What Are You Going to Do with These People?

Did you know that if you're a Democrat you're wreaking severe spiritual harm on your neighbors? Yep. You're actually assisting Satan in keeping people out of heaven, according to one Ed Martin, a candidate for Congress in Missouri.* Now, listen, we've been treated to a ton of insanity from these yahoos over the past few months, but as a man of faith and a follower of Jesus I find this unspeakably offensive. Here's what the guy said:

We're great because we created a place and space where people can be free. And they can choose Christ, they can choose to be faithful. They can worship, and they find their way to the Lord. And that's one of the things that's most destructive about the growth of government. It's this taking away that freedom. The freedom -- the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation. And I think that's one of the things that we have to be very, very aware of that the Obama Administration and Congressman Carnahan are doing to us.

Normally, who would be concerned with this kind of drivel . . . but as you might have noticed we are not living in a place that's dealing with things "normally." The thing that cannot escape my attention is that this latest nonsense--and of course what else can we call it? It makes no sense, literally--is part of a pattern of extreme distortions that are passing as gospel truth (if you will pardon the expression) among the frenzied Tea Baggers and their hangers-on. Is not talk like this just the sort of rationale that's needed to justify persecution and extermination of the anti-Christs? Oh, and there's a lot more.

Take, for example, this sign which was put up in Mason City, Iowa, by the northern Iowa Tea Party:

Even fellow Tea Party nut cases thought this was going to far. But the thing to take away from this is that hundreds of thousands of over-heated idiots are abroad in the land who believe this shit. It's only getting worse, brothers and sisters. And it's getting more scary by the minute.

*I hate to think what this guy would say about such obviously lost souls as socialists and--great God in heaven spare us!--communists. I shudder to contemplate it!! But seriously, don't you think Jesus had some pronounced socialist and communist tendencies? And what about those communistic early Christian communities? Let's not be disturbed by facts, right?

Woe Lifting

What is it about these hunks of chips and plastic that so controls our lives? I should amend by saying "some of our lives." My wife would certainly argue that the computer controls my life. And my sons have long accused me of putting them below dogs, computers, and other animate and inanimate objects on the "what I love best" scale. What can I say? I use my computer for hours every day. I keep up with the news, I do my baseball stuff, email, and I do a great deal of my work--research and writing--right here at the keyboard. I'm sorry, the Net is an information junky's fix, and I readily admit I'm hopelessly hooked.

I type this on a new computer. Not because I wanted a new computer. Who actually enjoys the myriad hassles of getting a new computer up to speed, as much like the old computer as possible? Only the veriest geek could enjoy such a thing. It's hours of labor, and no matter how diligent you are, you are never going to get things back like they were before. Everybody knows, everybody who uses their computer a lot I should say, that you constantly fiddle with this or that setting, this or that sequence, this or that look to always have the computer doing exactly what you want it to. During the course of a computer's life, let's say 4-5 years, you download countless programs, you make just as many little adjustments here and there. When a computer crashes, all of this is lost.

I actually have been able to recover more speedily this time than last, although I'm not finished yet; I'm just functional. Quicker because I was able to salvage the hard drive out of my old computer and connect it to this one. Didn't even know such a thing was possible. Which means the recovery went a lot faster. But everything is not the same, of course. The new computer, an HP, is a 64-bit machine. Don't ask me what that means, but it does mean that you simply don't have a load-old-onto-new situation. The process has been fraught with all kinds of unexpected little glitches. Nothing earth-shaking, but the annoyance factor rises with as the sum of little glitches increases. Nonetheless, the closer I get to getting everything loaded back on and resuming a more-or-less "normal" course with the computer, the lower my anxiety level. The woe of the past few days, brothers and sisters, is lifting.

Uh Oh

Readers, gentle and true. Bad news. I have got serious computer problems. Likely the motherboard. Which means new computer. Which means the better part of a week to get back up and running again. Everybody understands, I think, what a pain in the rear it is to have to reload a whole hard drive's worth of stuff. Last time this happened, not that long ago actually, it was a full ten days to recover. All by way of saying that Powderfinger may be sporadic for the next few days. My apologies. Not that you hang on every word, of course, but because I feel committed and I can not live up to the commitment. So hang in there with me. I will keep you advised.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Money

Yet another piece of good news from the Catholic Church. One of their "reverend" pastors in Waterbury, Connecticut, has been caught with his anointed hands in the till. Since 2003. To the tune of $1.3 million. (Read about it here and here.) This guy, Kevin J. Gray, is a real sweetheart. Which is fitting because he had himself a male sweetheart in New York City, ensconced in splendid style in an apartment funded by the parishioners of  Sacred Heart, which has been described as a "mostly poor" parish.* Their pastor, however, may be described as "mostly opulent." Father Gray likes the finer things of life, you see. He stayed at expensive hotels such as the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and Copley Square in Boston;  he took his meals only at the finest establishments, such as Arturo's and Tavern on the Green in NYC, Union League Cafe in New Haven. And only the best threads, too, for this representative of Christ on earth: suits from Saks Fifth Avenue, Armani, and Brooks Brothers. Oh, and frolics at strip bars and a male escort here and there. And financing a college education at Harvard for his paramour.

And how, you may ask, did he he manage to get away with this for seven years? Easy to do when you are the only person who can get into the church computer with all the financial records. And every time the people from the diocesan financial office showed up at the parish to look at the books,** Gray was not there. Father Gray had cancer, you see--that's what he told everyone--and he was receiving treatments all those times he wasn't around.

Well, he doesn't have cancer, and he's now under arrest for first-degree larceny and being held under a $750,000 bond in Waterbury. As yet, nobody has come up with the money to bail his butt out of jail.

Believe it or not, some of his Hispanic parishioners don't believe any of this about Father. As for the diocese, they are all concerned. "'At the spiritual level, we continue to pray for healing and consolation for the parish family as it moves forward and for guidance and reconciliation for Father Gray as he encounters the legal proceedings that await him,' they said in a statement."

Right. You can bet the Diocese of Hartford ain't gonna be coming up with reimbursement to the parish for the money this scumbag priest ripped off of them. But don't worry. They're praying.

*If Sacred Heart is representative of the case in most Catholic parishes, and there is no reason to think it isn't, about 17 percent of the parish population, provides about 90 percent of the contributions. And there are always extremely generous deep-pockets who shoulder most of the load.
**Not unusual. The Church always keeps a keen eye on the exchequer. A much keener eye than on, say, which of their priests is regularly practicing pedophilia.

This Is One of Those Only-in-America Stories

Here's the gist of the story, but you can read all about it here. Dateline Prescott, Arizona, where the ongoing civic project at the Miller Valley Elementary School is the painting of a "Go on Green" mural which covers the sides of two buildings. The point of the mural is to promote environmentally benign methods of transportation. The mural features pictures of four children, with a Hispanic child being the prominent one.

Are you ready for this? The group of artists painting the mural have been told by the school principal to lighten the faces of the non-Caucasian children. The principal, Jeff Lane, claims that his request has nothing whatever to do with race. "We asked them to fix the shading of the children's faces," he said. "We were looking at it from an artistic view. Nothing at all to do with race." Yeah, right. And polar bears can be found at the equator.

The project director, however, says that for two months he and the other artists on the project were subjected to a constant stream of racial slander from the vehicles of people passing through one of the busiest intersections in town. So the kids from the school helping to paint got to hear the grown-ups yelling all these hateful things.

The local yahoo city councilman campaigned to have the mural removed altogether, claiming it wasn't an accurate depiction of the realities in Prescott. You know, he's probably right: the reality of life and attitudes in Prescott emanate from the mouths of its sterling citizens yelling about "niggers" and "spics" at a group of artists and children.

And you wonder why I don't have much faith in this country.

The Horror . . .

Courtesy The Rude Pundit*

A picture that speaks a thousand words. That's Susan Sundell from New Hampshire discovering last week that everything she'd seen on the news is real (and probably worse). All of the waters from Pensacola to the Florida state line are now under a health advisory.


*Here's the link.

Ignorance, Er, Independence Day

Another in my continuing (and never-ending) series on just how ignorant the American people are. A recent Maris poll reports the good news that 74 percent of Americans actually know that the U.S. declared its independence from and separated from Great Britain. The bad news is that 26 percent--that's a little over one-quarter of the population of this country--don't know this. Among the countries mentioned by these people that the US declared its independence from: Spain, France, Mexico, Japan, and China.

Think about it: in 1776 the U.S. declared its independence from China (!). How is possible anybody could even conceive of this? I give.

Happy 4th of July.

Just Like That: Another $33 Billion

Did you know that  our esteemed leaders in Washington just appropriated another $33 billion for continuation of the the war in Afghanistan? It just so happens that this is just about the same amount of money required to fund an extension of  unemployment benefits for the next six months for about 5 million Americans trying to survive this recession. Not that the US has a very generous unemployment setup as it is. But now the Republicans in the House and Senate have advertised once again their true selves as exemplars of the worst of the meanness and cruelty in the American character.

Nobody in the Congress of the US is poor, but the Republican party is especially the friend of the rich Americans, and this sort of grinding down of people already down plays very well with the well-to-do classes. A  large majority of whom would, if they had their way, allow no unemployment benefits, no food stamps, no social programs at all. 


But I'm losing my train of thought, which was to point out once again, what this country could be accomplishing with $33 billion if it were not pissing it away in a useless, pointless war in Afghanistan. First, there's the matter of who is getting this $33 billion. Well, it's like this: the soldiers get some; corrupt Afghan warlords (who are squirreling their blood money away in Swiss bank accounts) get some; we give some to the poppy farmers and drug lords so they can create heroin; we give some to the very people we're fighting, the Taliban, bribes not to attack our people and convoys; and let's not forget the war profiteers, all those armaments and munitions manufacturers who never, ever saw a war they didn't support.


So what could be done with $33 billion if we weren't wasting it in fruitless war? Well, for starters there's the horrendous oil spill in the Gulf. It's reported that BP is spending a billion dollars a month on clean up. Just think how many of those unemployed people could be employed in the cleanup operations with just a small portion of that $33 billion. What about part of $33 billion to shore up local school districts who are laying off teachers all over the country in frantic efforts to cope with this recession?


But, no. It's in our national interest to continue a wasteful and scandalous war that has already gone on longer than any other this country has fought. Killing people half a world away is more important than anything that needs doing in this country. 

Incident at Citi Field -- A Reflection for the 4th

We sat a little higher and closer to home plate. And stadium was just about full. 

But is is a pretty good representation of the view we had Sunday.

Last Sunday, a scorching hot day, we went to see the Mets play the Minnesota Twins in an Inter-league game at Citi Field in Flushing, Queens. (Real long subway ride from where we were in Manhattan.) For those of you who don't know baseball, come the 7th inning, it's traditional for everybody in the stands to get out of their seats for a little while. Most places I've been, the crowd sings "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," or listens to the organ play something obnoxious or undergoes some other diversion that's been devised by the owners to "entertain" the multitudes that don't know anything about baseball and who come out to the park to eat overpriced food, drink overpriced drinks and beer, watch a few innings of baseball in between their trips to the concession stands. It's a baseball tradition: the "seventh inning stretch."

Well, when the bottom of the 7th rolled around at Citi Park, the crowd was instructed to stand, remove their caps or hats and join in singing "God Bless America." Now wait a second, didn't the beginning of the game already require everybody to stand, remove their caps or hats, and join in singing The National Anthem (and even placing your hand on your heart like you were burying a loved one or paying obeisance to some Ottoman sheik?) OK, I've heard of this and even seen it once or twice before on TV, but I'd never actually encountered it. What to do? Well, I kept my Rangers cap on my head and I did not rise and I did not sing. This is not any different from what I do with all overt shows of patriotism. I don't feel compelled to make outward manifestations of patriotism. Or patriotism so-called. I haven't for years. Naturally, some yahoo who was leaving the game a few moments later after the thousands had implored the deity in song to bless the country, told me on his way down the stairs to "take off your hat and stand up." He looked to be mid-20s or so. I just looked at him in response to his glare.

I cannot help but think about the inevitable repression that's coming when I see what a to-do is made about the flag, about overt and ostentatious shows of patriotism, about "supporting the troops," etc., etc. We in this country have been undergoing a slow steady militarization of our society for many years. It's now reaching its apex. Every time you turn around now, it seems, we witness yet another demonstration of "support for the troops." Once a society starts deifying the military, it's in trouble. You heard it here first. Same goes for the flag. I know of no other society in the world where people feel it necessary to fly the national flag over used car lots.

Hmmm. I Can Agree with That

According to  Newsweek this week, the highlighted quote is what Sarah Palin has to say about enforcing marijuana restrictions. Brothers and sisters, when we have somebody like Palin saying things like this, there's room for optimism. I read yesterday or the day before that 14 states now allow medical marijuana and another 10, I think it was, have decriminalized possession of marijuana. How far can we be from completely coming to our senses on this subject? (Pretty good article on the subject here.)

If somebody's gonna

smoke a joint in

their house and not

do anybody any

harm, then perhaps

there are other 

things our cops

should be looking at.

And by the way, I've been married to the most wonderful woman in the world this day 43 years. I love you, Susan. You're the world to me.