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

                                - 157 -

 DAY OF OUR FORD...

 Gather around Brethern. Tomorrow begins the year 139 AF (After Ford). 
 It is that highest of holydays: The Day of Our Ford - Henry Ford's 
 birthday. In Aldous Huxley's classic novel "Brave New World", Henry 
 Ford - the Father of Mass Production, was their God. They prayed to 
 him and sang hymns to him. They adored and worshiped him. Thanks to 
 his inspiring work in creating the assembly line, people no longer had 
 to think any more. They became Meat Machines. Aldous used 'reductio
 ad absurdam' to take Hank's notion to its logical conclusion - a 
 society in which various 'models' of humans were cranked off biotech 
 assembly lines, bred for specific purposes and biologically incapable
 of ever becoming anything else. The upside was: they never had to 
 think for themselves, had all their bodily needs taken care of and
 enjoyed the bliss of unbridled sexual promiscuity. Now that babies
 were cranked out of labs, sex no longer had anything to do with human 
 reproduction. It became a form of entertainment and recreation (in 
 the wider sense).

 Many today are anxiously awaiting that Grand Day when Huxley's prophesy
 comes true. Won't be long now. The geeks at The Hutch, Batelle Labs and
 many other bio labs around the world are hard at work on it. They'll be 
 swim'n in Dough. But they aren't doing it for the money of course. Ford
 Forbid! How could you think such a thing of a scientist? They're doing
 it for our own good and the betterment of mankind.

 NATURAL MYSTERY SOLVED...

 While standing outside downtown having a smoke and enjoying nature,
 I happened to witness a rare natural wonder. A seagull in the alley
 across the street was beat'n the snot out of something with it's beak.
 Just viciously banging the hell outta it. I couldn't quite figger out
 what it was at first but it seemed to be a fellow creature of some sort.
 Finally it stepped back for a second to catch its breath and there it 
 was - an old pigeon. The pigeon still had a little kick in it but not
 much. The seagull wailed on it a bit more then gripped it in its mouth
 and fluttered up a few feet and dropped it. PLOP! THAT did it. Chow
 time! I always wondered what happened to old pigeons eh.

 SKEEDADDLE FROM SEATTLE...

 This past year has been a bit different for me. Usually I deal with
 companies/groups that are either from here or have been here for a
 long time. They just have on-going problems. Which is understandable
 since most of the garbage that passes for production software these
 days does't work worth a crap. And even if it did, your average 
 Corporatoid Management Suit is not only computer illiterate but 
 Internet-phobic. Dumb bastards don't get any dumber. The sheer momentum
 of their size is often the only thing that keeps your average American
 company from going under. That, and lots of lies about their bottom-line
 to reel-in the market suckers on the long-line.

 But this past year a lot of my work has been with companies that
 are partially or completely bugging out of Seattle. Like Cleveland-
 based Key Bank which used to have their International Division here. 
 It's now back in Cleveland. There have been many such gigs lately.  

 BTW - I recently passed through Arthur Anderson's former digs in
       the Norton Building. Ooooh! Spooky! Last year it was crawling
       with busy little bean-counters crunching numbers to beat the
       band. This year...empty and silent. They gone.

 MILKING THE MUSLIM MENACE...

 If Senator Cantwell wants to know if Seattle's really a hot-bed of Al
 Qaida terrorists, she's asking the wrong guy. Attorney-General Ashcroft,
 official President of the Crackheads for Bush Club, don't know his ass
 from a hole in the ground when it comes to Ragheads. A hillbilly like
 Johnny Boy thinks falafel has something to do with Blow Jobs and would
 be deeply offended if you offered him any.

 The most likely source of speculation about any local Muslim Menace
 would be our Pollock Police Chief Gil. While many other police chiefs
 from Chicago to Portland have expressed their doubts about TWAT (The
 War Against Terrorism), Gil has been 100% for it right from the get-go.
 The FBI has gotten full and unquestioned assistance from him in their
 witch-hunt for Muslims and his own Boyz have even been out rousting
 anybody they think may pass for a Raghead. I've had more a few Muslim
 friends tell of getting shook-down at bus stops - up against the wall, 
 ID check, phony apology, etc. All discretely kept out of the local 
 papers. The usual schtick designed to publically embarass the target 
 and intimidate any watching by-standers. 

 Being a former Dept. of Justice ass-kisser, Gil's a little more aware 
 of the promising budgetary possibilities of TWAT than most of his peers 
 would be. He intends to milk it for all it's worth. He's probably on the
 Horn twice a week filling in his old DoJ buddies about the Muslim Menace
 here. A few innocent people get hurt - tough luck. Gil's gig here is
 running out of gas real fast. He's gotta think of his future eh. 

 LIBERTARIAN FOOBAR... 

 British libertarian Sara Lawrence recently performed an interesting
 experiment. Invited to fly across The Pond and speak before the
 U.S. Libertarian Party's National Convention, she asked herself: 
 what would happen if she showed up wearing a burqa. A burqa is the
 covering Muslim women wear to preserve their modesty. Sara's not a
 Muslim. In fact she's an atheist. She was just having a little fun
 and curious as to how much Walk there was in your average American 
 libertarian's Talk. 

 She found out - about zilch. The freedom and liberty loving Libbies
 at first wouldn't allow her to enter the convention hall wearing the
 burqa. They told her to take it off or get out. What's more, these
 mighty adversaries of the Established Order and valiant foes of the 
 Dead Hand of the State Machine, threatened to have her thrown in jail. 
 And just to remove all doubt about where their loyalties lie, they
 immediately reported her to the FBI! A bit shaken by this experience, 
 Sara left. They put a security tag on their VIP Speaker all the way 
 back to her hotel room. Is this great or what? The Libbies got a 
 Gestapo already!

 Next day, she showed up to give her speech. She carried the burqa in
 a bag. She was going to begin her speech wearing it, then whip it off
 for the remainder. She found burqas rather uncomfortable anyways and
 kind of tricky to walk around in - you can't see very well. Entering
 the stage in her chic full-cover burqa, she noticed two armed security 
 guards standing at the back of the stage. They watched her very closely.
 That burqa had them nervous. She gave her speech and everybody cheered 
 when she whipped her burqa off at the end. Probably the closest those
 tight-ass Libbies ever got to having a stripper at one of their
 conventions.

 There were official apologizes later, and many of the friendly Libbies
 expressed great outrage at her experience, but of course no one was
 going to stick their neck out for her. All Talk, no Walk. She went 
 home a little wiser. While there seems no danger of a Libertarian
 Revolution here any time soon, we could use a few Whoopie Cushions 
 if you have any to spare. We seem to have lost our sense of silliness.

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

          A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.

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

                        ST. BOB THE STARGAZER

 I missed a special birthday a month ago - Robert Burnham, Jr. He was an
 astronomer. And of a kind that would be impossible today: an amateur who
 crossed the aisle to become a professional without the time-wasting step
 of academia in between. What makes him special to me is a book he wrote.
 It's a 3-volume set called "Burnham's Celestial Handbook - An Observer's
 Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar System". He did the original edition
 on his typewriter at home and collated it on his kitchen table with the
 help of some friends. Written originally in the 50's, it remains as much
 a classic today as it instantly became back then. Dover picked it up in
 1966 and has been publishing it ever since. Equal parts science, poetry,
 myth and fiction, it's a real Beaut. Nobody's even come close to topping 
 it since.

 After 20 years of work at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, he was offered
 a janitor job by the observatory director. He was told his work was very
 professional but his credentials were very amateur. In fact his work was
 so good it had turned what originally was a one-year temporary grant to
 catalog stars, into a 20-year career grant that contributed substantially
 to Lowell's budget and reputation. But now that the grant had ended, 
 Lowell had no further use for him. Hence the janitor job offer. He 
 predictably enough declined it. 

 Then amazingly, even as his book's sales continued to bring steady
 profits into the coffers of his publisher - Dover - and his reputation
 amongst amateurs especially approached mythical levels, he fell off the 
 map. Depressed and feeling betrayed, he became jobless, homeless - set
 adrift. Apparently it never occured to Lowell Observatory, his former
 collegues, his publisher Dover, his legions of admirers or anyone else,
 that getting suddenly shoved out the door after two decades, might be 
 a bit disorienting. He died years later in a San Diego park, homeless,
 alone, penniless and utterly unknown. Just some old bum who sold ugly
 drawings of cats in the park. Because he was a vet, his service - the 
 Air Force - buried him. Otherwise he would have ended up in an unmarked 
 pauper's grave. It wasn't until a year after his death that anyone who 
 knew him even learned that he had died.
                                   _

 I'm a star-gazer. I hesitate to say 'amateur astronomer' since that seems
 to imply some sort of official status that I don't possess. Though I have
 worked in observatories occasionally, I'm not an astronomer nor do I have
 any credentials in the science of astronomy. I'm completely self-taught.
 I just like the night sky - stars, comets, satellites, whatever.

 I've been doing this for quite some time. It all started with late night
 trips to the outhouse as a kid. Our family spent its summers way up in
 the piney, sandy hills of northern Michigan hundreds of miles north of
 Detroit. We had an outhouse instead of a bathroom. Wimpy little city kid
 that I was, I was more than a little apprehensive about trapsing through
 all that hungry, homicidal wild life in the middle of the night to take 
 a whizz. My mother's solution to my fear was to tell me to 'look up at 
 the stars'. When I did this, I was amazed. Where in the hell did all
 those stars come from? We didn't have that many back in Detroit. Too 
 much light. Soon enough I began to like taking late-night trips to the 
 outhouse. I forgot all about the hungry wildlife. I was in thrall to 
 the heavens. I still am.

 In the decades that I've been star-gazing, things have changed a lot. The
 distinction between amateur and professional astronomers was very fuzzy
 up till about the 60's. An old friend of mine who was a mining engineer
 in the British Columbia interior was an amateur. He built his own little
 observatory. He'd put in his regular day at the mine, then come home and
 spend his nights star-gazing. He was especially interested in the moon
 and sketched by hand many of its craters under varying conditions of
 shadow. Prior to NASA's moon missions, this was how features on the moon
 were discovered and investigated. They were lovely, artistic sketches. 
 As a founding member of the American Lunar & Planetary Observers, he was 
 well-known both in amateur and professional astronomy circles. During the 
 summers he entertained a steady stream of academic astronomers from all
 over the world who visited with him to talk about what he had been seeing
 and to get a glimpse through his scope in that lovely dark, night sky of 
 BC's interior. But he never quit his day job and eventually retired on 
 his pension. With a night sky like that, he stayed put. He could live
 with the cold.

 Nowadays the distinction between amateur and professional astronomy is
 very sharp and distinct. An uncrossable boundry. There's very little
 communication between the two sides, let alone socializing. The pros
 I've run into have been uniformly snobbish and utterly disinterested in
 astronomy in general. Their interest is restricted to extremely narrow
 specialties and most of their time is spent trolling for grants. Don't
 ask them where that new comet is. They won't know or give a damn. The
 telescope operators at the observatories handle that stuff. Few pros
 observe 'just for the helluvit'. Astronomy is their job, not their
 avocation.

 New discoveries are no longer made by humans anyways. They're made by
 machines. The greatest astronomers of our times are things - the Hubble
 Space Telescope, the Voyager and various other spacecraft, etc. Humans
 have been relegated to the secondary role of data analysts and grant
 shills. EVERYTHING is geared towards maximizing grants. No lie is too
 big, no exaggeration too preposterous if it leads to more grants. Any
 scientific scepticism that threatens the flow of grant money, is now
 heresy of the highest order. If it results in bad data - so what. Who 
 cares? It's just astronomy - nobody's going to die because of it. Show
 them the money baby. That's what it's all about. Besides, like that
 water-on-the-moon BS, you can quietly issue a retraction a year later 
 and nobody will even notice.

 Which isn't to suggest that the pros aren't above using amateurs as a
 source of cheap labor. There are tons of suckers out there just dying
 to pay out Big Bucks for the chance to play Pretend Astronomer. Amateurs
 have one resource that the pros don't: time. Observation time on scopes
 is extremely competitive and highly limited. So its not unusual for pros
 to use amateurs to do simple monitoring observations. The amateurs get
 nothing whatsoever for this. The credit, grants and glory all go to the 
 Principal Investigator. Some amateur groups specialize in such programs.
 But whenever their data is cited in scientific papers, it's the head of
 the organization who gets the citation, not the people who actually did
 the work. They don't even get mentioned. Finding a new comet is about the
 surest way to get astronomical immortality while avoiding Middle Men. But
 the generic catalog name i.e. C/2002 L9, gets precedence over the common
 name i.e. Comet NEAT, in the catalogs. And you'll likely have to share
 top billing with a couple others who spotted 'your' comet about the same
 time you did.

 Amateur groups have dummied down considerably as well. Astronomy mags
 like the formerly lovely old Sky & Telescope are now far more into
 flogging no end of cheap, tacky half-assed junk to their readers than
 they are in giving them useful observing information. The emphasis in
 clubs in no longer on what you know, but what gizmos you've got. Star
 Parties have turned into equipment sales events in which salesmen flog
 their junk to the unsuspecting. Local events like Table Mountain and 
 Mt. Kobau, which used to be intimate gathering of the tribe, are now 
 circuses flooded with thousands of clueless, ill-mannered twits dragging
 along their brats and pitt-bulls while blinding everybody with the
 headlights from their bloated SUVs and RVs. The last astro-geek I ran
 into by accident told me he was an amateur cosmologist. Maybe he meant
 cosmetologist eh. He did have good hair.

 Amateurs used to be legendary for their resourcefulness. Guys like 
 John Dobson who used to scrounge around Oakland shipyards looking for 
 old portholes windows to grind into telescope mirrors. He invented
 the Dobsonian telescope-mount after being inspired by a Navy alt-az
 gunmount he found in the shipyards. 

 It wasn't the money particularily, it was the principle of the thing 
 and the challenge. A good friend who had retired after a career as one 
 of the top neurologists in the world and had enough Dough to choke a
 horse, once proudly showed me his new binocular mount: a cheap, common
 mop handle whose flat, spongy mop-head was mounted on one of those
 universal swivels. He used a bungy-cord to hold the binocs to the mop
 head. It was steady as a rock. I told him he was a frik'n genius. He 
 was so proud you'd have thought he just won the Nobel Prize. You can 
 buy a nice commercially-made holder for a couple hundred bucks. It 
 won't be any better. It likely will be worse.

 Whatever. Star-gazing is essentially a solitary pursuit anyways.
 It can be simply entertaining - sitting out in the backyard with a
 cold beer in your hand and a pair of binocs around your neck just 
 watching whatever surprises pop up (flashing satellites, meteors,
 bollides, etc.) and grooving on the peacefulness. It can also be
 very inspirational - knowing the night sky well enough to find your 
 way around, knowing something about the objects you can see and 
 simply meditating on the significance of those facts. It can be
 intellectually stimulating - working up light-curves on your favorite
 variable stars, hand sketching details of lunar craters, timing the
 occulations of one body by another, etc. And there are always the
 many thousands of satellites that continuously zip by overhead. A
 sizeable pursuit in its own right. Some amateur sat observers can 
 work up the keplarian elements of a satellite's orbit by precisely
 noting the satellite's position at 3 points during a good pass. A
 pencil/paper, ordinary binocs and a healthy, average brain is all 
 the equipment needed. What the heck. It's not like you're going to
 win a Nobel prize anyways. Kick back and enjoy.

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

                           "Peed skills."
 
                      President George W. Bush
........................................................................

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

 The head Israeli Dune Coon, General Sharon, nailed himself 10 Palestinian 
 kiddies this week. Cost him one of his biggest and most expensive bombs
 to do it too. He called it the 'most successful operation' his Luftwaffe
 ever pulled off. He didn't mention the kids. Neither did our News Nazis.
 It was left up to the world's Media to mention that 10 of the 15 dead
 people were children. Israeli kids are 'children', while Palestinian kids
 are just generic 'people'. It's a natural, scientific fact that Israelis 
 and Palestinians are genetically indistinguishable. Ones got as much
 Raghead/Camel-Jockey blood as the other. Any distinction is drawn purely
 for political and/or propaganda purposes. Religion has little or nothing
 to do with it. This is just an acient tribal squabble that's been going
 on for millenia.

 In case you haven't figured it out by now: General Sharon is a certified 
 nutcase. He don't think he's Napolean; he thinks he's King David. Really- 
 he does. He's going to restore the ancient empire of Judah and rebuild
 the Temple so it can be just like the Good Old Days again. Just before 
 God sent the Iraqis to kick their asses and haul half of them back to
 Baghdad as slaves. That's a detail that doesn't often get mentioned though 
 it is well documented in the Book of Daniel and a few other places.

 In fact Ari's actually just a fat, balding, little old Jewish guy with 
 an extraordinary large ass. But don't tell him that - he'd never believe 
 it. Come to think of it, King David was a little wingy too though he was 
 one heck of a songwriter. Ari is fortunate to be engaged in one of the
 few occupations (judge/soldier/politician/journalist/cop) where psychopaths 
 like him don't end up in a Loony Bin. It's an occupational niche that 
 values its homicidal maniacs.

 Oh yeah...that Hamas guy who was the target? They replaced him within an 
 hour. There was a line-up for his job. War is good for promotions. It's
 just a little tough on kids.

                                   -

 Call it premature ejaculation. Looks like our desperate Desperado, Ol
 Yeller, can't wait until the fall elections to hit Iraq. With the
 entire country in an economic death-spin, he's going to blow his wad
 right now. Way, way too early. I guess the Republicans have already
 written off their chances in November. Even Al Gore has gone High
 Profile all of a sudden. 

 Why Iraq? Take a lookit this...

                                        Largest Reserves In the World
                                                (billions of barrels)
     ----                                               -----
   + OPEC                                               906.4
     ----                                               -----
       Saudi                                            261.8
       Iraq                                             200.0 *
       UAE                                               97.8
       Kuwait                                            96.5
       Iran                                              89.7
       Venezuela                                         77.7
       Libya                                             29.5
       Nigeria                                           24.0
       Qatar                                             15.2
       Algeria                                            9.2
       Indonesia                                          5.0
     ---                                                -----      
   + CIS                                                122.9
     ---                                                -----
       Russia                                            92.9
       Others                                            30.0 **
     -------------                                      ----- 
   + North America                                       63.9 *
     -------------                                      -----  
       U.S.                                              30.4
       Mexico                                            26.9
       Canada                                             6.6
     ----                                               -----
   + Asia                                                38.8 ***
     ----                                               -----
       China                                             24.0
       Other                                             14.8
     ------                                             -----
   + Europe                                              18.7
     ------                                             -----
       Norway                                             9.4
       U.K.                                               4.9
       Others                                             4.4
     -------------                                      ----- 
   + South America                                       18.3 ***
     -------------                                      -----
   + Africa***                                           14.0
     ------                                             ----- 
   + Middle East                                         12.1 ***
     ===========                                      ======== 
     Total                                            1,195.1

     *   Conservative estimate
     **  Conservative assumption of Caspian potential
     *** Excluding OPEC member states
 Sources: BP Statistical Review, MEES, Troika Dialog estimates

 Does that make it clear enough for you? This ain't about Saddam any more
 than Afghanistan was about 9/11 or Osama. Yellowbelly don't give a damn
 about sentimental crap like that - just show him the oil, baby. With oil
 reserves likely equal to those of Saudi Arabia and about a quarter of
 OPEC's grand total, it's a little obvious ain't it. Him and Daddy have
 been drooling over those Iraqi numbers for years.

 This is a very extraordinary time. I've never seen things fall apart this
 quickly and this thoroughly before. It usually takes a few years rather
 than a few months. The integrity of fundamental social institutions, from 
 the stock market to the Catholic church, have disintegrated. While there
 have certainly been individual scandals in the past, there has never been 
 the kind of systemic dishonesty and distrust that exists today. And never
 before has Uncle Sammy ever been as disinterested in our fate. It's sure
 raised the Pucker Factor an octave or two.

 Oh well. Iraq will be invaded. I find that obscene and disgusting but
 I don't doubt for a second it will happen nor do I harbor any illusions
 about being able to prevent it. The economy is in the toilet and getting
 worse by the day. Will it crash? Damned if I know. I ain't no economist.
 We've had so many Prophets of Doom proclaim the Imminent Demise of America 
 in the past 10 years that it's kind of lost its oomph. Thanks to Art Bell
 our cellars are already stocked up from previous false alarms. Too bad he
 don't buy that stuff back when his phony Armageedon's come up a no-show.
 Still you gotta wonder, between the 401(k) Swindle and the Trillions owed
 by corporations to their pension funds, if anyone is going to have a
 pension left at the end of this thing. They're gonna have to add a new
 wing to the Publix Hotel to handle the overflow.

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

     "God made pubic hair curly so you don't poke your eyes out."

                          Pope John Paul II
                         World Youth Day 2002
                               Toronto
.............................................................................

                         -  MONDO VATICANO -

 Pretend
 1. to give a false appearance of being, possessing or performing;
 2. a) to make believe;
    b) to claim, represent or assert falsely;
 3. to feign an action, part or role in play.

 Pretending is probably the most highly valued weapon in your average
 American Catholic's spiritual arsenal. For many, it is the ONLY weapon 
 in that arsenal. Given the Vatican's rather embarassing history and 
 the highly esoteric nature of our traditions, pretending not only allows
 you to be selectively blind about all that Roman perversity but also
 allows you to exude an aura of spiritual superiority without actually
 going to the trouble of attaining it. 

 No wonder the Church is such an easy mark for perverts eh. Denial and
 pretence have become the fifth and sixth Cardinal Virtues.

 Let's pretend we're actually receiving the body and blood of Christ
 in Holy Communion. If the polls are anything to go on, most American 
 Catholics admit that they don't actually believe Christ is present in
 the Euchrist. They go to Communion primarily because it's 'part of the
 show' and to avoid the social embarassment of being the only guy left
 behind in the pews. Might just as well hang a sign over your head
 saying "Go'n To Hell In A Handbasket". The Euchrist means little or
 nothing special to them.
 
 Let's pretend we really do believe in the sacrament of Penance. Again,
 if the polls are anything to go by, most American Catholics rarely if 
 ever go to Confession and even when they do, they carefully avoid
 anything to do with sex. They aren't embarassed. They just don't want
 to have to listen to their Father Confessor's clueless ruminations on
 the subjects of abortion, birth-control, etc. He don't know anything
 about that stuff. Well...he's not supposed to know anyways.

 Let's pretend that divorce is okay. We'll just discretely ignore that
 embarassing rant Christ went into at the end of the Sermon on the Mount 
 in which he clearly, explicitly and strictly forbade divorce of any kind.
 Just slip the bishop a few Grand and he'll give you a written letter from
 God saying He was just kidding when He recognized your marriage and was 
 only fooling around when He blessed that union. It's called an annulment. 
 Someday they'll come up with an annulment for abortions too, no doubt, 
 to cover for God's little mistakes and kick a few extra bucks into the
 diocesean kitty.

 Just pretend the Pervert Priest Crisis in the American Church is, as
 the Vatican is fond of Spinning it, strictly an "American Problem". 
 Just ignore the 20+ other countries whose bishops are facing severe
 pervert priest crises of their own. Never mind the State Commissions 
 established in England and Ireland to oversee and direct the Catholic
 Church's reponse to it's pervert clergy after it failed to handle the 
 problem on its own. Never mind the 200+ pervert priests the Philipino 
 Church is attempting to deal with. Never mind the pervert epidemic 
 that Cardinal Lehman warned is just emerging in the German Church. 

 Just pretend that the real cause of the Pervert Priest scandal is, 
 as the Vatican is fond of Spinning it, because of those Queer priests.
 Afterall, haven't virtually all the perverts been engaged in homosexual
 activities? It's more convenient than facing the reality that virtually
 all our priests are now Gay and, statistically, the odds are extremely
 high that any 'bad apples' will inevitably be Gay as well. And it's
 easier than facing the reality that our priests are running an AIDS 
 rate three-times higher than the general population. If the bishops
 succeed in ridding the Church of Gay priests, we ain't gonna have any
 priests left. We won't mention that many of the bishops are also Gay.
 But then so was FBI legend J. Edgar Hoover. It didn't stop him from 
 being a vicious and nasty Gay Basher to cover his ass.

 Just pretend that women are somehow magically unfit for priestly duty 
 and unworthy to become part of the Vatican hierarchy. Ignore the fact
 that the only followers of Christ who remained faithful to Him literally 
 to the bitter were end, were the women around Him. His male Apostles all 
 deserted Him - worse, many of them denied Him. Forget the fact that
 Christ surrounded himself with women while the only women around the 
 Pope are the nuns who make his bed and cook his food. It was Jewish
 tradition that restricted Christ to a male-only discipleship. Jews
 have never been particularily gender-liberated. In Christ's time and
 up until very recently, only a small corner of the balcony in synagogues
 was reserved for women. It was either that or join the Goys and other
 impure people outside the front door. Aside from the Lubavich Chabad
 crowd, Schuls make no gender distinction any more. There's probably 
 even a few female Rabbis around too. Meanwhile, Roma's still stuck in
 prehistoric times.

 Just pretend that Future-Super-Saint JP-2 is fit-as-a-fiddle and with 
 a mind as sharp-as-a-tack. Try not to notice that he's really a sickly, 
 feeble-minded, confused and pathetic old man on death's door. He can't
 even stand up on his own. Some guy has to hold him up by the shoulders
 like a rag doll. Just pretend that by some miracle or another he isn't 
 a delusional Space Cadet like all others with his illness.

 Just pretend that Future-Super-Saint JP-2 is really a kindly, sweet and
 deeply religious Dude. Ignore him getting fatter every day in his 1000
 room palace stuffed with priceless art and jewelry, with his hundreds of
 staff and his Vacation Castle in the Roman countryside, while the children 
 of the world starve to death. Ignore the fakery he used to attain the
 Papacy. Ignore his close and intimate ties with the neo-fascist Opus Dei. 
 Ignore his blatantly racist/bigotted attacks on the African bishops.
 Ignore his scuttling of the formation of an African Rite within the Church.
 Ignore his 'reign of terror' on any clergy who even vaguely stray from
 his approved Party Line. Ignore his attempt to canonize as a saint "The
 Nazi Pope" - Pius XIIth - who obscenely kept his mouth shut while Hitler
 slaughtered off the Jews. Ignore his canonization as a saint of that old
 pervert Pius IXth who had a little Jewish kid kidnapped so he could 'play' 
 with him. Ignore his homophobic Gay Bashing and persecution of any clergy 
 who minister to Gays and Lesbians. Ignore the fact that this man has no 
 apparent fear of or respect for God and likely little, if any, belief 
 in Him.

 It's so much fun pretending. So much easier too. So what if it's 
 phony?

				+	+

 Voice of the Faithful began just a few months ago in a church basement
 in Boston. Its membership has rapidly grown from that small group of
 people to include over 13,000 members from over 20 states. It is a 
 reform group. One that is highly focused on changing the way the Church  
 handles its business in American Catholic churches. They intend to 
 use the considerable economic power that lay Catholics posses to 
 insist on changes in how diocesian financies are handled. No more 
 "leave it to the bishop" nonsense. The bishops obviously aren't up 
 to the responsibility. Their abuses make the Enron and WorldCom
 CEOs look like altarboys.

 It has the Vatican and particularily Cardinal Bernie "The Pimp" Law
 very concerned. In a spectacular display of egomania, Bernie frumpily
 instructed Catholic Charities in Boston to return any direct donations
 they receive through VOTF. Screw the poor, the hungry, the sick - Bernie 
 comes first. How Christian of him eh. 

 Catholic Charities, a national organization, is less than delighted 
 with Bernie The Pimp's latest Hissy Fit. It's a struggle enough without
 a self-absorbed jerk like him making it harder. Their works of Loving
 Kindness are manifold and they are eminently worthy of your support.
 Forget Bernie. You can safely ignore everything he says. In fact you'd
 be better off if you did. And keep your kids away from him. Screwing
 kids over is one of Bernie's specialties.

 I never donate to my diocese. I never donate to ANY charity that doesn't
 open its books for inspection - period. I won't even donate to United
 Way after that little 'cooked books' episode a few years back. I don't
 trust their books. I always donate directly to groups I admire and trust.
 Since my donations are always anonymous (screw the tax-break), they 
 couldn't return my donation even if they wanted to. And, since virtually
 all are national groups, there is little to no chance of any episcopal 
 screwball using it to buy race horses for an investment, to pay off his 
 former lovers under the table or to hide his perverts. 

              			+	+

 Add eight more sexual abuse lawsuits to Seattle Bishop Al's busy schedule. 
 Every week seems to see more and more added to the pile. He's going to
 have to order everybody in the diocese to get a 2nd job just to pay for
 it all. But he ain't getting a cent from me. He can pay for his own
 perverts. He hired them. I find it very comforting that whenever the
 "Nice Catholics" who walk around with their fingers in their ears
 refusing to acknowledge clergy sexual abuse, plunk their hard earned 
 money in that collection basket on Sunday, a good chunk of it goes
 straight into court-ordered reparations to the victims. Might as well
 mail it right to the lawyers and skip the Middle Man - Bishop Al.

				+	+

 The ArchDiocese of Vancouver (BC) has been sweating it out recently as 
 it awaited a determination on whether or not St. Thomas More Collegiate
 and Vancouver College would have to be sold. It is connected with
 reparations for the horrific sexual abuse that went on for decades in
 an Irish Brothers orphanage in Newfoundland, Canada. The liquidators
 for the victims, the accounting firm Arthur Anderson of Enron fame 
 (who strangely went unmentioned in news reports) wanted to sell the 
 two Vancouver Catholic schools off for the Dough. But this week, in an
 out-of-court settlement, they accepted $19 MegaBucks cash in exchange
 for dropping all future claims. Now the good ArchBishop up there 
 merely has to fleece his lambs to raise the cash. Maybe former Victoria
 Bishop de Roos can help him out a little with tips on race horses to
 invest in.

----------------------------------------------------
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