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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.
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.
-------------------------------------------------
- 186 -
Spring continues apace. The earliest of the cherry trees are
go'n at it full bore. The beautiful Yoshinos in the U Dub Quad
are still a ways off. The city's many Magnolia trees got fat buds
on them. It's curious to watch the buds slowly orient themselves
perfectly vertically as they swell into lovely pale purple 'flames'.
Crocus' up. Daffies got their height and pregnant with buds, but
generally not yet open. Best of all, the Dawn Chorus, which up to
a couple weeks ago was composed of a single warbling robin, has
now grown not only larger, but somewhat more diverse. Heard the
first woodpecker of the year just the other morning. I'm still
waiting for one little dude who sings OOOOHHH-EEEE-chickachicka-
yee. The ChickaChicka Bird makes it official.
FLAG DESECRATION...
A lot of my mail lately sports those patriotic flag stamps.
It's the Post Office's standard 37-cent stamp. Except I recently
noticed that many people have taken to putting them on upside
down. I'm sure its just a coincidence and not in protest of our
newfound fascist ways. But then again... Perhaps Homeland
Security should be alerted to this subversive trend so that
Congress can enact legislation to stamp it out. So to speak.
Allowing people to improperly orient their stamps in a profane,
disrespectful manner is a dangerous trend. Next thing you know
they'll be spitting on sidewalks. And foreigners will be purposely
making stamps with upside down American flags just to mock us. I
say we go to Orange Alert and nip this thing in the bud before it
gets outta hand.
HOOTERVILLE HISTORY...
One of the peculiarities of Hooterville is our pseudo-subway
system aka The Bus Tunnel. Walk around downtown and you can
see what appear to be subway stations with stairs leading below
ground. Just like a Really Big Modern American city like say
New York or Boston or whatever. But walk down those stairs and
instead of finding subway cars zipping to and fro, all you'll
find are stink'n buses. Buses, I might add, that unlike subway
cars, are forever malfunctioning and plugging the tunnel up.
Lacking the wherewithal and voter confidence to build an actual
subway system through downtown but confident that SOME DAMN DAY
the voters would wise up and approve a real one, the Hooterville
Yacht Club's braintrust dipped into their big bag of tax dollars
to burrow a subway-ish tunnel beneath the heart of Chelm by
Elliot Bay. It's even got tracks on it like the real thing.
Nobody is too sure what the tracks are actually for as nothing
has ever made use of them. Maybe they're for hauling away the
rusted hulks of abandoned, dead buses eh.
The downtown stations - resembling large, empty tombs - are full
of really ugly, tasteless public art and little else. We are
the Ugly Public Art capital of America afterall. Check out those
neato chunks of driftwood thingees mounted on the powerpoles along
Fairview sometime. Or those dead canoes mounted on stilts along
Eastlake. Or whatever that garbage is piled up in front of the
Washington Mutual tower's west side. No matter what stupid, innane,
goofy idea an artist can dream up, we'll throw money at it to see
how many people we can gross out with it. We got no frik'n taste
at all.
Adding to the morbid vacuity of these phony underground subway
stations is an extensive amount of granite on the walls. Dead
guys would be perfectly at home in our transit masoleums. If
Congress doesn't come across with funding for an LRT, maybe we
can generate the needed funds by leasing out wallspace in the
tunnel stations for people to insert their funerial ashes in them.
It wouldn't be out of place or in any way disturb their prevailing
ambiance. It'd fit right in. People could say hello to Uncle Jim
or Cousin Dora while to-ing and fro-ing each day. In fact a few
dead flowers might add a little much needed class to those joints.
It was 14 years ago yesterday that the then director of Metro
Transit emptied out his desk and hit the road after it was
discovered the granite came from then-apartheid South Africa.
Doh! Fortunately he passed up a really swell offer for lampshades
from the Auschwitz Lampshade Company in Poland. Phew! Now THAT
would have been embarassing eh.
FOOTIE FEVER...
It's really amazing. As I go about my travels, whenever I run into
a likely canidate I ask them: "You know Manchester United is coming
to Seattle this summer?" A Pakistani guy who sells soccer balls on
the side - he knew; a guy from Belorussia who shuffles papers all
day - he knew; an Italian kid doing post-Doc work at a local research
lab - he knew; a Limie flogging books at a local store - he knew too.
Even one of the maintenance guys at work, a full-blooded Okie from
Miskogee, who plays Footie in the local amateur leagues knew.
They're all waiting. Hooterville may be reluctant to recognize,
let alone embrace, its cosmopolitan side but there is no doubt it
exists and its hungry for some old-country fun. While it looks like
the Japs backed out on account of President Yellowbelly's dirty
little TWAT, there are rumors going around that mighty Juventus
from Turino in Italy may be coming this summer as well. To have
the great Del Piero and Davids prancing about our astroturf would
be really cool eh.
MESS'N WITH THE AVE...
The mess on The Ave continues. Merlino's pooch-screwers have rambled
up between 45th and 47th now in their quest to utterly destroy the
U District. Just to really piss off everybody, they've trashed the
intersection at 45th for some reason. A major east-west crosstown
route, 45th is normally jam-packed with road-ragers, fresh off the
Interstate, ready to mow down any pedestrian who gets in their way.
Another brilliant piece of planning by the retards at Seattle City
Engineering - run a major roadway right through the middle of a
university campus. Doh! This reno job hasn't altered that bit of
stupidity at all.
In fact, the 'improvements' look exactly like what was there before.
If the sidewalks are any wider, it isn't noticeable. The buses won't
be wearing any grooves in the new concrete roadway like they did the
old asphalt roadway. But then, many of them will be eliminated by the
grand new Light Rapid Transit system whenever Sound Transit manages
to weasel a few million more bucks outta Uncle Sammy. It should be
any day now if you believe the local papers. Of course they've been
saying that for at least three years now. The only real improvement
is in Gary Merlino's bank account.
It must be comforting for all the students taking Traffic Engineering
across America to know that no matter how retarded they might be, no
matter how lousy they do in school, there is always a place for them
with Seattle City Engineering eh.
KETTELS...
I am a connoiseur of gourmet American eateries - joints more commonly
known as Greasy Spoons. A dying breed, there seem to be fewer and
fewer every year. Aileen's up on Capital Hill is gone but the old
Turf downtown near the Pike Place Market is hang'n in there. Famed
for their ox-tail soups, beef stews, chop sueys (now there's a dying
dish), hot hamburger sandwiches, meat loafs and shepherd's pies,
they harken back to an age when people expected REAL food when they
went to a restaurant and not that portion-controlled, synthetic,
thawed-out made-in-Burma alien crap they serve nowadays.
I recently had to spend a couple weeks out 4th Avenue in Georgetown
near Michigan Street south of downtown. Not far away was a delightful
joint called "Kettles". Pronouncing the name is kind of a local
challenge. Foreigners and immigrants pronounce it KET-tles like the
pot. Real Hootervillians prounced it kah-TELLS. It's been there a long
time. From the looks of things, it'll be there well into the future.
A damn good thing too.
Half of it is a restaurant. A REAL restaurant inhabited by REAL
people who actually work for a living. Often by the sweat of their
thick, single-brows. Which isn't to suggest they don't know what
deodorant is nor how to use it. It practically reeks of Old Spice
and Brut in there. They even got REAL waitresses too. And you better
tip them if you know what's good for you buster. The got BIG, hairy
boy friends who ride motorcycles.
The other half is sort of a convenience store/deli. They got Jo-Jos
so frik'n big two of them would feed a family of four. None of those
skinny, little things the Koreans try to flog. They got home-made
Calzones the size of apple pies. One of the ladies makes them every
morning from scratch. Not those doughy, nearly-empty crapola things
the pizzza joints try to flog. They got Jack Daniels ribs just dripping
with health-promoting grease and a sauce embellished with a self-evident
ingredient that needs no further mention. They got pizza slices too.
And if you're worried about getting your hands messy, buy a pair of
gloves. They got them as well. Just so you don't get the idea they
ain't got any class, they also offer not one, but THREE different flavors
of coffee. And one of them's got chocolate in it. Not lattes, Johnson -
COFFEE. This ain't no sissy Wop joint with a barista. This is an
all-American joint with a full-grown Babe behind the cash-register
who wouldn't be outta place at Hooters.
I was impressed and must have put on at least 50 pounds during my
short stay. Yum! Yum! I'll be back for more.
........................................................................
ALTERNATE ETHER
Shortwave radio is a terrific alternative to the xenophobic garbage
our News Nazis are spewing these days. They manufacture news, they
don't report it. Not to mention those annoyingly stupid commercials.
From the wall-to-wall screaming fascists on AM radio to the pablum
they're spooning out in the papers, to the braindead Max Airheads
on TV, thank God for CDs, DVDs and video cassettes. Our Media breeds
ignorance and has a cynical disregard for honesty. Just listening
and/or watching their crap will lower your IQ a few notches.
In the Good Old Days you used to need a special radio to hear
shortwave and much depends on propagation. If the Sun's in a bad
mood the shortwave bands can go totally dead for hours. I've been
a buff since I was a kid and, despite the technical drawbacks,
still prefer the radio method. But nowadays most national shortwave
broadcasts can also be heard on the Internet, fade and interference
free. And you don't have to wait until the scheduled broadcast time -
it's always there just a mouse-click away.
It's kind of a tradition on shortwave that the worst the news
coverage is, the better the cultural coverage is. It's some form
of compensation I guess. The BBC from Britain used to be the best.
Before Maggie Thatcher it was eccentric, independent and first-rate.
But she couldn't keep her grubby little paws off of it and now it
sucks nearly as bad as our garbage radio. Aside from Footie scores
on Saturday mornings, I hardly ever listen to it anymore. Radio
Japan is a joke - very superficial and boring. The DJs all try to
make up for the lack of substance with exuberance. They sound so
chipper/hyper than you gotta wonder if they didn't get cranked on
cocaine before going on the air. Italian shortwave is likewise sadly
superficial and largely a waste of time. China Radio International
is similar if more subdued. They make a lot of noise but don't say
much. Kol Israel, Voice of America and Radio North Korea are great
if you're into crude propaganda. They don't even try to maintain an
illusion of fairness or honesty. But even they offer many interesting
cultural programs: music, language lessons, plays, etc.
It's a big 'ol world and there are plenty of other national stations
that offer first-rate, old-fashioned journalism of the sort we
haven't seen around here in decades.
Radio FRANCE's daily English programming is intellectually chic and
sexy. They don't target North America any more but a few of their
english programs targeted at Africa come in fine here. They tend to
be more 'progressive', regularly employing people like Noam Chomsky
to comment on American affairs.
GERMANY's "Deutsche Welle" daily English service is also a good,
if somewhat stuffy, alternative. It maintains an objectivity BBC
lost years ago and is more mainstream cautious/conservative than
RFI. A good source of Footie updates too as well as many other
cultural events. Like many national shortwave efforts, they offer
language lessons and often provide free study-along pamphlets
through the mail.
11.985.0 MHz 7pm PST
9.700.0 MHz 7pm PST
9.670.0 MHz 9pm PST
DUTCH "Radio Netherlands" has one of the more comprehensive English
language services around. They've also been real technological
innovators - amongst the first to hit the Internet. Like DW they
tend to be more mainstream conservative/cautious in their reporting.
They probably do more in-depth/background stuff in English than any
of the others. They love to chatter about their Royal Family nearly
as much as the Limies do.
9.590 MHz 8:30pm
Radio AUSTRALIA is generally very lite, but better newswise
than anything else in Asia. The Spin is pretty transparent but
no worse than Radio Canada's or the Dutch. The Aussies play
lots of contemporary music and have those cute reverse-season
bulletins: ski reports during our summers and beach reports
during our winters. Their radio signal comes in best in the
morning.
11.650 MHz mornings
6.080 MHz ditto
5.995 MHz ditto
Radio CANADA International just runs CBC Radio 1 - their domestic
AM service. No more dedicated shortwave programming to speak of.
It's more North American than the others for obvious reasons and
worth a listen. They aren't as commercialized as US radio and
occasionally show signs of independent thought in their news. If
you move to Bellingham you can pick up CBC-FM (Radio 2) which is
heavy on classical music. It makes KING-FM sound like what it is -
a bad joke. Radio Canada also leases out its transmitters for
Euro and other shortwave services that want a strong signal into
North America.
6.160 MHz throughout the day
640AM marginally if you twist your radio just right.
Radio SWEDEN's "60 Degrees North" in the evening is well worth a
listen. Its focus is more national/regional than international.
The Swedes make a real effort to program for North America and
have always been innovators much like the Dutch. They integrate
their shortwave programming with their Internet webpage to poll
and otherwise try to directly involve their listeners. Their
radio signal is excellent.
9.495.0 MHz 7pm
Radio Havana in CUBA obviously has a different slant on the world
but one no less valid than what passes for mainstream here. Their
news could readily pass for what you'd expect to hear on a typical
US progressive station. Rather than engage in a lot of political
rhetoric they often concentrate on 'lifestyle' issues in America -
health care, justice, etc. They nicely fill in the spaces the Canuks
are too timid to fill with respect to State-side news. There is lots
of first-rate cultural programming as well.
9.820 MHz evenings
With a shortwave radio you can pick up the smaller/poorer countries
that don't have an Internet audio-streaming capability. Aside from
the fact that Africa and South America are under-represented. But far
more than that - it's a diverse, complex and fascinating universe
unto itself. Aside from national shortwave broadcasts there are
governmental utility stations, ham radio, aeronautical/maritime
utility stations, spy 'numbers' station and an unbelieveable number
of crazy American hillbilly stations belching an endless stream of
political and religious goofiness. Aside from voices, the dits and
dahs of morse code are still heard along with an electro-magnetic
managerie of weird noises from more exotic comm modes. You can even
hear the buzz from the notorious HAARP transmitters.
Music is a big item with me. Shortwave feeds my ears with stuff
I'd never hear in a million years locally. Voice of Greece is a daily
favorite in that respect. From 10am to 2pm PST they do mostly music
on 17.705 MHz. Oompah! Most of it's like a cross between eastern
and western music but they do a little rockish/contemporary stuff
too. Their radio signal comes in almost as good as a local AM
station. There are lots of Taiwan stations playing that wild
Chinese country music - a loud cacaphony of banging and clanging.
Carnival time in the Carribean and the Americas brings out lots of
salsa. More soothing and inspirational is an Islamic station on
11.675 MHz in the evenings that often has acapella chanting, most
particularily during Ramadan. BBC in Britain has a long tradition
of playing highlights of the annual "Proms" at Albert Hall in London.
Rock/Industrial/Punk and various other forms of Rock are common on
all the Euro stations. Voice of America's programs targetted at
Africa are one of the best sources around for what's hot in Africa
musically.
There's just something more personal about HEARING the world. The
Net is great but lacks radio's intimacy. After a few decades of
listening in, I am slightly biased.
.........................................................................
SLOGANS SEEN AT RECENT ANTI-WAR MARCHES
* "I piss on Bushes." (draped on the back of a pet dog)
* Bush's war is gonna fail, kinda like he did at Yale.
(Yale Coalition for Peace)
* If war is inevitable, start drafting SUV drivers.
* Read between the pipelines: North Korea has no oil.
* How many lives per gallon?
* Don't wrap your war in my flag.
* Last time we listened to a Bush, we wandered in the desert for 40
years. (New York City Jewish group)
* My ancestors spent centuries dreaming of Zion, and all I got was this
lousy occupation. (more New York City Jews)
Lesbians
Against
Boys
Invading
Anything
.........................................................................
'OL YELLER'S TWAT
(aka The War Against Terrorism)
Face it. If President Yellowbelly had held a press conference the next
day and announced that he was so touched by the massive international
turn-out for the anti-war marches that he had decided to drop his Iraqi
invasion plans, everybody would think he was drunk. It's unlikely much
of anyone marching last Saturday had the thought in mind. Psychopaths
by definition, know what they're doing is wrong but just don't give a
damn. True to form, that was pretty much Yeller's reaction to the
marches - he ignored them. Humorously, our News Nazis spun it as him
being 'firm'. Try blockheaded eh. Hell, he's so stupid he probably
didn't know they were marching against him.
Yellowbelly is incapable of changing his mind. He ain't got one to
change. Check his record out sometime. He's so rigid he's brittle.
He fights like a retard: 100% all-out, no finesse, no class, no
brains. He doesn't stop until he runs into an inanimate object or
he runs outta gas. He ignores all input and lacks the intelligence
to adjust to the situation. He just barges mindlessly on through.
That's why his string-pullers had to team him up with General
Shoeshine in a Good-Cop/Bad-Cop routine. It's the only way they
can pace him so he don't burn-out early. And it gives the General
something useful to do aside from standing around looking Holier
Than Thou. Obviously the two of them are just flunkies. They're too
stupid to be calling any shots. The Big Ass White Boyz call them.
They're the Junta that's orchestrating the whole thing.
The marchers gathered to see themselves. Ignored and downplayed by our
News Nazis, they really needed to physically gather to reassure both
themselves, and everyone else, that they indeed did exist and, Media
rumors to the contrary, there were a helluva lot of them. Gatherings
of the tribe are always an adrenaline rush. It's not an intellectual
thing. It's a heart and gut thing. It generates considerable emotion.
None of them will ever again be able to believe our News Nazis lies
about Yellowbelly's TWAT having massive support. Nobody showed up to
cheer on his dirty little TWAT. Nobody. Zip. Nada. Zero. Unless you
count the Paycheck Patriots - journalists, reporters and cops. If
he'd called for a counter-demonstration he would have just embarassed
himself. He knew better than to even try. The anti-war movement, on
the other hand, will do nothing but get bigger and bigger.
"Rummy's" jackboot schtick got a small rise outta Germany's Schroeder.
The threat to yank our bases and contracts drew little notice in the
German media. Talk's cheap. Talk from American fat ass bureaucratic
big mouths is the cheapest. Schroeder just maintained his original
postion by rephrasing it slightly to make it appear that he moved.
A verbal illusion. He still says 'no' to an invasion. Perhaps sometime
in the distant future, maybe, but not now. He was just preserving the
Euro unity Rummy's trying to destroy. Mot being a real bright boy,
Rummy thought the Gertie Man changed his mind. Retards are easy to
confuse.
The Frogs worked themselves into a Gallic lather over Rummy's threats.
They can afford to. They booted Sammy's butt outta there decades ago.
He can't do much to them. The SUV crowd would throw a fit if they had
to drink nothing but that cheap California dog-piss for wine. They'd
replace those little American flags on their Yankee Tanks with little
French ones. Conservative Chirac even up and told Sammy's eastern-euro
whores to flat out 'shut up'. He kept emphesising the word 'candidates'
with reference to their hopes of joining the EU. Like if they don't
watch their asses they're going to end up in limbo: neither Euro nor
part of the Russian empire. Sammy ain't even gonna remember their
names by then. He's hung the Pollocks, Hungarians and Czechs out to
dry in the past.
It was hilarious hearing Tony Blair whining about how his 'convictions'
will probably cost him his job. He can't be referring to morals. He
ain't got any. He must be referring to those times 25 years ago when
he got arrested in a Hyde Park public men's room for male prostitution.
If the details get out, they're convictions that certainly could end
his political career. Jack Straw will clean his clock at the next
convention. Not much of an improvement generally but it's always nice
to see the predators feeding on each other for a change instead of us.
So the stage is set. Our military juggernaut is poised to begin its
mugging of Iraq. They are ready to steal its oil and slaughter off
its people. The Butcher of Baghdad has the White House bathtub all
cleaned up and ready to fill with Iraqi blood so he can take a bath
in it. He says two weeks. He's a pathalogical liar. It won't be two
weeks. The first part will be easy: "Shock & Awe" bombing. A clean
phrase for mass-murder. The Pentagon's a little too chickenshit to
call a spade a spade. And the Iraq bureaucrats/opposition ain't
buying the Pentagon's schtick about them just being after Saddam.
Unh unh!. They know better.
But then comes Phase II: door-to-door. The Pentagon Surrender Monkeys
who threw in the towel in Mogadeshu after only 40 Amercian deaths
seem more determined this time. They say they expect losses to be
in the 70% range and feel that would be acceptable. For them maybe.
The Losers probably feel a little differently about it. Why not just
call what it is: a suicide mission. They ain't gonna waste REAL
soldiers on shit like that. They'll use their throw-away reserve
flunkies. It's not likely the Pentagon wasted much time or trouble
properly training them. They're as useful dead as alive. In any case,
it looks like there will be lots of patriotically inspirational
military funerals for 20-year old kids in the near future. Hope the
drunks down at the VFW sober up by then for color-guard duty. They're
gonna need them all. Maybe that coon-ass hillbilly General Franks
can rent out his wife for a few of them and make a couple extra bucks
on the deal.
Meanwhile, even as our Afghanistan occupation collapses, massive
re-inforcements will be flooding into Iraq from the surrounding area.
Guys who were too far away from the bombs to be Awed or Shocked.
Nailing an American soldier will be high on their To Do list. Iraq's
a long way for an American boy to go just to die. Especially to die
for nothing. I'm sure all the SUV drivers sporting their little flags
will say a prayer of thanksgiving as they top up their tanks: "Thanks -
suckers."
And back at home? Ignored, our considerable and ever growing anti-war
community will be motivated to seek ever more unignorable ways of
getting our attention. I'm sure they'll think of something.
These things have a way of evening themselves out. Maybe it will
happen all at once or maybe it will be spread out over time. But
an American life will be taken for each Iraqi civilian life taken.
Guaranteed. Call it crude if you like. Your pious self-righteousness
won't buy you squat when the guano flies. What goes around, comes
around.
................................................................
- MONDO VATICANO -
This past Thursday the 20th was the memorial of a most peculiar
saint - St. Wulfric of Haselbury in England. He dates back to
the 12th century.
Perhaps because of the status involved, his family was determined
to count a priest amongst their number. For that reason, as a
young man, he was put in seminary. Eventually, he was ordained
and his bishop assigned him to a parish in Deverill. He was a
priest but in name only. He didn't really want to be a priest.
He did his duty - said Mass on Sunday, heard confessions, etc. -
but it was just a job. It meant little to him. His only joy was
to hunt and party with the lords of the manors in his parish.
And that's where he put most of his efforts and spent most of
his time - Fr. Party Boy.
Then something happened. Nobody knows what it was. Some said it
was a chance encounter with a beggar, others said it was a kind
of sudden enlightenment upon saying the words of the Lavabo:
"I will wash my hands among the innocent..." A great remorse
descending on him and he felt terrible shame for the life he
was leading. To the point where he was unable to continue.
What to do? He became a hermit. Just wandered off into the trees,
built a little hut and began to purify himself: constant prayer,
fasting, standing in the icy waters of a stream reciting the
psalms. He really got into it. Many of the locals wandering by,
seeing him, were greatly impressed by his efforts. But his bishop
wasn't. As far as he was concerned, Wulfric abandoned his post
so he was stripped of his priestly titles and his regular pay-
check. He was on his own now, no longer a cleric.
The Cluniac monks of the nearly monastery at Montacute heard
about him and took him under their collective, protective wing.
While no longer a priest, he now at least had a roof over his
head and congenial company. His reputation for penance spread
and his spiritual counsel was sought. Even King Henry the First
dropped by for a word of inspiration while passing through. It
didn't keep Wulfric from chewing him out a little for his
royal indiscretions.
And so he passed away his life - a humble scribe in the monastery
who bound his own books. When he died, he remained unaffiliated
with any religious Order. The Cistercisians lay claim to him but
the monks at Montacute had obviously better grounds. Nonetheless,
he didn't join either Order. A priest who wasn't a priest, a
monk who belonged to no established Order. An odd fish indeed.
His cultus was slow to develop but he apparently made a great
impression on his fellow religious of that era as they venerated
his memory for many years afterwards. His cell was left untouched.
Perhaps because they buried him beneath its floor. A church was
later built with its vestry directly over Wulfric's cell. I think
of him as the patron saint of Awakened Priests.
+
Fr. Jeff Windy has been located. He's a young priest from Illinois
who is serving five years in a Federal Pen for the manufacture
of the by-prescription-only drug GHB. Often mentioned by the
media in the same breath as the 'date-rape drug', it was mainly
used by the body-building crowd for its largely mythical ability
to build up muscle bulk. Aside from giving the user a Major Buzz,
it's also clinically designated as 'highly addictive'. From all
appearances it's just mildly salty water - therefore easily
concealed to Blast an unsuspecting party.
Fr. Jeff was into body-building not date-rape. A couple muscle-heads
he worked-out with, through peculiar circumstances, got him hooked on
GHB then blackmailed him into providing facilities and ingredients so
they could produce it for the black-market. His bishop found out he was
addicted but, instead of yanking him and putting him full-time into an
abuse clinic, left him there and put him into an abuse program as an
out-patient. He didn't tell Jeff's parishoners their priest was an
addict. Shhhh! Big secret. Until an Iowa Bureau of Investigation
undercover agent wandered into town to buy some GHB and busted Jeff
and his 'buddies'. It wasn't a secret anymore. His bishop, a real
Christian Gentleman, stripped him of his priestly identity on arrest
and abandoned him. Just left him to twist on the wind. The judge
discretely ignored the bishop's culpability in knowing illegal drugs
were being used in that parish without saying anything to the police.
Wasn't that nice of her? Big People stick together.
I dropped Fr. Windy a note this week.
Jeff -
This is a note from a Catholic stranger you never met. I read about
your arrest and incarceration. I just wanted you to know I think you're
a good guy who had a bad thing happen to him. Stuff happens sometimes.
I ain't a priest or anything. I'm just another one of the butts in the
pews. You're still one of us. We aren't going to forget you.
I'm a long ways off in Seattle but if there's some way I could kick
a few bucks into your commissary kitty let me know how to go about
it. I hear the pay ain't so good in The Joint. I'd like to buy you
a sodee-pop, or whatever.
The Lord be with you,
xxxxx
His address was recently posted on the Bureau of Prisons database of
prisoners:
Jeffery Joseph Windy
Inmate #12254-026
Rochester FMC
PO Box 4600
Rochester, MN 55903
Drop him a line if you feel so inclined. The Joint is a lonely place
to be. Everyone from St. John the Baptist to Christ to St. Peter to
St. John of the Cross can attest to that fact. Jesus commanded us to
do works of lovingkindness like showing compassion for prisoners. An
ordained priest behind bars is deserving of as much. He's no Bad Guy.
He's just a victim of many unfortunate circumstances over which he had
no control. Give him a break. Buy him a sodee-pop, or something.
*
Halelujah! The Curia Queens got off their flabby keesters and finally
showed signs of being Peacemakers instead of warmongers. Obviously
heavily biased in President Yellowbelly's favor to the point of digging
up a theological flunky at some US neo-fascist think-tank to sling
our impending mugging of Iraq as a 'just war', they headed in a very
different direction this week. Instead of voicing their usual
limp-wristed generic general distaste for war - like anybody actually
likes war - they came out and said US intervention MUST be at the UN's
initative. Damn well about time. Everybody else from Bonn to Paris has
been saying as much for months. Never mind that the US is well past the
point of no return for its invasion plans. It's as good as a Done Thing
now. The Vatican's lame attempt at peacemaking is too little, too late.
But the important thing is it LOOKS like they tried eh. I'm sure it will
be a great comfort to the 4 million residents of Baghdad when our
military's "Shock & Awe" pours a rain of mega-death down upon their
city.
+
I'm a pro-choice Catholic. There are many who will tell you that is
an impossibility - you can't be Catholic AND pro-choice. I'm here to
say you can and should.
Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. I am not pro-abortion. But I
do not for a second feel that a woman who has an abortion is committing
murder like the fetus-waving fruitcakes and fanatics claim. That's
simple-minded nonsense. It's moral cowardice and the most satanic
form of cruelty to accuse a woman in that position of such a thing.
It grossly flies in the face of everything Christianity, let alone
Catholicism, stands for. Satan, our eternal accuser in the Heavenly
Courts, is unforgiving, devoid of compassion and utterly vengeful. The
sort of condemnation, lack of compassion and vengence displayed by the
anti-choice extremists more closely resembles his ways than those of
the Jesus who commanded us to 'love one another even as you love
yourself'. A Jesus who insisted that He and He alone was to be our
judge.
You want to pretend the Magdelene didn't have an abortion or two in her
time, be my guest. Despite her pleasures being avaialable to the highest
bidder for years, she magically had no toddlers crawling around at her
feet. Damn rights she had abortions. Just like every other whore has.
Christ didn't scream "MURDERER!" in her face. He embraced her.
This is not a simple matter. For the scientifically-illiterate idiots
in the Vatican to pretend any expertise is sheer delusion. With things
like RU-486 avaialble over or under the counter, technology has giving
women the ability to completely by-pass the sacntimonious guardians of
our morals. And the Vatican has given them all the incentive they need
to avoid it's cold-hearted, judgemental flunkies for help. That needs
to change or the Vatican will become even more irrelevant than it
already is.
While I do respect the concept of a Magisterium I have serious doubts
about whether its present incarnation respects us. It's teachings are
often of doubtful and questionable morality. Many times they seem at
odds with Catholic traditions. What exactly is the moral justification
for marriage annulments? There are none of course. Christ explicit
forbade divorce of any sort. Period. But it's a diocesean Cash Cow
so the bishops hypocritically avert their moral vison as they slip the
cash into a red cassock pocket. It's purely for the money. For that same
bishop to publically threaten democratically elected Catholic politicians
who implement the pro-choice mandate their electorate gave them, is
obscene. But that is precisely what a number of them are doing.
This version of the Magisterium may imagine us to be mindless little
Zombies who do whatever they're told to do without questioning anything.
You may be. I'm not. In God I Trust - not the things of man. That
includes the Vatican. It is of This world, not the Next.
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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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