__ _ / _|_ __ ___
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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.
-------------------------------------------------
- 206 -
Mornings are full of the usual summer chorus: ChickaChicka birds
calling OooooEeeeeChickaChickaEeee, Greeting birds calling Goooood
Morn'n (or GooooodEve'n, as the case may be) plus a wide assortment
of others with songs whose complexity defies translation. Looks like
the squirrels have a population explosion on their hands. It seems
like every trash can I pass on campus suddenly explodes with a little
fur-bag in a panic to escape before the Killer Monkeys catch him. The
Campus Police are out most mornings rousting bums sleeping under the
bushes. Of course, no spray from Drumheller Fountain. A fitting
testimonial to how much U Dub appreciates things people donate
to them. Unless your name is Gates or Allen, don't bother.
Traffic is heavy in Montlake Cut with a seemingly endless parade of
pleasure craft and tour boats zipping back and forth. Too much for
the racing shell people. Everybody ignores the 7 knot speed limit
and the wash pretty near swamps the shells. They have to stop while
everyone on board furiously bails water to save themselves from
drowning, much to the amusement of the beer-gut Bayliner crowd. The
kayakers fare better but The Cut's churning, turbulent waters make
it almost like white-water kayaking. They gotta stay sharp and paddle
hard as they keep an eye out for the drunks at the rudder.
I came to the astounding scientific discovery this week that ravens
are brainwashing their young to believe humans are Evil incarnate.
Time after time on my travels I've encountered raven family units
with young who used my presence to teach their kids to respond to
the appearance of a human by first yelling loudly then threateningly
dive bombing the offensive target - me. I didn't do nothing to them.
They sure weren't protecting their young - their kids are flying
and feeding themselves already. Rather, they were deliberately going
out of their way to pick a fight with me just to show their kids
how badass they are. Imagine. And I always thought they were my
animal companion friends. Pshaw!
The Fourth of July fireworks were impressive as usual. But no Navy
chopper hauling the flag beneath it. And everything seemed to have
switched around to new venues this year. It looked like the big
AT&T one was at the south end of Lake Union instead of off Gasworks
Park. And the Capt. Ivar's stuff looked like it moved way crosstown
off Lake Washington. Maybe it was just my secret vantage point.
AM radio is pretty much a write-off in Seattle. It's all Screaming
Talk Radio Nazis plus a ton of religious hucksters and husslers
trying to fleece the Lord's lambs. The good music is on FM. But
this week I stumbled onto something called RADIO AWAZ (1680 AM
KTFH). Seattle now has its very own Hindi radio station! At least
I think its Hindi. It could be Pakistani but it seems unlikely
they would be interested in trashy Bollywood gossip. It's not
actually full-time - just noon to midnight every day. Primetime
anyways. The station mostly plays wicked/bitch'n Latino music
outside of Awaz-hours.
The music on Radio Awaz is truely far-out. It ain't folk music
baby. Unh unh. Lot of Rapper-style stuff along with dream/sexy
romantic stuff that makes Barry White sound like a monk. All
done in this weird mix of Middle Eastern/Indian-subcontinent
style. They mix up traditional instruments with synthesizers,
accordions and other western/electrical audio gimmicks. Something
old; something new. It all rides on a thick/deep/throbbing drum
base unlike anything you hear in western music. Hoy! Hoy! Hoy!
I love it!
I noticed that Glasgow Celtic, (aka The Hoops, The Bhoys) who
will be appearing here against Manchester United on the 22nd,
will be playing AC Milano back on the east coast before heading
into Hooterville. Man Utd are still reeling from the Beckham
trade and getting a flood of criticism about it. Just to really
rub it in, it looks like the team that grabbed Beckham away from
them - Real Madrid - is also going to get Paris St. Germain's
Ronaldhino too. He's the Brazilian World Cup hero Man Utd was
hoping to buy to fill the hole Beckham's leaving.
HISTORY...
It was 193 years ago this coming Saturday that members of the
Journeymen Cordwainers trade-union in New York City were brought
to trial for conspiring to raise their wages by calling a strike.
Like the bootmakers of Philadelphia a few years earlier, they
were eventually found guilty and convicted. The Supreme Court
at the time held that even to do something perfectly legal via
a conspiracy automatically made it a crime. Figure that one out
if you can.
It was the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1842 that finally
broke the ice. It was those Upitty bootmakers again who were
to provide the incentive. An attempt to create a closed shop by
refusing to work for any employer who hired non-union labor
got them busted. The case eventually worked its way to the
state Supreme Court which found that conspiring to call a
strike to force a change in wages or working conditions was
okay afterall. The call to "Shut 'er down!" has legally rung
out many times since.
REVOLUTIONARY FOURTH...
As has been my custom for many years, this 4th of July I donned
my patriotic Grateful Dead "Revolutionary Dead" rainbow-colored
tie-die shirt. On the front it has a big cartoon rendition of
that famous picture of three Revolutionaries (one of whom is
playing a flute and another a drum) high-stepping it proudly with
their flag. Appropriately, these revolutionaries happen to be
skeletons. On the back is a giant cartoon of an eagle holding
an electric guitar in its talons. It is framed by the words:
"Wave That Flag" and "Don't Tread On Me". I love that shirt.
It's drenched with the ambiguities and wild contradictions of
being an American. Including the ultimate one: you'd have to be
nuts to believe anything we say.
In years past I've worn it in most of the major cities of America
plus a few foreign capitals. Everywhere it invariably drew compliments
and admiring glances. But this year was the first time I wore it to
work in downtown Seattle. It drew nothing at all. No compliments. No
admiring glances. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Not a whisper. Coworkers just
pretended it was a normal shirt. One of the Supers commented that I
was getting an early jump on Informal Friday. I had to remind him
Friday was a holiday. Duh! In fact, a couple drivers took what seemed
suspiciously like a deliberate run at me as I crossed the street. So
it did draw something afterall: hostility and indifference. Welcome
to Hooterville.
I was kind of surprised by the anti-patriot backlash that seems to
be brewing out there. People really resent having that flag waved
in their faces these days. I think Burn-Out is setting in.
RETURN OF THE NUT-HOUSE NUTS...
Whilst strolling down The Ave this week I unexpectedly ran into
some of the former residents of the infamous Nut House that formerly
was just down the block. If you've been following this tragic urban
adventure series: Using complaints it solicited from the occupants
with monetary and relocation promises, City Hall swiped the house
away from the Nut who owned it, auctioned the place off, then booted
the occupants out with only a week's notice (far short of the legal
minimum) and now the new owners are renovating the place. To grease
the skids, City Hall let "Seattle Weekly" newspaper slap plywood up
on all the windows and doors before featuring it on the cover of a
Slum Landlord special issue. The plywood, which wasn't there before
the cover shot, came down immediately after they got their shot. In
short - they faked it.
Anyways...these former residents are now stuck in a downtown shelter
still awaiting their 'financial incentive'. Once they were safely out
of the house, Mayor Greg forgot they existed. They ain't too happy about
this state of affairs. Getting screwed by Mayor Greg and his Spin-o-rama
Boys at "Seattle Weekly" was an unpleasant experience. They are pissed,
to put it bluntly. But being the tiniest of Little People, the courts
and City Hall could not care less about them. Ditto for our noble City
Council, Smile'n Frank at The Times and the rest of those phony bleeding
hearts who profess great love for such people. They are the nobody-est
of nobodies. Essentially invisible.
They yearn for the good old days and the sweet comradery of one
another's whacky company. Enough so that they are seriously
thinking of sneaking back in one night soon to occupy the old
house as squatters. Seems they've learned a few tricks from
this unpleasant experience with Mayor Greg - never trust anybody
from City Hall. They're getting legal cover first from a local
ambulance-chaser and plan to embarass the hell out of Hissoner.
With all the weird under-the table monkey-shines out of City Hall
with regard to this deal, it shouldn't be difficult to do. And
it could easily result in yet another very expensive civic
black-eye for the taxpayers to think about come election time.
Wow! History being made right in my neighborhood.
I'm looking forward to this. I can't wait until all the network
SatCom vans full of Talking Heads pull up out front and the Death
Choppers hover over head to cover the squatters last stand against
Mayor Greg and his Pollock Police Chief. It'll be great. "Get yer
Red Hots! Hot dogs here! Only five Bucks! Get yer Red Hots!" I'll
make a killing baby.
THE END IS NEAR...
Six states as much as declared bankrupcy this week as President
Yellowbelly's imaginary economic recovery plan continues to flop.
Neither he nor Chairman Al have made the slightest attempt to
deal with the underlying causes of our financial malaise. They're
slapping band-aids on hemorrhages and telling everybody that
"Prosperity is just around the corner". My ass. Then where's
all that blood on the floor coming from eh?
The recovery is coming along about as nicely as the last one did.
Already deeply mired in full-blown recession and reeling from
massive unemployment on a scale unseen in decades, we stagger
under a celestial national debt of $44 TRILLION Bucks and an
irreversibly huge balance of trade deficit even as our Buck is
becoming worth about as much as Monopoly Money.
Like Nero fiddling as Rome burns, Yeller just blissfully ignores
it all. Too busy talking to God and playing General to be bothered
with boring crap like economics. Being a Richey Rich Boy, he's
never been hungry, broke or out of work. Hard Times for him are
the maid's days off when he has to open his own bottle of beer.
And, amazingly, no one is insisting that maybe he ought to pull
his head out of his ass and reorder his priorities before he
destroys our entire economy. The retard's gonna "Harken Oil"
America before he's done.
The stock market has become totally unhinged from reality. While
Insiders sell off 10 stocks for every one that they buy, Outsiders
are buying 10 stocks for every one they sell. The Big Boys are get'n
out while the get'n is good and the Little People are trotting off
like lambs to the slaughter. The idiots are paying $30+ for the
Insiders crummy tech stocks that only produce a Buck's worth of
earnings. Doh! Any day now they'll come to the realization that
just like in 2000, there ain't gonna be no recovery this time
either. It was all a sham and a lie. Cheat me once (2000) - shame
on you; cheat me twice (2003) - shame on me. Mr. Market just loves
seperating fools from their cash. And this time the fools-in-question
aren't going to have the excuse that they got schnookered by sleezy
accountancy tricks and corporate lies. This time the lies and
tricks were self-inflicted.
With federal tax revenues at a record 50-year low, his tax-cut for
the rich will only make things worse. And dump the tax burden on
states, counties and municipalities. Just like Ronny Ray Gun did
back in the 80's. Unlike Uncle Sammy, they can't just print up more
money whenever they need more. They got to steal it off the tax
payers. So while Sammy taxes us a little less, the rest of them
will be forced to tax us a whole lot more. In the end, we get it
up the Caboose. The tax-cut is an imaginary sleight-of-hand for
what is in fact a tax increase.
Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, a bottle of beer costs $650 and roll of
toilet paper goes for $1,000. It isn't quite that bad in Argentina,
but not far off. If California could go from a $3 BillionBuck
surplus to a $38 BillionBuck deficit in the space of three short
years, anything is possible here. Even run-away inflation like
that. You really think a One Trick Pony like Chairman Al could
scrape together enough brain-cells to prevent it? Me neither.
His interest-rate cuts have become a waste of time.
MISGUIDED YOUTH...
I got a cousin who just recently joined The Services. His old man
was a military Lifer - a bean counter in the accounting department.
Possibly the most bizarre variation on that career theme seeing as
how they got no profits or losses to worry about. He thought it
would be nice if his son became a military bean counter too so he
leaned on him to join up after he got out of high-school this year.
Having spent a couple years as a recruiter before becoming a bean
counter, he knew exactly which buttons to push.
Well, the kid signed up but he ain't gonna be no bean-counter. Too
boring. He signed up to become a forward-spotter. That's the guys
who usually die in Friendly Fire incidents. They get parachutted
behind the lines, crawl on their belly near the intended target,
whip out their little laptop and direct the pilot to the target.
Our pilots being the retarded dumbass hillbillies they are, unable
to even read a map without getting totally confused, often bomb
the Forward Spotters by mistake. Close enough for government work,
as they say. It happens regularly. The military just reaches into
its bottomless bag 'o idiots and yanks out another young sucker.
The little bastard's afraid of me. He knows how I feel about Iraq
and the military in general. But he calls up anyways to wish him
luck. He's as big of a Wimp as his old man. What he really wanted
was my blessing. The situation has him nervous. The training was
supposed to be 3 years. They cut it back to less than 1 year. You
won't read about stuff like that from our News Nazis because they
really don't give anymore of a flying fuck about these kids than
the Department of Defense does. Seeing action is now a certainty.
Surviving it, is now less of a certainty.
I told him it was his butt not mine. He's a Big Boy now and can
read the papers as well as any other adult. Those people got every
right in the world to nail his ass on sight. This depresses him
somewhat. Yeah but...9/11...terrorism...Al Qaida...etc. etc. I
told him don't feed me that bullshit - Iraq had nothing to do with
9/11 and has never been a danger to us. If he goes to the Middle
East it will be as an enemy not a friend, particularly given his
role. He didn't want to hear that...[click]...end of conversation.
He'll be in Germany soon and from there...who knows where.
He's a good kid. He's bright enough he should be in university
learning how to make a real and useful contribution to society
instead of wasting his time with military Lusers like his Old Man.
Like most military flunkies, his Old Man gave his son a lousy
childhood. Between the divorces and the moving around, the kid
didn't know which end was up. He spent his summers touring all
his former 'mothers' before returning back to his Old Man and
his latest Shack Job. It confused the kid terribly. The basic
bedrock relationships like 'mother', 'brother', 'sister' were
all temporary, ephermal things. They had to cram him full of
Ritlin to get him through his elementary school years. When he
was little he used to walk up to perfect strangers and tell
them how much he loved them. Love...friendship...it was all
the same to him.
I honestly feel for the kid and the rest of the family thinks I'm
a bastard for what I told him. Screw them. I was honest with him.
You don't do anybody any favors by lying to them, no matter how
well-intentioned you might imagine yourself to be. I hate it when
people bullshit me. It's such a nasty insult. Many of my best
friends over the years were people I vehemently disagreed with
about many matters, but we shared an open honesty, and because
of it, a respect for one another's view of the world. Ideas are
important and its crucial that they be honestly expressed.
Now he thinks he's found a surrogate family in the military.
Oh well. He's in for a major reality check. Hopefully one he'll
survive without causing undue damage to his own life and that
of the many innocent others upon whom his bombs will fall. But
the odds are against the notion.
..........................................................................
REASONS TO USE A TEXT BROWSER
(1) No pop-ups. In fact no ads at all unless they are actually
written into the webpage.
(2) No ugly Net Art. Webpages are so incredibly uniformly ugly
that they make me wanna barf. Yuck! They are testimonials
to Netizens general lack of taste. And what the hell are
those stupid little spinning thingees all about? How frik'n
dumbass can you get?
(3) No waiting around half-an-hour for a shitload of multi-media
to load. Just BOOM!, in a matter of a few seconds it's
Showtime without the extra expense of DSL to speed things
up.
(4) No bloated code-pig taking up Gigabytes of precious space
on your machine that could be better used to store p0rn,
mp3's and Dead Baby jokes. The "Lynx" text browser is 1 Meg.
A tiny fraction of the size of M$ Internet Exploiter or
Netscape.
(5) No distractions and no clutter. Just a nice, clean, colorful
page with words on it. Just the facts, m'am.
(6) Full control. You don't have to see or hear anything you
don't wanna see or hear. It's all still available but by
YOUR choice, not the WebMaster's. Download whatever you
like (including the page itself). Your modem-connection
is probably much slower than the Net but that way you
won't bother downloading fat-stuff unless you REALLY
need it.
(7) It royally pisses off spammers with their pop-ups and
pop-unders as well as corporate dumbasses who blew a Wad
of Dough having a sexy, flashy webpage written up. Not to
mention the obsessive little Twits who wasted precious
months of their lives generating their masturbatory web
creations.
I've used the usual graphical browsers from time to time. It's
unavoidable in most offices. But I hate the damn things. Most
people don't even know there is such a critter as a text
browser and are genuinely delighted when I show them one in
action. I really don't understand why more people don't use
them. The people who run commercial webpages would freak at
the thought, of course, but who cares about them? They put up
all sorts of snotty, snobbish, smarmy and highly-inaccurate
comments on their pages with links to 'upgrade' to a graphical
browser. Sorry Bozo, that's not an upgrade; that's a down-grade.
The biggest limitation to text-browsers at the moment is the
lack of Java-enabling. Some, like "Links" have Javascript but
it ain't the same thing. It's coming. Most now have frames and
the secure SSL https stuff as well as Javascript.
Back in the Good Old Days we didn't have no stink'n monitor
screens let alone browsers. That kind of stuff was for Girlie
Men. In the days of the original ARPA Net everything was done
by teletype. No fleeting, ephemeral images to haunt your dreams.
When you talked to a TTY you ended up with something real to
show for your effort - half a mile of paper and a pair of
dirty earplugs from the racket those bangers made. It was
Manly work.
Up to the early 90's you either FTPed to another machine to
download text/image files or TELNETed onto a distant main
frame as another user with full access to all the tools and
other goodies there. Such wonders as "Yakov's List" regularly
came out full of interesting ftp/telnet sites to hit. But no
p0rn or spam in them days. The Net was still a clean, wholesome,
family-oriented joint. People could still be trusted to use
one anothers machines without fear of having them trashed by
a L33t hAqkR dude.
Then along came GOPHER, the original stab at hyperlinks. It
was strictly textual - no graphics. But it gave you a pageful
of 'links' and automated the FTP and TELNET processes so you
only had to hit [ENTER] on the desired link to bring up the
other site. Super-sites like the Library of Congress had tons
of Gopher links to many places all around the world.
And finally, at a single site in Switzerland, HTTP made its
debut. It was only a single-line entry thingee. I tried it
and thought it suxed in a major way. Then some people at U
Minnesota built a graphical front-end for it and...VRRROOOM!
It became the standard. First came the AOL Lusers polluting
the Matrix. Then came the p0rn. And finally spam made its
grand entrance. Suddenly it was normal to be a clueless, rude,
no-taste jerkoff-artist in Cyberspace. Within a couple years
it became our cultural Lowest Common Denominator.
Lynx
Links
Netrik
Retawq
..........................................................................
"Are American journalists simply spineless? Do they toe the line
because they love the President? Or because their employers do?"
Justin Webb
BBC
Washington Correspondent
..........................................................................
'OL YELLER'S TWAT
(aka The War Against Terrorism)
POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! Seven more Yankee Doodle Dandies
bought the farm this week as Iraqi Freedom Fighters continue to bleed
invading US Muggers at will. Best our hillbillies could do was blow
up a mosque and they lacked the balls to even take credit for that,
though it was obvious they did it. So much for Land of the Brave eh.
Deep from under his White House bed, our Coward King - President
Yellowbelly - was heard to squeak "Bring 'em on!". Easy for him
to say. He ain't the one getting shot at. Not yet anyways. Then
he cleverly went on the counterattack by ordering the Pentagoon to
send over more tagets for the Iraqis to shoot at. Doh! He must have
read that in Lyndon Johnson's autobiography. That's what he did too
under similar circumstances. Hillbilly Losers think alike. No point
in trying to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. They ain't in no
mood to swallow phony American crap like that after burying their
dead.
Only a few weeks after declaring victory in Iraq, 'Ol Yeller is now
whinning that it just ain't fair that Euros ain't dying there too.
He wants them to kick in and help him steal Iraq's oil. A tidy little
arrangement in which he creates ugly, self-serving messes and they
clean them up. Sort of like janitors. They ain't buy'n it. Even the
Pollocks and Wops ain't dumb enough to get tangled up in that mess.
The Japs are the only suckers he's been able to find so far.
Just to prove his friendship and good intentions, he yanked $40 Mega
Bucks from the International Criminal Court to punish those who would
deny us immunity from prosecution for War Crimes. Gee. I wonder what
we got to be afraid of that we need that kind of immunity? Sooner or
later everyone will get the message: we aren't the World's Cop any
more, we're the World's Biggest Asshole.
There is no effective defense against fragging by the locals. It was
a constant problem in the times of Vietnam, often shaping military
strategy. It'll be even tougher in Iraq. Charlie had a classic western
style centralized command that lent itself well to organizational
charts. The Iraqi Freedom Fighters, on the other hand, have a highly
decentralized organizational structure functioning more like the
Internet than a traditional hierarchy. It's made up of many small
groups capable of acting independantly while only loosely connected
with one another. There is no Head Honcho. They all have the same
goal: kick out the invaders. But they are free to define how they
want to accomplish it and where to draw their inspiration: religion,
patriotism, making money, whatever. Trying to get rid of them is
going to be like running around a farm swatting flies - hopelessly
futile.
We can bullshit ourselves until we're blue in the face, but the
Iraqis know why we're there: to steal their gas and kick their ass.
We are their enemy, not their friend. Friends don't slaughter off
four thousand buddies to save them from a bully. Mass-murderers do.
And they normally hang for it. General Buford and the rest of those
hillbilly Crackers in his Tank Corps better watch their backs.
Somebody gonna snatch their asses and haul them off to Geneva for
Justice. They'll get strung up just like the Nazis did.
Looks like trouble's a-brew'n in the Heartland. From the Dixie Chicks
to Merle "The Hag" Haggard country musicians have been bad-mouthing
President Yellowbelly and his Nazi buddies. Now country-music legend
Willie Nelson this week endorsed Dennis Kuchinic for President in
2004. And Willie intends to put his money where his mouth is - he's
going to campaign for Dennis too. His bus, the "Honeysuckle Rose",
ought to be rolling into Seattle soon. He's got a gig around his old
stomping grounds (he used to be a Vancouver, WA DJ) somewhere this
month. Can't remember when and where.
BTW - That radio message from Saddam was as phony as a $3 bill.
It's just the CIA trying to convince everyone the Iraqi
Freedom Fighters are Saddam's boys. Saddam was about as
Islam as the Pope. He was uniformally regarded as an
infidel. The Mooslems hated his guts. The probability
that he's calling for a Jihad runs from zero to zilch.
Only an American would be stoopid enough to fall for that.
.........................................................................
"God told me to strike at Al Qaida and I struck them, and then he
instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am
determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help
me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will
have to focus on them."
President George W. Yellowbelly
in a phone conversation with Mr. Abbas
.........................................................................
- MONDO VATICANO -
Next Monday (14th) is the rememberance day of another of my favorites,
the 17th century priest from Napoli - St. Camillus de Lellis. His three
most inspiring virtues were his singular dedication to actually DOING
works of lovingkindness, his pull-no-punches attitude and the equal
way he treated all he encountered. A big and intimidating guy, he was
notorious for telling Butt-Inn-Ski Cardinals who tried to pull rank on
him to take a hike. They were too scared of him to object. But he was
best known for the loving, consciencious and tender care he gave the
sick, dying and destitute.
He didn't start his life in a saintly manner. Quite the opposite.
A big kid, as soon as he could swing it he hired himself out as a
soldier of fortune. It didn't work out too great. A last-minute
problem with his leg prevented him from brawling on his first try.
Then a Spanish boss cancelled his war plans at the last minute.
Cam headed to Napoli to put on a major Bender, whore-it-up and
gamble. The perfect place to go for such things. He found himself
afterwards broke, homeless, friendless and outta work. He was down
to begging on the street corners of Napoli for Chump Change just
to feed himself.
He tried joining the Franciscans four times but they didn't take
gimps with bad legs. So much for the Spirit of St. Francis eh. The
leg became so bad that he had to check into a hospital. Hospitals in
those days were little more than warehouses for the dying. Out of
sight, out of mind. Filthy, dingy, grubby joints full of pain and
misery. Staff were the perverts nobody else would hire. No training,
no background, no nut'n. They ripped-off their patients for whatever
they could get. It was at this point that a miracle occurred: the
patient became the doctor. Seeing all the filth and misery around
him, Cam decided this was where he was needed.
Miracles beget miracles. He found two staff members who were decent,
upright Catholic boys and between the three of them, they set about
cleaning the place up. Somehow St. Philip Neri heard about their
work and rustled up some financial help from the Vatican. He was so
impressed with Cam's hands-on holiness that when Cam said he wanted
to be ordained a priest, St. Philip pulled a visiting British bishop
aside and had him do the honors. Cam was now Father Cam and he formed
his small group of accomplices into a formal religious order. Before
long the ranks of his Order swelled and they had houses from one end
of Italy to the other serving the sick, destitute and dying. Travelling
on foot despite his gimpy leg, he spread his Good Works further afield
into Hungry, Turkey and many other countries.
Cam's hospitals were quite different affairs from the usual. He
instituted many practical, simple reforms like keeping everything
spic-n-span, making sure his patients had enough to eat, opening
the windows for fresh air and sunshine. He trained his followers
in proper care of the sick but, most importantly, he transmitted
to them his deep love for these helpless souls. He felt serving
them was like personally serving God. Wherever they went, people
were astounded when his followers risked (and often lost) their
own lives tending to plague victims without regard to their own
safety. Cam met his own end in this way. Cardinal Ginnasi from
Milano, who had taken a liking to this rough-and-tumble, straight
talking big priest, personally arrived to comfort and finally
adminster last rites to Cam. Pope Leo XIIIth declared him patron
saint of the sick and nurses.
+
An amazing thing happened last week. The President of the United
States seriously claimed that he talks regularily with God. He
has declared himself a Christian Prophet and Seer.
Yeller claimed that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
Courageous man of deep religious principles that he is, he didn't
actually have the balls to announce it personally, as he did with
his many other wacko "reasons" for these misadventures. Even a
retard like him knows he'd get laughed off the stage for something
like that.
But he did say it. The source was a friend of his, not an enemy.
His secret was shared in the midst of delicate international
negotiations for peace. He told it to his shiny new Palestinian
whore Mr. Abbas over the phone. Abbas, in turn, passed it along
to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz. No doubt astounded at what he'd
just heard from the self-declared "Leader of the Free World".
The reaction? Dead silence. Our News Nazis totally ignored it as
if it had never happened. Our religious leaders also pretended the
incident hadn't occurred. Even the chattering-classes largely took
a pass. One of the most powerful men in the world as much as
declares himself mentally insane and it's a non-event.
How extraoridinary! God's Hand is clearly at work here hardening
the hearts of millions just as He hardened the heart of Pharaoh.
How else to explain this sort of mass-insanity? However unclear
it's purpose may be, His Will is being done right under our noses.
Uh. No. He doesn't talk to me. Not over the phone anyways.
+
Just when the Micks of Massachusetts thought they finally got rid
of that pucker-butt bishop the Vatican parachuted into Cape Cod
a while ago, who shows up again? Yep. Hissoner Bishop O'Malley
himself, fresh from his latest parachute-job in Florida. The only
bishop in all of Massachusetts who would deny them their traditional
corned beef on St. Paddy's Day. Drat 'n Damnation! He's Bernie
"The Pimp" Law's newest replacement in Boston.
While he's got an Irish name, Bishop O'Malley surely doesn't have
an Irish soul. He's Franciscan friar through and through. But
not of the sort Francis of Assisi would be particularly proud of.
He's a Corporation Man right down to the sole of his right shoe -
the only soul he's got.
He's been the Vatican's Designated Relief Batter for neigh onto
four wayward bishops who made a mess of things hiding their pervert
priest scandals. Palm Beach was his latest janitorial gig. That's
where the former bishop liked swimming butt-nekkid in his backyard
pool with his buddy whilst whispering 'I love you's' in his ear.
Bishop O'Malley's never done anything particularly imaginative,
creative or compassionate. He just implements simple, common-sense
rules that society has come to expect from organizations and the
idiots who preceeded him were too arrogantly stoopid to do. Like
checking out diocesian clergy and staff for prior child molestation
convictions. Basic stuff. What passes for radical in that strange
universe known as Mondo Vaticano.
He's got a thing about putting women-in-power in their proper
Vatican place as he ably proved when he went out of his way to
publically embarass the Massachusetts House Leader while he was
cleaning up messes in Cape Cod. She was invited to speak at an
annual diocesean gala. O'Malley arbitrarily dis-invited her on
account of her Pro-Choice voting record. Yes - another anti-abortion
fanatic. One who seems to feel a woman's Proper Place is bare-foot
and pregnant in the kitchen and not in the State House ordering
people about.
He has all the spiritual virtues of an accountant or career
bureaucrat. Which is to say - zilch. He's a cold, gray, souless,
impersonal little man full of his own self-worth. His academic
credentials are a joke - a Masters in Portugese language and
culture. His life experience is limited exclusively to the Vatican
bureacracy. He has no pastoral experience whatsoever. He's not
a hands-on kinda guy. Don't touch him.
At least he's not stupid enough to get himself into the kind of
jam Bernie "The Pimp" did. He'll work up an impressive book of
proceedures for dealing with his pervert priests and do his best
to screw the victims out of proper, fair compensation. But he'll
make few real friends and have little genuinely spirtual impact.
Oh well. The Floridians are no doubt happy to be rid of him. Back
to fun and frolic in the sun once again. 'Ol Pucker-Butt's gone.
+
Poor Mel Gibson. His forthcoming cinematic Turkey about the life of
Christ continues to be pretty much ignored by one and all. He tried
flogging this Latin/Aramaic dog as a high-tone art flick but nobody
bought it. Then he tried engaging in some Gay/Jew bashing to work up
a little interest. The Gays pretty much ignored him but the Jews are
hot to trot about his anti-semitic flick. They're keeping a close eye
on him now. Raising his game to the next level, it was revealed that
Satan in his flick, will be a woman. Jew bashing, Gay bashing and now
Woman bashing. What next? Bill Clinton as Pontius Pilate and an Osama
bin Laden look-alike as Judas? You gotta know he's gonna nail the
Democrats and Mooslems next.
Who else but Mel would think of making a movie about the Prince of
Peace and stuffing it will hate? What a clueless moron eh.
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This whatever-it-is operates under the patented Daily Bleed
"anti-CopyRite 2000-3000". More or less. As the product of
my imagination, I retain full pecuniary rights. You make any
money off it, I better get my fair share. My lawyer, the Ginzu
Viking, Dr. Yoshi Rasmussan LLD, anxiously awaits the chance
to rat-fuck you and your heirs unto eternity if you even think
of trying to screw me over. Otherwise, help yourself.
~---------------------------------------------------------------
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