__ _ / _|_ __ ___
_____ / _` | |_| '_ ` _ \ _____
|_____| | (_| | _| | | | | | |_____|
\__,_|_| |_| |_| |_|
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.
THIS AIN'T NO STINK'N BLOG
------------------------------------------------
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.
-------------------------------------------------
- 184 -
01-02-03
01 February, 2003
Date: Sat Feb 01 2003 - 15:13:24 EST
Since the view from San Antonio would have been so low on the
horizon, I had specifically driven to a spot just north of Waco to witness
the reentry. I took the drive bacause it was a daylight reentry -- which
I had never seen -- and because non-ISS missions are rare these days (ISS
missions don't reenter over Texas). This put me somewhere around 80
miles south of Columbia's path. I caught sight of it at 7:58am local time,
but it was already about 30 deg above the horizon. It was a bright spot
with a slightly greenish glow around it. Almost immediately I saw a
bright piece detach from it and fall behind. A little later, two more,
nearly simultaneous. Then another. And so on. The best my brain did was
to think it *looked* like it was breaking up, not that it actually *was*
breaking up. The thought of a disaster was so far from my mind that I didn't
even slightly consider the reality. I followed the main glow and contrail
until 8:01am when the trail got too close to the Sun in the east for
comfort. But it did look like the contrail just ended, but that fact
didn't fully register with me either. I heard the sonic boom at 8:05am.
It was only after being back on the road and hearing about it on the radio
that the sickening reality made sense.
Robert Fenske, Jr. rfenske@swri.edu Sw |The Taming the C*sm*s series:
Southwest Research Institute /R---\ |
Signal Exploitation & Geolocation Div | I | |"The Martian canals were the
San Antonio,Texas USA ph:210-522-3931 \----/ | Martians' last ditch effort."
- as posted on SEESAT-L -
One of the better sources of information on this latest NASA screwup
is the USENET group sci.space.shuttle. Unless you're really into confusing,
clueless, contradictory babble - our blubbering News Nazis are a waste
of time. Oddly, the most common posting on s.s.s. is one entitled
"Silent Post For the Shuttle's Crew". There are hundreds and each,
as the header says - is empty. There are some things words just cannot
express.
*
Spring is in the air. Everywhere I look there are crocus and daffodil
shoots poking up above the dirt an inch or two. The cheery trees on
UDub's campus have started blooming. The purple ones across from the
under-construction computer sciences building near the HUB are well
along. One of the non-Yoshinos at the south end of the Quad sprouted
hundreds of tiny white 'stars' that will soon be full blossoms. The
elegant Yoshinos are still bare. They are always the Grand Finale of
spring. About the same time they bloom, this years crop of baby salmon
hit the salmon pool. I now even have a horny Robin warbling away outside
my window for a gal every morning. More than the rain, the absence of
birds singing marks winter for me. It's so quiet.
But nothing says spring like baseball. Passing the UDub fieldhouse
early one recent morn, I couldn't help noticing the Montlake Mutts
going hard at it inside. I almost forgot - they're first game will
be in late February. They made it to the NCAA regional playoffs last
year, and if they hadn't snoozed through the first half of their
season, might have gone a lot further. I have to keep reminding
myself that baseball is their pleasure, not their life. They got
other priorities.
HOOTERVILLE HISTORY...
It was 87 years ago this coming Friday that long-distance telephone
service between Seattle and New York City began. For the first
time, Hootervillians could pick up their phone and talk to their
fellow Americans thousands of miles away. It must have seemed
like magic.
The event was marked by a special, invitation-only debut party
at the Metropolitan Theater downtown. Modelled after the Dogues in
Venice, the Met was the classiest such joint in town. Even nicer
than the 5th Avenue if you can believe that. All that's left of the
lovely old dear is the notch she used to sit in at the entrance to
the Four-Seasons Olympic Hotel. They originally built the hotel
around her.
A bunch of receiver handsets were installed by the phone company
in many of the main level seats. People could hold them to their
ear and actually hear the sounds of surf pounding and people
chatting all the way back on the east coast - live/real-time!
Whoa! No talking though. Only Big Shots got to do that. U Dub
President, Dr. Henry Susallo - a former Columbia University
philosophy prof - walked out on stage and demonstrated the new
line by calling up a couple of his former academic collegues
back in New York City while the assembled crowd listened in.
COMES THE NEUROMANCER...
William Gibson must like Hooterville. The heroine of his last
Big Hit ("Idoru") was a little cutie from Seattle. And now he's
kicking off a globetrotting Pub Crawl to flog his latest book,
"Pattern Recognition", with an appearance at U Dub's Kane Hall
on the evening of Monday, February 3rd.
He's sort of Sci-Fi but not really. It's more like the funky
side of Tech-Fi. Vernor Vinge and Rudy Rucker got the ball
rolling then Bruce Sterling and Bill kicked it in the Net. Where
Sterling strikes me as boringly responsible and tediously Boojzwah,
Gibson shows more of an appreciation for the playful, sexy and
imaginatively outlaw possibilities of The Matrix. Unlike Sterling
he has no aspirations to become a self-declared Cyberspace Wizard.
He's just happy being a writer.
Born in the U.S.A., his family moved to Canada in his youth and
he's been living in Vancouver (BC) ever since. I've caught his
schtick in bookstores up there a couple times. Well-read, bright,
inquisative and Geeky looking as all get-out, you'd never guess
he's got a taste for the kinky side of life. He seems like such
a mellow fellow. But then who'd have ever guessed Pee Wee Herman
was a pervert? Looks don't mean much these days.
Writing, not computers and gizmos, is his Main Bag. Go ahead and
ask him what he's been reading lately. His travels expose him to
a wide, international spectrum of scribblers. He's always good for
a few intriguing reading tips. And don't be such a tight-wad.
Buy his damn book. He's got rent to pay just like everybody else.
BTW - He just started a blog a couple weeks ago:
William Gibson Blog
LATINO RADIO FOLLOWUP...
Tacoma's KKMO 1360AM isn't the only Latino music station in town
though it seems to be the only one that is solely Latino. A short
distance to the right on the dial, just the other side of the
religious fruitcakes, there is also KXPA 1540AM out of Bellevue.
It's one of the those stations that doesn't really have a set
format of its own and instead sells chunks of programming time
to people who have produced programs. While the Latinos have it
through most of the day, on weekends and nights the Philipinos,
Vietnamese, Russians and Cambodians sometimes slip in there with
weekly programs. It's funkier than KKMO and a better choice for
accordion stuff. One of the morning DJs likes to play the sounds
of barnyard animals in the background as he chatters between
tunes. It sounds like he's in a barn with cows mooing, roosters
crowing and lambs continuously bleeting around him. Way K00L!
It's more in the spirit of the radio I grew up listening to in
the 50's and early 60's. They're having fun and acting goofy.
STINKY RUNS FOR COVER...
Looks like The Little Stinker, our gubnatorial dwarf, is get'n a
little paranoid these days. Starting to see Booger Men under his
bunk-bed in the Governor's Mansion. The cops arrested some guy
who they supposedly think was plotting to assassinate Stinky.
But oddly, they aren't charging him with plotting to pull off
an assassination. Does that make sense to you? Me neither. Sounds
like they're doing drugs again.
Instead, he's been charged with the far more mundane offense of
possessing a firearm and transporting it across state lines.
Which of course has nothing directly to do with plotting any
assassination. Since he had a misdemeanor domestic violence rap
on his record, it was illegal for him to even be in possession
of a firearm. Still, it's quite a leap from smack'n the Old Lady
to snuffing the Governor. I don't think even Jim Goad has tried
that one yet.
Frankly pols are a waste of good ammo. Since one is essentially
indistinguisable from any other, there are a thousand wannabes
just as bad, if not worse, standing eagerly by waiting to fill
each incumbent's shoes. Half of them would pay you to do the
job if they thought they could get away with it. Their inherent
cowardice is the only thing that keeps them restrained.
The political connection comes from this guy's association with
the Jural Society. They're one of your typical NorthWest right-wing
religious-nut operations. We got tons of them here. Our News Nazis
say he's "an anti-government extremist". What does that mean? It
means they don't like him. Lacking the balls to come right out and
call him an asshole, they instead invented this pseudo-clinical
sounding little ditty. They would call Tim Eyeman that too if they
didn't think people would laugh at them. They seem to realize that
the credibility of their audience does have limits.
They also say this guy hates Governor Stinky because he's of Chinese
ancestory. Sheesh! If The Little Stinker actually looked like a real
Zhongo Ren he would have never gotten elected in this state. His
entire political career is built on 'passing for white'. The only
time he becomes Chinese is when there's a Buck in it for him.
Anyways, our News Nazis didn't offer a single shred of evidence
in support of their claim. We are just supposed to take their word
for it. Heaven knows they never lie, rig stories or otherwise
deliberately attempt to manipulate us. At least not in the past
five minutes anyways.
So there you have it. He's an assassination plotter who hasn't plotted
an assassination; an anti-government extremist whose only crime was
a minor technical legal violation; and a dangerous bigot who nobody
can recall uttering any racial slurs. He don't walk like a duck. He
don't quack like a duck. He don't fly like a duck. Sorry - he ain't
a duck.
I don't think any of this has anything to do with assassination
plots at all. I think what's going on here is that Stinky, after
making an ungodly mess of things for the past six odd years and
incurring the wrath of his electorate, is fishing for a diversion,
sympathy and a cover. The little coward is afraid to face the
people of this state to account for his incompetence. Manufacturing
non-existant assassination plots will nicely provide an excuse for
hiding. What the hell - it worked for Veep Cheney. Maybe it'll
work for Stinky too. Besides, lacking anything like a personality,
values, principles or any of that other fluffy stuff it's for the
best that he stays low, if not invisible.
Given all the people he's screwed over in the past six years,
there have to be a few thousand of them out there who'd love to
have a piece of him, but this guy don't look like one of them.
He's just a poor, confused, helpless schmuck Stinky's going to
hang out to dry with the assistance of our News Nazis. What are
Little People for afterall?
BTW - While he was in DC to deliver the impressively ignorable
Democratic Response to President Yellowbelly's Throne Speech,
I wonder if he dropped by the White House to see if there were
any job openings? Philosophically, politically, intellectually -
there ain't a hell of a lot of difference between him and Yeller.
Two right-wing Monkey Boys making a mess outta everything they
touch. After having recently brought the state from a Billion+
surplus to a TwoBillion+ deficit, he's hardly anyone to be
passing out economic advice to others.
.............................................................................
An Official Homeland Defense Guide to...
KNOWING YOUR TERRORIST SHIT
(using The Bristol Stool Form Scale)
The eternal struggle against Terrorism weasels its way into every
nook and cranny of The American Way of Life (c). We are surrounded
by enemies. Everybody in the world is jealous of us and hates our
guts. To paraphrase the Bible: "The paranoid shall inherit the
earth." Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. It's the American Way (c) and
our only hope for survival.
A crucial but often overlooked aspect of the War on Terrorism
involves public conveniences. Even while vacating his bowels,
the dedicated patriotic Anti-Terrorist can detect the presence
of the enemy and collect vital clues that could lead to the
arrest, incarceration and prosecution (not necessarily in that
order) of dangerous Infidels. Millions of precious American
lives could be saved. If you're wrong, so what? Worse that can
happen is some Raghead ends up with three-hots-and-a-cot for
a year or two in one of our deluxe Homes For the Patriotically
Impaired where we'll make a real Christian out of him.
The bodily wastes swirling around in the toilet bowls of our
public washrooms reveal much about the character of their
source. In them can be discerned many subtle (and not so subtle)
clues about impending threats and possible allies through careful
scientific observation. Please take the time to familiarize
yourself with the following.
TYPES OF SHIT:
-------------
1) Stinky, sticky, dry with hard lumps or clumps.
Patriotic American shit. Someone who knows what a case of beer
is and how to use it. Trustworthy if you seem to be winning,
otherwise they won't want anything to do with you. Many carry
firearms but will only employ them in self-defense. Don't even
bother asking for their help. They'll give you a dime and tell
you to call a cop. No, you can't borrow their cellphone for the
call - don't want to get involved.
2) Like lumpy sausage.
Libertarian shit. The lumpy stuff is the parts of the Republican
National Committee's platform they couldn't quite digest. Likely
carrying firearms but unlikely to be capable of hitting the broad
side of a barn. Useful as human shields when approaching dangerous
suspects or suspicious objects. But no matter what happens: it's
your own fault.
3) Like sausage with surface cracks.
Militia shit. Always carry firearms though they frequently get
confused about which end the bullets come out of. Potential
emergency source of hand-grenades. If help is requested in a
conspiratorial whisper, will voluntarily approach suspects to
ask if they got any bombs on them.
4) Long, smooth surface.
Media shit. Hint: did they leave any toilet paper for the next guy?
No? - definitely a newspaper man. He needed it to file his story.
Often found lingering in the stall talking to, moulding shapes with
or taking pictures of the bowl's contents. Politely refuse if they
offer you some to eat. Slowly back out of the room and immediately
report the pervert to the security guards.
5) Blobs with well-defined margins.
Democrat shit. Never carry guns but will likely ask to borrow yours.
Useless as human shields - they always duck at the crucial moment.
Their vague resemblance to Patriotic Americans makes them useful as
decoys in a pinch. Always keep one hand on your wallet while in their
presence.
6) Fluffy with ragged edges.
Queer, Bunny-Hugger or Egg-Head shit. Don't even ask for their help,
it'll just start an argument. Caution: maintain a substantial Safety
Zone when located - they are subject to spontaneous natural combustion
and may self-destructively explode without warning. Since they lack a
backbone and are primarily composed of cartilage and gases, this event
presents no significant shrapnel danger but makes one helluva a bloody
mess.
7) Watery with no solids.
Bingo! You got yourself a genuine Evil Mooslem terrorist. Shoot
the bastard first, ask questions later. Even if you were wrong,
they were likely half-dead anyways. You just put them out of their
misery and saved them un-necessary suffering. Either way, you're
an instant hero.
COLOR HINTS:
-----------
Light - Not dangerous but unreliable. Possibly a Negro. That's how
they get dark like that - they get rid of their lightness.
Dark - Reliable, meat-eating Patriot. Someone who knows enough to
get rid of their darkness.
Black - Sick bastard. They shouldn't have let their darkness build
up like that. Steer clear of them or you'll get some weird
disease.
REMEMBER: Just because you're paranoid don't mean they really aren't
out to get you. No Mooslems - No Terrorism.
- Your Department of Homeland Defense -
"Just trying to hang on until payday."
.......................................................................
'OL YELLER'S TWAT
(aka The War Against Terrorism)
And so Yellowbelly's disasterous presidency deepens to add the loss
of a space shuttle. Talk about a Reverse Midas Touch eh. Everything
this dumbass hillbilly touches turns to shit. The economy's gone
from Boom to Bust, the stock market is down the toilet, he's turfed
the Constitution/Bill-of-Rights/Common-Law, bloated Uncle Sammy
bureaucracy to never-before-seen dimensions and taken us from Leader
of the Free World to Biggest Asshole In the World all in the space of
two short years. It's a testimony to the intelligence of your average
Boobus Americanus that they haven't copped to the obvious fact that
this moron is Beaucoup Bad Mojo.
-
Yikes! President Yellowbelly's an even bigger retard than anyone
ever imagined. With nearly 150,000 American military personel now
in position around Iraq, their commanders recently flown over to
assume their seats in the War Theatre and a massive American naval
flotilla chock full of cruise missles/nukes/whatever off the coast
of Iraq - he says, "We seek peace." Doh!
I think maybe this is one of those deals like after 9/11 when he
announced his TWAT to the flunkies in the State Department declaring:
"Make no mistake about it; we WILL lose." Opps! The Idjit's tongue
seems to have a life completely independant of his brain. In this
case he obviously meant to say, "We seek war."
I was right. He's more of a Mussolini than a Hitler - a loud-mouth,
pompous drunk with the brain of a chicken. His Afghanistan invasion
was indistinguishable from Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia - a
western nation using the latest available war technology attacking
a basically defenseless tribal people who presented no danger to them.
But Yeller's a pretty third-rate imitation of Il Duce. Benito could
put on a first-rate oratorical show. Yeller can't open his mouth
without swallowing his tongue. His Bad Actor whinning has got to go.
You'd think his string-pullers could scrape up a few bucks up to
hire an acting coach to help him sound like something other than
Bobby the car mechanic defensively trying to explain why he ripped
your trannie out instead of just changing the oil like you asked
him to do. Maybe Howard Stern's High-Pitch Eric could help him out.
I still haven't figured out if this idiot thinks he's being clever
or if he's just too chickenshit to spit it out. The invasion is a
Done Thing. He made the decision to invade Iraq MONTHS ago. He HAD
to. We wouldn't have all those people and all that hardware in
position otherwise. Duh! There is no way he could possibly back
down now even if he had the brains to do so. He's fully committed
to doing this thing. Painted himself right into a corner. But he
still wants to play cute pretending he hasn't made up his mind.
That's the problem with retards - they think EVERYBODY's a retard.
In a nation where half the population is sure the Sun orbits the
Earth, he may be onto something. Afterall, he yanked the Bill of
Rights, Constitution and Common Law without so much as a single
referendum. Democracy is so messy, complicated and inefficent. It
was easier to just buy a few cheap Congressional Whores and have
his Rich Buddies who own the Media crank out a couple cooked polls
instead. I didn't hear much of anybody complain.
Still, he's hesitating now as if he's not sure he can really get
away with this con job he's trying to pull. I'll bet he's got The
Shakes just like back in his heavy drinking days. The whole thing
is a rather transparent grab for Iraqi oil. The Euros can see that
as can many others. They've all backed as far away from it as they
can get. Only that Limmey Fairy Blair is still hanging in there and
it looks like Yeller's TWAT might end up costing Tony his job. His
Best Boy Jack Straw seems confident he could now take him in a
Labor Party leadership race.
Does Saddam have weapons of mass destruction? Damned if I know.
I hope for his sake he does. He's going to need them. We've got
them and we won't hesitate to use them, regardless of what he
does. While he can't prevent us from trashing his nation and
slaughtering off his people, he can still make one helluva mess
out of his oilfields and extract a dear price for our cheap
thrills escapade: thousands of G.I. Joes going home in body-bags.
A few well-placed ordinance directed at a couple aircraft carriers
and at a few marshalling areas ought to do the trick. We'd be up
to our necks in grand and very inspirational military funerals
for weeks to come. Taking out an American city of the same size
as Baghdad - say Seattle - by whatever means necessary, would be
only fair too. An eye for an eye. I should think he'd consider
it his sacred duty to make it so. If the shoe were on the other
foot, an American would certainly feel that way.
What we're doing is illegal, immoral and utterly insane. We are
the Bad Guys on this deal. These people have never so much as
threatened us let alone attacked us. We haven't got the slighest
shred of evidence they possess anything like weapons of mass
destruction. We have no moral grounds for what we're about to
do. It's mass-murder plain and simple. I'm a man of few certainties
but I have no hesitation at all in embracing this one. You want
to bullshit yourself otherwise pinhead - be my guest. Ain't
fool'n me.
Ain't that someth'n! Last week the political future of Israel's
fat-ass reigning War Criminal appeared in the toilet. This week
his party (not him) got double their previous total in the
Knesset. He's hardly in the clear though. He stole the extra
seats off his own political allies, not the Peaceniks. He's
still far short of a ruling share and needs partners. Nobody
wants anything to do with him. If his competition can stitch
together a majority coalition they'll run Israel and fat-ass
will be out on his well-padded keester. He's only barely
hanging onto to his party's leadership as it is. Maybe that
will be the price for a Likud majority - the War Criminal
hits the road. The Belgians will be waiting for him. They are
about to reopen thier prosecution of him.
Obviously Israel is kind of a big Jewish Home for the Feeble
Minded & Mentally Deficient. The smart Jews stay in America.
Selah.
............................................................................
"The Devil's cleverest wile is to convince us that he doesn't exist."
- Charles Baudelaire -
poet
in "Short Prose Poems"
............................................................................
- MONDO VATICANO -
I recently stumbled onto a very interesting Catholic webpage from
the Holy Land called:
Al-Bushra
Nah. Relax. It ain't got nuth'n to do with our Monkey Boy in the
White House. It's Arabic for 'Good News'. It was started by Fr.
Labib Kobti who used to be with the Archdiocese of Jerusalem but
is presently serving the Arab-American Catholic community in
California, USA. From a Catholic perspective, it covers current
news plus the heritage/history/traditions/theology of the people
who live in the Middle East. For all the amateur canon-lawyers
out there: it is faithful to JP-2 and the Magisterium. Kosher
Grade-A. So they'd likely be embarassed I even mentioned them.
Whatever.
+
The passage in Matthew 16 where Jesus establishes his Church then
gives Peter custody of it with full powers to loosen and bind, is
one of the most startling and amazing in all the gospels. It is,
amongst other things, the Vatican's justification - as the heir of
Peter's chair - for its existence.
Whenever you see it mentioned it never, ever goes beyond verses
18 to 19. That's as much as they want you to see. But the startling
and most amazing part immediately follows.
Christ then commands His apostles not to tell anyone He is Jesus
the Christ. The Messiah doesn't want anyone but them to know that
He is the Messiah!? What a peculiar thing to do. Then in a single
sentence, as if explaining the reason for his strange demand, He
lays out the entire dramatic culmination of his earthly life -
where it will occur, what will be done to him and by whom. He
tells them flat out. Not in the spirit of condemning those who
will execute those events. Not soliciting His apostles help in
preventing it from happening. Just the opposite. He is warning
them: No matter how crazy it gets - DO NOT INTERFERE. What is
about to happen MUST happen. It is God's Will that it be so.
Here's the good part. Peter, His new Pope, clearly upset by what
he's just heard, pulls Christ aside for a private word. This is
only moments after he had the job handed to him. Pete starts
chewing Jesus out! Says it plain as day in the Bible: "...he
began to rebuke Him".
In effect he tells Christ: Look pal. Don't get carried away with
this fulfilling-prophesies/Messiah stuff. You just created your
Church and now you're going to go and throw your life away? Take
it easy. Slow down. Since you're the Messiah, I'm going to need
Your help to pull this thing off. We'll worry about God's Will
after we get established.
What is Christ's response? "Get behind me Satan!" Oi yoi yoi!
Not five minutes after handing him the keys to His Church,
Christ is addressing His new Pope as if He were speaking to
Satan himself! Then He says, "You are an offense to me for you
are not mindful of the the things of God, but the things of men."
Christ wanted only to fulfill his Father's Will. Peter on the
other hand, was more interested in feathering his new nest.
God came second, or worse, in his scheme of things. Unmistakenly
the voice of Satan himself coming right out of the new Pope's
mouth. Old Harry's one cheeky bastard.
Now you can see why the Vatican doesn't encourage us to wander
beyond the intial two verses eh. This conflict between God's Will
and Papal Prudence has been replayed time after time within the
Vatican over the centuries. My guess is that Christ would not have
been at all surprised at Rome's perversity and corruption. It is
the familiar embodiment of Peter's own very human tendency towards
arrogance and worldliness. His tendency to put God second.
Like Peter, the Vatican is a thing of THIS world, not the NEXT
world. It is a human, temporal, historical thing vulnerable to
Satan's wiles. It's claim to guidence from the Holy Spirit is
utterly vacuous. Everything and everyone is guided by the Holy
Spirit. Everything here comes from and belongs to God e.g. the
Holy Spirit. The Vatican has no monopoly on that.
I'm saying that the Vatican is as capable of sin as any of us.
And as open to God's forgiveness and redemption as any of us.
But on exactly the same terms: sincere repentence. A repetence
it's vast wealth and worldly influence has often prevented it
from expressing in anything vaguely like a timely manner. Its
apology to Galileo centuries after his death isn't sincere
repentence, it's just a cheap PR gimmick. The Vatican often
delusionally, like Peter, imagines itself to be in possession
of the good represented by the Church. And it always claims to
be acting out of only the purest and most noble of intentions -
for the Church's own good. The road to Hell truely is paved
with its good intentions.
+
Like Pharaoh, God has for some unknown reason hardened the heart
of Pope JP-2 and blinded him to the reality of unfolding events.
With America strutting around bragging and boasting that it will,
in a matter of only a couple weeks, indiscrimately begin raining
death down upon every man, woman and child of Baghdad's population
of four millions, JP-2 has been silent on the matter, obviously in
political deference to the President of the United States. He has
danced around with generic condemnations of war but he refuses to
come right out and condemn this specific impending atrocity. He
has ignored repeated pleas for him to come to Iraq and stand with
his Catholic flock there at this most auspicious moment. Instead,
he has abandoned them. Not since the WW-II days of Pius XIIth has
a Pope displayed such moral cowardice and so clearly chosen
political expediency over Christian Love.
I don't want to hear it from some obscure Nobody in the Curia's
bureaucracy. I don't even want to hear it from any of the Curia
flunkies themselves - like Cardinal Soldano. It is not the same
as a direct condemnation from the Pope himself. He certainly knows
that. We know that. The voice of authority, the man who pretends
to be the Vicar of Christ on Earth, is silent even as the Dogs of
War bay for blood outside his window. Christ must be weeping on
His Throne. Peter has once again betrayed Him.
+
Billy Weigand, the fanatical fruitcake who passes for bishop
of Sacramento (CA) has chosen to turn the sacrament of Communion
into a cheap public Dick Swinging contest with California
Governor Gray Davis. After trying to bully Governor Davis into
submitting his political aggenda to Billy's personal scrutiny,
he's now threatening to have Governor Davis excommunicated if
he refuses to do so. Sounds like Billy forgot to put that
aluminum foil in his beanie again. The Mother Ship is telling
him he's running the state of California now. What next? A bill
to declare him the new Holy Emperor of California?
Washington state U.S. Senator Patty Murray is also a Catholic
and has been a strong supporter of womens right to a choice.
Will Seattle's Bishop Al be coming for her next? And if not,
why not? If he can accept her choice than why can't he speak
out against the extremism of his fellow bishop in Sacramento?
Perhaps because he's a coward.
I am, by the way, a Pro-Choice Catholic and damn proud to say
so. Screw Bishop Billy, the Catholic League and all the rest
of those fanatical right-wing wackos.
+
Latinos and Hispanics make up over one third of American Catholics.
Particularily in the southwest they have become a mainstay of the
Church as the Pervert Priest Scandal empties many parishes. Their
fevour cannot be denied. They're so obsessed with Jesus they're
seeing Him on the backs of stop signs. But I suspect a lot of those
kinds of stories owe more to our News Nazis bigotry than to the
reality of Latino spirituality. A crowd of migrant workers acting
superstitiously would be far more likely to make the news than say
a Leonardo Boff releasing a new book. Leo doesn't fit our Media's
pigeonhole for Latinos and Hispanics. He'll never be news.
While they fill the pews, they do not fill the pulpits. They only
make up 3.6% of all priests and nuns. Citing the excuses of
language, legal status and money, the Vatican has done little to
recruit Latino and Hispanic seminarians. There are three times more
black seminarians. Even asian seminarians outnumber them 2:1. Of
course it has nothing to do with the discomfort Good White Catholics
would feel in seeing a Mexican at their altars. Perish the thought.
But just so nobody thinks they're bigots or something, the Vatican's
bishops have recruited Latinos and Hispanics for lay roles in their
Spanish-speaking parishes. They make up over 60% of people in
training for such duties. They don't cost the diocese anything and
it keeps them away from the White Folks. They sure ain't there to
help in the White parishes learn Spanish.
There is no acceptable excuse for this situation. Latinos and
Hispanics have shown remarkable faithfulness to the Church and
deserve better than the Vatican is giving them. It's time for
the bishops to set aside their bigotry and take care of business.
Let Tom Monahan and all the rest of those Richey Rich Boyz with
money to burn on crapola giant statues put some of it into the
recruitment and training of Spanish-speaking priests. Now that
would be serving the Church instead of their own pathetic egos.
----------------------------------------------------
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on you baby. He'll teriyaki your sorry butt and turn
it into Lutefisk.
~--------------------------------------------------
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