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_____ / _` | |_| '_ ` _ \ _____
|_____| | (_| | _| | | | | | |_____|
\__,_|_| |_| |_| |_|
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.
-------------------------------------------------
- 152 -
Thursday will be the 75th birthday of the Montlake Bridge,
the eastern-most of the five elgegant and classy old lift
bridges over the ship canal that winds its way between Puget
Sound and Lake Washington, through Seattle's neighborhoods.
I don't know if it's related to this anniversary or not,
but they closed her down and cleaned her up real good this
past weekend while the I-520 floating bridge (her main
source of traffic off Montlake Way) was closed for
maintenance.
'Tis the seaon to whoop it up. Up in Vancouver (BC)
the Chinese Dragon Boats were out in False Creek for
the annual races. Amongst the teams entered last year
was one made up of blind guys and another of Lesbians.
And of course the pagans in Fremont (aka Adobe-ville)
held their annual summer heathen-fest. No debate this
year about the Naked Lady so I guess, after years of
flaunting their immorality in the Hooterville Yacht
Club's face, they have finally ceased resisting and
allowed themselves to be assimilated. Sigh. Thank
God the Lusty Lady's still open or wimpy Seattle geeks
would go through life thinking all nekkid women looked
their sock-puppets.
While others were frivilously gratifying the base senses,
Ham Radio operators across North America were camping
out on mountaintops and in cow pastures for their ancient,
annual "Field Day". Nominally a test of their ability to
set up under emergency conditions and rack up as many
contacts as possible, they often make an extended BBQ out
of it. I heard U Dub's Prof. Phelps, K7UW, author of the
best-selling math thriller "Lecture Notes on Choquet's
Theorem", feeding points to the FD crowd early Sunday
morning from his secret lab deep within the Grungy bowels
of the U District.
*
What goes around, comes around. Two families grieve today
in King County. Both because of the Sheriff's Department.
One, the family of a black man murdered at point-blank
range by an off-duty, out-of-uniform deputy who couldn't
be bothered identifying himself when he approached the man's
truck with hostile intentions. The other, that of a deputy
who was shot to death this weekend with his own weapon by
a crazy, naked black man he was trying to non-lethally
subdue. One deputy who walked away from murder and another
who died while trying to save a life. One tragedy after
another.
Pepper spray is for inflicting pain. Stun guns are for
disabling people. The one only works sometimes, the other
ALWAYS works. Maybe "Cadillac" Sims and his buddies outta
get off their fat asses and properly equip their deputies.
And clean up that filthy mess at the KingCo Jail while
they're at it.
*
Juneteenth...
It was on June 19, 1865, three years after Abe Lincoln
issued the Emancipation Proclaimation, that the United
States Army rode into Texas and nailed a most peculiar
notice up on town bulletin boards:
"The people of Texas are informed that in
accordance with a Proclamation from the
Executive of the United States, all slaves
are free. This involves an absolute equality
of rights and rights of property between
former masters and slaves, and the connection
heretofore existing between them becomes that
between employer and free laborer."
And forever more, June 19th aka Juneteenth, became a
major African-American holiday in Texas. Each year
BBQs, baseball games, picnics and rodeos marked this
event. It has since spread far and wide and is rapidly
becoming a national event exclusively reserved for our
Black community. It has been celebrated by Seattle's
African-American community since the very earliest
days of the this city's existence and continues to
be celebrated here. Happy Juneteenth! Free at last!
Lord God Almighty! Free at last!
*
It was 16 months ago that the Canadian fishing vessel
"Western Wind" was nabbed by the Coasties off Cape
Flattery with two and half TONS of cocaine on board.
The largest bust ever in Northwest history. A huge
haul. The boat went into a Port Angeles dock for a
closer look while the all-Canuk crew were checked into
their suites at the Heartbreak Hotel. And that appeared
to be that.
Then suddenly the charges were dropped and the crew
released to Canadian authorities. There still haven't
been any charges laid and the crew remain free.
Confused and often contradictory news reports at the
time made it sound like our Coasties blew the bust. We
were led to believe they jumped the gun and boarded the
boat in international waters just ahead of a Canadian
warship full of Mounties and a small fleet of Canadian
Forces helicopters who were also on the way to nab the
WESTERN WIND. The Canuks insisted on jurisdiction and
we, good neighbors that we are, complied.
This was not true. As usual, our News Nazis didn't know
what they were talking about and botched the story. To
this day they haven't bothered correcting themselves.
The REAL story was far more interesting. The skipper of
the WESTERN WIND was a paid RCMP informant who was in
the process of delivering a shipment of cocaine he had
picked up in Columbia. He originally, while negotiating
a Columbian pickup, made a deal with the Mounties where,
in exchange for a Million Bucks and inclusion in the
witness-protection program, he would lead them to the
Big Boyz (thought to be Hells Angels) who put up the
$40 MegaBucks for the shipment. But a Pollock RCMP
Inspector in Ottawa with an unpronouncable name, calling
the shots on the deal, nixed it. No million bucks. No
witness-protection program. Deal's off. The Skipper
finds this rather disappointing news and goes fishing
to forget his troubles. He don't tell them he's already
made the deal for picking up the cocaine. Slipped his
mind I guess.
While he's out there fishing, he claims he gets some very
strange emails. Certain parties are saying they will do
some very nasty things to his everloving wife and kids if
he don't immediately quit fishing and head down to Columbia
to pick up some cocaine. Naturally this worries him to the
point where he don't feel like fishing no more. So he heads
south. Not wanting to endanger his everloving wife and
kiddies, he doesn't tell the Mounties about this. That's
okay - a little birdie tells them anyways.
But this unexpected news throws the Mounties into a bit of
a tizzie. No longer in touch with him but aware of the fact
that he was arranging for the Nose Candy, they were worried
he might make a delivery before they catch up with him. So
they ask our Coasties to grab him enroute. A short while later,
sure enough, here he comes chugging up the coast looking a
little heavy in the nose. A joint RCMP/USCG boarding party
makes him heave-to while he's off the Olympic Peninsula and
invite themselves on-board for tea and crumpets. As they're
chatting with the Skip and he's telling them how great the
fishing is, a couple of the boys were wandering around down
below looking for the bathroom. That's when they found the
two and half tons of cocaine in the bow. Oppsie!
They give him two choices:
(1) get arrested and spend the rest of his life in prison,
or,
(2) testify against the drug buyers in exchange for being
hid in the witness-protection program. No million Bucks.
Being no dummy, he chooses #2. But no sooner do they cut the
deal with him than Inspector Pollock back in Ottawa says no
deal - he ain't going to put him in the witness-protection
program. Being no chump, the Skip buttons up tighter than
a clam at low tide. Screw them. He ain't talking no more
without a lawyer.
Our Coasties, still curious about who might be waiting at
the dock in Victoria, suggest that THEY bring the boat into
themselves. Inspector Pollock in Ottawa says 'no' yet again.
No armed foreign police allowed to operate in Canada. You
think maybe this Bohunk smells a little funny? Me too.
Out of options, our Coasties said to themselves, "What the
hell. If we can't have the buyers, we'll take the drugs.
She's in American waters. She's our boat now." and seized
the WESTERN WIND, her Skipper, her crew and her two and
a half tons of Nose Candy. Off they went to Port Angeles.
As the prosecutors are checking the Skip and his crew into
their new digs, they ask the Mounties for the police files
on these guys so they can draw up the charges against them.
Polite and courteous as Canuks are, and seeing as how we're
both on the same side, they naturally expect no complications.
So you can imagine their surprise when the Dudley Do-Rights
refused to provide the requested files. They don't snitch on
their snitches. Not for anybody, not under any circumstances.
Getting the Cold Shoulder from the Mounties, our prosecutors
were stumped and unable to do much. So they shrugged their
shoulders, threw the skip and his crew back over the border,
destroyed the drugs and kept the ship. Not much else they
could do.
See. If you do it right, you too can come sailing into port
with tons of illegal drugs and walk away a free man. Just
buy yourself a Pollock RCMP Inspector first. As for the kid
in South Central L.A. who got 15 years in the Slammer for
having a few grams of crack on him - tough luck chump.
*
Gaak, as tiny and crude as his little robot brain is, didn't
take long to figure out the score. One of a number of robots
at the Magna Science Center in Yorkshire, England capable of
'learning' from their actions and sent into a Survivor-style
environment designed to 'select out' the weak and unfit,
decided after a couple weeks to bust outta that Joint. He
found his way out the front door and was passing into the
parking lot when he almost got run over. They led him back.
They always catch me in the parking lot too. Call a cab next
time Gaak, and tell the driver to put it on the Lab's tab.
.............................................................
Haldeman: ...the great thing about it is that the whole
thing is so totally fucked up so badly done
that nobody believes...
Nixon: ...that we could have done it...
Haldeman: That's right! It's beyond comprehension.
- President Nixon & Bob Haldeman -
discussing the Watergate breakin
(from the tape)
Ref: Daily Bleed
.............................................................
JUDGE JIMMY BAGS A GEEZER
He's finally out. Mr. Trummel was finally released, after
100+ days, from KingCo Jail on Monday and given until
Friday to delete parts of his webpage:
Contracabal.org
He has done so and he explains why on his website. It's
his ass, his call.
Of course the original uncensored version remains cached
on many search engines and can be viewed at your leisure.
And it also remains mirrored in its entirety at too many
places to mention. Since a number of outfits archive
webpages on a mass-scale for historical reasons, the
uncensored version has also been safety preserved for
posterity. No doubt somebody will sell you a CD of it.
You put something up on the Web, you no longer control
it. It becomes the property of the Matrix. But clueless
little Hicktown judges don't know about complex matters
like that. Just makes them dizzy.
Taking a page straight out of Kafka, three months ago,
Judge Jimmy "The Token Twinkie" Doerty of KingCo Inferior
Court did something pretty weird even for an inexperienced
Hicktown judge. He ordered somebody to do something,
then made it physically impossible for them to comply.
It's called a Bad Faith Order. He ordered Mr. Trummel to
take down his webpage critical of Capital Hill's Council
House - the Old Geezers home he lived in - then had him
thrown in the Slammer without access to the webpage he
was ordered to take down. Doh!
This caused quite an uproar. All over the world, people
where amazed and fascinated by Mr. Trummel odd plight
and Judge Jimmy's stupidity. Not only did the punishment
bear little resemblance to the offence, but the offence
made no sense at all. They deluged KingCo Inferior Court
asking what in the hell was going on over there. There
was such a stink raised that Judge Jimmy was strongly
encouraged by his superiors to 'take another look' at the
case. He did so on Monday.
So what do you do if you're a Big Shot Inferior Court
judge like Jimmy and you know that, aside from not
having a legal leg to stand on, you've screwed up
Bigtime, bringing unwelcome international attention and
embarassment to your court? Do you just honorably admit
you're an idiot whose emotions got the better of you,
and correct your mistakes?
Heck no. Taking a page out of Cardinal Law's "Hypocrites
Guide To Faking It", Judge Jimmy tried to bluff his way
out of his dilemma. Afterall, like Cardinal Law, Jimmy
don't have to worry about picking up the Tab on his
mistakes. The Little People will take care of it. Worse
comes to worse, he'll be sitting On Top of the World with
a whopping huge government pension. So, naturally, he took
the Low Road: If you can't dazzle them with your wit,
baffle them with your bullshit. I think it was Machiavelli
said that, but I could be wrong. Enter Judge Jimmy "Champion
of the Little Fellow". What the hell...it was worth a try.
On Monday, sounding more like a 12-year old kid throwing
a Hissy Fit than an distinguished jurist, Jimmy plunked
his smug little tushy on the bench and began loudly
ranting, raving and foaming at the mouth about homophobes,
misogynists, bigots and other intolerant bastards. He
wisely left out Foes of Free Speech. Small children, dogs
and little old ladies fled in terror. Spectators gasped in
amazement at such a candid confession of guilt from a public
servant. But Jimmy quickly corrected their misapprehension
and clairified that he was talking about Mr. Trummel's
webpage and not his own senselessly cruel and indecent
year-long personal vendetta against Mr. Trummel.
He got a little carried away when he accused Mr. Trummel,
who is of Jewish ancestry, of being an anti-Semite. Oi!
Mr. Trummel's Jewish lawyer got a kick outta that one too.
The rest of Jimmy's rant was likewise straight out of the
Twilight Zone. I'm glad this knucklehead ain't around kids
no more.
The Grande Finale was a stunning and breathtaking display
of pecksniffery. Imagine! This judicial hypocrite who, at
enormous expense to the taxpayers of this County and for
the sake of a piddly no-rate misdemnor on a par with
jaywalking and illegal parking
- rendered a retiree homeless,
- buried him in a ton of legal debt,
- locked him up in solitary confinement for over 100 days
- and exposed him to TB,
had the nerve to call Mr. Trummel a 'mean old man'!? Either
Judge Jimmy has a weird sense of humor or he's a little out
of touch with reality. If going through something like that
don't make you mean, nothing will. And for what? Just because
he had the nerve to talk back to the scumbags who run Council
House. Pshaw!
The Hooterville Yacht Club played its traditional supporting
role. Always willing to help out a fellow HYC member like
Jimmy, our News Nazis pulled one of their classic Hack Jobs
on Mr. Trummel. These tawdry affairs are like amateurishly
crude examples of propaganda out of a high-school civics
text books. If there was a Pulitzer for Best Hack Job, they
wouldn't even be worthy of a nomination. They ain't got no
class at all. But then neither do the bums who read their
garbage.
It was similar to the bigots unsuccessful attempt to smear that
sassy Negro whom they wrongfully accused of bonking ex-Mayor
Paulie on the noggin. They had him down as the most dangerous
Badass Black Man in America. The guy was innocent and, despite
acting as his own lawyer in court, was easily able to outwit
the dumbass the KingCo Prosecutor's Office sent over to hang
him. They're lucky they didn't get their asses sued off. One
of these days, their luck is going to run out.
Examples of their redefinitions:
- sassy pensioner becomes... cranky old man
- documented injustices " slandered and harassed
management
- self-employed " unemployable
- freelance journalist " unemployable writer
- former journalism prof " fired university employee
- 30+ CH residents who " (unmentioned)
supported Mr. Trummel
I ain't making this up. It's right there in their articles.
Babbling on about Mr. Trummel being completely unqualified to
be considered a journalist, they somehow failed to explain how
he managed to TWICE get appointments at major universities as
a Journalism PROF. You mean just anybody can walk into U Dub
and get a job teaching anything they feel like teaching? Wow!
And here all this time I thought you had to be qualified.
Pshaw! How foolish of me.
And I'm sure the clients of 'freelance' doctors, dentists,
engineers, lawyers, carpenters and electricians - self-employed
by any other name - will be shocked to learn that they've been
dealing with frauds and imposters all these years. If the bums
can't get a regular job with a regular company then they ain't
got no damn business calling themselves professionals. The
noive of them! How in the world have they managed to get away
with this travesty of justice for so long? Somebody call the
Cops!
Do you really have to be a lying retard to be a reporter
in Seattle? Seems so. What's really amazing is that they
imagine anyone reads their bullshit any more. We got toilet
paper nowadays. We don't need newspapers any more.
While hardly an enjoyable experience, Mr. Trummel's stay in
KingCo Jail has given him another journalistic line of
investigation - the prisoners he was bunking with and the
stories they had to tell. Quite a few of them are African-
Americans and, no doubt, a couple of them were put in there
by bigots like Judge Jimmy. Jimmy aint' heard the last from
him. It'd be worth keeping an eye on Paul's webpage. Should
be interesting.
BTW - Most of what you read in our magazines and newspapers
is written by self-employed, freelance journalists.
The journals involved buy it off of them. It may be
news to Bozos like Judge Jimmy but it has been going
on for centuries.
.....................................................................
I had none of the illusions of youth. I knew that I would never
become President of the United States. I came, on both sides,
from drunken barbarians who groveled in supersition and were
as illiterate as geese. All the vast realms of knowledge and
beauty were closed to me. Nearly all my mother's brothers were
half mad. Most of my father's people were witty Irish morons.
My mother had moods that lasted for days...I inherited her
moods and silences along with the wild blood which flowed in
two rivers of half insane Irish.
- Jim Tully -
aka "Cinicinnatti Red"
Inveterate library bum,
Hobo,
Famous Writer,
inventor of the 'Hard-Boiled' American genre
...................................................................
'OL YELLER'S TWAT
(aka The War Against Terrorism)
It's been a slow week for Yeller's TWAT. It's hard to fight a
war without an enemy. Takes all the fun out of it. You can only
chase Boogermen around for so long before it gets boring. Even
those bogus FBI and Coast Guard warnings just don't hack it
these days. Everyone stopped listening to their ass-covering
bullshit.
The raving bigots of Israel continue to bang their heads against
the wall. That's the new one they're building to keep out the
suicide bombers. Problem is, it ain't working. It's put our
Executive coon-ass hillbilly in a bit of a spot. He keeps trying
to announce his wing-ding temporary Palestinian state and the
suicide bombers keep interupting him. Sooner or later maybe he'll
get the message: nobody gives a damn what he has to say. He's
irrelevant. Shut up and go watch TV stupid.
The Israelis got theirs and the Palestinians ain't gonna stop
until they get theirs. Give them their goddam homeland or there
will be no peace. Capice?
What a disappointment eh. The Pakistanis and Indians didn't
nuke each other. Our Chief War Monger "Rummy" Rumsfeld,
stepping in to do General Powell's SecState job again, tried
to nudge them into it but they just wouldn't budge. The Israelis
had their nukes all set to help out the Indians but they got
screwed on the deal too. All our News Nazis had their rad-
sickness pills and spiffy new mylar rad-suits packed and ready
to go at a moments notice. What fun it would have been wallowing
through irradiated corpses of little brown people. Damn! War
is hell sometimes!
Predictably enough, the Department of Defense is hanging the
blame for the bombing deaths of four Canadian Forces members
on the pilot. They always do that. They stick a sub Skipper
with a boat load of civilian idiots and instruct him to
'entertain' them. When an accident happens as a result -
it's his fault, not theirs of course. My all time fav is
that sailor who got smeared for the explosion aboard that
big, old battleship back in the Ronny Ray-Gun days. They not
only wrongly blamed him (it was an equipment failure) but
they claimed he was Queer to boot. He wasn't. You'd have
to be some kind of a retard to work for jerks like that.
The anthrax nutcase is still out there somewhere. Yes,
Virginia, you CAN kill many people with the help of the
U.S. Post Office and get away with it. Just ask the
Unibomber. He did it for over 20 years. If his brother
hadn't turned him in, he'd still be in his little Montana
shack hard at work on the next bomb. The FBI didn't even
come close to finding him. Does this qualify the USPS as
a terrorist organization? How about the FBI? Book 'em
Dan-o!
....................................................................
- MONDO VATICANO -
The American bishops meeting in Dallas proved to be as big
a waste of time as the BBQ at the old Pollock's place in
Roma. Just another cheap Spinfest. Aside from PR and trying
to give the appearance of 'doing something' about their
pervert priests without actually going to the bother, this
meeting seemed to have little other purpose. And, by most
accounts, it failed miserably even to accomplish that much.
Afterwards, polls showed the vast, overwhelming majority of
Catholics were deeply disappointed at the outcome.
The bishops have made themselves irrelevant. All their useless
chatter about 'first one is free' and 'two strikes, yer out'
is meaningless. The law is clear: you diddle kids, you do time.
You hide perverts and refuse to cooperate with the civil
authorities, you also will be doing time. It's just as simple
as that. The bishops may be lacking in common moral sense but
the Cops and judges ain't. Nobody down at the Police Station
or the Courthouse gives a damn what the old Queens at the U.S.
Conference of Bishops think about the matter. They keep hiding
perverts, they WILL get busted.
The amazing thing is, the bishops seem utterly unaware of this
reality. I don't know if its arrogance, stupidity or panic but
they seem unable and unwilling to take any practical steps to
help themselves. Instead of operating from Catholic traditions,
they are wandering around disoriented and confused - anchorless
in a sea of turmoil - lacking even the compass of common decency.
Can institutions get Altzheimers? It appears so.
Just where is all this going?
The church has survived these many centuries not because of its
size and international character, nor because of its wealth or
power. It has survived because of its exceptional diversity.
It's one huge and ancient Ball 'o Mud. The world only sees the
Pope and Curia Queens, the pagentry of ancient ceremonial, the
funny clothes and pretty pink altarboys thinking that is the
Church. Unh unh. Behind that unseen is a vast, turbulent, surging,
undisciplined, unruly, feuding, brawling mob of weird and crazy
people. The kind of people who talk to inanimate objects and
keep pieces of dead priests/nuns under their pillows.
An ancient family of quarreling, hungry, selfish children as
much at war with one another as with the world. One that
embraces such wildly differing versions of Catholicism as the
peace-loving Society of St. Egidio and the fascists at Opus
Dei; the legendary radical Berrigan Brothers and paranoid
"Wild Bill" Donahue of the Catholic League; the Columbian
Freedom-Fighter Fr. Camillio Torres and the butt-kissing
Toady Cardinal Dulles. All from the same vast, rich and
ancient Catholic traditions. God's naughty Catholic children.
That's us. WE are the Church. We're weird. We're dangerous.
And we're indestructable.
Our clergy have always imagined themselves to be our leaders.
In fact they are our slaves. Our Best Boys. If they give us
what we want, we overlook their human foibles. If not, we
whisper in ears and they disappear. While cruely denying them
the human intimacy of sex; while subjecting them to bishops
who are often stupid, pompous twits without a religious bone
in their bodies; we pamper them in return with an easy, soft,
respectible and comfortable life. Divorced as they are from
reality, their advice is often useless. We ignore it and do
our best to find our own happy medium in the world. Our vast
treasury of traditions see us through.
An interesting new era is dawning for the American Catholic
Church - one in which the clergy will no longer be prominent.
The scandals have destroyed their moral authority. Largely
ignored as it was, no one will bother listening to them any
more. Our priesthood - old, decrepit and down to skin-and-
bones as it was, largely reduced to ceremonial technicians,
will soon die out. At least in the form it has existed in for
the last few centuries. Lay Catholics, especially women, will
assume a new prominence. The Butts In the Pews, controlling
the pursestrings, have already begun exerting themselves,
telling the bishops what to do. We, the Little People, will
begin shaping the Church in our own image. Stick around.
It'll be fun. By the time Cardinal Law gets out of prison
he won't recognize the place.
+ +
Padre Pio was no saint, he was a psychotic. He was mentally
ill. So said a Vatican inquiry by Cardinal Maccari. And
anyone who pursues his 'spiritual path' will end up exactly
the same way - nutso. Fortunately all of his followers,
including that superstitious old Pollock peasant JP-2, are
little more than spiritual masturbators content to 'pleasure
themselves' for momentary kicks. Pio might be dangerous
otherwise.
Most people, including church-people, think religion is a
simple matter of going to church one day a week. They sing,
they pray, they listen to a speech, throw their money in
the basket and then they go home and forget about it all
until next week, or next Christmas as is more likely. But
a select few are dis-satisified with the above. They want
something more. They want Union with God. They want to
mind-meld with the Divine Will.
Achieving union with God is a very difficult, demanding
complicated and dangerous business as many mystics have
pointed out over the centuries. It involves shedding your
individual self, your personal identity, so the Will of
God can take over. You have to lose yourself completely
in God, cutting yourself off from all attachments - both
human and material - that may distract you. This is not
a trivial matter nor is it a game. This is playing with
fire. This is working with live wires.
It leaves you in a very vulnerable state, both mentally
and physically. Your physical well-being can deteriorate
and it is terribly easy to become confused, delusional
and lost if you don't know what you're doing. To step
completely outside yourself to the point where you lose
your identity can be a terrifying experience. Many have
gone insane - like Padre Pio. And in their insanity, they
come to believe their ghosts and demons are real when they,
in fact, are only imaginary phantoms. They believe their
visions to be gifts from God when in fact they are
diversions from the His grace that lure them away from
Him.
That is why people normally only attempt this sort of thing
in monasteries. It is especially there that you can have the
sort of spiritual and physical support needed to see you
through - spiritual guides you trust enough to obey without
hesitation and experienced others who can observe and help
you. Trying it on your own would be a very bad idea. Even
hermits maintain a strong association with a community so
they can periodically get feedback and direction - a reality
check.
There are very few monasteries nowadays either capable of
or even interested in this sort of thing. Even amongst the
cloistered orders. It's become a lost and nearly extinct
art. But a highly intriguing and well-documented one.
There have been many 'manuals' written within the Catholic
tradition on seeking this union with God. St. John of the
Cross, St. Theresa of Avila and Walter Hilton among others.
They explain step-by-step in detailed fashion what stages
a person passes through and what sorts of things they can
expect to encounter at each step. Jewish, Buddhist and
Islamic mystical traditions have produced remarkably similar
manuals. God's House is indeed one of many mansions.
But don't waste your time with the demented ravings of Pio.
He belonged in a nuthouse not a rectory. A fine example of
what NOT to do.
+ +
"River" Ron Thew is an unusual Catholic. He's a hermit who
lives in what recently became Australia's Turon National
Park near Lithgow in New South Wales. Now 62, his dad took
him there when he was a kid to show him where his grandfather
panned for gold. It was so beautiful they set up camp and
never went back home. Ron's dad died there a few years ago
but Ron has stayed on. When the park was recently formed,
he was worried they might boot him outta there. People ain't
supposed to be living in national parks. But instead, the
Australian National Park Service did something very unusual
by American standards: they made Ron part of the park. He's
officially written in as part of its cultural heritage and
is welcome to stay as long as he likes. He's very relieved.
The pictures of Mary and Jesus that are the only decorations
in his hut, won't have to come down after all.
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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.
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MAIL: tofoggymoment@yahoo.com
ARCHIVE: https://www.angelfire.com/nb/afm
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