__ _ / _|_ __ ___
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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.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 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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