenter, she was also one of the territory's 
 first architects. After drawing up the blueprints, she often
 joined construction crews, in her full (and rather elaborate) 
 religious habit, swinging a hammer with the best of them. To 
 finance these efforts, she and her sisters periodically went 
 off on 'Begging Tours' of mining and logging towns all over the 
 Northwest and further inland, hitting on lucky prospectors and 
 wealthy lumber barons to share a little of the prosperity 
 Providence had endowed them with. Later, she pioneered the 
 first primitive form of health insurance by issuing 'tickets' 
 for hospital care. For $10 worth, you were covered for a year. 
 She also organized the territory's first nursing school. 

 Despite it all, she was a humble, self-deprecating and deeply
 religious person who took great solace from God's presence. 
 Faced with considerable prejudice and intolerance from the 
 locals who often mocked her religious habit and French-language, 
 she patiently bore it all and did her Works of Loving Kindness - 
 caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, consoling the poor 
 and sheltering orphans. She died in 1902, a few years before 
 big, new Providence Hospital was built. It remains a prominent 
 feature of Seattle's skyline behind the downtown core. It was 
 likely her work that attracted Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini to 
 Seattle a couple decades later for a two year stay.
  
			+	+	+

 Opps! Fr. Geoghan's paedophile misadventures in criminal court
 aside from generating a new legal industry fueled by the 200 or
 so lawsuits he and his obliging Cardinal have generated, has 
 recently had yet another sad side-effect. Previously exempted 
 from the legal requirement to report child-abuse as doctors, 
 teachers and social workers have been required to do for a long 
 time, the Church may soon also have to do the same or face 
 criminal charges in future. The Massachusetts State House is 
 presently drafting legislation to that effect. If the Church 
 is unable and unwilling to police it's own ranks, then society
 will have to do it for them. We have a right to defend ourselves.

			+	+	+

 Here comes that Internet patron saint thing again. The braindead
 old farts who are deciding this aren't exactly known as bigtime
 web surfers but then they're at least clever enough to hide the
 Net Porn on their Vatican work-station hard-drives from Pope Ratso 
 the First. They still lean towards that goofy old Jew-baiter St. 
 Isadore. It must have been the 'suggestion' of one of the Curia 
 Queens. It has their aura of stupidity about it. I kind of lean 
 towards someone who was not only intelligent but deeply spiritual:
 	* Cardinal Newman: He was possibly the last Cardinal who 
          had both a brain and a spiritual bone in his body. But
          then he got into hot water for questioning Papal 
          Infallibility. A saintly trouble-maker.
        * Saint Max Kolbe. He was a priest who volunteered himself 
          as a replacement for a married guy in a German concentration 
          camp when the Kommandant picked out a group of inmates to 
          kill as a punishment for another group's attempt to escape. 
          Max was not only a deeply religious guy, he was also a 
          Techo-Freak. He was a Ham Radio operator, ran a radio station,
          had some of his order's priests take flying lessons, etc.
          No doubt at all he would have taken to the Net like a fish
          to water. He also spent some time in Japan. Besides, St. Max 
          has a nice ring to it. Makes me think of Max Headroom.

			+	+	+

 Look out! Here come the fundamentalists. Five Fun Boy churches have
 targeted the innocent and defenceless Catholics of upstate New York
 for conversion and its got the local priests grabbing their shotguns
 and diving for their foxholes. It's one thing for the Church to
 blow off parishoners by the thousands with its arrogance and 
 ineptitude - that is afterall its God Given Right. But when those
 pushy Protestant varmints try to horn in on their pidgeons, it's a 
 different matter. That's war. Citing theological inconsistancies too
 numerous to mention, the local parish priests are fighting back in
 an effort to defend their turf. 

 Duh! Apparently it hasn't occured to them that this has far less to 
 do with theology than it does with religious relevance. As long as 
 the Church continues to treat the Butts In The Pews like mere 
 spectators with no say in anything; as long as it continues to ignore 
 our vast and rich heritage of Catholic traditions; as long as it 
 continues to arrogantly flog its anti-women, anti-gay, anti-semitic 
 bigotry as improbably Divinely Inspirated; as long as it continues to 
 pretend it's still the 13th century; as long as the Vatican continues 
 to shamelessly and disingenuously sell its graces to the highest 
 political bidder, the Church will remain vulnerable to efforts like 
 those of the fundamentalists. It can be no other way. It's called
 'shooting yourself in the foot'.
 
--------------------------------------------------
 The above is copyright material. You want to use it,
 ask. You want to make money off it, gimme some first.
 I'll let you know if it's enough. You want to steal it,
 I'll sic my lawyer Yoshi 'The Proctologist' Rasmussen
 on you baby. He'll teriyaki your sorry butt and turn
 it into Lutefisk.
~--------------------------------------------------
 MAIL:    tofoggymoment@yahoo.com
 ARCHIVE: http://www.geocities.com/tofoggymoment
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