__
                    __ _ / _|_ __ ___
           _____   / _` | |_| '_ ` _ \   _____
          |_____| | (_| |  _| | | | | | |_____|
                   \__,_|_| |_| |_| |_|
                   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.
    -------------------------------------------------

                          - 139 -


 The Yoshino cherry trees in U Dub's quad began blooming this
 weekend. Yeehaaa!

 The juvenille delinquents had their Finals this week and many 
 began immediately packing to clear out. FINALLY! Now there will 
 be parking places and the super-market line-ups will return to 
 normal levels. The tykes can now trundle off to their corporate 
 cubicles to waste away their pathetic little lives kissing Boss 
 Butt and mindlessly shuffling paper, dreaming of their precious
 two-week vacation in some 3rd World dirt-hole where they don't
 know anybody. Fun's over. It's all downhill from here baby.

 Actually, enrollment at U Dub must have been way down this year. 
 For the first time in years there were many vacancy signs through 
 the term and parking spaces actually cost less than apartment 
 rentals. It must be the new tuition hike. Contrary to what the 
 News Nazis said, the newly out of work Dot.commies probably didn't 
 go back to school - they cleared out. A walk down Broadway on
 Saturday brought that message home - it's lost much of its
 vitality and weirdness. Seattle's job market has all but 
 evaporated. You can't eat scenery and Hooterville has little 
 else to offer.

 The Canuks took a major kick to the economic groin this week.
 It always seems to surprise people that they are our biggest
 trade partner. Which of course means they have also been one
 of the biggest benficiaries of our whopping huge trade deficit.
 We've now slapped a new 30% tariff on British Columbia's logs
 in an effort to protect our own logging interests. 

 Which almost makes sense until you consider that all of BC's 
 top logging companies are American-owned. Our big transnational 
 logging companies pretty much ran the negotiations on the American 
 side of the table. And of course their corporate interests took 
 precedence over the interests of the American taxpayer. Whatever. 
 The Canuks are pissed and angry over it. Mills will be closing 
 and many, many people will be losing their jobs. The jobs won't 
 likely be going south of the border. These companies operate
 all over the world and really couldn't give anymore of a rat's 
 ass about American loggers than they do about Canadian loggers.
 It's money that they love. Third-world labor is cheaper.

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

                  THE OLD MAN & THE JUDGE

 "Judge Jimmy Doerty, King County Inferior Court now presiding. 
 Everybody please jump up and holler 'Hee Haw!'.", sang the 
 baliff recently at the Inferior Court building. As usual, the
 spectators were more than willing to oblige the baliff, "HEE
 HAW!", they yelled with glee. While Judge Jimmy deposited his 
 well upholstered tush at the bench and the spectators settled 
 back to enjoy the show, the guards led the County's most 
 dangerous and nefarious criminal into the courtroom in chains. 
 He was cleverly disguised as a 70-year old mild-mannered former 
 journalist and college instructor by the name of Paul Trummel. 
 He is presently being held in the County Lock Up 'indefinitely' 
 without bail for his nefarious crimes against humanity.

 So THIS is the infamous Green River Killer! Nope. Okay, he's 
 a priest who was using the Internet to lure young children
 into a life of sexual depravity? Nope. I got it! He's a former
 Corporate Head Honcho who bilked thousands of investors in his
 energy company out of Billions of Bucks while trashing his
 employees 401(k)s. Get real! Crooks like that end up in
 Presidental cabinets not courtrooms. Alright then, he's an 
 Al Qaida terrorist who got caught trying to board a flight 
 at Sea-Tac wearing a pair of exploding underwear. Close, 
 but no banana.

 If the Perp didn't actually hurt anyone or steal anything, and
 presents no real danger to society, then just what in the hell 
 DID he do that Judge Jimmy evicted him from his home and locked 
 the poor old Geezer up at KCJ? He wrote a newsletter and a webpage
 critical of the management at Council House, a senior citizens
 residence on Captial Hill run by the National Council of Jewish
 Women (with Federal aid). Officially, Judge Jimmy's reason for 
 keeping Mr. Trummel locked up is that he refuses to take down 
 the webpage (contracabal.net) containing this criticism. Until
 he does, he stays in the Hoosegow. Mr. Trummel ain't backing
 off one little bit. Being semi-retired and now homeless, it's
 not like he's got a helluva lot to lose.

 Essentially, Mr. Trummel's 'crime' seems to be that he tried 
 to organize the residents of Council House to demand some say 
 in how their home is run. Much as a union organizer rallies the 
 employees in a workplace. He's a good old-fashioned American 
 shit-disturber - though his roots are in England. Putting on 
 the journalism 'hat' he's worn for the better part of 50 years, 
 he began producing a newsletter for the residents. Then he set 
 up an informational webpage. The management did what many union-
 busting companies do - with Judge Jimmy's help, they booted him 
 out the door onto the street - homeless. Judge Jimmy came up with 
 some legal mumbo-jumbo about how you're not a journalist unless 
 somebody is paying you to be a journalist, ipso fatso, since Mr. 
 Trummel wasn't get paid, he's not legally qualified to be producing 
 his newsletter or his webpage and therefore does not qualify for 
 the Freedom of Speech provisions in our Bill of Rights. Don't 
 even bother trying to make any sense out of it - there's none 
 there. Obviously Judge Jimmy is new to this Gig and a bit 
 inexperienced.

 Abuse and mistreatment of residents of Washington carehomes for
 the elderly is endemic. The media dribbles out a steady stream
 of horror stories from those disgusting human warehouses we
 stick our old folks in. Much of this abuse is enabled by lack
 of state oversight and the indifference of our judges to the
 plight of these people. Sure they built this country and fought 
 its stupid wars. But now they're old, broke and in the way. 
 The state's compassionate attitude seems to be: hurry up and 
 die dammit - you're costing us money. And now Judge Jimmy has
 added that if any of them come whinning about lousy conditions 
 to his court he'll kick their asses. Which is precisely what 
 he is doing to Mr. Trummel. 
 
 If you're looking for a saint, Mr. Trummel would be a poor
 canidate. While clearly a very intelligent, well-read and
 well-travelled man of varied experience, some people find 
 him downright annoying. They would be inclined to describe
 him as a crotchity Old Fart. If you read his webpage, aside
 from concluding that he sure knows how to write, you would
 also likely conclude that Voltaire is one of his favorite
 writers - his wit is passionate and acerbic. A couple of 
 residents at Council House objected to him and received wide 
 coverage from our News Nazis, at the encouragement of the 
 home's management. The 40 residents who supported his efforts, 
 on the other hand, were roundly ignored. Don't blame the 
 Media - they just manufacture the news, they don't report 
 it. It ain't their fault.

 What makes Judge Jimmy's attitude so odd is that he's Gay. 
 He's the Hooterville Yacht Club's token Gay Guy on the 
 Inferior Court. His previous legal experience was primarily 
 limited to working with kids in connection with Family Court. 
 That's not much. Most judges in his position would probably
 have far more. He was obviously given the job, at least in 
 part, to help ensure that Governor Stinky gets lots of Gay/
 Lesbian votes come election time. It's what politicians do.
 Regardless of the circumstances of how he got his job, Judge 
 Jimmy undoubtably knows a thing or two about what it's like 
 to be up against a hostile System that often seems to be out 
 to destroy you for no other reason than who you are. It's
 fair to say he knows he ain't welcome at St. James Cathedral
 for Easter Sunday Mass. Bishop Brunett don't like guys like 
 him unless they're willing to be ashamed of themselves. Jimmy
 most definitely and properly is not ashamed of who he is nor
 would he be likely to apologize for it. He's a proud Gay man.

 So why is he 'bashing' a helpless old man in such a clearly 
 cruel and sadistic way? What is it about this Mr. Trummel 
 that scares him so much that he's pushing the Panic Button? 
 Why is he going to such extraordinary lengths to completely
 obliterate an obscure Nobody? This ain't normal. It's got
 a funny smell to it.

 There is obviously some Footsie going on under the table here. 
 I don't think this is about an old man bad-mouthing facility
 management or laws or statutes. I think this is about something 
 far more human. Did Mr. Trummel have some kind of problem with 
 Gay care-workers and now it's Pay Back Time? Is that it? I 
 sure hope not. Guys like Jimmy are put on the bench to ensure
 a 'level playing field' not to 'even the score'. But if that
 ain't it, it's got to be something like that. That's what I
 think anyways.
 
 Judge Jimmy is what you call 'computer illiterate'. He doesn't 
 know about how webpages can be mirrored and cached elsewhere as 
 this one now has been. Even if Mr. Trummel removes his webpage, 
 the information will live eternally on the Web anyways far beyond 
 Judge Jimmy's jurisdiction. The Net has zero tolerance for the 
 censorship of hillbilly judges. He's already lost. His Dog &
 Pony Show is a pointless sham. So stop already. This is getting
 disgusting.

...................................................................... 
 
 HEALTH WARNING: Care should be taken when lifting this product, 
 since its mass, and thus its weight, is dependant on its velocity
 relative to the user.

 - from Physics Product Warnings
......................................................................

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

 Ol Yeller continued his tour of the world's bunkers this week
 with a visit to Peru. Maybe next time we get hit by terrorists
 Yellowbelly can run down to Peru and hide in a bunker down 
 there, just for a change of scenery. I guess his handlers 
 figured he needed a bit of a tutorial after pretty much botching 
 the trips to Japan and Korea not to mention his goofy-looking
 Shifty-Eyed Hillbilly act in China. He obvious needs practice. 
 Since nobody actually gives much of a damn about Peru its not 
 like he could hurt anything. And the locals obliged with a 
 nearly continuous barage of bombs while thousands protested 
 in the streets. Just like when Tricky Dick Nixon visited 
 there when he was Ike's Veep.

 Tricky Ricky Cheney sure charmed the pants off them Ragheads in
 the Middle East eh. Unfortunately he came up sucking air in his
 attempt to forge a coalition against Iraq. I don't think it
 helped matters when he kept calling them Dune Coons and Camel
 Humpers. Nor when he kept insisting that instead of shaking his
 hand they bow down and kiss 'my fat white American ass'. They 
 just said 'No' to his stupid idea. Looks like its just us and 
 the Limmies now. Does Uncle Sammy have the balls to go it alone? 
 Will Saddam once again kick sand in Uncle Sammy's face? Are we 
 just going to let the rest of the world dictate to us what 
 enemies we can and cannot attack? Will Yellowbelly wimp-out 
 like his daddy did? Sacred American Christian Blood has been 
 spilt in the Infidel Lands. It MUST be avenged. Tra-la. Tra-la.

 It was funny hearing the Limmies threatening Saddam that if
 he used weapons of mass-destruction on their Tommies they'd
 nuke him. With what? Are they going to mail the nukes to 
 Iraq? They got bugger all in the way of delivery vehicles and
 what they do have is dysfunctional junk. It's more likely
 they'd end up nuking themselves. Oh well. At least we got the
 good news that The Iron Lady, Maggie Thatcher, has to keep
 her fat mouth shut for the rest of her retarded life. Her
 arteries have rusted up to the point where public speaking
 equates with suicide. Might as well ship her off to the
 same Turnip Farm her buddy Ronny Ray-gun is in. They can
 fritter away their Golden Years weaving baskets for the 
 Easter Bunny.

 Meanwhile, Operation Condor wrapped up in Afghanistan. In the 
 grand tradition of the Vietnam War, we declared victory and
 made a run for cover. The same familar old phony body-counts
 and false bravado. You can tell that moronic hillbilly in the 
 Cammie Jammies who's running things at the Pentagon, General
 Franks, learned his trade in Vietnam. Same tired old tricks. 
 He must think the whole world is as stupid as his relatives 
 back at the family trailer park.

 To celebrate the end of Operation Condor, the dead Al Qaida and 
 Taliban warriors miraculously rose from their graves and began 
 going on the offensive. There can be no other explanation. We 
 were told all the others were completely wiped out three months 
 ago. It's got to be the dead guys doing the shooting. Either
 that or there was a prison break from Camp X that they ain't
 telling us about. I don't care what President Yellowbelly says,
 Taliban warriors simply don't demonically materialize from thin 
 air. The real war has now begun.

 It's strange the way our News Nazi keep referring to our troops
 as 'young American war-fighters'. They seem hesitant calling
 our guys 'soldiers'. Which is appropriate. These are basically
 Federal employees of the Department of Defense, not soldiers.
 And certainly not warriors. They are professionals serving our
 Professional Military, not citizens serving their country. It's 
 a job. Many aren't even American citizens - they are foreign
 citizens hoping to fast-track into American citizenship. You
 don't have to wait as long if you join the military and you
 get priority over American citizens for federal jobs. Plus you
 get to wear those neato Nazi helmets the Generals love so much.
 I wonder if they give the Special Forces guys little daggers
 like the Gestapo boys used to get.

.....................................................................
 
 A young IRS auditor for his first assignment gets an old Rabbi.
 Still lacking a bit in professionalism, he decides to have a 
 little fun.
 IRS GUY: Rabii. What do you do with the candle drippings from
          your Schul?
 RABBI:   Drippings schmippings. We send them to the candle factory 
          and, every once in a while, they give us a free candle.
 IRS GUY: And what do you do with the crumbs from your table?
 RABBI:   Oi! Your worried about table crumbs! We send them to
          the matzoh ball factory and, every once in a while, they
          send us a free box of matzoh balls.
 IRS GUY: Okay. What do you do with the foreskins from circumcisions?
 RABBI:   Gott in Himmel! You're auditing foreskins! We send them to 
          the IRS and, every once in a while, they send us a little 
          prick like you.

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

                          DA MUTTS

 Week off for finals. This week they head east to visit the
 Kuntry Kuzins at Wazoo for a couple easy points then head 
 south to tangle with Arizona State and that Jesus Love'n 
 weirdo with the snakes - Alice Cooper. 

 They're off to a far slower start this year than last. Worse,
 last year it was largely a rookie team unfamiliar with one
 another; this year's Purple Puppies are pretty much intact
 from last year. So it's unlikely they'll be winning any NCAA 
 College World Series. What the hell, it's baseball, the boys 
 are all Hommies, its every bit as good as AAA ball, the 
 price is right and, unlike the Tokyo Mariners - they ain't 
 afraid of the rain - bring your own roof.

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

                  PRAYER IN TIMES OF STRESS

 Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
 The courage to change the things I cannot accept,
 And the wisdom to properly hide the bodies afterwards.
 Give me the discretion to remember that the toes I step on today,
 Might be connected to the ass I have to kiss tomorrow.
 And help me to always give 100% at work...
 12% on Monday
 23% on Tuesday
 40% on Wednesday
 20% on Thursday
  5% on Fridays
 Finally, remind me that when people really piss me off,
 While it takes 42 muscles to frown,
 It only takes 4 muscles to extend my middle finger 
 And tell them to Bite Me.
 
 Amen.
...........................................................................
  
                     -  MONDO VATICANO -

 The circumstances surrounding the asassination of Columbian 
 Archbishop Cancino of Cali remain cloudy. They've been slinging 
 him as a great 'peacemaker' when in fact he was more like a 
 moderate liberal status-quo kind of guy. He certainly was no 
 Oscar Romero. His staff requested police protection for him at 
 the wedding he was attending. It was refused and he was left
 unprotected that day. He was obviously set-up by the Powers That 
 Be. Certainly he must of sensed it, but attended none the less. 
 A pretty gutsy guy. There was an immediate media barage blaming 
 the killing on drug lords or leftist guerillas. Neither had 
 anything significant to fear from him or to gain from his death. 
 I find it pretty improbable. More, Columbia's guerilla armies 
 have included in the past a prominent Catholic theologian and 
 many parish priests who had taken up the gun on behalf of their 
 people. I think he was asassinated by the government or, very 
 likely by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. It's the same
 sort of high-profile political asassination the CIA has often
 used in the past elsewhere to further their agenda. The Vatican's
 muted, faint-praise response to his death seemed eerily similar
 to their response after Oscar Romaro's death. Those Curia Wops
 know when to keep their fat traps shut.

			+	+	+

 The Crazy Old Ladies In Black (COLIB) continue their incessant
 whinage about anti-Catholic conspiracies in the wake of the
 pervert priest scandal. Except now they've shifted their attack
 from the Media to those goddam Queer priests. THEY, not the sweet, 
 innocent heterosexual priests, are the real guilty party in all 
 this. Forget the pedophiles - lets get those Faggots and cut 
 their nuts off. Nothing like a little Gay Bashing to get a 
 Catholic Girl's blood up eh. The Curia Wops in the Vatican have 
 jumped on this bandwagon as well and are encouraging the concept. 
 Next question: how are they going to figure out which priests 
 are Tootsies and which ones are Straights? And what about the
 Bi-Guys? I don't even want to think about hermaphrodite priests.
 This is getting very complicated.

 Finally after months of international headlines and no end of
 public scandal, Future-Super-Saint JP-2 aroused from his stooper
 and addressed his pervert priest problem. Well...sort of anyways.
 Right at the very end of his annual 20-page Easter letter to 
 priests he briefly mumbled something about the horrors of 
 diddling kiddies and advised the clergy that it was a big No-No 
 in his book. Phew! Was there some possibility he'd come down in
 favor of pedastry? Somehow the World's Press parlayed his limp
 wristed, miniscule, back-handed admonishment into a major statement
 against pedophiles. Isn't that nice of them? They want so much to 
 be helpful.

 Tinkle...tinkle...tinkle. Hear that? That's the sound of JP-2's
 Papacy crumbling to shards before his very eyes. It depended so
 completely on his physical presence. He'd just flash that fat,
 pink smiling Pollock face of his at the Rubes and all doubts
 would dissolve. Apparently it never occurred to him that some
 day he would be a sickly, feeble-minded, shrivled-up old coot
 who looks like a living corpse. The Old Magic, the faithful
 charisma, is a distant memory. As is his Papacy. It's no longer
 a question of 'if'; it's a question of 'when'.

 The backstage whispers about his obvious inability to cope with 
 Papal Affairs have become public whispers. His back-stabbing 
 'loyalists' are coming out of the wood-work ready to plunge 
 their daggers in his back. If he wasn't such a complete jerk 
 I might be moved to feel sorry for him. But he and his gang of 
 ecclesiastical thugs have hurt the Church so deeply in the last 
 couple decades, I can only feel that he's getting a justly 
 deserved small taste of the Divine Judgement that soon awaits 
 him. Sometimes your Dogma gets run over by your Karma. I like
 it when that happens.

 The big international Internet Pedophile Bust this week nabbed
 a couple more pervert priests. What gets me is you gotta know
 these guys were all working along with other priests who must
 have at least sensed something was amiss with these guys. And
 yet not a peep out of any of them. The old Wall of Silence thing
 again. Never rat on a collegue even if he is a pervert preying
 on innocent children.

 And now we discover that Cardinal Law's stringently supervised
 hideaway for pervert priests in Boston, Our Lady's Hall, was 
 often the scene of pedastry itself. One priest sent there had 
 one of his kiddies visit him regularly for his priestly Porkings. 
 The kid even stayed over for the night a few times. Some 
 supervision eh.

 Meanwhile, Eddie Egan's House of Horrors Day Care Center in New 
 York City has been coming in for some media flack after it was 
 learned he's been hiding pervert priests for years at each stop 
 on his climb to the top. His response? Humility, contrition, 
 reparation? Hell no! Screw the civil authorities, he Eddie Egan, 
 and no one else, will decide who is and isn't guilty of pedastry. 
 He arrogantly set himself up as judge and jury in all such cases 
 in future. Academic credentials in dealing with abnormal sexual 
 behavior: zilch. Experience at dealing with abnormal sexual 
 behavior: zilch. Talk about a clueless idiot. Why doesn't he just 
 wear a sign saying, "Somebody smack me upside the head with a 2x4. 
 I'm stupid." Between Mayor Bloomberg and most of the State House, 
 Eddie's getting sized up for that 2x4 even as I speak. He'll be 
 the next one on the cover of Newsweek.

 The interesting thing about this whole pedophile scandal thing
 is that many Catholics are realizing for the first time that 
 the Church really isn't the Vatican and the Cardinals and the 
 Bishops and the priests - it's us. Despite the perversion and
 hypocracy of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, few if any of the
 Butts In The Pews are walking away in disgust. The mental
 acrobatics to understand the situation border on the bizarre,
 but they're slowly finding fairly honest ways of dealing with
 it. No thanks to the clergy. Aside from sermons, they've avoided
 the subect and left the BITPs to figure it out for themselves.
 This isn't about a failure of our traditions. It's about 
 a failure by the people those traditions were entrusted to. 
 Catholics are beginning to demand of our clergy that they live 
 up to and take more seriously their responsibilties. To be 
 good for that trust and true to it. Instead of screwing around 
 like they are now.

     			+	+	+

 Well now! We found out this week why Newsweek is leading the 
 parade on the snowballing priestly pedophile story: the Limmie 
 who passes for their chief Vatican correspondent had his wife 
 dump him to Shack Up with that sly ex-Jesuit snake-in-the-grass, 
 Fr. Malachi Martin (RIP). Mr. Correspondant is coming out with 
 a book soon detailing the tawdry affair from the 60's. It promises 
 to be little more than a 'jealous husband' rant cleverly disguised 
 as 'serious journalism'. America's about the only place left
 were you can get away with garbage like that. He wanted to wait 
 until Malachi was cold in his grave first to avoid any unsavory 
 cross-examination of his journalistic hack job. Dead men don't 
 file defamation lawsuits either. Those Limmies are about the 
 most pathetically gutless bastards on God's green earth. No 
 wonder that Loser's wife dumped him for an old priest.
 
 I'm no big fan of Malachi Martin. He was a Snake Oil salesman 
 plain and simple as far I was concerned. He first caught my 
 attention when the movie "The Exorcist" came out. He claimed 
 it was based on one of his many books. He milked that baby 
 shamelessly. And he nurtured a peculiarly contradictory aura 
 that included vague allusions to his intimacy with the offices 
 of that most Liberal of all modern Popes - John XXIII - while 
 simultaneously claiming brotherhood with the most crude and 
 superstitiously Conservative traditional circles. He clearly 
 wanted to be all things to all men and play both sides of the 
 fence. 

 A slick operator, he was a clever man with a taste for expensive 
 suits high-class restaurants and Rich Old Babes. His spirtuality 
 had all the depth of a cheap paint job. His glib explanation about 
 being 'released from the priesthood at his own request' sounded 
 suspiciously like a paraphrase for being 'defrocked'. Which is of 
 course exactly what it was. The old roster got caught in the hen-
 house with his Pecker hanging out one too many times. He got his 
 revenge on the Vatican by cranking out authorative sounding stories 
 about Black Masses in St. Pete's conducted by Cardinals and other 
 forms of demonic BS in Roma. Malachi had no difficulty at all 
 schnookering the likes of Bishop "Moonie" Milingo and talk-radio's 
 Art Bell where he regularly dispensed his high-grade Malarchy until 
 his death. 
 
 The Vatican largely ignored him as it does all its embarassments.
 The Curia Wops "Wall of Silence" Sicilian thing. Being rather a
 pro at the Holy Scam game, interestingly enough, Malachi pulled 
 the veil from the phony Virgin of Medjugorje trip in Bosnia. It's 
 the hottest new Vision Thing. While the Vatican hasn't endorsed 
 it, it's promoters have been ambitiously and aggressively Slinging 
 it as the modern Fatima. If anybody would know it's fake, Malachi 
 would. Takes a thief to know a thief. Being worth a lot of money 
 to its promoters in terms of guided-tours to the site, extensive
 donation-gathering lecture tours of Europe and America by the 
 phony visionaries, etc. they tend to be very protective of their
 Golden Goose. Malachi's criticism worried them and earned him a
 spot near the top of their Shit List. They should have offerred 
 him a percentage; instead, they insisted on being greedy.

 Mother Church has always attracted a lot of rogues, scoundrels,
 con-artists and other curious hangers-on over the centuries. She
 still does. Malachi, as phony as he was, was at least endearingly 
 human, very entertaining and never hurt anybody. May the sly old 
 fox rest in peace. And that pretentious, whimpering Limmie from 
 Newsweek can go to hell.

			+	+	+  

 This is the Big Week on the Catholic calendar: Holy Week. Where
 all other such affairs are one-day occasions, this one is a full
 seven days. It dramatically follows the final week of Christ's 
 human life and the culmination of his ministry. And it sets loose
 some pretty classic Catholic weirdness - guys who try to emulate
 Christ's crucifixion, etc. Oddly enough, my favorite inspirational 
 aid to get me into the mood for this occasion is a book by a Jew - 
 "The Nazarene" by Sholem Asch. The fictional narrators he uses 
 for events paralleling what occurs this week are: Judas Izachariot 
 and Cornelius the Commander of the Roman legions in Jerusalem - 
 the two traditional Bad Guys. Sholem doesn't make them into Good 
 Guys but he does translate them into something more substantial
 than the usual cartoon characters. His understanding of Jewish
 traditions adds a whole new dimension to matters.

 Poor Sholem was despised and rejected both by Jews and Christians
 for his books on Christian themes. Many Jews considered him a
 Jew for Jesus. Many Christians considered him a Jew who was
 trying to diminish Christ's significance to that of an interesting
 Rabbi. In fact neither slant is even vaguely accurate. Sholem
 lived and died as a Jew. He was never a Christian in any sense.
 He seemed to feel that Christ WAS the promised Messiah. But not
 the Messiah promised to the Jews. Rather, a Messiah representing
 a new Convenant - a Covenant with the Gentiles. The Messiah of 
 the Jews is yet to come. How interesting eh. 

 Many Jews have daily, if not hourly, lived in expectation of the 
 Messiah's appearance. They still do. But they've always expected
 that there would only be one Messiah - theirs. Many times HaShem
 expressed the desire to embrace ALL of mankind. But no one ever
 really understood how this might come about. There hadn't even
 been a great deal of speculation about the matter. Everybody would
 become a Jew? That would certainly open a can of worms! Jews feel
 a strong nationhood as well as a religious affinity - children of
 Abraham/Isaac/Jacob, the nation of Israel, etc. How could they 
 embrace gentiles into that scheme of things and still remain a 
 distinct people?

 So a Messiah of the Gentiles emerging from the Jewish nation
 would certainly be in a tricky situation in terms of explaining
 and developing His mission. How to let the Jews know that the 
 Old Covenant still is valued and holds, yet create a New Covenant 
 intimately tied to it but distinct from its traditions? It would 
 explain much of Christ's need for parables and similes, some of 
 whose elements profoundly violated the traditions (not the Law 
 itself) that were held? How else to explain the incomprehensible? 
 The notion has a lovely symmetry to it and a certain naturalness 
 that feels close to the Truth. The circumstances of His human 
 life had to be such as to create a distinctly different gateway
 for the gentiles. His death and all the surrounded it was crucial 
 and absolutely necessary however terrible and terrifying it may 
 have been for him.

 Best of all, the idea of a seperate Messiah for the Gentiles 
 allows for the valuing of the people of the Old Covenant. It 
 could not have been possible for HaShem to consider without 
 the faithfullness of the Jews to Him. We all would have been 
 doomed if they had forsaken Him. We owe them much for that 
 faithfulness. They made our redemption possible. Certainly a 
 much different propsition from the Blood Guilt hatred so 
 fondly coveted by the Vatican over the centuries. And it 
 provides a practical expression of the very real unity that 
 exists between us. He is our God. We both are His people. 

 The importance of the events we remember this week display 
 the profound depth of meaning HaShem's love for all of us
 has. He literally sealed it with the blood of his own son,
 providing Him as our Gateway to Him. He could not have 
 expressed his seriousness about the matter more explicitly
 or in a more intimate way.
 
--------------------------------------------------------
 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
--------------------------------------------------