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

                          - 147 -

 Mr. Trummel's humble webpages remain up:
	contracabal.net [Washington State version]
        contracabal.org [International version]
 So I assume that he remains locked up in the KingCo Hoosegow
 on orders from King Country Inferior Court judge Jimmy "The
 Token Twinkie" Doerty, until he 'sanitizes' the org site. 
 But being in jail, Paul has no web access and couldn't clean 
 the webpage up even in the unlikely event he wanted to. Doh! 
 Catch-22. King County Inferior Court judges ain't too 
 bright. But they all give good Political Head. Just ask 
 Governor Stinky.

 Other than that, all I know is that he's been diagnosed
 with TB. He's otherwise dropped off our News Nazis radar
 and disappeared.

                            *

 The ospreys are gone. They used to perch on a few trees 
 at the entrance to the Montlake Cut overlooking Union
 Bay on Lake Washington. Every night there would be close 
 to a hundred of them crowded onto those trees. It ain't 
 easy for an osprey to perch in a tree with those webbed 
 feet of theirs. It often took them a few tries before they 
 managed to get enough of a grip to hang on. As often as 
 not, they knocked a couple of their neighbors off in the 
 process, which earned them no end of hissing, grumbling 
 and threatening pokes from those who could reach them. 
 It's difficult to describe the weird sound ospreys make. 
 It sounds something like a rope that's being stretched 
 close to its breaking point. Like ravens and seagulls, 
 ospreys don't sing like the little birdies do.

 They disappeared the same weekend the Regatta was held. I
 thought maybe the proximity of too many humans might have
 scared them away. But on reconsideration, the trees were
 becoming heavily leaved at that point too. It must have
 made it difficult for them to see the branches well enough
 to gauge a landing spot. Maybe they'll be back in the Fall
 after the leaves drop. We'll see. 

 The baby salmon in the rearing pond are fattening up nicely.
 A month ago they were hard to spot. Now they're obvious.
 A steady stream of ravens individually stalk the shallow 
 end in hopes of snagging one or two. Back and forth they
 pace. They are surprisingly good fishermen. You'd think 
 the seagulls with their webbed feet and an appropriately 
 narrow bill would be regulars. Nope. None at all. I guess 
 they got 'bigger fish to fry'. It's a waste of time for 
 the ducks - those big noses won't fit through the net. 
 That blue heron is now a regular. He seems to find the 
 steady stream of human traffic through there annoying but 
 it hasn't kept him away. It's like shoot'n fish in a
 barrel for that guy with his long legs and thin snozola. 
 Whenever anybody comes by he flits up on a net support 
 to perch imperiously and impatiently until they pass.

 The babies sure break water a lot. There's a steady stream 
 of them leaping for all they're worth above the surface. 
 It ain't for bugs. There aren't any. And it ain't just for
 air. They shoot out of there like little wet bullets most
 of the time. I think it's just curiosity about what's on 
 the other side of the water/air interface. Kids would be
 interested in something like that. Or maybe, like youngsters
 everywhere, they're just naturally exuberant. Take your
 pick. Perhaps a bit of both.

                          *

 This was the annual U District Street Fair weekend. It's
 an annual Chamber of Commerce event designed to lure in
 Hooterville's Rubes and Jaspers for the enrichment of 
 local merchants. Neither U Dub nor any of the frats/
 sororities is involved and most of the vendors with 
 booths aren't even from Washington state let alone 
 Seattle, let alone the U District. The latter are mostly 
 a merrie little band of west-coast Doo-Dad salesmen who 
 hit the craft-fair circuit every summer. Since much of 
 the junk being sold directly competes with some of The 
 Ave's merchants, more than a few of the latter just 
 close up shop for the weekend. With their overhead they 
 can't really compete with the Carpetbaggers.

 The first couple years I was here I never missed a Street
 Fair. But I soon realized it was always the same useless,
 uninteresting junk: candles, t-shirts, bad-art, flashy
 belt-buckles, etc. The garbage that will be featured in
 next year's Garage Sales. And if the weather's half decent,
 the crowds are horrendous - packed in like sardines,
 shoulder-to-shoulder. There truely ain't much to do in 
 Seattle. Even something this cheesy draws well. As long
 as it's free, the local hicks will happily line up for it.

 In election years, no end of pasty-faced, smiling political 
 predators prowl around sticking petitions in people's 
 faces and squeezing the Pidgeons for their spare coin. 
 No canidates of course. They don't want to get Bonked
 in the Noggin like ex-Mayor Paulie. They're too scared 
 to appear in public these days. While there weren't 
 many of them this year there was an unusually large 
 number of the government agencies with informational 
 booths for some reason. Nothing perks up a Street Fair 
 like a Seattle Engineering Department informational 
 booth staffed by plump Babes wearing snazzy orange 
 vests eh. Eyow! Party Time Dewd!

 Spare Change Artists from all over the Puget Sound Region 
 bus-in in droves with their empty pizza boxes and their 
 most impressive sad/pathetic/despairing faces to scoop up
 their share of the Geld. Sadly, The Ave's favorite Panhandlers, 
 a group of alcoholic ex-Dotcommies with an Internet Start-up 
 called "Beer.com", weren't in their usual spot in front of 
 the Post Office soliciting venture capital. The competition 
 must have scared them away or maybe they made their 6-pack 
 early.
 
 Precious few genuinely interesting characters bother with
 this little Consumer Fest. Last year a dread-locked Dude 
 dressed up like an Army General and calling himself General
 Strangelove had a neat anti-war booth. Last year as well,
 a group of Born-Again Religious Nuts wandered aimless around
 with large, garish, elaborate religious banners passing out
 Bible tracts. This year a Greenie troupe done up in wild & 
 weird Circe du Soleil style costumes and makeup, many on 
 stilts, drummed their way up and down The Ave with a big
 dragon, much to everyone's delight. They even had a large 
 contingent of bare-midrift belly-dancing Babes! They ought
 to try that next election campaign. Beats Sister Ralph's
 prunish puss any day.
 
 Otherwise, the only entertainment was a couple street 
 jugglers and a steady stream of no-name Garage Bands playing 
 at the two open-air stages. The few junk-food joints are 
 operated by charities to raise money. That means you end 
 up paying through the nose for bugger all. One of them was 
 flogging a wad of rice plunked in a piece of bread for $6. 
 Typical. I'll stick with the Koreans spicy sausages, Jo-jos 
 and fried chicken. It must have been pure Hell for the many 
 animal activists with booths nearby to have to sit there all 
 day smelling their Animal Friends roasting on nearby grills. 
 You could almost cut the tension in the air. The U District
 is Vegan to the bone.

 With the whole thing closed down and locked up tighter than a
 drum by 8 p.m., all the Party Animals were back home tucked
 into bed before the sun even set. Ever since that last big
 Mardi Gras party, they don't trust us any more. Hooterville's
 donut-munching Coppe Shoppe can't even handle a large party 
 of drunks these days. So the Prudes at City Hall have pulled 
 the plug on anybody having any fun around here. Just think
 of Hooterville as Salt Lake City North.

                            *

 This past Friday was the 99th birthday of "Cool Papa" Bell,
 the Grand Master of "Tricky Baseball". A star in the Negro
 League, Satchel Paige said Cool Papa was so fast he could
 turn off the light and be in bed evem before the room went
 dark. He routinely used to steal not one, but TWO, bases 
 at a time. All he needed to score from second-base was a 
 sacrifice fly. The original "Charlie Hustle". Cool Papa 
 could run rings around Pete Rose.

 ref: Daily Bleed (http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed)
................................................................

                       THE THIRD TEMPLE

 The Hebrew Temple to God in Jerusalem remains as controversial
 and hotly contested a topic today as it was over 2,000 years 
 ago. There is one important difference today - there is no such 
 temple. And therein lies the rub.

 The first two Jerusalem Temples, that built by King Solomon and
 a later one built by King Herod, were utterly destroyed. Taken
 apart stone by stone and shipped off to distant locales to build
 things like the Colesium in Roma and various civic buildings 
 elsewhere. The Iraqis forefathers Did the 1st Temple, enslaving
 the Jewish people and flooding Israel to the north with their
 pagan overflow population. The Romans Did the 2nd Temple and
 scattered Israel/Judah's population to the four winds for two
 millenia. Aside from a couple aborted attempts in the interim,
 there has been no Temple in Jerusalem since.

 Now that the Jews are back, some of the religious nuts amongst
 them want to build a third Temple. They are of course mercilessly
 exploited and jerked around by Israel's politicians and rabbis. 
 But a more significant problem for the aspirants is where to 
 put this new Temple. 'Close enough' may be good enough for
 government-work but not for God-Work. God wants it in exactly 
 the right spot or its no dice. The specs are forbiddingly 
 intricate and involved. Worse, there is no one around who even 
 vaguely knows for sure where everything goes. Jerusalem has been
 radically altered both architecturely and topographically in the 
 past 2,000 years. It just don't look the same. One of the few 
 detailed eye-witness description of the city and temple at the
 time of the 2nd Temple was that left by the Jewish/Roman 
 historian Josephus. For various reasons, despite his down-to-
 the-cubits details, many consider it inaccurate.

 Common archeological wisdom says it should go right about where
 the Muslim's ancient Dome of Rock sits - an Islamic shrine of
 unparalleled importance to Muslims all over the world. Few 
 things could so readily unite them internationally than the
 destruction of the Dome of the Rock. It's roughly comparable
 to the Vatican's importance to Catholics. There would be hell 
 to pay if the Israelis were to "Taliban" it.

 But there actually is no evidence that the Temple was on the
 site of the Dome of the Rock. The mosque was erected after the
 Muslims tore down a large Catholic church that the crusaders 
 built on that spot. The Crusaders, in their turn, built their
 basilica there after discovering what they imagined was one of
 the footprints of Jesus in that big rock under the Dome. There
 is no indication of anything Jewish being there. Some think it 
 is actually the site of the Roman's despised and hated "Fort 
 Antonia" from which they adminstered their Jewish colony. It
 is, afterall, the only area that remained intact and without
 ruins after the Romans trashed Jerusalem.

 Aside from possible complications that would arise from baring
 women access to the Inner Courts again and all those dead
 animals they'd have to burn constantly and the need for Red
 Heifers to purify everybody and the need for a Bubble Boy 
 who has never defiled himself by setting foot on the earth's 
 impure soil, there is one other hang-up. God said He don't 
 want no steenkin Temple. He wants works of Loving Kindness, 
 not sacrifices. You would think that after the first two 
 Temples led directly not only to their destruction but the 
 near destruction of the Jews as a people, that they'd be 
 a little shy about trying another one. They may find out 
 the hard way whether or not He's got a Three-Strikes rule. 

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

                       ON THE RADIO

 One of the places I recently worked in had a communal radio/
 CD-player that was on continuously during the entire day. 
 Everybody got a turn at listening to their fav station/CD.
 Kind of a unique workplace twist. In most places people sit 
 privately in their cubes listening to whatever they please 
 on their headphones. For some weird and unexplained reason, 
 these guys felt that was a rather anti-social thing to do 
 so they went with the communal radio/CD-player scenario. 
 They've been doing it for years now. Obviously, they're 
 happy with it.

 A thing like that can be very annoying. Music is, afterall, 
 a matter of personal taste. One man's bread is another's 
 poison. It just so happened that these guys had developed a 
 Golden Mean that was likely peculiar to their generally Gen-X 
 mileu. They knew one another well enough to judge what would 
 be tolerated and what wouldn't. Nonetheless, they were in the 
 habit of challenging one another with 'interesting' stuff the 
 others likely had never heard before. Periodically they made 
 sort of an informal one-up-manship game of doing so.

 Radio-wise, the sure fav was Howard Stern. One guy tried to 
 weasel in those two boring jerks on KZOK occasionally but the 
 Masses would not stand for it. The moment the weasel's back 
 was turned, the radio was switched back to Howie and his Alte 
 Kocker Gang. They liked his humor and his honesty. Unlike the
 KZOK jerks and so many others, Howard has a real personality
 and doesn't have to TRY to be anything besides himself. Nor
 does he come across as a pompous Poser with some sort of
 anal obstruction. But mostly it seemed to be a matter of the 
 'element of surprise'. You never know what in the hell Howard 
 is going to pull. All you do know is that he definitely will,
 sooner or later. They liked the suspense.

 I tried to expose them to Pat Cashman on KOMO in the morning
 but it didn't last long. I was curious personally since I
 haven't listened to him since that unfortunate incident with
 the bus ads last year. The nightmares have faded somewhat and 
 I felt it was now safe to risk a listen. It didn't last long.
 I guess Pat mainly appeals to an older, more sedentary crowd. 
 Particularily since he's now decided to become a Paul Harvey
 clone. I immediately realized my mistake and casually took 
 a trip to the washroom. Howard was back on by the time I got 
 back.

 I also exposed them to KEXP (FM90.3). That went much better. 
 They were very impressed though none of them had heard of it 
 before. A couple of times it stayed on all day is lieu of the 
 usual parade of audio experiments. A very rare thing indeed. 
 Though no one said anything, their curiosity was piqued. This 
 was within their Golden Mean but the bands were unfamiliar and
 the sound was a bit different from the usual commercial stuff
 they were used to. They didn't rave about it but they were
 definitely intrigued and interested.
 
 Beyond Howard Stern, it was a mixed bag mainly for innoculous
 background music: the Golden Oldie stuff, KPLU jazz. No country
 stuff at all nor any of that Disco Motor Music. But they gave 
 Classic KING a shot once. Though it wasn't really a classical 
 music crowd, the general consensus was that it sucked too much 
 to be a regular item, even as background. Between the playlist
 of musical cliches, all the commercials and those goofy DJs, 
 it was putting everyone to sleep.

 Usually they had the CD player cranked to the max with heavy 
 metal. That was their default mode. I heard a lot of groups
 I wouldn't ordinarily have listened to. The lyrics were pretty
 stupid but sometimes the music itself was pretty sharp and
 tight. I was frankly surprised. Though it does get tedious
 after a couple hours.

 In return, I laid some MC-5, Zappa, late Velvet Underground, 
 Springsteen, et al. Golden Oldies stuff on them. They were 
 familiar with almost all of the names, but they hadn't heard 
 much of the music before. They liked it. Especially the MC-5 
 and Frank's guitar solos. Like most of that younger crowd, 
 it hadn't occured to them that the people who were making all 
 that background noise on those live albums are now in their 
 50's and 60's. Granpa's been Kick'n Out The Jams since long 
 before they were born.

 News wasn't a popular item. They were generally apolitical 
 with a conservative fringe on it. The audio from CNN on AM 
 got listened to mainly for sports scores and KUOW rated the 
 occasional listen, but that was it. I was surprised at
 how skeptical they were about what they were listening to
 in the way of news. Our News Nazis credibility is scraping
 rock bottom these days. Nobody believes them anymore.

 Not having listened much to KUOW lately, I was disappointed
 by what I heard. NPR has become little more than a domestic
 Voice of America - Uncle Sammy's official short-wave station. 
 It's all official Party Line stuff. They must have traded 
 their balls for the security of guaranteed budgets from 
 Congress. Good. Maybe they can drop the Pledge Week BS now
 and just rename all the stations KCIA and be done with it.

 Meanwhile, Doug and Ron's "Scandanavian Hour" rambles on and
 on like a Scandahoovian Energizer Bunny just as it has for
 45 years. Aside from heel-clicking accordion music, their
 community announcements are guaranteed to have you salivating
 like a mad dog. The main aggenda item at any Scandahoovian
 meeting is always: food. Saturday mornings 9-10 a.m. 1150AM.
 Uff Da! Yah sure you betcha!

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

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

 It's a given that at least half of the American people believe 
 that Yellowbelly knew in advance about the WTC/DC attacks on 
 9/11 and did nothing to prevent them. 

 And after 8-months of ineffectively screwing around, having 
 nothing more to show for his TWAT than one guy under indictment 
 out of the 2,000+ that continue to be imprisoned by the FBI 
 without even the most basic of human rights; a Naval Base in 
 Cuba full of 'terrorists' that's failed to produce a single, 
 solitary useful lead; his Afghanistan misadventure already 
 coming apart at the seams; and both Osama bin Laden and Mullah 
 Omar still running around foot-loose and fancy-free, some sort 
 of damage-control is going to be needed sooner or later. My
 God! Even Dan Rather was blubbering some weird fantasy about
 his personal fear of being 'necklaced' (having a burning tire
 thrown around his neck) by our super-patriots if he dared
 speak out (as he of course desperately wanted to) against 
 TWAT. The backlash has begun in earnest.

 In a daring Spinmeister move designed to take the air out the
 nasty rumor's sails, Yeller confessed - sort of. Better now 
 than during an election campaign eh. An heretofore secret FBI
 memo alluding to just such an attack months before it became
 reality was released this week. It had been included in one of
 his CIA Presidential intelligence briefings so there is no doubt 
 he knew about it. He admits he remembers it now and that he 
 failed to react to it strongly enough. He's only human afterall.
 Granted, his Spinmeisters picked the most ambiguous such warning 
 they could find and decided to run with that one.  There were 
 many others, more explicit and damaging, to choose from but 
 they shall remain secret for now. That's obviously why Yeller's 
 fighting so hard to shackle any Congressional hearings into 
 9/11 events. If the truth ever gets out, he'll get tarred and
 feathered and run out of DC on a rail.

 While the Demos went into Maximum Exploitation Mode and the 
 Republican Party's talk-radio flunkies went into Maximum Faux-
 Indignation Mode, everyone else just yawned. We lost interest 
 Yeller's phony TWAT ages ago. We're more worried about layoffs 
 and down-sizings than terrorist attacks. Work has evaporated. 
 Despite the BS in DC, the recession continues to deepen and 
 take its toll on hundreds of thousands of American lives. And 
 none of our 'leaders' seems to give much of a damn. Bad Moon 
 a-rise'n.

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

    ...
    there is no peace on earth, nor goodwill
   	among men, christ was a helluva liar.
        and water rats may thrive or die in their
   	homes among wharves.
    the world is in a nervous sweat, awaits,
 	expectant of some fearsome fate . . .
	rolling darkly, and the depths of turbid
	seas are aware of earth's unrest, and
	scathe, and wetly swell and swell . . .

    blow moaning in the dark foggy morning,
	horn or something.

                    - Herman Spector -
                         "A Poem"
                          (1928)

 from: "Bastard in the Ragged Suit" (ISBN 0-912184-03-5)

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

                    -  MONDO VATICANO -

 On Thursday we remember St. John Bapist de Rossi. Not much 
 is known about his early life beyond the fact that he was 
 born poor. Somehow he managed to catch the attention of a 
 rich couple from Genoa who had their summer home near 
 Voltaggio where he lived. Back in those days it was pretty 
 common for poor boys to be 'adopted' by rich people who 
 bankrolled their college education, usually in exchange for 
 'future considerations'.  But, especially when religious
 vocations were involved, often just to get a warm-fuzzy-
 feeling. At 13, that's what happened to John. This rich 
 couple used their family connections to send him to the 
 Roman College in Roma to become a priest.

 But between his epilepsy and his religious fervor, he had 
 to drop out after a couple years. Severe self-mortification,
 a heavy course load and epilepsy don't mix too well. Ask
 any Frat Boy. After he recuperated a few years later, he 
 completed his studies elsewhere and went back to the Roman 
 College to be ordained.

 Rather than get assigned to a parish he chose to create his
 own ministry starting with a homeless shelter in Roma that
 Pope Celestine III had established. And he looked after the
 people at a nearby hospital. On the side, he hung around 
 the local marketplace with teamsters, farmers, cattlemen,
 hookers, theives, gangsters and the many homeless people 
 that also hung around there. Obviously they were his kind 
 of people. He took a personal interest in their problems, 
 concerns and difficulties in life, and tried to help them 
 out. Rather than preach to them, he ministered to their 
 needs. Everybody liked him and respected him. No other 
 priests were doing what he did though it obviously needed 
 to be done.
 
 Being broke all the time on account of having genuine bums
 for parishoners, he leaned on some rich guys to raise the 
 money to rent a building behind the homeless shelter as a 
 refuge for homeless girls and abused women. The Pope kicked 
 in a few bucks to help out. 

 John's brother, also a priest, managed to get him a paying
 position as assistant pastor at a nearby church that was on 
 the skids. Once everybody found out John was there, things
 picked up and the church became a going concern. They sought
 him out for his advise and help with their problems. He was
 good at and they trusted him. Everybody in Roma had heard
 about him.

 The place didn't have an organ and John loved music. So he
 used his paycheck to buy the church a new one out of his
 own pocket. He even dug up an organist whom he also paid
 for out of his own pocket. The regular pastor had died and
 John was named to replace him. He got a pay raise with the
 promotion. But at the same time, he moved out of the rectory,
 gave it away to a religious group, and moved into the church
 attic. That's all he needed anyways.

 Pope Benedict XIV took over about then. He had heard lots of
 good things about John and named him as chaplain to Roma's
 prison guards as well as the Public Hangman. I guess he 
 figured if John could handle homeless people, hookers and
 cattlemen, he could handle that crowd too. And few priests
 could give the guards a better insight into where their
 'customers' were coming from than John.

 After a series of strokes, he died at the age of 66. He was
 so poor they had to pass the hat around to raise the money
 to bury him. But that proved to be no problem. He had many
 friends. Over 260 priests turned up for his Reqium Mass 
 along with the entire Papal Choir. He had LOTS of friends. 

			+	+

 The drooling old turnip in Peter's Chair shuffled his walker
 out to the microphone in the Vatican Ballroom this week to
 wish everybody a Happy Birthday. Opps! It was HIS birthday.
 He turned 82. Too feeble to even read his own speech. 

 Apparently we were all supposed to feel sorry for him on 
 account of his age and frailty. Pshaw! Did he indicate the
 slightest sympathy for that kid in California who recently
 committed suicide after getting Porked by one of his pervert 
 priests? Hell no! Did he indicate the slightest sympathy 
 for 80-ish Sri Lankan Bishop Tissa Belasuriya when he 
 booted him out of the Church over a minor theological 
 dispute? Hell no! Did he bother to show up at Bishop Oscar 
 Romero's funeral after his asassination to express his 
 condolances in person? Hell no! He thought Oscar was a
 Troublemaker. For a jerk who has never shown the slightest 
 compassion for anyone else, beyond cheap talk, he's got 
 a lot of nerve trolling for our sympathy. Lacking a 
 conscience, it seems to come easy for him.

 But his days are numbered in more ways than one. Forget
 God. Pope Ratso I (aka Cardinal Ratzinger) seems to have
 lost patience with JP-2. For the very first time, Ratso
 joined the feeble chorus of Cardinal Nobodies from marginal
 little potancies like Belgium and Hondorus, who have been
 calling for JP-2 to resign. Ratso is Somebody. Hell, he's
 THE Mr. Somebody around the Vatican. He's likely been
 running the show in Roma for the past two years as JP-2's
 grip on the reins has loosened. If JP-2 don't croak soon,
 I'd say Ratso is going to send him out to pasture. JP-2's
 recent trip to Poland was likely to check out nice Old
 Popes Homes for him to retire to. Mark my words. JP-2
 ain't going to be around much longer.

 And it can't come too soon. What a disaster this idiot 
 has been for the Church! When he finally does kick off 
 he'll leave it in unprecedented disarray. It will take 
 his predecessor decades to clean up the mess he's leaving 
 behind. Some of the damage, like his torpedo-job on the 
 priesthood, is likely irreparable. It will have to
 fundamentally change to survive. Everytime the old 
 coward faced a crisis he headed for the hills. Gutless 
 to the max and clueless to the bone. His neglect and
 disinterest has accumulated over the decades and has 
 now reached critical mass.

 			+	+

 The American end of the Pervert Priest scandal jumped to 
 the next level this week. Aside from the usual malarchy
 out of Bernie "The Pimp" Law in Boston, the Vatican's 
 Head Hippie, Cardinal Roger "The Dodger" Mahoney in L.A., 
 got caught with his bloomers down around his ankles. Rog,
 who often casts himself as above the pervert fray and 
 running a squeeky-clean operation, proved to be a liar.
 Fr. Mike Baker, one of his priests, personally informed
 Rog about his uncontrollable sexual urges for children
 and clued him in on some of the sinful ways he had 
 satisfied those urges. Did Rog call the Cops? Heck no!
 Did he notify the victims parents? Mercy no! He quietly
 transferred him to another parish giving him a whole new
 crop of kiddies to Pork. A couple of the victims families
 caught up with him and it cost the good Catholics of L.A.
 $1.3 MegaBucks under the table to shut them up. Didn't 
 work. Word leaked out and now the rest of them want 
 compensation too.

 But the big news was the suicide of Fr. Al Beitighofer 
 after he was stripped of his priestly powers due to 25 
 to 30 year old sexual abuse accusations. Apparently it 
 never occurred to the good people at St. Luke's Institute 
 for wayward priests that he might be a little suicidal 
 after having his life flushed down the toilet. Or they 
 aren't any better at Sucide Watch than they are at 
 pedophile therapy. Was Fr. Al guilty? We'll never know 
 with any certainty now. His alleged victims didn't back 
 off an inch after hearing of his suicide. They sympathize
 and regret his death, but they stand by their allegations.

 The other big item this week was the shooting of Fr. Maurice
 Blackwell, a black priest, at St. Edward's in Baltimore.
 Apparently severely distraught and frustrated after not 
 even getting a simple, common apology from either Father
 or the diocese, a man who had been molested by Fr. Blackwell 
 in his younger days, tried to blow him away. The molestation 
 was admitted to by Fr. Blackwell and was he was suspended 
 for it in the early 90's. His Bishop reinstated him in 1993 
 despite his history of sexual abuse. Cardinal Keller in 
 Baltimore apologized for the abuse a couple days after the 
 shooting. Opps! Too late. The vast majority of priestly 
 abuse and rape victims just want a simple apology. That's 
 all. But even when caught dead to rights, the Church rarely 
 coughs one up. It's indifference and indecency couldn't
 be more obvious or embarassing.

 On the humorous side, a Jesuit canon lawyer in Roma weighed
 in with a preposterous 'legal opinion' this week that 
 Bishops aren't legally or morally responsible for pervert
 priests in their diocese. The civil courts will get a kick 
 out of that one fer sure. Allowed literally years to observe, 
 evaluate and investigate future priests while they are in
 the seminary; personally informed by the Perps of their
 sexual peculiarities and illegal actions to satisfy those
 urges yet refusing to report them to the civil authorities; 
 knowingly helping their pervert priests to evade the law by 
 transfers to other parishes to prey on whole new groups of 
 children; Bishops aren't responsible?! The bastards are 
 guilty as hell and deserve to fry for it. For a Jesuit, 
 that guy is pretty stupid. They used to be a lot sharper 
 than that.
 
			+	+

 I was amazed to recently discover that the very house that
 Jesus grew up in in Nazareth remains intact. That's right!
 The genuine boyhood home of Our Saviour. Not an imitation
 or a model, but the Real Thing. But it is now located in
 Loretto, Italy not Nazareth. And I'm sure you'll be as
 amazed as I was to discover how it got to Italy. 

 Angels brought it there. 

 Honest! Back in the 13th century, with the Muslim hordes 
 bearing down on the Holy Hometown and sure to demolish the 
 Blessed Bungalow, angels descended and lifted it upon their 
 wings and wisked it off across the Mediterranean Sea. It's 
 miracle enough that the old Holy Homestead was still up 
 after 1200 years. That St. Joe was some kind of carpenter 
 eh. When he built something, it STAYED built eh. A 2,000 
 year old wood hut has got to be a home-construction record  
 of some sort I would think. There was no mention of the 
 Sacred Out-House or any of the obviously valuable relics 
 associated with it. Not even anything on eBay.

 The angels didn't bring it to Italy right away. They first
 dropped it off in Croatia for a couple years. I guess they 
 were a little tired eh. Or maybe they needed a some time to 
 work up a downpayment and settle the legal end of things. 
 Surely they didn't intend to leave it sitting in a dump like 
 Croatia. Once they got all the details settled, they hauled 
 'er back up and wisked it away to its final resting place - 
 in Loretto, Italy where it still sits to this day. Numerous 
 Popes over the centuries have atested to the miraculous 
 authenticity of this series of events. Trust them. They know 
 what they're talking about. They would never lie about a 
 thing like this.

 And just in case you're one of them smarmy Jews or Muslims
 who thinks they're above this sort of superstitious hogwash,
 think again. You ain't. The Altneu Synagogue in Prague,
 Czech Republic was originally called the Al Tenai Synagogue. 
 "Al Tenai" is Hebrew for 'on condition. It got the name 
 because it is supposedly made of stone from the Temple in
 Jerusalem. Not stone from King Herod's 2nd Temple. Heavens
 no! That would be too easy. It's made of stone from King 
 Solomon's ORIGINAL temple! Yes! Hand delivered by angels 
 no less! The 'on condition' name comes from the angelic 
 stipulation that when the time comes to build the 3rd Temple, 
 the rocks will revert to their original owner in Jerusalem. 
 They're just loaners. I'm not sure why they renamed the 
 synagogue. Embarassment perhaps.

 But the Muslims are not slackers in this regard either. Allah
 built an 800-mile long underground river for them that runs
 from the holy well of Zamzam near Mecca to the Springs of 
 Shiloh just below the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Honest!
 There is scientific proof. A guy who was taking a drink at
 the Shiloh Springs accidently lost a small copper bowl out
 of his pocket while he was bent over. It was his favorite
 bowl and of very distinctive design. Unique actually. Months
 later while visiting the well at Zamzam, son of a gun if 
 that very same bowl didn't come drifting by while he taking
 a drink. Amazing how stuff happens eh.

			+	+

 The people attending a Romanian Evangelical church that 
 hadn't been used in 8 years sure got a surprise this week.
 A couple minutes after the organist started playing, the
 whole joint collapsed in a heap. Miraculously, no one was
 hurt. The local authorities are pointing fingers at the
 organ's vibes as the likely cause, and not Osama bin Laden
 or his Al Qaida terrorists.

----------------------------------------------------
 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: https://www.angelfire.com/nb/afm
--------------------------------------------------