Bitch On Wheels

AS THE TWIG IS BENT, AS THE SAYING GOES

2011-11-13T01:10:00.025-05:00

...'so grows the tree'.

The scandal is soul-breaking...

but the DAMNED RESPONSE FROM THE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ruptures the spirit in a whole new way.

Their histrionic wailing, their self-pitying anger- NOT because of what the victims suffered, no -it's entirely about themselves and their reputations and their 'do-nuthin' Jo Pa --and it's enough to throw me right over the edge.

Rioting, mooning around in front of Paterno's house, in tears, in shock.... and all for themselves and how this unsavory CHILD MOLESTATION has put a crimp in the happy style of FOOTBALL town.

I think it's fitting that we say, now and forever on their behalf

---yes

WE ARE PENN STATE!

And in many ways, it's the whole bloody country with its skewed values and self-obsessing, juvenile behavior.

You wanna know their biggest fear... the university's, that is?

From what I've read, it's already happening. Their bond rating has taken a hit, so money will be more expensive for the university to borrow.

Companies who sponsored their events in the past want to distance themselves, so they've begun to pull away. Entities who make LARGE CONTRIBUTIONS to the university will be very unlikely to do so in the future, so it all comes down to, yep-- finances drying up.

Their coffers will take the biggest hit from this (to say nothing of the law suits ahead)- but few are paying any attention whatsoever to the IMPACT Mr. Sandusky has had on the boys whose childhoods he destroyed: administration is worrying about future funding and the student body is mourning the jettisoning of their old coach and the loss of their football edge.

It boggles the mind.

The sheer insensitivity of those marauding, furious BRATS turning over cars and filling the streets with their tantrums when they learned Paterno was fired was all I needed in order to gauge just what it is those young people have been learning from their association with Penn State, and it isn't trigonometry or philosophy- it's indulgent SELF-INTEREST, and it's EXTREME. As one Penn State student was quoted, "I love the school more than I hate what happened"... that says it all. Why doesn't she see that "what happened" --and the university itself-- are one and the same thing; that the sanctification of the game allowed the kind of cover-up that occurred?

The sad thing is.... I wouldn't have expected any other reaction. The students of football-centered colleges are usually creatures fixated in a selfish adolescence where winning is everything; as the saying goes, "pride goeth before the fall" -and fall they did. Rock bottom to these eyes.

I wish they'd get it through their thick skulls that THEY are not the victims.... eight boys were.

And those 10,000 students taking to the streets in anger? They raped them again... and the painting up there? It's by Francis Bacon.

(Like Sandusky, he was another sick f*ck for whom violence via male-on-male rape was particulary pleasing stuff.)

I don't know if he liked football or not.... and I don't think it's important.

The NEW FACE of the Boogeyman

2011-11-08T17:51:00.051-05:00

Well, well, well......

America is in QUITE a quandary here.

The TWO THINGS we purport to love ABOVE all else, CHILDREN AND FOOTBALL, have clashed on the first page of the news.

What to do.....what to DO???

First off... I don't BELIEVE our national declaration of love for children.

If that were true, how then do we explain why so many poor kids, stuck in horrible living conditions with terrible schools now being STRIPPED of all funding and closing down, waiting for PRIVITIZATION to step in, a 'solution' which has NEVER done anything but electrocute our troops in their showers and give armed thugs carte blanche to kill civilians -why are we willing to stuff the pockets of those who would JUMP at handling the privitization of schools?

Do we love them? No.

(Oh, for the wealthier parents, we love to dress them up and show them off. Arrange "play dates" ...sign them up for extracurricular activities that will produce pictures to fill our hand-assembled scrapbooks (now all the rage) --but love? I don't think so.) No more than pets. No more than a new iphone or other things we consider 'fun fodder' for bragging rights. We love to say we love them.

Now here's the conundrum: one of our most revered football colleges has HARBORED a serial child molester for 20 years or better, and turned their heads while a HIGH PROFILE assistant coach indulged himself by buggering our "children at risk." The WEIRDO even wrote a self-congratulatory BOOK about the perfect cover he's been hiding behind in order to procure 10 year olds for eventual anal rape.

Betrayal? 'EVIL'? THY NAME IS SANDUSKY.

It'll be a long time (or maybe never) till the beloved NITTANY LIONS ... or PENN STATE... (or..... yes, even......omg!)

JOE PATERNO!

will be mentioned without shuddering in distaste. From this day hence, Paterno will be thought of as a high paid enabler who turned his head when all the alarms were going off about Sandusky's description of 'horsing around' in the campus showers. He's the man who 'did the MINIMAL thing required'- he reported it. NOT TO POLICE, but the lowest rung on the ladder he had to report to..... then forgot about it. How hideous. We expect more from someone who touts himself as an inspirational IDEALISTIC influence on youth. He failed. Joe failed.

He f*cked up bigtime.

(I'll not say another word about the other guy--- the criminal, who is the new face of the Boogeyman --who's done more harm over a score of years than can ever be calculated.) He's the MURDERER OF DREAMS- kid's dreams, our 'wholesome FOOTBALL dreams'. He's scuttled the holy American vision of an 'Andy Hardy world'-- Sandusky's shown us at our worst, and most frighteningly-- our worst is what we are.

This scandal casts a KLIEG LIGHT on a societal recipe that produces the kind of monsters who value REPUTATION over simple human decency; who would put a MONEY-making and a legendary team above the safety and protection of those most vulnerable.

It's hideously perfect, this dark marriage of football and hidden child abuse...it's somehow fitting. It's like a new Rosetta Stone.

It blows the doors off our high opinion of ourselves, with our fetishist love of VICTORY and our illusions of benevolence: we're left with an ugly truth. But so far... it's never set us free. It's never been allowed to... no profit in that. Nothing to sell. No sponsor would want it.

So we'll grope for a DIFFERENT scandal....

some horrible NEWS to chew on. Some late-breaking, LOUD distraction that can be plastered on the covers of the tabloids to pull our minds from collective shame and our own discomfort.

Some new gossip about Lindsay Lohan, or how WAS IT that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop-- could have died so young... (See? We haven't a clue.)

Our myths are KILLING us. Our myths are the reason WHY PATERNO TURNED HIS HEAD and why we're morally dead or dying: when you open a casket -one breath of air, a bit of oxygen, it corrupts. And that's what this story did: it was like Dracula caught in sunlight.

We'll do whatever we can do to either bury it ..... or TOP IT. That's who we are.

A happy lie is all we ever need.

It lets us sleep nights.

False Face of (ALL) Politics

2011-08-06T07:48:00.003-04:00

After the escalation into Afghanistan, after the debacle of congressional wrangling over the federal budget, after seeing no CHANGE whatsoever, no matter how high the hopes in what could have been the biggest turnover in national ideological thrust-- I am throwing in the towel on all politics.

I no longer believe in democracy.

It doesn't exist.

There is only Capitalism cloaked in slogans. The wealthy have won and the rest of us don't matter. Free debate is a deceptive smog that layers everything and has no power whatsoever in affecting final outcomes.

2008 was the last election in which I will vote: I believe in nothing political. 2008 was our final chance and it was doomed from the start. We didn't know change was impossible once wealth is SO disproportionately placed (and has been since the Reagan 90's) once those who hold the wealth are so deeply embedded in the power structure itself, it becomes a thing immovable.

I feel like a child who believed in fairytales. I am beyond anger. I merely feel foolish.

Hope has been defeated at last by hype, who knew it all along.

We no longer have a two party system, we have a collective of rich men calling shots cannily enough to make it seem as though there is liberty-- while they self-serve, manipulating God and Religion and what they've defined as 'patriotism'- and 'We' no longer exist. The bastards control the whole Monopoly board. We can keep paying rent on 'Baltic', but they've got Park Place and all the utilities and the railroads we're landing on.....

one by one. The threat isn't terrorism, it's them. It always has been.

MR. AMERICA.... (yah, right.)

2011-05-21T20:26:00.013-04:00

I came across the most amazing picture of Massey Energy's old CEO, Don Blankenship, showing his 'red white and blue' with the ardor of a 'true amurican'. (Blankenship stepped down in December 2010. Guess his PR was pretty much 'toast' after being identified with the Upper Branch Mine disaster, so they put their old attack dog out to pasture.)

Nothing is more chilling to me than people trotting out the stars and stripes so I find it particularly fitting that Blankenship is one of those self-proclaimed 'patriots'....(you know, loop-ribboned 'I Love the USA' magnets on their cars, flag poles in their yards and forever getting misty-eyed over the military, constantly talking about 'our boys'.... that kind of putz.) Me? I don't get misty-eyed, I get PISSED OFF with what we subject those young men and women to, year after year after year.

But anyway..... there's Don. The poster child of early 21st Century American patriotism, waving the banner of CAPITALISM and representing what we affectionately refer to as 'democracy'-- something we'd like to see spread all over the world, but it's faux democracy, steeped in capitalistic greed.

Just answer this: how in the hell can a country claim it enjoys a democratic society when its UNDERPINNING THRUST is captitalistic? What we have is 'for profit' idealism: a system that CREATES classes, creates haves and have-nots with the rich floating to the top and the poor becoming the sheep who never rise and never truly realize the so-called American dream because it's rigged in the rich's favor.

In other words: an easily manipulated pack of brain-washed blue collar workers who buy into all the rhetoric and who will NEVER...... never be truly free. To do that you have to vote in non- big business supported elected officials, you have to tax equally across the board, and finally... you have to give up the lust for 'more stuff' in favor of more social freedom for ALL people, not favoritism for the rich.

Yep. Old Don is perfect in that picture up there.

(And I wish to hell it wasn't so.) He once said in reference to the United Nations: "Why should we trust a report by the United Nations? The United Nations includes countries like Venezuela, North Korea and Iran." (See?? The man stirs up the jingoist in us. How perfect is that? The guy is a poster child alright.)

You want to read real free speech? Read Coal Tattoo Those people are solid gold. The current information on Massey Energy is just the tip of the iceberg. They're busy doing their job in throwing open windows... thank you, folks. Thank you.

What A Couple Of Losers!

2011-05-18T18:51:00.011-04:00

Just LOOK at those two freaks! Both old and ugly enough to scare any woman off. (Unless it's a woman who's loved them a LONG TIME and is therefore 'blind' to their appearance, or someone who takes cash for her favors) who'd WANT their paws anywhere on them?

What WERE THEY THINKING??

The French guy is out and out nasty looking, arrogant as only the rich can be, and a boor to boot. (You can tell at a glance that without the moolah, this fella would be shunned by most folks he meets, let alone be attractive to women.)

And Arnold is crass.

Arnold

is an ass.

To have a woman he's carrying on with LIVE with his wife and children for ten years, and think that's sane behavior or even something he could get away with, is appalling. His cosmetic surgeries are beginning to look 'drape-y', his eyes sunken and shriveled to flint... with the 'Terminator' years far behind him, give it up, man!

So I say 'BULLY!' (in my best Teddy Roosevelt voice, brash and proud) -- to the NYPD for marching DSK right off that plane at the airport in order to drive home the point that in this country you can't force oral sex on the housekeeping staff and then dismiss it like you'd dispose of a used kleenex.

(Moron must have thought the maid came with the 3,000.00 a night room, like getting a fortune cookie at the end of an Asian meal. Asshole.)

And Maria Shriver is better off by far.

(But I fear MRS. DSK will defend her man to the last. She might think it's less embarrassing that way) ...... but really........no one's buying it.

FINALLY......Something Is Being Done

2010-11-15T17:45:00.003-05:00

Remember the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster?

Remember the deaths and the LONNNNNNNNNG investigation that's been booted out of the headlines for some time now? Remember how Massey Energy kept scrambling to save face and keep their stockholders safely sandbagged against financial ruin?

Well, it looks like the MSHA hasn't forgotten about it....
NOT BY A LONG SHOT.
Click on that story above!

(I love when the good guys never sleep. I love to see justice done and the runaround put to a stop.) I love it when people say, "No matter HOW MUCH MONEY is involved, or WHO it belongs to.....this has to end.

Thank you, MSHA. You've got our backs, and we appreciate it.

Mean-Spirited BASTARDS

2010-11-08T16:20:00.022-05:00

So the REPUBLICANS have the House, and their first ORDER OF BUSINESS is to strip health care from the poor, allowing BIG BUSINESS HEALTH CARE GIANTS and their legion of well-paid lobbyists to rub their hands together and anticipate the money flowing into their war chests once again, and secondly-- to KEEP THE BUSH TAX CUTS FOR THE SUPER-RICH. *** [Now that's something new, isn't it??]*** They can hardly wait to steer this ship of state into friendlier waters- (you know, the ones that bankrupted us to begin with but the American people are too damn stupid to see that-- caught up as they are in fearing a black [sic- "welfare"] president, and fearing TERRORISTS and illegal aliens even more.)

And oh Lord, I already sense Obama caving...becoming conciliatory, his programs becoming watered-down into something the Republicans can rubber stamp, and THAT'S PURE INSANITY!! Their only agenda is to BLOCK EVERYTHING, wait out the 2 years, get the fear and the hatred nice and thick --and keep their sights set on 2012.

DON'T CAVE TO THEM! Don't pass watered-down crap that's had all the principle whipped out of it. DON'T!

The reason I'm blogging again so soon is because of something I heard on NPR this morning during their very early morning financial report.

It was a segment on the housing market and the hideous number of foreclosed properties flooding the market. Banks are trying furiously to unload these as quickly as possible--- at auctions. The sound byte was, "It's a terrible time for the foreclosed upon, but a GREAT TIME for the buyer!" Then they went on to say that 36 properties had come up for auction in the New England states where their reporter had gone to cover this story, and they interviewed a couple who had just bought their SECOND HOME, a seaside beach house on Cape Cod.....FOR 90,000.00

The interviewer asked the man what he was thinking during the auction. "My wife and I set a limit of 80,000.00 but we thought we'd go ahead. It's a once in a lifetime dream. And I prayed about it."

"You prayed about it?" the interviewer asked. Then, just a bit more hesitant-- "Yes. I prayed."

What I hate MOST about this country is the kind of things people pray about.

I hate the way Christianity gets thrown in with wish lists and how people who are already obviously well off, pray their greedy heads off in order to own something that was surrendered in heartache by someone else-- someone less fortunate. (Less 'blessed'? By WHO'S theology?) and then have the AUDACITY to announce that it was God's ANSWER to their prayers. My heavens......pray for peace, pray for one another, for God's will be done, pray humbly..... but never, never for a SECOND HOME some poor s.o.b. just lost.

I find it APPALLING that prayer enters into that scenario, but most of all..... that the smug son-of-a-bitch would have the utter insensitivity and cluelessness not to know how that SOUNDS, fer Pete's Sake!

I would hope that Christianity shows us the ways to help our fellow men, not help ourselves to what they've just had stripped from them. Does anyone else hear the stark hypocrisy in that?

No WONDER people hate Americans. It's no WONDER people despise the new face of American 'Christianity'.... because it's mean. It's selfish. It's fearful, and O My GOD, yes........it's smug.

Polls Bring Out The Beast In Me.....

2010-11-02T19:08:00.000-04:00

To tell you the truth, I've been so down on politics I didn't think I'd vote in this midterm race, but day by day.... the steady HONKING of smug Republicans, the inane prattle of moronic Tea Party sheep trying to whip everyone into a fearful frenzy GOT MY DANDER UP! For the first time in my life I voted STRAIGHT DEMOCRAT, sight unseen. I didn't care if I had to crawl to the polls, I was casting my ballot.

These infernal Republicans bring out the LEATHERFACE IN ME!!!! I feel like Brother John in the movie Becket: even though he knew they'd both be slaughtered shortly by the approaching cadre of the King's men, all John wanted, as he raised his the Archbishop's crozier, was to break one head before he goes.

I know what he means. One vote....... one head...... same thing.

This Little Piggy.......

2010-10-27T20:07:00.006-04:00

That pink piggy puppet is YOUR POLITICIAN- (any of 'em. All of 'em.) Elections are coming up again and the only thing certain is that MONEY WILL BE PULLING THE STRINGS.

I haven't added anything to this blog in some time, mostly because whenever I turn on the news, it's 98 percent horrifying bullshit, and the only way I can remain halfway sane is to keep my head down, find that small corner of life where I feel happiest, and STAY THERE.

The Obama presidency has been slogging through tar due to the Opposition Party throwing roadblocks every which way- (and now with this TEA PARTY BULLSHIT, and the aural diarrhea of voiceover political ads filled with 'the man or the woman next door, sic- "just like you and me, we hate this president") --the run-up to this mid-term election has seriously turned me off.

Nothing can move forward on a highway of constant roadblocks: the power-mongers are very good at obscuring truth and inciting fear in every quarter, be it the economy or the threat of foreign terrorists-- they've got that shit down pat.

Mr. and Mrs. Middle America are too damn frightened to do anything but cling to the guys with the BIG BUCKS, never suspecting they're being manipulated so those same fat cats can get even fatter. [FACT: While most of America is feeling economic hardship, there have been more millionaires created SINCE the economic meltdown, than at any time in history] --think about that.

Bush and Cheney and Rove created this nightmare, and now Obama can't make headway no how, no way -because the SAME POLITICAL MACHINERY HAS REMAINED IN PLACE. Believe it. (Oh, and I read this quote recently:

"Being two years out from the next election is a lifetime away in electoral politics. But, if you are looking for some names to watch, I’d recommend these: Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin (three of the candidates from the 2008 Republican campaigns), as well as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, New Orleans Governor Bobby Jindal, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, and former Governor of Florida Jeb Bush (brother to George and Son of George). There has also been some muttering about TV personality Glenn Beck running in 2012."

The big machinery has successfully either ground the changes needed to a halt, or created an atmosphere of disbelief and mistrust so dense that change will be slow in coming, if at all-- they are masters at that.

If this were the 60's, I'd say- "Turn off and turn on" but at this stage of life, I've simply turned off. Turned inward. Stuck the damn earplugs in my ears and shall let the rest of the madmen tear themselves to pieces. Politics, all politics, begin and end with lies. I've swilled enough slop for a lifetime. And if that prediction above holds true, I'll slit my own f*cking throat.)

Loss of PROPERTY Lamented, not LOSS OF LIFE

2010-06-04T23:47:00.011-04:00

"The mother of the Stanton Heights man who is accused of killing three Pittsburgh police officers filed a lawsuit against Allegheny County on Wednesday claiming that the negligence of the 911 dispatcher who took her call on the domestic dispute may have led to the shootout on April 4, 2009, as well as the damage caused to her home."

Let's GET THIS STRAIGHT:

No, madam. That kind of thinking is precisely what lead to the raising of a son CAPABLE of such a thing.

The fault lies directly with the shooter, and no one else. Period.

"Margaret Poplawski notes that she warned the dispatcher when she called that her son, Richard Poplawski, had firearms in the home..."

No AGAIN.

You needed to be ASKED if there were guns involved.

You see..... when a family member becomes violent and needs to be restrained (and/or arrested) ...here's what most reasonable people would do when calling for police assistance when they KNOW their own bouncing baby LOOSE CANNON has a stockpile of weapons on hand, you say....

"OH MY GOD, HE HAS GUNS, HE HAS GUNS, HE HAS GUNS HERE IN THE HOUSE!!"

(That should be the first thing out of your mouth) ... it would not be part of a question-and-answer exchange between you and the dispatcher...

that is, if you're an upright citizen yourself... and you know the men you're requesting come and help you will be walking into a fucking AMBUSH... if you're not thinking "THIS'LL TEACH HIM!"

But no, now you're claiming 'damages'. Loss of property.

Negligence.

You are without question......the *most pathetic, amoral individual currently in the running for that title. (Read that article, and be as flabbergasted as I was when I read it.)

You

(quite literally)

make me sick.

Just when you think you've heard it all... you realize you haven't. Not by a long shot. Great bleeding Christ!

MASSEY MINING PLAYING CORPORATE SHELL GAME

2010-05-14T20:39:00.015-04:00

I become naturally suspicious when a big time player (with a list of fatalities on its plate) begins to call for MSHA to Reverse the Practice of Turning off Dust Scrubbers

-and Whoa! 'NUTHER ONE!....makes 'em look real safety conscious, doesn't it?

(Yah, yah.....I know.... this is long-winded 'corporate-speak', then below it here, long-winded mine 'techie-speak' ---but if you aren't interested stop reading now. Go back to your social networking and texting, you mannequin people with the dead eyes, seeking easy stimulus. Go read somewhere else.)

I offer this explanation for their current hue and cry over safety issues.

I say:

-perhaps the MASSEY MINING MASSCRE had nothing to do with dust scrubbers. Turning attention to this one issue might possibly be an attempt to divert scrutiny from the actual source of the explosion in the Upper Big Branch Mine.

You know.....

like a common ordinary shell game, it's, "Look here!" (while I do something shifty over there.) Like that. Because it's much more likely the source of ignition had a lot to do with this:

FRICTIONAL IGNITIONS

"Up to this point, emphasis has been solely on ventilation methods and monitoring for gas.

However, the chance of a methane ignition may be further reduced by dealing directly with the ignition source. When a continuous miner cutter bit strikes rock, abrasion from the rock grinds down the rubbing surface of the bit, producing a glowing hot metal streak on the rock surface behind the bit...the metal streak is often hot enough to ignite methane, causing a so-called frictional ignition.

At continuous miner faces, there are two approaches to lower the incidence of frictional ignitions.

The first approach concerns the bit itself—providing a regular change-out schedule to replace worn bits, providing bits with a larger carbide tip to reduce wear.

The second approach is to mount a water spray behind each bit, aiming the spray toward the location on the rock where the hot metal streak is expected. This anti-ignition back spray
quenches the hot streak, reducing its temperature and the chance of a frictional ignition.

The most important action one can take to reduce frictional ignitions is to replace bits regularly, thus avoiding the formation of wear flats on the bits.

Frictional ignition with a mining bit always involves a worn bit having a wear flat on the tip of the bit. A small wear flat forms a small hot spot which does not lead to an ignition, whereas a large wear flat forms a large hot spot that is more likely to cause an ignition. Also, mining bits consist of a steel shank with a tungsten carbide tip: the steel is more incendiary than the tungsten carbide tip, so if the tip is worn off and the steel shank exposed, the chance of an ignition is much greater.

The results of a test in which a cutter bit was used to cut a sandstone block in the presence of an ignitable methane concentration: with the tungsten carbide tip in place, no ignitions were obtained even after 200 or more cuts. With the steel shank exposed, ignitions quickly began.

With as little as 0.3-cm bit wear, fewer than 10 cuts were necessary to produce an ignition.

Anti-ignition back sprays are an effective method to reduce frictional ignitions. Bringing water to the cutter head on continuous miners has been an engineering challenge. However, in recent years, practical (if expensive) water seals for continuous miner heads have been developed.

(As a result, few "wet-head" continuous miners equipped with anti-ignition back sprays have been installed in U.S. coal mines with a history of frictional ignition problems.)"

Voila!

"EXPENSE = LESS PROFIT".

There's a scenario I can believe.

*

*

*

*

I'm not saying this is the only explanation, but there are other possible causes that led up to this disaster --that management had a hand in when making decisions about 'profit over safety'.

Something to think about.

The MASSEY MINING MASSACRE: A Possible Solution

2010-04-28T19:54:00.012-04:00

Twenty nine miners were killed in early April at the Massey Energy's 'Upper Big Branch Mine' in West Virginia.

Over the years, the safety record for Massey Mines has been horrendous-- with accidents and deaths much higher than the average in an admittedly hazardous occupation.

Fines-- however high, never seem to solve this problem. Obviously the company has MONEY TO BURN... otherwise fines would be a deterrent, but I've thought of a SOLUTION!

Instead of paying fines this time, how 'bout we stick the Massey Offices underground as a show of solidarity with the men who go down into those hellhole tinderboxes day after day? If the men can take the risk, well hell....it seems only reasonable the men who are being made rich by these ridiculous risks, take them themselves. Here's what I'd like to see:

A smiling Massey top executive just inside the glass doors and looking out fondly at his boys- putting one thumb up, checking the canary and wearing a rabbit's foot around his pencil neck.

If you want to read real, unadulterated, self-serving horseshit, visit the PRESS ROOM-- and you will be stepping in it several STORIES deep.

I want to see jail time for these murderers. It's proper that they do time for killing this many human beings over the years by their flagrant disregard for human life --and the rabid quest for profit, profit, profit. It seems easy to see a crime has been committed-- why don't we prosecute?

I sincerely hope the corporate upper echelon is troubled by broken sleep the rest of their natural lives (and oh, yes-- the board of directors as well. They're the ones most removed from the reality of what they've done.)

But honestly...the simplest solution is the one offered above. Give the bastards a lunch bucket, and send them a mile down. Let THEM put their asses on the line every day....

PROBLEM SOLVED.

The Holy See's Blindness

2010-04-06T17:39:00.008-04:00

I am so tired of reading about Benedict XVI's cadre of ecclesiastic thugs pulling their wagons into a circle and firing out at any critic of the Catholic Church for its denial of culpability for decades (doubtless, centuries) of the sexual abuse of children or those too powerless to fight back.

IT HAPPENED. IT WAS COVERED OVER. ABETTED, DENIED.... AND IT CONTINUED.

It's ridiculous to thrash about and appear indignant or put upon when it's the irrefutable truth, so ADMIT IT... be contrite, ferchrissakes.

Now I ask you....why would the church stonewall on this issue? Because they're afraid of more law suits, less wealth? Yes, that's undoubtedly one reason.

Because admitting it makes the church seem less of a moral flagship in the world? Yes... but realisically the harm has already been done, so admit it and go forward from here.

Now for the BIG QUESTION....what would 'admitting it' lead to? To admit it would be to acknowledge that for centuries, a celibate church has attracted and housed any number of deviates, and allowed them a perfect front-- a silence that has fostered untold perversions without punishment-- and finally, to admit it would threaten the Holy See's insistance upon a celibate priesthood. It would open the door to married priests, female priests... and would ultimately topple the power structure that has thrived in an all-male, unmarried enclave for centuries.

The pope figures he can hunker down and let his henchmen snarl and spit, and eventually it will all fade away... so awesome is the power of the Catholic Church

but I don't think that will happen this time.

It's all too apparent that the emperor has no clothes...that he himself was intrumental in covering over scandals during the last pope's very long reign as head of a church that was feverishly undoing all the healthy changes of Vatican II: except for rabid traditionalists, Catholics are tired of the lies. The papal strong arm isn't working anymore, and denial is impossible forever.

What is the church to do?

Admit it. Show contrition. Change....(something that was started in the 60's, but was sadly shut down.) Open the windows... hang out the dirty laundry but for heaven sakes- wash it. Go from there.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's "311" Hotline

2010-02-12T16:41:00.018-05:00

There I am, lost in a cloud of snow, completely forgotten. Frustration doesn't begin to cover it. Here in Pittsburgh, our fine boy mayor has set up a snow removal task force that city residents can access by dialing 311. Sounds pretty efficient, doesn't it? Hell....they even have PUBLICITY PHOTOS of the fine boy mayor manning the phones himself. What a dedicated guy, right?

Let me give you a realistic picture of actually calling 311...

1. BE PREPARED FOR BUSY SIGNALS. (A LOT) ... 'TEST THE PATIENCE OF JOB' A LOT. I called repeatedly ALL DAY yesterday till I finally got a ringing phone instead of a busy signal.

2. When you do finally get through, this is what you will hear:

"Hello! You have reached Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's SNOW REMOVAL HOTLINE. You may leave a message or wait for the next available line. If you choose to leave a message, push 1. Otherwise, stay on the line. Calls are being answered in the order they are received."

3. You will then hear more ringing... (which is confusing, because you thought you were on hold.) I called the hotline yesterday and actually persevered until I spoke with someone....and today, the 'ringing phone' at this point in the procedure rang ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY TIMES! (I held on like a pit bull.)

When it connected to something, it was another recording.

4. "You may leave a message by pushing '1' now, or hold the line. Your call is 4th in queue." Then, the dreaded 'MUZAK'.

5. After 5 minutes or so on hold, tortured by bad music and muttering to yourself "This is RIDICULOUS" - you will finally get a human being who will ask your name, address, daytime phone number, and what street you are calling about.

(This part posed a problem for me because my street address is a main artery and is perfectly clear, but to access where I have to park, I must travel along two forgotten little alleys that have not been touched by city snow removal since the storm came in last Friday.) If this happens to you, you are stuck because the person on the line will insist on one street address, one only. The reasonable thing would be to describe the conditions IN YOUR IMMEDIATE NEIGHBORHOOD and why access is impossible, but there is nothing 'reasonable' in how they have this Chinese fire drill set up.

"Shall I say you live at ___________?"

"I don't....but YES, say whatever you have to say. No one has been here, and I read in the Post-Gazette online today that my area of the city is one of the ones that were 'blitzed' yesterday. IT WASN'T BLITZED....I HAVEN'T SEEN A PLOW OR A SALT TRUCK. Where are the crews now?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have access to that information, but I'll put your request in."

"I called yesterday too. They didn't have information then either, even though this neighborhood was on their blitz list."

"I'm sorry. I'll put your request through."

This entire process took approximately one half hour to make a simple call.

Last night was my lowest point after being home all week with only one attempt out on Wednesday- which resulted in getting horribly stranded in ruts - so in desperation (and SINCE THE 311 HOTLINE said it was operating 24 HOURS A DAY) I called again at 7:30 pm.

"You have reached MAYOR LUKE RAVENSTAHL'S 311 Snow Removal Hotline. We are currently closed. If you would like to leave a message, push 1."

I pushed 1.

Recording: "If you would like to leave a message on the 311 hotline, record it now".....(slight pause. I said, "I...")

"A message has NOT been recorded. Goodbye."

Like a monkey, I did this 3 times with the same infuriating result.

The MESSAGE here, folks, is don't believe what you read in the papers or hear on the news. The Mayor's response has been terribly lax and the cameras are only running when something goes RIGHT.

I'm here to give you a glimpse of the reality, and it's bureaucracy to the MAX. Inefficient, impersonal and poorly organized.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd give Ravenstahl's performance a '2' for getting the main roads in condition, a '1' for the side and tertiary roads, BUT A BIG OLD ZERO for putting publicity spins on this that just aren't so, and that REALLY pisses me off.

(Oh...and as for the Mayor being up in the Laurel Highlands when this big monster front came through, not even in the city with the rest of us- and in the WORST possible place to get out of quickly in a snow storm...celebrating his 30th birthday) his response to not being here when the city needed him was, "No one could have predicted this."

WRONG. THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAD PUT OUT BULLETINS SINCE THURSDAY OF LAST WEEK. The local news stations were buzzing with precautions. We all knew this was gonna hit.

Where was the BIRTHDAY BOY'S mind? Sheesh!

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl Truly IS.....'Rave 'n Stall'

2010-02-11T05:47:00.008-05:00

There he is, folks.....the boy mayor of the City of Pittsburgh.

That pretty boy face and characteristic glibness with the media has proven once again that PUBLICITY is all to this guy... and actual accomplishment can be waltzed around the room, nothing but fluff.

Almost a week since Old Man Winter dropped 29 inches of snow on this city, and our roads are still HORRIBLE. All we get are excuses, promises... and (true to form) a Ravenstahl spin on what is promised. Today? "BLITZING THE STREETS!"....that's what the local media is reporting as the latest "Ah shucks, we're gettin' to it!"... to keep the local residents quiet.

In 58 years, I have NEVER seen the roads this bad after a major snow storm. Before the second dumping of 8 more inches yesterday, we had almost 3 days of no snow: plenty of time to clear the roads, but it wasn't done. I ventured out for the first time yesterday, and the streets were hazardous in the morning... but MURDEROUS by late afternoon, and I saw not one salt truck in my 32 mile, round trip commute.

I have the misfortune of living on one of the city's 'forgotten streets' that rarely sees a snow plow or a salt truck, and this last behemoth storm has left us stranded. After several days, at least we had some ruts made by 4 wheel drive vehicles who braved it anyway, so I left for work for the first time since last Friday: got stuck a few times, but I got out. After 8 inches during the day, that same alley was a mucky, foot deep series of icy ruts under the new stuff. Three neighbors- one, a child, and another an 81 year old man -took pity on me, pushed and rocked me out. I AM FURIOUS!

When interviewed by the media, this 30 year old mayor, with hair neatly gelled and coiffed, does nothing but say how HARD the city is trying....NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Hundreds of people have been trapped in their homes for nearly a week!

I'm sick of this fella's celebrity: 'The David Letterman Show' after taking office when Mayor O'Connor died (and ONLY because he was the youngest mayor on record)... riding in the Steeler victory parade (after saying he had changed his name to 'Steelerstahl').....what a moron.... no, this guy is strictly 'RAVE 'N STALL' when it comes to real issues, not pranks or publicity. He gets up a real head of steam in front of the cameras, looking like he's ready to really go after the tough problems.... but action itself is as stalled as any old farm mule.

In this terrible showing of getting the city on its feet again after a blizzard, the man is ALL TALK and no action. "Blitzing the streets" indeed. That's football, you child, not the hard work and real planning it takes to make a difference.

What Inquisiton made THIS GUY the authority on anything.......

2010-01-15T00:05:00.022-05:00

You know, when Katrina hit and loudmouth fundamentalists started to spout that crap about how the horrific hurricane was God's judgment on the sinful city of New Orleans, I thought nothing would ever make me that angry again. I was wrong.

Pat Robertson topped it with his pronouncement that Haiti suffered a 7.0 earthquake that killed an estimated 50,000 people BECAUSE (note that word) BECAUSE........

the island of Haiti 'made a pact with Satan.'

I ask you, when bad things happen... when catastrophe strikes CHRISTIANS, why is it they say God is testing them or they're suffering like Job, or 'the Lord works in mysterious ways'....but when it happens to other people

it's because they are evil and God is punishing them?

Doesn't this sound a wee bit skewed to you?

The scary part is that these Christian television personalities are watched by millions of frightened tell me what to think sheep-people.. and darned if they don't believe it! And repeat it. Everywhere now, I'm hearing that the Haitian's long history of voodoo and satanism (from which they had to be SCARED STRAIGHT) is the reason why God decided to kill them wholesale. No kidding! Churches this Sunday will preach it and the congregations sitting out front will firmly believe that GOD PUNISHED THE EVIL HAITIANS BECAUSE OF THEIR CLOSE TIES TO THE DEVIL.

How dare they presume to know a motivation for a natural event. The cause of this disaster is directly linked to geology-- not even remotely to theology--- and our existance is, for the most part, random.... and all the frenzied faith in the world will not add one more second to life or prevent hellacious, natural disasters. The only thing we do have control over is our own behavior and attitudes, and we can either embrace and love one another or condemn and finger-point, thereby creating far more dangerous shifting rifts than those in the earth's own tectonic plates.

How dare they continue to deny science. HOW DARE THEY be so unloving as to imply these people caused the earth to rise up and swallow them WHOLE.

(They're lovin' it though.....these disasters and the fear they create...

FEAR is power.)

Fear is MONEY and power. (Just ask the federal government. Ask them how valuable the threat of terrorism is in contolling the flow of BIG MONEY and the populace as a whole.)

This kind of thinking is not religion, it's a holy-rollin' snake show.

(And if that pointed hat fella above is the best that Jesus has to offer, no wonder his fan club is fading)....BUT DON'T FOR A MINUTE BELIEVE IT. He's had some bad promoters is all.

Like Pat Robertson.

The truth is no one knows why these things happen when or where they do... any more than we can say why people who have never smoked end up with lung cancer. The BIG question for fundamentalist Christians everywhere, is this: if death returns us to the Lord, why fear it so much? Why all those prayer chains when someone is seriously ill, and the biggest question of all: why allow such a hateful and presumptuous statement to come out of the mouth of one of your high-profile leaders, and why o why would you believe such a vicious ugly pronouncement?

No, no......let me guess....

the devil made you do it.

Afghanistan....the pea under the mattress

2009-11-22T20:51:00.006-05:00

You may wonder why I've been so silent on this blog recently. Primarily it's the total disappointment in this administration doing nothing different about the BIGGEST issue we have- which is NOT healthcare... it is our continuation of the Bush/Cheney policies in a part of the world so unbelievably unstable, that every step we take brings us closer to disaster.

We were WRONG to invade Iraq. We continue to be wrong in keeping- and especically in sending more troops into a fight that's been wrong from the start. Any fool can see we accomplish nothing by our actions but the production of more hatred, more terrorists-- and weaken this country's moral stance. I will say this now: the use of drones to take out terrorists is immoral. As long as we kill innocent bystanders with this method, this type of fighting is unnacceptable and it has to stop. Period.

Afghanistan is the pea under the mattress in this presidency.

Nothing will rest easy until we withdraw our troops-- hand the situation over to the CIA and other special, well-trained forces-- and allow them to fight gorilla-style terrorism one terrorist at a time, taking out the real monsters up close and personal.

There should NEVER have been 'boots on the ground' in that part of the world. It doesn't work. It never has.

It never will.

To continue is madness. As long as we deploy an already exhausted, demoralized fighting force into the Middle East, we waste human life, weaken our overall ability to defend ourselves, and erode an already wasted economy.

Nothing will do, but GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT.

Two wrongs do not make a right, and it's time to completely topple the way we think about combating terrorism.

Soldiers pouring into a terrain that's defeated every army that's ever entered it-- drones killing civilians-- deploying more troops-- is utter insanity.

End it. Now.

"Hallowed", John Latschar.....remember?

2009-10-23T23:41:00.009-04:00

Just when you think you've heard everything....you realize you haven't at all... not by a long shot.

The fella above had THE plum job within the National Park Service. That's John Latschar up above-- and until today, and for the past 15 years, he's served as superintendent of the hallowed ground Lincoln spoke of so eloquently nearly 150 years ago ---and it's a place dear to my heart.

I've watched the changes brought about under his stewardship with a mixture of dismay, alarm, and sometimes (surprisingly) with approval. There is no question that his fifteen year tenure has been 'lively', to say the least-- but what has this bonehead gone and done now? Why is he pictured above as a counterpart to the mythical figure who sold his soul to the devil?

Just take a look at THIS. How stupid (or arrogant) does one have to be to think that having over 3,000 pornographic pictures on a government-owned computer would be an o.k. thing? Any file clerk knows you don't do this stuff at work! Holy crap!

Were these stored images, downloaded and saved... or was this melon-head merely too dumb to wipe his cookies, his TEMPORARY files and his history clean as most folks know how to do (or should) on their home computers?

Look, I don't care WHAT the man was looking at, but I damn well DO CARE about WHERE he was doing it... and pulling down $145,000.00 a year while getting his workday jollies.

Even his demotion to a new 'desk job' in Frederick, Maryland will not bring a cent less to his salary. (Yep. He gets the same take-home pay, even after trailing Gettysburg through mud in the media with his lame-brained antics at work)-- and insufferable pride like that just really, really pisses me off. It's the kind of entitlement that says, "Don't be ridiculous. I'm DOCTOR John Latschar...I rub elbows with politicians and captains of industry. I am LEGEND. I do as I please."

No John, you don't.

If anything, you were subject to more scrutiny, and in fact were held to a higher standard because of the place you hung your hat every day--- your 'office' was part of the public trust, and one of the most wounded, sacred places in our national history and YOU, mister, you made it a punchline joke around the water cooler.

You've dishonored something you were charged to preserve. You failed, John.

And in the most embarrassing way possible. Have the decency to just apologize and fade quickly from view.

(And take a pay cut, buddy. You know you deserve it.)

Loud-Mouthed Loather....(a racist by any other name)

2009-09-11T06:27:00.007-04:00

See that deplorable behavior in the U.S. Senate as South Carolina's Joe Wilson stabs the air and shouts, "YOU LIE!"-- right there in the Senate while being addressed by the President of the United States? Has such a nadir of ignorant, juvenile behavior ever been shown before? I can't remember any like incident in my 58 years on this earth.

You may say the heated debate over health care allowed it....I say no. I say it's the same 'lynch 'em' attitude that's been showing up in Town Hall Meetings all over the country, and it extends into the (supposedly) buttoned-down decorum of Washington itself.

Fired up by a maddened constituency that has been whipped into frenzy by bigots and racists all over the country, particularly in southern states where that 'old time religion', racism, has never really disappeared, it simply held its tongue and bit it till it bled.

The white man does not want the black man "telling him what to do, goddammit, I'll tell you what!" (All this, of course, is being puppeted and used by rich guys behind the scenes, but the dumbasses don't know it. Hell, they think it's another firing on Ft. Sumpter, ferchrissakes.)

SHAME ON YOU, JOE WILSON.

YOU'RE AN ASS. A LOUDMOUTHED BOOR....who's become a 'hero' to those who want that 'uppity N*gger' OUT of the big house... shining shoes and doing the Bo Jangles shuffle.... don't think we don't know it. You can wear 2,000 dollar suits and college ties, but a bigot is a bigot is a bigot, and I can only hope that kind of volcanic anger might cause you to stroke out, you insufferable ignoramus.

I do hope this country doesn't get what it deserves, but rather what we dream when we're feeling fully human... compassionate and kind: fair treatment for ALL people. Health care for those who need it with everybody doing their share, paying their share to bring it about. Health is NOT about profit. It never should have been.

ADDENDUM TO THIS POST:
"I need your help now, (Wilson) said, soliciting donations.

Miller already has raised more money in the past two days than the roughly $625,000 he spent for his last campaign.

The health care industry — among South Carolina's largest economic sectors — has traditionally been his top contributor. His top 20 career donors include the American Hospital Association, the Lexington Medical Center and the American Dental Association, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

- In 2003, Wilson called it "unseemly" and a "smear" for the mixed-race daughter of Sen. Strom Thurmond, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, to identify the longtime South Carolina senator as her father after his death.

- As a state senator, he was an outspoken opponent of efforts to remove the Confederate flag from atop the South Carolina Statehouse.

The facts don't lie.

Look at the picture this man paints ... the people he 'represents'.

I feel ill.

The System WORKS!

2009-08-27T12:20:00.003-04:00

The long travesty is over.

By jiminey......JUSTICE PREVAILED!!

Cyril.....WHERE will you turn up next?

2009-08-26T17:54:00.010-04:00

The Robertino DeAngelis trial is now going on here in Pittsburgh. Guess who the accused 'expert witness' happens to be? Yep. Dr. Cyril Wecht is testifying about the 'fine points of hammer wielding'.

The doctor doesn't believe, in his 'expert' opinion, that the victim was hit with a hammer. The blows would have been more severe, says he.

(Or the accused was just a lousy assailant and the victim too fast, says me.)

Or...what the hell.....if not a hammer, I really don't give a damn. A ROCK, BRASS KNUCKLES, A PIPE....WHO THE HELL CARES? Is this a game of "Clue" for cripes sakes? "I'll say....Roberto DeAngelis....with a hammer.....by the trolley tracks." "No. Sorry."

"That's the wrong weapon. Mr. DeAngelis skates free on a minor charge of 'assault and battery', not the attempted f_cking murder Grand Prize we could have given him, except for this niggling little problem with the hammer. Guess the girl and the community loses."

Now why does it not surprise me in the least that Cyril Wecht has shown up in this media circus?

Kennedy assassination....Jon Benet Ramsey...rubbing elbows with Geraldo Rivera.....in other words, attach the media-- and a good sized price tag to it, the ass is there.

(That 'weapon-slinging' defendant's defense team must have on one BIG DAMN BUDGET! Wow!)

Lest we forget, folks............this is the same Cyril Wecht who gave 'expert testimony' in the ALIEN AUTOPSY hoax film back in 1995

I think it's important to bear that in mind.

So...

an interrupted crime in which the young man flees and throws himself in front of an oncoming trolley, grazed by the 'cow-catcher', suffering a broken wrist (sounds more like he thought he could beat the trolley across the tracks and get away)-

so this-- 'accused'-- whose backpack that day contained "in addition to the separately recovered hammer/alleged murder weapon– duct tape, box cutter and a large knife among other items" - (this sound like school stuff to you?)- well this young man is now being championed by well-paid, media heat-seeking missile, Doctor Cyril Wecht.

And the good doctor has set the record straight.

The good doctor thinks a hammer was not the weapon used.

And to this I say-

'WHO THE F_CK CARES what he hit her with? HE HIT HER, INTENDED GROSS HARM' -(or death) -and I want this out-of-control son of parents who can afford the likes of celebrity Wecht sentenced for the crime he was caught committing!

What's so hard about that???

Kick 'em When They're Down

2009-08-25T18:16:00.006-04:00

1,800 MISTAKES?? It seems nearly two thousand veterans received letters falsely informing them that they have Lou Gehrig's disease...ALS...amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. MY GOD!!

How could such a HUGE error happen? Can you even imagine the panic of those vets opening their mail?

I want to know how such an error of RIDICULOUS proportions happened in the first place. One erroneous letter I could understand...a 'mouse click'- and a wrong name is selected from a drop-down menu. These things occur all the time in electronic data entry....but ....

1,800? Makes one mighty skittish about electronic medical record-keeping, doesn't it? ) Because you know it's gonna be blamed on a computer/sorting/etc.etc. 'malfunction'...but always, always, it's the monkeys pushing the buttons without controls in place to double check, that causes this stuff.

(It's just that this one.....well......given what our VA Affairs are going through with over-stretching of budgets and personnel, trying to manage the physically and emotionally maimed of this LOOOOOOOOONG, almost ten year nightmare in the Middle East... this current SNAFU is just intolerable.)

Makes me wanna punch something.

Big Mouths........What Are They Up To?

2009-08-13T17:24:00.008-04:00

So the health care town hall meetings are being disrupted by loud mouthed protesters and armies of 'plants' from groups like those Tea Party numbskulls who just hate hate hate this new America with its black president and his evil plans to euthanize old folks and scrape the wombs of all the unwanted babies that God put on this earth to LIVE LIVE LIVE ( regardless of whether or not they'll regret it, seeing that they're being birthed by folks who don't want 'em). They're alive, and therefore part of God's plan (unlike Iraqi babies and Afghan babies we mistakenly bomb every day of the week, so I guess the rules change from timezone to timezone.)

My question is.........WHERE THE HELL WERE ALL YOU LOUD MOUTHS WHEN BUSH WAS MARCHING US OFF TO WAR?? Where was the social unrest when it would have meant something?

(Oh, that's right...Bush was a REPUBLICAN president, and therefore followed..therefore 'believed'.)

Even when it's proven he lied, it seems Republicans have short memories, and they like their "values" protected.

AMERICA FIRST! LAST.... (AND MAKE THAT A HARD RIGHT.)

What are they afraid of by letting the Democrats speak? Why do they need to shout so much?

Shouting gets in the way of thinking and listening and understanding. It's the same as an airhorn blaring overtop of an orchestra so you can't hear the music worth a damn, and for my money, any folks that scared of simple diaglogue are scared shitless. (And who, I wonder, is behind that curtain? Well, lookie here! It's a pack of drug companies.) It's CORPORATE.... BIG MONEY, ESTABLISHED health care giants and their well-paid lobbyists.

And the people who are allowing these self-serving bastards to sway them and scare them.....they're the shouters.

They're the morons who are too STUPID to realize we've had rationed health care since the HMO'S got control of things and set up rules like 'pre-existing conditions' and 'non-covered services'...if your eyes are good enough to read the fine, fine print in your healthcare manual, their game is deny, deny, deny......and if THAT isn't rationed, limited health care, then what is?

Their Medicare and Medicaid programs are SUBSIDIZED by our Medicare dollars and taxes. The govenment is paying for roughly 3/4 of all health care right now, but what is not happening is regulation in a responsible way that guarantees healthcare the way the laws should have been written. Why do health insurance carriers have such HUGE CORPORATE buildings? It certainly isn't because they act responsibly with the money they make.. WAKE UP FOLKS! --WE ALREADY GOT IT.

Now let's make it behave.

Ah Oh....Here it comes......

2009-08-08T08:03:00.006-04:00

News article this morning (another one - newspapers love nothing better than a rocking tragedy to soup up circulation) about one of the victims of the LA Fitness shooting. Headline says 'Victim Worried About How She Will Pay Her Bills'...(anyone else see the unwritten word, 'DONATIONS' here?)

It seems this young woman has no health insurance.

It seems that she - (unlike any of the thousands who suffer from accidents they were not responsible for, such as being nailed by a drunk driver) merits this headline in the local paper.

My question is: being unemployed....owing student loans... why in hell would someone be in a commercial gym that charges (on average) 30 bucks a month, and in many cases, nearly a thousand for a year's membership in the first place? (Maybe she was there on one of the many many 'free passes' you say?) Those passes are lures, and they wouldn't give them out if folks who shouldn't be making that financial commitment, end up doing it anyway.

Why would a newspaper print this as a headlined article unless it felt it might drum up a 'fund' of some kind and further perpetuate this story -- maybe get a couple more articles out of this violent episode.. boost circulation, garner some more online hits. And why would this young woman give this story to the media unless she was hoping for financial assistance in the form of checks from little old ladies and sympathetic types who feel the need to be doing something about such a horrible event.

Funds for fallen policemen for instance, I understand fully. Those fellows were risking their lives for each and every one of us - and their deaths result in families with no means of support after they are gone - so yes, we do owe that. In fact, it should be an obligation.

But from all angles, this hysteria in this society (if you've read the entry below) is highly predictable...preventable...and its causes are rooted in a culture that devotes itself to hedonistic pursuits of every stripe.

As long as we're more concerned with the surface of things, the bottom falls out and disasters happen. I can't be clearer than that.

Look Around. What Do You See? Hear...Take In... Help to CREATE?

2009-08-07T19:06:00.011-04:00

By this time, we've all had our fill of a vengeful, angry little twerp who shot up a room in a coed gym because he thought he was entitled to women and couldn't get any. And why not?

Doesn't this culture preach licentiousness?

Satiation on demand?

Don't we pride ourselves on a lack of patience by having our technology and our cellphones at our ears every moment? Access to the internet on our I-phones rife with texting and dating sites? Meet up places everywhere where anything goes... with the freedom to flirt and tease and bare it all in places like Facebook and MySpace?

Don't we join Fitness Centers where folks can ogle one another, not realizing that the angry little twerps might just be there as well, their freedom to ogle and seethe, unimpeded?

Are we ready to admit this is a culturally systemic problem, and the only wonder is that this sort of acting out doesn't happen more often?

I saw this picture in the local news. Flowers and balloons and tribute for the victims....and a pair of the shortest running shorts being worn front and center.

(Yeah. I'm probably gonna get a lot of flack for that, but people, think.)

What messages are being sent?

If you care about exercise, what's wrong with a women's health club? Why parade around in a place for both sexes if you're not looking for dates? What about the all the NUTS the internet is creating, sitting and stewing like some sort of 'Taxi Driver' characters and waiting till the voices in their brains get persistent enough so they decide to do something about missing out on some imagined gravy train that's plastered all OVER the TV, the net, music videos, commericals?

Think about it. Don't sell yourself cheap. These things happen....

can happen, anywhere. Just think about what you participate in and what you help to create, even subconsciously... and what messages are being sent. Am I saying 'they were asking for it?' No. Not at all. But be mindful...because that's exactly what the nuts will think.

Sometimes......it's a matter of life and death.

P.S.- As to the perp's online diary, anyone who give credence to one word of that thing is a damn fool. I have never in my life read such an evil pack of lies meant to hurt and malign all those he had a grudge against. He knew online media. He knew this stuff would create a buzz and circulate and recirculate, damaging all those he hated in life, long after he was gone. Dismiss it.

It's one hundred percent, unadulterated bullshit.

"You meen I Hafta Give It Baaaaack?"

2009-07-21T18:33:00.007-04:00

So Sarah has been socking away her own legal defense fund and calling it the "ALASKA FUND TRUST"......(no, Sarah. You are NOT a state, honey....and Russia is that big blob to your left. You know...the big colored part after all the blue.)

Last week Sarah ran a WEBATHON and raised $130,000.00 in contributions.

Is it to help pay for healthcare for children with special needs? Shelters for the homeless? Repaving roads? Throwing up a wall to keep those commies out??

No, it was called the ALASKA FUND TRUST, even though Sarah is not a state, and Sarah would be the only one to benefit from said fund, using it to pay off lawyers.

Give back the money, girl.

Try a bake sale.

How about a big charity event selling up home recipes for a nice, loose-bound 'MOOSEKILL COOKBOOK'? That's a great 'Mom Thing' to do. (i.e.- "Step One: Grab your carbine! Step Two: STALK! Step Three: SHOOT EM UP! COOK EM UP! SERVE EM UP!")

(Oh, we'll be hearing more from little Sarah...that's a given.) She was runner-up in a beauty contest, runner-up in a presidential race... but by gum, that little lady ain't no quitter. Next stop:

ASTRONAUT.

can TOO type.....so THERE!

2009-07-12T04:24:00.006-04:00

You know, so often in the past I've found Maureen Dowd to be an irritant, but her column today had me laughing out loud. The last line is one of those choice moments you want to hang onto like the drink that finally makes you high. LOL!!!

And to Bristol, Willow, Trip, Track, Clack and Twig....your mother wears army boots

(you poor kids.)

Deja Vu. Mariani Ring A Bell?

2009-07-09T07:22:00.004-04:00

This unbelievable verdict caught my eye yesterday. Never thought I'd see it. How awful for the victims

but how very predictable the outcome. The name of the judge? Yep.

Mariani.

Too Far In The Other Direction

2009-07-06T17:23:00.010-04:00

Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter.....is this any way to gauge the world, to collect unverified images.. gossip... short films and photos submitted by Joe Blow and Suzie NoOne and broadcast them worldwide IMMEDIATELY?

What it creates is raw reaction and mostly EMOTIONAL response, and it's very, very dangerous... and listen up, folks....it can be used like any propaganda, because until it's veted, that's what it is.

Communication is critical... but cacophony... and the potential to spam bomb the world in order to turn the tide this way or that while hoping for a desired result, is like releasing information that will become the last man in crack-the-whip, and it's very, very dangerous territory. Did you ever play 'Telephone'? Did you ever pass along stories and are later appalled to see how they tend to morph or augment with each telling?

Any bloody image can be used for manipulation. (Yes. I'm talking about Neda.)

Anyone can put ANY tag they want on ANY photo and claim it's gospel because nothing is verified.

The race is ON to snap that first shot and post it in the ether, sit back and watch how many hits it gets.

Nothing is veted in the least, and that's why professional newsmen have always been (and will always be-- valuable.) They report. They do not color or interject personal opinion-- and all photo shots sent to editors are checked against fact. Articles are kept to pure reporting of news only, and that is why newspapers- both in print and online, SEPARATE their news from their opinion columns.

But in the Twitter world, all things are equal, and everyone races the clock to get the first word out.

Remember this: the first word is not the last word... and seeing is NOT believing- or shouldn't be- until it's checked out because it's not the whole picture, just a little- often sensational bitty part of it. I see this savvy Blackberry, iPhone age as potentially deadly unless something is done about verifying what is put out there. There should be a step between 'shoot and post'.

Don't IMMEDIATELY REACT to what you see or read. Consider the source... the possible intent...and try to gather all available, verifiable information before you begin to go ballistic and simply join the mob.

The world has enough hotheads and enough people with personal (or national) agendas to swing opinion this way or that via photos or personal accounts.

A GRAIN OF SALT, folks.

Always.

And Now.....for my NEXT NUMBER....

2009-07-04T22:31:00.008-04:00

So Palin is stepping down as governor of the Seward's Folly state. A "quitter", you may ask? Well, to hear Sarah tell it, she's going for the greater glory of this great nation of ours, which as you know, deserves more than it's gotten thus far and so on and so forth, there ya' go....(but folks...that lady in my opinion, is two heartbeats ahead of the posse.)

And Sarah has a Facebook account? Sarah can type? Glory be! Who'd a thunk it?

What makes anyone think the lady who brought glamor to the presidential race and little else- (other than a 'circus act' kind of entertainment) could possibly be presidential candidate material for 2012?

It would take a whole lot of remedial reading, and a mountain of Cliff Notes to get this airhead up to speed.

Let's see.......she loves God, loves country, loves her family, likes to shoot and go sledding, likes to come in first in contests of any kind......yep. That's about it.

Trading on her looks at 45 years of age- well, that won't last forever. Too bad the race isn't sooner....we all like to see a nice turn of ankle and a masterfully made-up face...a little spitfire of a hellion out there duking it out with her betters, but time's a wastin'. That 'slutty stewardess look' (as David Letterman dubbed it) won't last forever.

Soon there will only the shrew... the barracuda left... even with lipstick.

Of course there will still be her diehard supporters... the pie-bake crowd, the churchgoers and the right-to-lifer's out there carrying her around like some sort of Lady of Guadelupe, but I think that crowd is going to thin in the next 3 1/2 years. It didn't work the first time around, and the second time will be all re-tread, no grip.

So what is Sarah doing, baling ship now? Getting her new act together, her new duds

and colorful though I'm sure it will be, it's all fluff and ruffles....that dog won't hunt. (It's mighty fast getting out of the briars, though...fluffy tail high and bouncing... just steps ahead of the posse.)

Mark my words....there's something ugly on the horizon that hasn't shown itself yet. Something big.

And it'll have 'SARAH' written all over it.

Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis

2009-07-03T05:38:00.008-04:00

'Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalisis' is a bag of shit.

Everyone knows it

but the
Vatican.

The recent news of papal investigations into religious life is nothing more than this pope's arrogant wielding of medieval precepts in the face of modern realities, but pope don't care....he got the Keys of St. Peter...

and he'll be as anachronistic, hard-nosed as he likes. Ladies should know their place.... right under his feet.

'Mouthpieces' who support it are too brain-washed to realize this.

'Poverty, chastity and OBEDIENCE'........but the greatest of these is OBEDIENCE....click heels and heil.

Ja wohl!

This papacy is the FOURTH REICH, but one good thing...this fella's already an old, old man. Unlike his PREDECESSOR who ruled for nearly thirty years to bring about the undoing of Vatican II, this old goat was brought in to be "the closer". One can only hope enough Catholics flee so there's not much 'kingdom' left to bully. (That would be the sweetest answer to this new, repressive nonsense.)

Snooty Talk

2009-06-30T16:59:00.008-04:00

Maybe it's just me, but I swear there are buzzwords circulating out there that drive me absolutely insane, and whenever I hear them, it's like nails on a blackboard; mainly because their overuse renders an effect just the opposite of their intent- "I am ED-U-CATED, I know whereof I speak" -so they come across as trite, are too oft-repeated, and, well -- yes --'hackneyed as hell'.

Some time ago in my other blog, I complained about the first word that had that effect on me--- "notion".

Listen to any NPR interview and you will hear the word used repeatedly in place of the more usual "idea". Ideas are not ideas anymore....they're not good enough....they are notions to those in the know.

'Notion' is the bar that's raised between a mere 'high school education'... and... 'college... and beyond'.

(I swear, once you become aware of it, it's EVERYWHERE, and yes, it will drive you nuts as well. LOL!!)

Lately I've become aware of an even more irritating repetition. What makes this one truly galling, is that its use is superfluous in any sentence where it appears because it's never needed! It can be omitted entirely everywhere it's used ...(and used, and used.)

Anyone guess it yet?

You'll hear it most often in political interviews, in those question and answer sessions. (I suppose it's fallout from the opacity of the Bush years, and our race to distance ourselves from anything cloaked and murky.) Guess it yet?

Oh, Lord....(groan)....here it is: "clearly". You will hear the word 'clearly' over and over again, often in the same paragraph! You'll hear-- "Clearly, our objective in Iraq has been..." or-- "That seems to be the present conception, but clearly (pause...comma) there is need for..." over and over, that hideous, unnecessary word whose very ommission from a statement would be the best choice.

People.........if it's clear...... you don't need to say it!

O.K. Rant done. It's just one of those festering things bothering me without my realizing it....

until it did.

Today.

NPR.

On the way home in the car.

When I finally started screaming.

Pilgrim Ken, The Father of American Political Assassination

2009-06-25T17:25:00.007-04:00

It must be 'heritage'.

It's gotta be our long social and political hangover from our forebears as they set foot on this 'godless' land, and brought with them all the stiffened trappings of Puritanism....

and it trails right over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house, and right up to the foot of Capital Hill.

However austere and lovely this well-known George Broughton painting, or how beloved - let's face it: those folks are formidably self-righteousness with no shyness whatsoever about condemning others, and especially about sexual misconduct. That's the American Achilles heel.

It explains a lot.

So when you want a person booted, that's the particular arrow you choose from your quiver and let fly, and you don't even need reporters...Twitter and Facebook (et al) will find it as fast as dogs will find ground beef left on the counter, and before you know it, we're knee deep in bloody meat.

Remember this guy?

Remember the Summer of Shame... 1998?

I've been thinking a lot about that period in our history since yesterday when the Sanford scandal broke, and how enraged I was at that time by Kenneth Starr's behavior.....MUCH more so than President Clinton's. That bulldog Starr was bound and determined to bring down the presidency and by damned, if it took a lurid scandal to do it, one that would make us appear utterly ridiculous in the eyes of the rest of the world as we greedily gobbled up every crumb of semen-stained detail, then by god that's what he'd do because he knew....... THAT'S WHAT WORKS!

I still bristle at the image of that man, and at the memory of his rabid witch-hunt that began with the failed Whitewater that came to naught, right up to the successful 'National Enquirer story' that brought what he wanted: a vanquished president. And Bill Clinton was a great president -- well-liked and intelligent to boot. Something the Republican machine could not stand.

But the difference is that America (for once) was able to bypass his personal life and elect him anyway. We knew all about his infidelities - and so did his wife- no hypocrisy there- and the man got elected... WONDER OF WONDERS!

The Old Guard was incensed! It put Ken into action, and we did the rest.

And the whole world laughed at our 'Pilgrim sticking out'- and rightfully so.

These two newest sexual scandals do not shock me, only the hypocrisy shown by both men. (Yes, Clinton lied once cornered, but he was asked to answer a question nobody had any business asking in the first place- and after two long years of constant pounding and picking and improper scrutiny. Hell ... I would've lied at that point myself.)

Just as John Edward's became hideous MOST OF ALL because of the image he put out there of faithful husband and guardian of family values while he was busy sleeping with (and possibly impregnating) that glory-hound of a 'campaign consultant'...it's the LIES, GUYS. Not the act itself. Make 'fidelity and family values' the mainstay of your political message, and it will devour you if you are not who you profess to be: if that's your message, you'd better be prepared to live it.

In this country, the ACT ITSELF is all that's needed to strip the paint off the car and send it to the pound. Lawyers know that.

Politicians know that.

Why don't we?

I submit it's because we've been programmed this way from the time the Mayflower docked. We're lascivious, judgmental, gossip-spreading pilgrims at heart, and sometimes we make the horrifying mistake of giving all our power and attention to old Rodger Chillingsworth up there....

I re-read an excellent article from 'Salon' today, written at the end of the Lewinsky business just before the impeachment proceedings. (That's what this current posting sprang from... along with the idea of Kenneth Starr as henchman-prototype.) This quote stood out:

"And so the Clinton/Starr drama came full circle.... Kenneth Starr was finally able to get his man. Like Roger Chillingworth, the vengeful moralist who relentlessly pursued the adulterous Hester Prynne and her lover, the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," Starr branded Clinton with the scarlet "I" -- for impeachment."

Absolutely. Read it. It's part of our past that's spilled over into these present messes, and we continue to trail it like a string of tin cans because Starr showed us how...

he was the first.

A House Divided (or two men): The Saga of Sanford and Ensign

2009-06-24T19:07:00.007-04:00

Ever notice how two halves of a person's face taken separately will often show more of the truth than the whole of it together?

Lookie here at Governor Mark Sanford...(yep. That one.) The one who disappeared into the Appalachian Trail and ended up in ~~Chile~~ ~~Brazil~~ Argentina (via Appalachia)- on Father's Day. The strange disappearance that ended up being pretty damn cliché if you ask me. Another 'son of righteousness' found in his own fouled mess. And here's the sad side. The penitent

and I do believe he is sad. Deeply sad.

It's the motivation for the sadness I might call into question. Dashed hopes for a presidential bid....public embarrassment....humiliation of self, wife, sons....(the almost certain call for resignation from his governor's post??)

The man is sad, there is no doubt.

But look at the other half of this two-faced fella'....

THERE'S OUR BOY!

Savvy, practiced, confident. (Doubtless a very good liar.) Here's a quote about what this governor has said in the past: "...Governor Sanford also talks about faith in the public square and the virtues related to spending restraint."

(Sexual restraint is obviously not on the table here.) Those cards are well-hidden. Do I really give a crap if South Carolina's Governor Sanford cheated?

No. I couldn't care less.

But what DOES tick me off is that both he and another high-profile Republican senator were both loudly condemning of Clinton during his White House debacle, and they both spout the Bible whenever and wherever possible, and they were both 'outted' in the same week! (Don't for a minute think these public announcements came merely from troubled conscience. We know better than that. When the evidence was there or the blackmail got too scary, up they jumped like two choirboys caught smoking behind the church.)

Governor Sanford in a recent interview:

"The Bible talks about the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. There ought to be certain things that are clearly observable by your actions."

{{{{{{{sigh}}}}}}}

Haven't we all had enough of public servants in high positions glibly quoting scripture, only to have it revealed they live an entirely different sort of private life from what their public pronouncements would suggest?

Republican Senator Ensign of Nevada is more typical in his boyish, prematurely white styled hair and GQ appearance. (Let's face it. That guy LOOKS like a 'player')...one can easily imagine him embroiled in some seedy long-term secret affair with a co-worker.

But his Christian credentials 'appear' to be impeccable....

"Ensign is an evangelical Christian... He has participated in mass rallies conducted by the Promise Keepers, a men-only Christian group, and during his four years as a congressman had a 100 percent voter approval record from the Christian Coalition."

How many more are going to surface? This has to be a new record...this is a 'twofer'- two in a week!

Mark my words.......when the cork is too tight, somethin's gonna blow!"... every time.....same modus operandi. Same profiles. Same split personas.

They would have been better served by paying attention to Matthew 7.

7:13 -Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat

7:14 -Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

7:15 -Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

(Maybe they were sleeping during that particular reading.)

Update: Cogs In The Machine

2009-06-14T14:25:00.007-04:00

As to the water meter debacle, the 'system' won out. I did hear back from the PUC (Pennsylvania Utilities Commission) and received a xeroxed copy of a list of statutes that basically say: water companies can damn well do as they please and yes...they can terminate service if you don't comply.

So I called to schedule a day for the water company to come out- (had to argue with the surly girl on the line because she had an old phone number for my account)-took the day off work and yes, the fella showed up and replaced the meter.

He tested it first. Said the "wheels are turning, so it's working"- but still swapped it out for a spanking new one. I'll let you know if I see any difference in my next bill. Other than a surcharge for 'new equipment'- I don't see how anything will read differently. Much ado about nothing.

No one however, can convince me those notices weren't triggered by a sudden drop in water consumption, and much lower bills. All the xeroxed lists in the world won't do that. (And no--- THERE WAS NOTHING ON THERE about a '20 year mandate to change meters'.) I guess that would fall under, 'the water service can, at any time, for any reason, request entry into the home to service their equipment'. Yah. That'd cover it.

(And yes, my work piled up on Wednesday when I stayed home to wait for their service man.... Horribly.) As reward to myself for all the aggravation -and since I was already behind anyway- I took Friday off as well for a day trip. Fukkit. I was already behind the eight ball due to the greedy, bullying utility company. Nuthin' to lose...

UPDATE: The first bill paid after the new meter. Total? $9.10 LOL!!! (I think they shoulda left well enough alone) .... but there are NO NEW EQUIPMENT CHARGES. That's a relief. Seems I did a lot of barking for no good reason.....so far. If things change, I'll let ya know.

Pennsylvania American Water Company Threatens SHUT OFF

2009-06-04T18:30:00.020-04:00

Do you have a dripping faucet? Did you know that a faucet that leaks 60 drops per minute can add up to 192 gallons per month?

What about a toilet that runs CONSTANTLY....what about a hot water heater that had been leaking onto the basement floor for two years? That was me... last year.

Each month it crept up a bit: 60... then 80 dollars... then the whopper bill in November.

That was the night I decided the running commode had to be fixed. I managed to 'break the whole flush-mechanism, turned off the water to the toilet-- and since that time, I've resorted to 'bucket flushes'. (It's proven to be marvelously econonmical.)

Then in December, my long term leak from the hotwater heater in the basement became a tank break on Christmas Eve, so I replaced it. ... dry basement. No more leakage.

Now......with all that as background...how about a water bill back in November and before these changes, that totaled $106.00 for ONE MONTH for one person who works outside the HOME five days a week!!!

After 'bucket flushes' and a new hotwater tank, my bills began to drop....dramatically, and most are now under 20.00 per month! SO WHAT HAPPENED??? Why am I complaining? DOESN'T THIS STORY HAVE A HAPPY ENDING??? AM I NOT LEAVING A MORE REASONABLE AND SMALLER CARBON FOOTPRINT ON THIS PLANET??

(Of course not.)

Starting in March 2009, I received a notice from my water utility company: Pennsylvania American Water Company. "We are required to change water meters every twenty (20) years. Please call our customer service center within the next five days..." blah, blah. That made no sense to me--- unless....AH HAH!! my dramatic cutback in usage led them to believe someone had tampered with my meter, or that it wasn't functioning properly. (In common terms, "THEY WEREN'T GETTING EXHORBITANT PAYOLA ANYMORE")-- and I believe my account was flagged. I've never heard of a 20 year rule in regard to water meter replacement, and no, I never called them.

The first week of May, a second notice. Today, a FINAL NOTICE demanding I call their office within 5 days or "if you do not respond to this request within 5 days we will be forced to take action to discontinue your service." I ask you- does this sound Kosher to you?

I just this evening filed a complaint through their customer service department online. I also filed a complaint with the PENNSYLVANIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION reiterating all I've said above. My bills have always been paid on time. There were no 'alarms raised' when my usage went UP...no, no flags raised there. Only when usage dropped like a stone-- and with it, their revenue from this account.

PLEASE, PLEASE....IF ANYONE, AND IN PARTICULAR, ANYONE FROM PENNSYLVANIA WITH PENNSYLVANIA AMERICAN WATER COMPANY as their provider, and you've received these notices after a huge drop in consumption as well --please email me at the email given here under my profile for Blogger. I'd like to see how widespread this problem might be.....

To my mind, it's downright criminal to threaten to turn off water on a fully paid account simply because the customer does not want (or NEED) to take time off from work to allow a perfectly functional meter to be swapped out.

OUTRAGEOUS. I'd like to get a class action thing going if possible, so comment here or email. I've grown tired of their harassment- and now.. a threat to cut off service.

As they say, "There oughta be a law." I'll let you know how this thing plays out. Mad as hell, I am.

NOTE: Just had another thought.....and it's about the cost of a new water meter. Now who pays for that I wonder???

New water meters run about $2,000.00 and it's a cost passed on to the consumer- (even though in every other business when it becomes necessary to replace equipment, the company assumes that financial burden because it's part of doing business) -but with the water company, that cost is prorated each month as part of a customer's bill. Here in Pennsylvania, I believe that's about 3.4% each billing cycle. Pretty sweet, right???

Tell me what's wrong with this picture? Anything suspicious going on to your mind? I think this raises all kinds of red flags.

Take this as an analogy: if you'd take your car for an inspection and it's functioning fine, but the dealer insists you need new brakes simply because they have a rule somewhere that everyone HAS TO get new brakes at your particular milage, would that not piss you off? This is the same thing. Unnecessary replacement. And the consumer bears the cost.

One Of The Things I Love About Hispanics...

2009-05-07T05:14:00.007-04:00

Father Alberto Cutie (yes, that's his name) has gone on the lam-- no forwarding address, after a tabloid rag published candid photos of this 40 year old priest romping with a pretty brunette in suggestive poses.

This looks like an attractive, healthy male to me. He's popular. He's bright. He's effective in his duties and participated in panels geared toward how to minister to the Hispanic population. He served his south Florida parish well-- and his parishioners love him.

And because of some opportunistic photographer, he's now been stripped of his post and sent to the hinterlands- his website nothing more than an 'apology' to those who were 'hurt' by his actions.

I ask you: just who the hell was hurt-- other than the perfectly pressed cassocks of the Church itself? The argument that he violated his vow of celibacy seems laughable in a church RIFE with sexual scandal--- most of which involves the abuse of children.

I've said it time and again: to free the Catholic Church from this ongoing problem of priests abusing children, OPEN THE FUCKING DOORS by doing away with the archaic idea of celibacy. It was added by the church in the Middle Ages so that it need not support the families of married priests. GET RID OF IT. That's a no-brainer.

But because this church is cycling backwards, celibacy is once more a hot issue.....but not for the Hispanic parishioners, who still love and support this young priest. Here's what they have to say on the matter:

Near the church at 6th St. and Lennox Ave., several parishioners played a game of dominos and scoffed at what the Archdiocese of Miami found to be very disturbing.

"He's a very good man, a very good man, that's it," said Orestes Molina. "I don't care how many ladies he has."

"I just don't care about these photos," said Molina. "It's my opinion. How much did he sell these pictures for?"

"For me, I believe in Father Cutie," said another parishioner, Magdalena Olivera. "It could be him in the pictures, but I believe in him. Like Jesus said, that's nothing. He's a good priest. He worked hard for the young people. How come they're not coming back right now to show their support?"

That is the proper response to this nonsense. Those people are realistic, big-hearted and absolutely correct. Hispanics, all. I love their unflappable earthiness. They realize there's nothing to forgive because sin involves hurting another human being, not violating an outdated tenet that in the long run has hurt all of us by it's very unnaturalness. So VIVA!- parishioners of St. Francis De Sales parish of Miami Beach. Here is this man's record. Read it and weep. What a colossal, stupid loss.

Judge Anthony Mariani is a MORON!

2009-04-23T18:06:00.013-04:00

WTF???? A teen with "explosive anger disorder"- known to have punched his mother and father, to have threatened to burn down the family home- and on October 31st, 2007 the now 17 year old Robertino DeAngelis, attacked his former girlfriend with A HAMMER and would have KILLED HER, had it not been for the intervention of a passing good Samaritan.

READ ABOUT IT HERE. Does that sound like a 'juvenile offender' to you? Does that sound like someone who deserves to have his criminal history EXPUNGED on his 21st birthday, able to walk the neighborhoods around you, free as a bird.......this rabid thing?

Have we learned NOTHING from the prior behavioral history of Poplawski? Do We not know how to protect ourselves? More to the point, does Judge Anthony Mariani HAVE THE RIGHT to release this sort of out-of-control offender BACK into the population, slap on the wrist, no record of his wrong-doing on his 21st birthday? How LONG do we have to wait to have this sort of fella "rehabilitated"?

Let me tell you how long......this is one sick F*CK, and his brain is functioning differently than yours or mine. No, Robertino-- not even with a hammer could sense be knocked into you: you are mentally ill. You committed a heinous crime and yes, you should be held accountable as an adult, crazy offender for your attempted homicide.

I don't want to be reading about you four years from now, having done your worst.

Your near-worst has been horrible enough.

The offender, well--- he's nuts. He has no concept of self-control. The judge??? Well he's irresponsible, and has not taken his duty to keep us all safe to heart, and yes, for that reason, I believe he's a danger to others- and therefore....(yep)

NUTS.

Ongoing Insufferable Arrogance

2009-04-11T08:21:00.005-04:00

One day after the funeral and public memorial service, THIS lunacy unfolds.

Listen to this catalog of personality traits: oppositional disorder - lack of remorse - failure to curb impulses - explosive anger - disrespect and defiance of authority........

sounds like the shooter, doesn't it?

As I said, NURTURE over NATURE. Simple as that.

Makes one wonder... what IS in that house?

I don't for a minute buy the explanation of 'personal items, medical records, insurance records' and the like. How many unfortunate folks ousted from their homes due to natural disasters survive and go on? Medical information is jointly held by the medical facilities and the physicians who treat patients. Insurance companies have sufficient information in their own files to satisfy proof of coverage, etc. None of these reasons make sense. The only motive is defiance fueled by histrionic personality: there is no excuse for this kind of disrespect, it's simply insufferable.

I'd say the violent murders of three peace officers was a very unnatural disaster- and that right now that home is uninhabitable, off limits- and evidence.

What computer hard drives, letters -- perhaps even signs of collusion might be pieced together to show that this disfunctional, dangerous family had MORE than sufficient foreknowledge of what was to transpire? I am very suspicious of anything this family does. The murders were heinous. The conduct of this family unit during and since--- has been absolutely horrifying.

You Decide.....

2009-04-07T17:58:00.013-04:00

I am flabbergasted at the family's response to this Pittsburgh shooting horror story. Read this to get an idea of what I'm talking about. It's full of the quotes from family members- grandmother aunt, the mother- (who continues to complain about the way she and her son have been 'presented' since Saturday morning's cold-blooded execution of 3 police officers) - and frankly--- I have never been as convinced that it's nurture over nature.

You decide. No one is putting an editorial spin on this- this is fury, full gale. My God.....what a scary family. All of this, while this city is in mourning and preparing for three funerals. Unbelievable.

Note: It's been released that the 911 operator did not convey that when asked if there were weapons in the house, the mother very calmly had answered, "Yes. All legal."

My heart goes out to that poor unfortunate operator: this was critical information to be sure.

But in all honesty, I think that a police statement given by the mother after the shootings, of prior knowledge of 'stockpiling weapons'- and in particular the possession of an AK-47, a .357 Magnum, a shotgun- in a home situation out-of-control enough to call for a person's removal from the home, might have warranted more than a 'qualified mention'.

Terrific article written by Tony Norman in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It smartly puts things into focus and reminds us of just how hollow current arguments against gun control actually are, and how very pathetic and dangerous false machismo can be when the impotent and the angry pick up those arms and begin shooting.

The Dangerous, Humming Center of Chaos

2009-04-04T22:19:00.017-04:00

Too many massacres. Too many goddamned GUNS in this country are being gripped in the unstable, angry hands of nuts who find the pressures of change and economic unrest together- too much to bear. These nuts are shooting people!

Yesterday in Binghamton New York 13 hopeful, industrious immigrants trying to find a new life, learn the language, are murdered by ANOTHER immigrant who'd recently lost his job.

Today in Pittsburgh, three police officers putting their lives on the line to answer a domestic call placed by a mother in distress because her son was out of control, are shot-- one, two, three by the nut's AK-47 rifle as they approached the door. A 22 year old trouble-maker (expelled from school, dishonorable discharge from the Marines, other run-ins with the police and who (yes)....."recently lost his job")...and this young criminal was concerned because 'Obama was going to take his guns away.'

(Heavens! That would have been a tragedy...a violation of his constitutonal RIGHTS, wouldn't it??) The mother screamed, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY SON??"- as officers finally cuffed him after a four hour standoff. Does anyone else hear how ludicrous that sounds? Who summoned the police in the first place, lady? Who responded at the end of their shift because a citizen placed a distress call to 911? Does anyone else see the backasswards logic in her concern about her FUCKING SON'S CONDITION???

You know since the election, I've heard morons talking about buying more guns so they can protect themselves against racial violence that is sure to come about because a black man became president. (Funny how the only people shooting in these horrifying incidents are CRAZY WHITES- the boo-hooing, disappointed conservative thinkers whose narrow definitions of freedom and patriotism haven't crossed the bridge from Bush-- to someone with new approaches to our problems. Someone who actually embodies hope for a change- not nation-building.)

And now these people are losing their jobs... whose fault is that?? The NEW president? Or the OLD one who ran this country into the ground...who allowed the rich to ride roughshod over our livelihoods and pension plans......who got us into a war we can't get out of.....who fucked us every way but Sunday, but was a 'goddamn flag waver. A "true American". A WHITE MAN, by damned, and one who was saved to boot!'

I am sickened, literally sickened by ignorance and by blind prejudice; by the conviction of those who will cling to anything that points and says, "THAT THERE, IS THE BAD GUY. OVER THERE...THAT'S WHAT YOU NEED TO BE AFRAID OF." I'm so very sick of it.

And that mother today...........your son is a stone-cold killer. That he survived at all, given the fact that the men who arrested him had to step across the bodies of three fellow officers killed in cold blood......you should be ashamed...very ashamed. Those men came to your door because you called for help.

I grieve for all the victims of yesterday and today-- and I defy anyone to give me one good reason why anyone needs more guns in this day and age when the trigger-fingers of so many frustrated tripwire personalities are itching to make their disapproval known in gunpowder and in blood... any sane person would see that GUNS are the last thing we need.

UPDATE: This really takes the cake.....reported this morning: Shooter's mother called local newspaper "to complain about the newspaper's coverage of the shootings and threaten a lawsuit. She demanded that the newspaper stop publishing information about her and her son, saying the reporting thus far was not factual and should be limited to the officers and their grieving families.

"You're going to have the biggest lawsuit in the history of the city of Pittsburgh," she later told a reporter.

This speaks volumes. I repeat, "You should be ashamed of yourself"...(oh yes, the quote from the mother is now gone from all online news sites. Son used bullets. The mother, lawyers.)

More on this later today. I am fuming. One thought: Might it not have been prudent to mention the list of guns to the police when the call was made? You know.... saying the son was "stockpiling guns and ammunition, buying and selling the weapons online"... because revealing this after the fact did not save lives, now did it? If I were a family member of the deceased, I'd be suing the MOTHER for withholding critical information when the 911 call was placed.

Well!.....

2009-03-17T18:13:00.012-04:00

...SOMEbody's certainly being a pig!

and it's time we put our foot down.

Otherwise...these BIG, GODLIKE creatures, hell...they always end up eating their own young, don't they? There's no appetitite too ghastly.

Here's the suggestions from Barney Frank, among others:

- We own 'em now. We say "no".

-"Do like the Japanese. Bow politely, say you're sorry, and commit suicide."

-Make AIG pay the money back....with 35 percent interest.

Whatever the solution, these incompetents cannot be rewarded. It's plain wrong-headed. It makes us all look like fools...and while we were letting them pull the wool over our eyes, we were...... buying Ipods and gossiping about Britney

but now we know.
This must be undone.

Any Imbecile Should Be Able To Understand.....

2009-03-15T20:05:00.007-04:00

What's so difficult about understanding that BAIL OUT MONEY is BORROWED money, NOT to be used for extraneous fluff such as promised bonuses to the hooligans and snake oil salesmen who drove us into this mess to begin with?

The argument that the bonuses were part of 'legal contracts' signed early last year, has nothing to do with the fact that the parties responsible for selling CRAP should now be somehow 'entitled' to hand-out money from taxpayers that was designated for use in shoring up tottering financial institutions.

These bank executives convinced their scalawag bosses that they were 'bringing home the bacon' - and the asshole bosses signed off on sweet bonus packages, but I'd say that since their shenanigans resulted in the bottom falling out of the marketplace- and HUGE DEBT for those same bosses, that should be enough for any reasonable person to cancel said bonuses, no matter HOW MUCH LEGALESE is flung out there. What's so hard to understand here? If the contracts were made BEFORE they received TARP funds, then I say the BONUSES must come from funds OUTSIDE the bail out money, even if those bosses have to sell their homes to meet what they insist are 'legal obligations.'

What I find MUCH more interesting....is how many big banks are now suddenly announcing they are 'doing better than they'd expected recently'- and would NOT be needing more TARP funds. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Might it not be that it's the talk of tighter regulations for those self-same banks taking TARP funding that has them a bit more reluctant to allow government to become more tightly enmeshed in what goes on with their books and their business? I'll just bet the news that "the administration will force A.I.G. to eventually repay the cost of the bonuses to the taxpayers as part of the agreement with the firm, which is being restructured" has those thieves pissing their pants right about now.

The prospect of someone actually monitoring these institutions, making them accountable, must have raised blood pressure all along Wall Street. LOL!!! (I still think there has to be legal means to call those bonuses back-- it's only common sense, ferchrissakes. They didn't deliver.....they BURIED those firms.)

But I have an interest now. You do too. We're part OWNERS, after all. Must make 'em furious. The words of the hour are OVERSIGHT, OVERSIGHT, OVERSIGHT......and, my God... DUE DILIGENCE.

It's like GROUND HOG DAY for BIG, LOUD FAT HEAD

2009-03-11T17:33:00.005-04:00

It's baaaaaaaack...

and it's LOUD and angry and as repulsive as ever.....only worse-looking. Fatter..louder... and pissed as hell the Democrats won the election... and it's stumbling around, blowing its pie hole... and honest to God, the Repubicans have gone retro

Remember 1995? This cover? Before the oxycontin scandal... and before he made fun of Michael J. Fox by saying he was exaggerating his Parkinson's symptoms in Fox's public plea for stem cell research.....remember this guy? The tub of lard who's gone through 3 wives so far-- the last two- a college student 'usherette'at the Kansas City Royals Stadium Club and a 35 year old aerobics instructor? (Money and notoriety, friends, will work wonders for being considered 'matrimonial material'. Good grief!)

I suppose for those frustrated Republicans who like to sit around in their college ties and reminisce about the good old days of fleecing America, they might get a tad misty-eyed seeing old Rush at the bully-pulpit once again and getting national notice, but I can't help but think this fatboy's reappearance on the national stage does nothing so much as trigger the creepiness one feels when a George Romero film starts and those dead things start rising....

...yep, it's Tombstone territory, alright. Creepy as shit.

P.S.- Hey! Peter Ingestad, Sweden.......NO SPAM HERE, YOU HOT DOG!

Scramble For A New Identity

2009-02-24T18:24:00.013-05:00

Ever since the McCain/Palin ticket tanked and the GOP found itself out on its ear, there has been shifting ground. Mark My Words: we'll be seeing a parade of 'dusky', 'non-white minorities'-- and more women being courted by the same behemoth political machine that back in the 80's seized upon religion to grab votes. But now, the big old bullmoose elephant is nursing a broken tusk....

...for the time being.

Oh, you better believe they're crunching numbers-- and they see the American demographics changing from 'white, male' to 'non-white', and maybe even 'non-male'-- and being the crafty sons of bitches they are, they'll be foisting many a face that's a tad south of tan in the coming four years. Hell, they've already recruited what they consider to be their best shot-

That's right- Rhodes scholar, Louisianna governor Bobby Jindal. ("Hey look! He's non-white! He's smart...maybe we can use him!")-- and the courtship's begun.

Most distressing to me is the OTHER new kid on the block....black South Carolina Senator Robert Ford. Here he is, passing out his petition to make it a state law to commemorate the CONFEDERACY as a paid holiday be signed onto the books so Southerners can better 'appreciate their heritage'. (Why not a day to celebrate Jim Crow laws....the Ku Klux Klan?? ... that's southern history too.) CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? LOL!!!

And LOOK! --he's passing his leaflets out to fella's in wheelchairs. Oh, that's rich....another demographic to woo.....'disabled Americans'. Gotta be millions of 'em.

When will folks learn that Republicans wedding themselves to causes like the 'Religious Right' was simply grist for the mill and a way to get a groundswell growing for VOTES, and that once those votes had secured Republican control of government, it was only the RICH WHITE GUYS - most of 'em AS HEATHEN AS THEY COME, who kept making the big bucks while raping the economy practically to death. (Ah, but she was askin' for it, right?)

During the Bush presidency there was lip-service-only, and photo ops... and soundbytes given to 'GOD AND COUNTRY', all well-used by the Republican party: no conviction at all. (If there had been, we wouldn't have such disparity between the rich and the have-nots in this country... so the church mice were duped...and a lot poorer now as well.)

My thoughts are that the only true believer was Bush himself-- a born-again alcoholic whose sobriety is held intact with slogans and the personal walk he once took with Jesus and Billy Graham: The Power of Three. (Cheney and his ilk secretly laughed at him-- just as the powers-that-be privately snickered at their assembled 'Christian advisory panels', but use them they did)- and the full force of the mindless Reborn Army followed wheresoever they pointed, and that was wherever 'abortion' or same-sex marriage raised its godless head.

Look. Here's the thing. President Obama just happens to be black. The key points that assured him the presidency were his talents as a negotiator who listens to opposing viewpoints, and the fact that he's more of a centrist than anything else, and someone who will not further divide us. (But the chief reason is that he's bright as hell, and THAT'S why he was elected, you morons.)

The man made sense when nobody else did. He inspired confidence by force of character while Republicans were falling to personal scandals and the disillusionment of a country that had seen too many years of Republican monarchy strung together. Quite simply: we chose the guy least likely to let us sink, and we knew that in our hearts.

So go ahead and revamp yourselves by stupidly copying the obvious, racking up non-white politicians and totally missing the point.

You guys are good at that. The difference is that now we know it. We're ready for ya.

Broken ...and Another Sign of the Times

2009-02-19T04:50:00.014-05:00

Well, well, well....it seems the rich guys are finding it harder and harder to hide their ill-gotten gains. Swiss bank accounts used by the filthy rich as safe harbors from the IRS are handing over names, and the government is kicking ass. Another sign of the changing times, perhaps?

And it's about time, fellas.

While so many are going down for the third time because of a system built on bleeding the little guy and protecting and pampering the fat cats, it's high time that thecarcass-pickers pay up. (Go ahead and read that linked article. It'll put a big old smile on your face.)

This new development reminds me of how infuriated I'd been when I read an excellent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette during the height of the bloodiest year of the war in Iraq, when a news correspondent questioned a person of obvious means whose front yard was decked out in American flags and slogans, if her own son was serving in the military. The woman answered with a dismissiveness that implied the reporter must have taken leave of his senses- "Well, no. We don't do that."

Just like taxes.

Not paying the proper tax is something the upper crust has gotten away with for as long as I can remember-- but times are certainly changing and "it's a good thing" (as Martha Stewart is wont to say)-- indeed it is. We're all in one boat......and there's a new captain......and EVERYBODY ROWS.

Taking Out The Garbage

2009-01-23T04:52:00.017-05:00

Forget Bush...this is the guy we needed to boot. Bush was a Howdy Doody puppet for this monster, and even if the intellectually challenged rich boy didn't know it himself, Cheney was the 'voice behind the curtain'. Always. With Bush as front man.

This blog has been mostly silent for a while because I've been anticipating the changing of the guard and feeling mighty happy about it. Just since Tuesday, those changes are already happening.

You may recall my rage at this story from back in July. Read it, and then read this one from just this morning. (And note, the toll is now eighteen, not sixteen. Two more have perished since I blogged that. My God.) Is the fact that the second story appears now just coincidence? I don't think so. I think the house of cards is falling at last...I think the military is finally able to speak out. I think that finally, finally the chokehold of the Vice-President's office has been loosened, and I believe we will see more of this sort of story in the coming weeks and months.

We have pointed a finger at the immoral and dangerous connection between Dick Cheney and his financial interests in Halliburton and KBR for YEARS, and it's been dismissed. This information from various sources on the net has floated out there like pond scum for nearly a decade-

KBR, Inc. - (Kellogg Brown & Root) NYSE: KBR is an American engineering and construction company, formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton, based in Houston. After Halliburton acquired Dresser Industries in 1998, Dresser's engineering subsidiary, The M. W. Kellogg Co., was merged with Halliburton's construction subsidiary, Brown & Root, to form Kellogg Brown & Root. KBR and its predecessors have won many contracts with the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

KBR is the largest non-union construction company in the United States.

In March 2008, the Boston Globe reported that KBR had avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands. More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies, Service Employers International Inc., and Overseas Administrative Services, which exist on the island only in computer files in an office. KBR acknowledged that the companies were set up "in order to allow us to reduce certain tax obligations of the company and its employees." But KBR does claim the workers as its own with regards to the legal immunity extended to employers working in Iraq. A new piece of legislation may halt KBR's use of the Cayman subsidiaries.

Pretty goddamned infuritating, isn't it? And this article, from a story in THE GUARDIAN from 2004:

Mr. Cheney has not severed his links with Halliburton. Last year, he received $178,437 in deferred compensation from the company.

Reports suggest that the process of awarding contracts has changed under the Bush administration. A report to the House of Representatives committee on government reform last week noted that $107bn in contracts had been awarded without open competition. Nearly three-quarters of those exclusive arrangements - worth about $88bn - involved work in Iraq, the report said. Halliburton has won a sizeable share of them.

The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, helped to steer through a huge contract for the reconstruction of Iraq's oil industry on behalf of his old firm, Halliburton, Time magazine reported yesterday.

Mr. Cheney, who ran Halliburton for five years before he became George Bush's vice-president in 2000, has maintained that he severed all links to the company when he entered public life.

However, Time said it had obtained an internal email from a Pentagon official indicating that Mr Cheney's office had been intimately involved in awarding a multibillion-dollar contract for the restoration of Iraqi oil.

It's way past time for a thorough house-cleaning. Too bad so many lives were sacrificed while this Nero fiddled and Rome burned. In my world, this man would be stripped of his wealth, and it would be distributed to the widows and orphans of the Iraq War-- Americans, as well as the the families of innocent Iraqi deaths. No matter how you look at it, this man's fortune is blood money, and oh, he'll hang onto it. I sincerely hope it's cursed.

[postscript here: Well LOOKIE, LOOKIE, who should show up in my visitors log today, but these fellers

IP Address 34.102.204.218

Country United States

Region Texas

City Houston

ISP Halliburton Company]

(Must have their sniffers out there all the time, sweeping, sweeping the net. Damage control unit. Have to be the busiest sons-of-bitches anywhere. The lying and murdering fucks.)

O Hideous Night.....

2008-12-26T10:04:00.005-05:00

A Los Angeles man horrified the world by dressing as Santa, showing up at the door of his ex-wife's parents, pulling a gun on the eight year old child who answered the door, and shooting her in the face.

He then began firing into the 30 guests assembled for a Christmas Eve party and finally, he took the device he'd disguised inside what looked like a wrapped present- which was actually an incendiary fluid - which he sprayed around the house, igniting it. He left- shed his Santa Claus togs and drove to his brother's house, where he took his own life. (Too bad he didn't perform his act backwards.) Stories of this nature are always terrifying, but throw in the Christmas trappings- the impersonation of one of the jolliest, most benign myths children share everywhere- you have truly, the nightmare before Christmas. The toll of dead inside the burned home now stands at nine. I guess that means there could be more...good lord!

The people who knew this man described him as pleasant, friendly- an usher in his Catholic church- and harboring the kind of evil most people never come in contact with in a lifetime. What unbelievable hatred must have hidden itself inside this undetected criminal. Another scary story. Another Christmas horrow show. It seems in the last few years-- the shootings at a mall last year, the man who opened fire in the Crystal Cathedral a few years back-- these are becoming the norm. It certainly doesn't remove the shock when we hear of them, but their frequency does make one question the ability of mankind to celebrate joyfully and peacefully at least once a year as brethren. For the truly lost, this seems to be the time of year many of them choose to come out of hiding and begin their killing sprees. Again......how gigantic their hatred must be.

God bless us, everyone. And keep us safe.

Man's Most Abused "Friend"

2008-12-06T20:52:00.004-05:00

With all the horrors in the world, why bother with a mention of the kinds of torture we subject animals to...some folks would say that....and they would be dead wrong. I believe cherishing life extends to all living things, and the ones we bring into our homes should be given warmth, safety, care...and yes, love. There was a very disturbing story in the local news that concerned a house with 40 pitbulls, many injured and obviously chewed by other dogs. Dog-fighting parephrenalia was found, and although some neighbors attest to the fact that the man who lives there is a 'lover of animals'-- those horrid conditions tell a very different story.

Who could be so cruel as to watch animals fight to the death, and place bets on that kind of bloodsport? Additionally, there was a dog found decaptiated and skinned on property in the Pittsburgh area. Who- other than the depraved- would do such a thing?

See, that's what happens when folks begin to think in terms of "it's only an animal", and from that frame of reference it's so very easy to begin to think, "it's only a hobo"- "it's only an old woman"- it's only, it's only, its only.

The gradual slipping into the degradation and the use of people often begins with those critters that have no speech, no 'rights'. Life is a circle. Breathing, feeling pain, wanting acceptance and comfort- these things include every living thing. Every one......and nothing is an 'only'.

The Hatred Boutique

2008-11-21T00:28:00.008-05:00

The mindset starts early. Get 'em while they're young. Stick a picture of Jeb Stuart on the wall......'the South will rise again'. Take two trees and make a cross.

Burn it.

Have a look at this chilling photo-essay from Mother Jones.

It's something to turn the blood cold. I've heard more racist remarks, more hatred disguised as humor since the election of November 4th, and it's absolutely critical to keep the awareness of that sort of poison in the forefront, before the treacherous stuff becomes just another part of the landscape.

We need to be vigilant.

All over America, there are crazy-assed "Ms. Ruth's" out there, praising Jesus and stitching up sheets-- clinging to their backasswards view of the righteousness of their cause.

The only way to combat prejudice is to prove it wrong.

America is made of Latinos - Blacks - Whites - Native Americans -- offspring of every nation on earth -- and I prefer the term 'United States' because there's not much left of the term 'America' that hasn't been sullied, especially in these last eight years, and moreso now - as the hatemongers are acting out at their ugliest. (And don't think the Republicans aren't using that to their advantage....it's why the southern states vote RED...it's part and parcel of the old machine that's been so recently ground to a halt) and BELIEVE ME, those folks are PISSED OFF!

Be vigilant.

Be careful out there..... but do not suffer fools...not one spoonful of their brainwashed pap. Call 'em out. Do it loudly and consistently, and by damned, we'll eventually become more than we've ever been before. Certainly more loving and all-inclusive- and that really taps their beer barrels, doesn't it? When there's social strata there's always a bottom rung, so folks work real hard not to be it.

Bullshit. No strata. Open arms, open minds......open hearts, folks. That's what this election has been about. Do your part to bring hope to its fruition, and do not suffer the fools one iota. Do not laugh at a joke that's offensive. Do not forward emails that reek of racism. Look at that picture above, because that's how it starts, folks... in small ways, deadly to the spirit.

Remember the song "Happy Talk" from the musical ' South Pacific'..."you have to be carefully taught"?
Help the unlearning.

Dark Ages Returneth....

2008-11-14T11:37:00.009-05:00

A priest in South Carolina is advising his parishioners to stay away from Holy Communion if they voted for Barak Obama. What incredible horseshit.

Are we returning to the backward, steeped in condemnation dark ages of the church?

I'm afraid so. (Yet another reason why I find it impossible to call myself a Catholic.) Since the death of John XXIII, the Roman Catholic church has been making an inexorable retreat away from the opened windows of that sweet and brilliant man. Back to exclusivity, elitism. Back to a church of SIN, SIN, SIN-- hardly anything of the brotherhood and ecumenism he tried to bring about, and which actually succeeded in the early 1960's for far too short a time.

Rev. Jay Scott Newman..........you, sir, are a horse's ass.

Don't be FOOLED.....

2008-11-11T18:51:00.008-05:00

There's a new bitch in town.....

have any of you seen this?

This thing has infected some machines at work, and it's a DEVIL to clean out. DON'T CLICK ON THE THING. It's NOT a real antivirus program, and no, your computer is NOT THE HOST to the 39, 47, 51-- trojans and viruses their 'bogus scan' (that starts on its own) is reporting your have... you're looking at only one......and THAT SCREEN IS IT.

God, I'd love to drag those malware hawkers out and tar and feather them. Fear tactics-- and even impersonating Google's OWN SITE to try and get you to believe that Google is recommending you BUY this malicious program. (That's what it is, folks. A sales pitch. It'll take you to a screen that asks that you fork over $49.95 to buy their 'protection'.)

You can read about it
here.

There are plenty of fixes, but here's how it gets you-

"Antivirus 2009 is a new rogue anti-spyware program. It is also a clone of Antivirus 2008 - also a rogue, and one that's produced more clones than any other recently. The list of these clones is long: System Antivirus 2008, Ultimate Antivirus 2008, Vista Antivirus 2008, XP Antivirus 2008 etc.

Like any other of its predecessors, Antivirus2009 uses trojans, such as Zlob or Vundo, to spread. These trojans lurk in porn/warez websites disguised as video codecs, and, upon entering the system, floods the user with popups and fake system notifications, supposedly to inform him of an infection. While the system at hand may indeed be infected, Antivirus 2009 will inform the user of this regardless of whether it's true or not. The point of this disinformation is to convince the user he is infected and therefore needs an antispyware program to dispose of the threat. The user might click on one of the popups or notifications, all of which claim they will take him to a legitimate security tool, but try to make him purchase Antivirus2009's "licensed version" instead. Antivirus2009 may redirect web browser to webscannertoolsDOTcom, googlescanners-360DOTcom, livesecurityinfoDOTcom, bestantivirusscanDOTcom, antivirus-bestDOTcom, internetquarantinesiteDOTcom, premiumlivescanDOTcom and secureclick1DOTcom websites that sell the malware. Some of these website are not only fraudulent, but they are also malicious. They are capable of installing additional malwares.

Antivirus 2009 is a scam and should be treated as such: do NOT download or buy it and block its websites using your HOSTS file."

Be smart out there. Don't fall for this crap, or you'll spend all day trying to get your browser page back and dodging pop-ups. It's truly a mess once it gets into your system: just remember that 'official-looking' shield-- and the name- "Antivirus 2009"- son of Antivirus 2008-- which skunked a lot of folks with their initial version.

Surf smart. Is porn really worth it? (Ha. Well, now at least you can see what it does to your brain once it gets in there. Yep. Pop-up hell, always wanting more more more! Invasive, demanding, infective, damaging.) Soul-killers: spam and porn. I think it's a pretty good illustraton, don't you?

For Once, I'm JOYOUS

2008-11-04T18:44:00.005-05:00

Today is election day...

and my joy runneth over.

In fact, I've already chosen my 'gladrags' to begin dancing in the streets! (The "O's" are for OBAMA.)

There is nothing to bitch about today. Today-- after eight years of shame, I am proud of this country. Proud of the way we've been turning out-- standing in lines, no violence-- and dirty tricks at a minimum thus far.

I think we've finally got a shot at truly becoming an amalgam of all races, all creeds-- one voice -- able to show a more compassionate, rational and decent face to the world.

This is the Day Of Jubilee, people. No matter what happens at the end of this, I'm proud of us. All day long I've been tearing up by reading the personal remarks of voters. All day long I have been reading about people being happy and feeling responsible, empowered to take part in the making of history- and I'm so joyous to see the slumbering awake and begin to make noise, to take this to a mandate if possible.

(Oh, and the lovely woven metal garment above? That wondrous creation was made by artist
Susan McGehee.) Click on her name. Go on......pick something out for yourself. It's time for a big ol' celebration, folks, and God bless us, every one.

Second Scariest Words Ever Spoken....

2008-10-14T19:46:00.005-04:00

On being interviewed by KDKA on Troopergate....

"No abuse of power there at all."

Second only to

"Mission Accomplished."

I'm seeing another Bush.

This time with a uterus, aren't you?

Clueless,

certain,

completely out of touch

.....and never wrong.

Halloween .....and Its 'Haters'

2008-10-14T18:28:00.006-04:00

What would you call this type of Christian theatrics?

"Every Halloween, Evangelical churches all across America stage haunted houses that replace the traditional ghosts and ghouls with real depictions of evil: high school cheerleaders getting abortions, gay men dying of AIDS, and secular humanists sipping lattes. It'll scare the Jesus into you!"

No...... that would appall the Prince of Peace. Believe me, he would take his cat-o-nine-tails to this kind of mean-spirited, 'fear-as-salvation' type of gory and upsetting shock theater.

What is wrong with these people? I'm still pissed off from years ago when my own children were small, and one Charismatic family in the school raised such a fuss about Halloween that we had to change our annual Halloween costume party to a bland and sanctimonious 'Fall Festival' in which only Raggety Ann costumes and Little Orphan Annie types were allowed: nothing even marginally demonic....nothing that Satan would approve of.........

give me a fricking break!

Well, here's a News Flash for that family and its MANY, MANY children who hid in their basement no doubt praying the rosary and speaking in tongues every All Hallow's Eve with the lights out (no kidding) cowering in fright.........and the current assemblers all over the U.S. who put together versions of this propagandist Grande Guiginol each year....

It's ugly. Period.

(And I suspect... just a wee bit pathological.)

No Mistake

2008-10-12T13:53:00.007-04:00

There's been so much going on with the banks and debates- and I've been following it all- hypnotized like one of the children of Hamelin following the news piper, but yesterday when I read about the ballot "mistake", I saw red. It was the one news story that stopped me in my tracks and made me good and angry.

How can this be a simple typo....

OSAMA? What bullshit. That was printed on absentee ballots in the state of New York, and what does the accompanying news story say about it?

"Hundreds of absentee ballots sent to voters in New York State's Rensselaer County, near Albany, were printed with Barack Obama's last name spelled as "Osama," the Albany Times Union reports.

County elections officials tell the newspaper that it was a typo that made it by three rounds of proof-readers. They also said the error affected just a few hundred voters, and that they will re-send corrected ballots on request."

'On request'? That's infuriating. (I suppose if voting Democratic in the presidential election, the ones who don't request a new ballot will have their vote thrown out - because there isn't a Barak Osama running- and the only Osama we know has been in hiding for the past eight years.)

This is dirty politics at its ugliest. Corner a rat and you'll see just how vicious it can be.

The party in power is seeing its eight years of imperialistic sway slowly beginning to topple, and nothing-- not even shouts from the crowd of 'Kill him!'- when making a patently false connection of Barak Obama with domestic terrorists, will make them behave civilly. They play dirty. That ridiculous ballot was not a mistype, it is slander meant to mislead and rile, and I'd take that step further and call it a Hate Crime.

I want to see the good old boy 'Amurica' of the Bush era- an administration that was more a regime than a presidency, motivated primarily by fear and ruled by sleight of hand, a thing of the past. I want democracy in more than 'name only'. I hope to see America once again with sound common sense and decency, and arms big enough to include everyone in the legacy our earliest framers had in mind when they sat in Philadelphia and crafted their vision into words.

We have to call out hatred and prejudice of this kind. A mistake like this one is simply not allowed, and cannot be tolerated.

Not once.

Why Can't We See It?

2008-09-23T20:42:00.009-04:00

I read a very upsetting story two days ago in the Post-Gazette about a woman who moved from Pennsylvania to California after the murder of her three children,all under the age of 10, at the hands of her estranged husband who then turned the gun on himself. How does anyone ever get over such a thing?

They were in a child custody battle as their divorce proceedings were heating up and they'd been separated for three months, with the wife living with her sister at the time of the tragedy. In cases like these I always think that the children were never anything more than possessions to the murdering spouse-- pawns to be shifted about, withheld, or swept off the board altogether in one furious move. How awful. How unforgiveable....it's the worst thing imaginable to me.

The telling thing in this case is that the husband had changed life insurance beneficiaries three days before the murders, naming an 'undisclosed' party as the recipient. The wife is now trying to get a law passed that makes it mandatory that persons be informed when there is a change of beneficiary.

I'd like to take that a step further and make it mandatory that a person be told when someone TAKES OUT a large insurance policy on their life, and that the beneficiary be named. Too many murders happen because of greed. How often have we heard these same scenarios, so it's way past time for a change.

I wonder too-- how people with such horrible impulses pass as normal in this society? Did she have an inkling what a monster she was leaving when she left him and took her children? They were murdered on a weekend when they were in his care, and no, I don't think she knew: the mother would not have allowed it if she'd had even a hint that he was capable of that kind of atrocity-- so it's just really, really scary to me that the inside of some people's heads writhe with who knows what unspeakable thoughts. Christ. Isn't it frightening? If you want to read more about the case, and how the lady is coping with her fractured life, read the story here in the article itself. You poor, brave lady...God help you.

A New Credo....

2008-09-17T21:24:00.005-04:00

"I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America

and to the REPUBLICAN,

for which it stands,

one nation under Capitalism-- with Liberties

seen as 'Justice' for the Rich Man."

Yah....tthat sounds more truthful.

For more big truths, pay a visit to this essay by polemicist
Tim Wise

The man truly is.

And that too, is the truth.

Blameless?

2008-09-10T16:55:00.018-04:00

First, let me set this up.

In one of Pittsburgh's wealthiest suburbs, a young girl WAS RAPED AT SCHOOL, and the incident has been bouncing around now since February.

Since the time when the original story broke, other students have come forward with the same charge against the same student, who happened to be a freshman at the high school- and now there is a law suit against the school district. Yesterday, this story appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Here's some background on the school itself: Upper St. Clair High School sits atop a well -manicured rise in a suburban township whose MEDIAN INCOME is $87,500.00

"Upper St. Clair High School was substantially remodeled in 2000 under former superintendent Dr. William Pope. This renovation replaced much of the school's aging building, replaced most of its mechanical systems, improved the school's aesthetic appeal and allowed for many technological advancements such as widespread Internet access. The renovations improved the facilities, allowing for a professional sized theater, 2 full sized gymnasiums, weight room, and even a racquetball court......" and on and on, ad nauseam.

What is NOT mentioned, is that 'apparently'- knowledge of troubled students in this picture-perfect setting is pushed under the emerald sod of its rolling lawns; that it just wouldn't due to have such a scandal dropped at its door, now would it? Such bad publicity might just hurt its reputation, which does boast "that 98% of the students who graduate from Upper St. Clair High School go on to further their education at a college."

Isn't that nice?

Let's see now....... in this model 'dream school', a school which sub-contracts its behavioral intervention personnel, students suffer sexual assault by a known student-assailant. The intervention mediary, who is also a teacher, now claims 'blamelessness' because 'technically'-- she was not an actual employee of the school district. (That sound about right to you?)

And if the school district, which is now busy explaining why nothing was done after the attack by stating they'd informed the mediary, and said 'intervention specialist' submits she cannot be held accountable, then who is? The architect who designed the stairwells? The raped students- for not knowing better than to roam around in such a rambling building with so many adults around them shirking off whatever they can of supervision?-- are we to take for granted that stairwells in and of themselves are dangerous, is that it?-- and if the school farms out its mental health watchdog to a subcontracted agency, where does that leave accountability when a rogue predator is operating during school hours? Does everybody who normally would be held responsible simply get a pass?

Who' GETS' the blame when everyone looks the other way? Why didn't anyone pick up a phone and call the police? Did they truly think because the rapist was a 'minor', that no criminal act had been committed? That in-school suspension might fix things? Are they that stupid?

Or were they that frightened of exposure?

And honestly, knowing this particular socio-economic neighborhood, this wouldn't be surprising. My instincts tell me that there are more lawyers per capita in Upper St. Clair than most other suburbs surrounding Pittsburgh proper, and those fellas are very slippery: after all, if the rape victim sues the school district and WINS, who foots the bill?

That's right. The Upper St. Clair taxpayers...out of their earned income taxes, which then translate into school taxes.

The parents of other students (who doubtless are doing very well... very well indeed) and who are anxious to get on with things and get into good universities on the basis of "where they come from" (and for heaven's sake, who wants to say they've graduated from Upper St. Clair High School if.......well, you know....it's a safe harbor for rapists)- if it's a place where it's really tough to say 'what's anybody's fault' or even who's minding the store, and if the brag factor- and ultimately, the money and the prospects factor, sinks down to inner-city level-

or 'Chalkboard Jungle'? Upper St. Clair.
Yah..... that one. Creepy, isn't it?

I don't know what collection of parties or chain-of-command was responsible for allowing the rape of these young students to go unpunished, and doubtless the powers-that-be would simply like to see the bad apple carted off to a place for youthful offenders to pay for his crimes...... but I think not. In any situation where minors are being cared-for and watched over and (supposedly) supervised by adults, it's those over-21-year-olds who must be left holding the bag.

And for God's sake, try appearing a little contrite, you lawyering-up, measuring-every-word, despicable bunch of face-savers.

Pants On Fire......

2008-09-07T19:16:00.012-04:00

Now that the initial dust has settled, the confetti has fallen to the ground, and the circus people are pushing brooms, cleaning up the park....Barak Obama is finally squaring off against some of the outrageous untruths spouted by the Republican VP candidate.

"I know the governor of Alaska has been saying she's change, and that's great," Obama said. "She's a skillful politician. But, you know, when you've been taking all these earmarks when it's convenient, and then suddenly you're the champion anti-earmark person, that's not change. Come on! I mean, words mean something, you can't just make stuff up."

It seems the lady likes to talk out of both sides of her lip-sticked mouth, and when the cheering stops, it's time to look at facts. This is absolutely correct. You cannot say "I told them thanks, but no thanks" with self-congratulatory glee in the voice, if the statement simply isn't true. You cannot say you refused earmarked money (but kept it anyway, to spend on discretionary projects)-- that's a lie, lady.

Many may love your style and strut, but they should be 'watchin' them shells in the game being shifted around the table, because it appears that's the only 'change' you're accustomed to-- and we've had enough lies out of Washinton to last into the TWENTY-SECOND century, thank you very much.

Senator Obama will call you out every time-- remaining a gentleman throughout, so your supporters need not scream "bully!" like panicked patrons screaming "Fire!" in a crowded auditorium.

Facts are quiet things, like truth.

They need no megaphone or cheer-leading, because they speak for themselves in a reasonable tone of voice.

Unlike yourself, Sarah, they are never shrill, and they need no cue cards from speech-writers. Only designated hitters need those things.

A New Set of Chops

2008-09-04T04:47:00.007-04:00

So the stodgy old party of conservatives thought what they needed to make this election interesting was a loud-mouthed FISHWIFE- Karl Rove would be very pleased. (In fact, I'm sure he is, as so many of his acolytes have joined the McCain strategists and have been sniffing out where the party could pick up some knee-jerk votes.)

Rove was very successful with this country's fear of homosexual marriage in the last election, so this time- why not pick up all the disappointed feminists still fuming about Hillary's loss, and the Hockey Moms- that scary block of Stepford wives, the ones who are angry evangelicals and traditionalists-- especially those rabidly flag-waving enough to throw their sons to a disastrous war in order to prove it a worthy cause-- and of course the millions of blue collar voters, ever leery of intelligence or a shift in paradigm-- and who most of all, do NOT want a 'man of color' in the oval office... and... well......those who want soap-opera- and somebody better to look at than the decaying John McCain when they turn on Fox News.

Every crumb helps.

Every easily-manipulated fear and slogan-energized bit of blind patriotism helps their cause, which is- and keep this in mind- to keep the munitions industry funded, the oil flowing, the stock market healthy, and their pork barrel politics as rampant as they've been during the eight years under George Bush.

Sarah Palin is not a fresh new face, she's the tag-team wrestler brought into the match with the newest bag of tricks. This is STUDIO WRESTLING, not a presidential race.

It's only the voters who haven't figured that out yet.

A Non-Item

2008-09-01T17:17:00.005-04:00

Oh for crumps sakes....who the hell cares if Sarah Palin's unwed teenaged daughter is pregnant? Is this news? Is this even worth mentioning? What is this..."The Scarlet Letter"?

The truth is, John McCain was pretty crafty choosing a younger woman as his running mate. Give him that at least....(and craftiness is all I'm willing to give this old Hawk.)

It seems clear as anything that McCain is certainly not the candidate of most of the people who voted in George Bush. The Republicans for McCain aren't as far to the right as the zombie religious faction who voted the second time for a man who prays- regardless of killing young Americans in his trumped-up war. No, those folks are behind the war all the way, RAH! RAH!-- but McCain hasn't made religion his centerpiece, and that's a problem.

And old time Republican 'captains of industry' are not ones who would cotton to a WOMAN on the slate- who might very well assume office if the aging candidate makes it to the White House, and then kicks the bucket. No, I believe his base is a little more toward center. And what McCain is canny enough to see is that there's a lot of disgruntled Hillary supporters out there who would have voted for him out of spite, but with another vagina on the ticket, he hopes to lock up those votes as well. (Some damn fool feminists will vote for anything without a penis) -and the Pro-Life people might also be swayed by the fact that this active mom has five children- the last one, a Down Syndrome child she chose not to abort, and now she's in in full support of a pregnant teen as well....is it Christmas? How perfect is that for those folks?

This is going to be a close election. Sway some target factions, and the road to the White House is a little less bumpy, and by choosing Palin, McCain has made steps toward capturing the older, female white vote who wanted Hillary (and if my proposition is correct, any skirt) as well as the Pro-Life faction, and...(don't forget) all the white folks, and especially blue collar- who would rather see anyone in the White House other than a black man whose middle name is Hussein.

Is it enough? I certainly hope not, but this pregnancy story 'leak', in my opinion, is just another ploy to garner more pro-life robots who will vote 'fetus' any day of the week. Pretty damn clever, I'd say, but it's not news- it's gossip. And it's political gossip to boot, straight off the campaign trail. Don't be duped. Ignore it. It's a non-item.

And if you talk about it, keep these points in mind,
because it's politics, politics, politics.

Trivializing Greatness

2008-08-27T18:43:00.007-04:00

Nothing has irritated me more today than an article I read in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that chose to concentrate on Michelle Obama's DRESS, rather than the woman's remarkable poise and self-possession.

Wanna read hogwash, just click here. What an utter waste of space, when the emphasis is on a dynamic woman's fashion sense-- but even moreso, the suggestion that the woman might be....."sexy"? Upstaging her husband? Too forceful in her chosen look? Haven't we gotten beyond this?

I've been a big fan of the Post-Gazette and its fine articles, but this rocked me back on my heels: what unfortunate choice of focus, and a woman as confident and comfortable in her own skin as Mrs. Obama deserves better than mentioning how the line of the dress 'followed the curve of her buttocks'-- that's impossibly gauche.

That's not what I expect of a newspaper.

If something like that had been written in an issue of "Elle" or "Cosmopolitan", I could understand-- I would consider the source and simply wonder why people have nothing better to do-- but in no way should this ever appear as true reporting on the dynamic personal presentation that Michelle Obama achieved on Monday night.

Unacceptable, Post-Gazette. Way below your normal incisive, well-targeted news articles.

More to the point, it just really pisses me off that in this day and age we're still ogling females like cuts in a butcher shop. In a Playboy magazine or in any stupid product-pushing advertisement...well...that's never going away because it sells; there's the buck behind that, and what appeals visually and viscerally will always ride front and center.

However, I do expect more when I'm reading about history in the making-- I expect intelligence, not gossip or silliness of emphasis. I want to read a story that reveals the person IN the dress...................and not what the damn dress reveals.

True Cross

2008-08-24T13:57:00.009-04:00

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel that it's unwise (if not ghoulish) to use steel from the destroyed World Trade Center to make things- commemorative or not?

There is a beam making its way to Shanksville Pa., that is to become part of a huge cross so we may remember the deaths of those on Flight 93. (Remember.....or seethe?) Do we really need salt poured into the wound by the constant reminder of twisted steel? The worst is a new U.S. warship named USS New York, whose hull is made entirely of WTC steel with the motto "Never Forget" painted on its side. To my mind, it's as emotionally manipulative as knights being sent off to the Crusades with pieces of the 'true cross' to fire them up. All of this smacks of "emotional patriotism"-- which is the most dangerous kind. It's what allowed us to invade Iraq. It's what's kept George Bush in office for 8 years.

It's a mixture of fear, fury and revenge- and it bothers me- a lot. I am sent emails fairly often with a 'support our troops' theme, and as lovely or heart-wrenching as the pictures are, I feel the manipulation behind it. I dislike ralliers; I mistrust things that are aimed at the tear ducts-- especially when they are wrapped in the flag.

What we need to combat terrorism is a cool, clear head. We need to use intelligence, and we need to move as silently as possible. The time has come to lay the anguish finally to rest, and pursue a safer world methodically and without propaganda (or props) of any kind.

Symbolism is too easily used to blind and to keep wounds open. A simple commemorative stone such as the Vietnam memorial in Washington DC would have been the most appropriate and dignifed way not to forget the names or the events: it fosters contemplation, not anger. It's a place to meditate and leave the wiser. It's sobering, but it does not give rise to vengeance. It's not made of shot-down helicopters or burned tanks.

It's a gravestone. A marker. A place to truly grieve- and go from there. I wish WTC memorials could have kept those things in mind, but then I remember that these are being constructed while still in the Bush era.....we're not out of the woods yet. We're still very much in the dark, and in many ways these WTC holy relics allow this Republican administration to feel justified in all the ways they've weakened this country. Too bad we can't see it. Yet.

Give history another 25 years. O Babylon, it will cry, we were so easily bent.

Recidivism and Escalation

2008-08-16T06:22:00.009-04:00

This news item caught my attention today, and the outrage that followed my reading it is indescribable. When will we learn that these bastards cannot be rehabilitated? This particular bent never corrects itself, is not controlled or changed, and usually escalates. The only reason we have not seen the name George Feigley popping up anywhere since 1975, is because he's been behind f*cking BARS.

And now they want to release him?-- no registration as a sexual offender, no monitoring, no nuthin'?

When will we learn that the price of this kind of sloppiness in the system ends up in heartbreak and tragedy for some innocent walking around out there who has not yet met up with this son of a bitch? How many deaths and psychological maimings will it take until stories like this one, featuring the Duncan Edwards III- (ain't he the 'looker'. Christ.....makes my skin crawl)- continue to haunt us? If you read this article, please note:

"Duncan isn't new to the legal system. His past is littered with arrests and prison time for crimes ranging from car theft to rape and molestation."

There is no way out of the squirmy soup that is the internal workings of these madmen, and there is no way they can be changed outside of castration- (and forget the chemical kind....they don't take the medication)- so either lock 'em up and keep them there, or monitor CONSTANTLY with registration- which includes electronic surveillance with GPS capability and LOTS of man hours following and checking up on them. Both these options are needlessly expensive.

Nothing less than surgical castration is a surefire, suitable solution...cut off their nuts. It's better than risking even one more child. Otherwise, as in the case of Duncan, whatever sick gratification these monsters need will require another boost each time they commit an offence. And for some- that becomes total control of the victim, which translates to kidnapping, torture- and murder for some.

That's too high a price to pay. F*ck civil rights in these cases. They don't got 'em....they forfeited those when then became predators, and any society has the right and the obligation to protect the helpless.

Until we have the balls to put punishment like this to use-- LOCK 'EM UP AND THROW AWAY THE GODDAMN KEYS; no 'three strikes you're out' bullshit....one. One. With 20 years mandatory- and if the creeps survive that, then clamp a bracelet on 'em and follow their every step and have them report and report and report to make sure they're not still preying on the young.

To Da Bone.....

2008-08-08T22:20:00.007-04:00

Another one 'outted'. This should come as no surprise, but so help me, it does. I personally believed this guy was on the up-and-up when it came to his devotion to his family, his wife- and his word-- but this time, we not only have another fella' who couldn't keep it in his pants, we have one who gave into his impulses while his wife was having a very public battle with cancer. How sleazy is that?

I remember the way the world reacted to America's horror over the Clinton debacle, and realize we're seen as ridiculously naive and puritanical, but with Clinton, we knew the man we elected had affairs before he took office, so when he was found still chasing skirt in the oval office and people were scandalized, that did seem a bit silly. But Edwards' devotion to his ailing wife and his public portrayal of a devoted husband appeared totally sincere; he was very public about that, and that's why this one is more heinous than most. It's the lying when you don't expect it, that's the ugliness in this story... much more than the affair itself.

With Clinton, I think we all knew he was probably getting away with something- because he'd done it before. But with Edwards, it's the betrayal way over and above the norm. It's cruelty and callousness in the extreme, and I say we write this Puckish choirboy off for good. I know I have. This one's a real rat- because he appears to be a sweet little gerbil, and that's a dangerous combination.

And think about this for a moment: what is 'character'?

If you can't trust a man will not lie to his wife and children, how can you trust him in other matters? This seems like a very simple concept to me. It may not be worldly or cosmopolitan, but it reads right as rain to these two eyes. Perhaps it's true that politics are dirty, and only dirty men succeed at it (as was pointed out to me today} and we shouldn't be shocked by any of this. But I am.

And I'm glad I am. Means there's something inside more than a jaundiced eye. Means there's hope. Means there's still the possibility for a truly upright person to come along and do the right thing all the time-- no matter who is watching.

Name-Calling

2008-08-06T07:20:00.008-04:00

Damn Bush is at it again. Voicing more dumb rhetoric about evil-doers and telling Korea it can redeem itself and extricate itself from the 'axis of evil'- what ridiculous purple prose that is- and what is that from anyway...A BATMAN comic book?

The Koreans can become good guys, Bush postulates- if they try really, really hard, but so far........nada. So far they've racked up "crimes against humanity". That seems to top the list for both Korea and China, even as he is over there at the Great Wall 'making nice'. No doubt the HUGE potential consumer market of that emerging Capitalist monster makes just about any old crimes go down awful easy, but I think it's pretty bald-faced hypocrisy, don't you? I mean-- what greater crime against humanity might be conceived beyond the invasion of a foreign nation resulting in the deaths of thousands when it's based upon cooked-up allegations?

Did you see this today? The Bush administration forged a letter back-dated to July of 2001 that spoke of al-Qaida's direct connection to Saddam Hussein. This came about after Bush declared to his staff that he needed something more to 'make his case' for our disastrous military presence in Iraq-- once WMD were not found.

Now.........back to that question of 'evil-doers'......isn't this simply

the pot calling the kettle black? Damn straight it is. (A concept, btw, the Bush administration would be sorely challenged to understand.)

They are masters of the "goopball", as in...."to be effective, a hurler has to vary the speed and movement of his pitches. He can do this legally by changing his grip on the ball and the spin he creates when he throws it. A pitcher who's willing to break the rules can create other effects by doctoring the surface of the ball." The 'Bush GOOPBALL' has become the new national pastime.

Canadian Strange...

2008-08-03T06:37:00.013-04:00

Because I don't want to go into it with specific names or more of the gory detail that has been splashing all over the net, some one just f*cking tell me why the Canadian police did not shoot that damned mad dog in the bus as he continued to defile a corpse?

Do they not have guns? The sick freak was in there for 45 frickin' minutes before they finally got him- and only when he was trying to escape by kicking out a window. What's wrong with you guys?

Canada is a more 'civilized' country- yes, yes I know- as I recall from watching "Bowling For Columbine": more guns per capita, less shooting deaths.

So what? When they still have the Pig Farm serial killer operating for years, and now this most loathsome of crimes witnessed by a bus load of people, surrounded by law enforcement in a standoff. It was one man and a knife- (against how many trained professionals?)- circling a bus full of WINDOWS as a ghoul continued to desecrate someone's son/ brother/friend. What a horrible event. What the hell happened once cops were on the scene?

I also know there is no death penalty in Canada. How about euthanasia? How about putting down a mad animal.....

Remember Atticus Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird"? Remember how it only takes just one upstanding man to get rid of the thing that's threatening the group? Why couldn't a dispatched group of policemen rush a bus held only by a knife-wielding man and the poor dead thing he was still playing with?

This makes me sick. The ineptitude and slowness to act leaves me speechless.

Sometimes there are mad dogs. When they appear suddenly in our midst- and despite reluctance- despite ideology or custom, those hyenas need to be put down quickly, in a way they'll stay down, so shame on the Canadians. In a place famous for their red-coated Royal Canadian Mounted police, they didn't get their man this time-- until he'd done his absolute worst.

Stalking?..........or Plain Old Bad Judgment

2008-07-31T17:26:00.020-04:00

I was sent a link today direct from the New York Times, that featured a story about a new book coming out, called

"In His Sights" (HarperCollins), one of the first full-length memoirs of a stalking victim. She describes a campaign of surveillance, break-ins, severed phone lines and creepy confrontations after her decision to leave "Paul," a charming but distant adventurer with serious relationship issues...."

The author writes under a pseudonym because she fears for her safety......and she does this not after the 'stalker' has quit, not when he's finally locked up......oh no, this fella is still out there....with supposedly vast financial resources, and electronic cunning....

Does this make a LICK OF SENSE TO YOU?

This gal gets my own personal "DUMBASS OF THE YEAR AWARD". (She is a freelance author, btw.)

Now, to my mind- and not by legal definition- a 'stalker' is someone who has a fantasy relationship with someone (usually a celebrity) that is entirely within the stalker's own mind: the stalker has no personal involvement with their target, but is dangerous nonetheless because stalkers are relentless in trying to contact the object of their obsession, and when successful - and when the stalker is rejected, it becomes a potentially deadly situation. Teresa Saldana was a victim of a stalker when her face was horribly disfigured in a slashing incident with her sicko, and just recently- Uma Thurman was able to get her crazy-assed stalker locked up by taking him to court and having his butt incarcerated.

Neither of these women KNEW these men. But frighteningly, the rage that results when reality finally clashes with idealized fantasy is almost always physical.

Kate Brennan (the non-de-plume of said author) not only knew this man, she moved IN WITH HIM- and after his behavior became increasingly bizarre following the brutal murder of his wealthy father. (Hmmmm?? Are we to being led to believe this unsolved murder was....could it be?......Do you have shivers over this implication? ) I believe you're supposed to.

Brennan says she 'understood' his acting out: she is the product of 'an alcoholic home' and was "drawn to 'unbalanced, yet controlling men". Lady.........what happened to you is what I'd call 'bad choice of men'. This is someone you had a relationship with- lived with for 3 years- and then finally ducked out- and admittedly, after the boyfriend became less than enamored and began bringing old girlfriends around. Puh-lease.

Yes yes, the man sounds nuts...but Kate, SO DO YOU.

In ordinary life, women would profoundly regret their own stupidity- and in extreme cases, would take out a restraining order. You've admitted you've never suffered any physical harm from this man-- not since you left him in 1994-- that's fourteen years ago, plenty of time to be strangled if he'd so chosen.

Honey, what you've got...is a 'book', so fine...you're a writer.

Just don't calling it being the victim of a 'stalker'-- what you have is residual and annoying fallout from a poor life decision. If you sincerely felt threatened, I hardly think you'd write a book and then allow an article about it to appear in the New York Times-- not when this threatening fella is so well-connected, and still very much at large.

Is it any wonder the Times chose to stick this story not in the book section-- not in hard news--- but in the 'Fashion' supplement.

('Telling'.....ain't it? )

Enough of this!

2008-07-31T17:02:00.004-04:00

If a man is electrocuted due to faulty wiring or because something is poorly or dangerously designed, the family sues for damages, and the company either fixes their product- or more than likely, takes if off the market.

That is what happens in civilian life. In the military, however, SIXTEEN men have DIED as a result of the electrical design of one company who is responsible for the installation of showers for the armed services in Iraq. One death is an 'accident'....

SIXTEEN.....is murder.

And no one is doing a thing about it. The Pentagon has performed their 'investigations'-- and can find no ties between the deadly electrocutions and the responsible party: Houston based contractor KBR, which holds a multibillion-dollar contract to provide basic services such as food and shelter for our troops. (Remember when the Bush administration decided it would be good idea to privatize the non-combatant services over there? Remember when Halliburton became richer than Midas doing just that?) So this is murder with 'accessories to murder'.

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Did you notice that the company is from Texas? Is this coincidence? Does this not REEK of the same sort of irresponsible payoff of cronies that resulted in "Great job, Brownie"- that followed the mass-murders that occurred during the Katrina aftermath?

Wanna read something that makes you wanna hit someone?. Read this

Sign Of The Times

2008-07-31T05:21:00.010-04:00

The Republican party is going into meltdown mode....

and I couldn't be happier.

McCain's handlers are getting nervous....what's with all this popularity for Obama? And worldwide? Their current ad, set to air on the eleventh, charges that Obama is akin to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, with nothing more than 'celebrity'. LOL!!!

Well.., if either of those two had an I.Q.- I might think that analogy had a slim chance for comment, but it's just desperate times for the GOP, and their nerves are showing.

Must have been a jarring sight to see Obama in Germany with a crowd of two hundred thousand cheering as he said it's time to bring down many walls-- thereby trumping that oft-repeated 'Reagan-to Mr.-Gorbachev-tear-down-this wall' sound byte. (Gees. What'll the red-staters do for a crescendo?)

Even the excretal Bush has used that line over and over-- but Obama turned it on its head and gave it new meaning-- just as Lincoln did with the Declaration of Independence in his short address at Gettysburg.

Their stupid antics with this ad show me the exact depth of current Republican panic. What do you do when up against a man of firebrand rhetoric and a character to match, and have only an old war horse hawk in your pocket? Well, you try and find a reason for his popularity other than inherent intelligence and charisma, and you say- "Hey....the dude is nothing more than part of pop culture, and that's why he commands the attention and respect of millions, not only here but around the world. HE'S A CELEBRITY."

So was Christ.

Look at that cheap grab for attention in his Sermon on the Mount. What a fame hog.

This shows nothing more than they're holding squat in their hands, and it'll be liar's poker from here to November.

It pleases me that the Republican party's in a snit. It does the heart good, it does. :)

Another nutcase from below the Mason Dixon......

2008-07-28T16:43:00.008-04:00

In this land of gunslingers where everybody gets shot who disagrees with the cut of another guy's jib- or his sexual preference- or his haircut--- look who's killing people now

this FLO-BEE DO-IT-YOURSELF-ER!

And what a fine specimen of southern manhood he is. Walks into a Unitarian Church during a children's play and starts murdering people- and all because he doesn't like liberal thinking. I mean, look at this critter.....

does he look like much of a thinking man to you?

And Glory Be!--- just look where he's from. Tennessee. (Has that state been in other news recently? How about the lady from the first entry in this blog posted back on July 19th...how about that delicate flower?) You know... the one who twice tried to poison her 4 month old baby boy.

Is it any wonder that it was the Red States that elected Bush? Is it any wonder at all that the majority of those red states fall south of the Mason Dixon?

Those good old boy great-great grandsons of the Army of the Rebellion are still riding high in Mosby's Rangers style.

They're simply trying to restore "sum galdern law 'n order....try'n a git this country back to the path of the righteous by gawd, salute the flag, keep it in the family, 'n f*ck yer sister- cuz she don't mind a'tall."

I am fed up with this kind of vigilantism. It's the KKK without the hoods.

We've had 8 years of KKK thinking in this country- including the anti-Muslim sentiment and the 'kill 'em first!' mentality we've been operating under for close to a decade now, since 911. Everyone was filled with rage immediately after the attack. Only morons continued to indict an entire people, and willingly marched us to war.

It's time the conservatives, the fundamentalists and the real fringe detritus like the character above have their choke-chains yanked. It's time----truly time for a new birth of freedom and it's freedom from fear we need above all else, because without that, there can be no way out of this nightmare.

The Hidden Giant

2008-07-27T13:12:00.011-04:00

With all the worry about the prices of both gasoline- and natural gas for heating our homes in winter, nobody's paying a lot of attention to this little guy-

Yep. The very lump we all feared in our Christmas stockings....those sooty chunks that make possible over half of the electrical power production in the United States, and it's skyrocketing in price.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sunday edition,

"The spot price for northern Appalachian coal -- which includes coal mined in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia -- was $138 a ton last week, more than double the $55-a-ton price of a year ago and four times what it was in 2000."

So what does this mean? Here in Pennsylvania, we've had our electrical utilities deregulated a while back to encourage 'free enterprise' and 'healthy competition'-- that perilous mind set that believes 'free markets will police themselves'......so of course, we're going to 'buy the farm' when rate agreements set in 1996 are lifted in 2011. Estimates of as much as 63% are the current thinking.

We have another 3 years to address this situation. I'm hoping this becomes a priority with legislators. We've been raped on gasoline, we're being raped in our food markets because of it, and now with coal costs soaring, we may very well freeze to death in the long, dark winters when the rate caps come off. (Yes, I realize that if coal is more expensive to buy, the electrical companies have greater costs in order to generate their power--- but this is a situation that's going on right now, and their corporations are still seeing profits- or by God, they'd be going under like some of our banks.)

Just as the health insurers moan about needing to increase healthcare costs, and yet their top executives make $100,000.00 bonuses while they continue to build state-of-the-art home offices and advertize on every media known. That all takes big, big budgets. TRIM THE F*CKING FAT!

Don't try and tell me the hellacious jump in prices will be merited.

I believe that will happen because the 'play nice and grab customers' restraint will be off, and it'll be back to business as usual: ROBBER BARONS will be able to ride again- right across the backs of middle America....Yeeeeeee- haaah! This needs to be f*king addressed, people...3 years is enough time to legislate, REGULATE, and put the brakes on as they salivate and rub their hands in anticipation of the killings to come.

We all know that cleaner energy sources- solar or wind power, or the yet undiscovered solutions to our problem is the goal of the future, but 3 years is not enough time to do anything about the disaster we're stuck with-- the one that's now hanging over our heads and ready to drop. The only present solution is to take a good hard look at this, get the word out there and talk about it 'talk about it talk about it'-- because it's building right now, nicely hidden under the more apparent emergencies that have already reached critical mass.

This is a BIG ONE, and we need to put regulation back in place inside a very solid framework before we're shivering in our homes, lights out, and wondering where in the hell this came from?

It's coming from right now. Wake up and do your homework.

Shock Troopers

2008-07-22T17:14:00.013-04:00

Have you seen a recent change in the type of junk, or spam mail you've been receiving?

In just the past week I've seen what used to be TONS of those annoying and often typically silly sexual ads that most of us never clicked on (because we knew better)- replaced by something subtler, darker, and ultimately much uglier in nature. What I've seen is a stream of 'plausible' though faked headlines whose subject is always something violent or awful, and it's meant to trip your alarm buttons to make you click without thinking about it.

Remember Alex, in 'A Clockwork Orange'?

Remember how that cockney ringleader needed violence blended with sexuality to trip his switch? Is that what this is about-- a marketing marriage of violence and sex-- a way into the labyrinth that sex alone has not be able to achieve for the slugs slinging their slops?

I've observed that where there used to be come-on's about increasing your organ size- or how to drive your mate wild- or any number of dating sites telling you they have the perfect match who's panting just offscreen in chat, waiting to make your acquaintance----- for an eventual fee, now there's these phoney headlines screaming this atrocity or that, hoping your 'Alex factor' is hungry enough to check it out. Do you get stuff like this?

Wildfires strike Arizona. Thousands homeless....

Horse kicks Harrison Ford in stomach, loses legs in freak hospital mishap....

Horses break rider's skull in freak attack...

Boy pokes fork into sister's eye......

These are just four of the 20 or better that I was sent just today. If they're like the sex ads, that's gonna increase. A LOT. Oh, I'm sure some focus group was able to tell the slimebuckets that modern culture has become inured to sexual bombardment and what they now need is another 'hook': Scare 'em! Make 'em CURIOUS. Make them worry enough to click the damn link...

I've never done it, but I'm pretty sure that somewhere hidden in all that Chicken Little claptrap.....is another entrance into the same fee-for-service sites that have always been hawking their wares. It may not look like it, but it'll be there-- if only by placement of distracting flash ads once you click on the link to the phoney headline.

And what does this do over time??? I believe you might ask Alex about that particular amalgam of 'pain/fear/sex/violence'....I think he'd be able to answer right off-- then dance away with his cane and bowler hat, singing lightheartedly as he kicks an old man's brains in as a prelude to raping, then finishing off the dead guy's wife. In other words- just an ordinary evening.

Be smarter than these bastards.....Don't CLICK on their crap. Don't participate in the programming. Delete, delete, delete. And use email with a good spam filter.

They'll separate the grain from the chaff, so you're not tricked into clicking without thinking by assuming the news is real, ferchrissakes.

Arrrrrrrrrrgh!!!

2008-07-21T17:54:00.017-04:00

Does this look familiar to you?

It's that little waxy, torture device that is SUPERGLUED to most dry things bought in jars. Do you see a tab of any kind on there? Something to grip in order to peel it back and get it the hell off the jar so you can get some of the stuff you purchased to begin with?

Since the Tylenol poisonings in the 80's and the very financially damaging lawsuits (and don't kid yourself about altruistic motivation, because in this, as in all things..."follow the MONEY") there has been increasing difficulty in simply buying a thing and opening it.

Does this picture resurrect any old frustrations for you?

Me too. These damn caps that one must SIMULTANEOUSLY press, squeeze, rotate -and pray- have been more the cause of headaches in the years since their creation than a means to a cure. They never WORK the way they're supposed to. Never.

And we've moved beyond merely 'childproof' to TAMPERPROOF- and oh baby, those suckers have seals, arrows-- molded cellophane around the rims to get to the internal glued seal, then the cotton inside-- past the ampule of silicone in its own little capsule, just to find a simple baby aspirin. (I know because each week when I take my 88 year old mother shopping, it's my job to UN-seal and open all her purchases when we get home.) I've spent many a cussing moment in her kitchen with a steak knife, sore fingers- sometimes pliers.

The folks buying the majority of these products are elderly, arthritic, have bad eyesight and very little patience. So the very reason they open these containers in the first place, is to relieve the very symptoms that opening the containers make impossible for them. This is not to say there should be no impregnable packaging out there. No, not at all.

If you have little ones you either do not trust because they're the seriously curious type- or kids for whom Mr. Yuck stickers are simply a 'green light'- (or basically you're just frightened of tempting fate) yes... get the bottles that will still be around intact after the atomic blast. No, really- do that.

But for adult homes or for old folks- or for people like me whose brains turn to liquid trying to open these damn things, give us a f*cking choice.

And forget about the packaging that touts itself as being 'friendly to arthritis sufferers'- they simply aren't. I've watched my mother go at those things like someone trying to crack a safe. It cannot be done without maximum frustration, and yes...pain.

When the elderly customer sued McDonalds for being burned with hot coffee she should've used the brains God gave her to KNOW the thing was hot, and actually won- McDonalds thought it prudent to begin to stamp 'HOT!' on all their coffee covers, and it was a sad, sad day for common sense.

As to 'tamperproof'-- no, I don't want cyanide in my headache pills. But it seems to me a sealed outside carton with a removable seal on the bottle would allow me to feel confident- AND get into the package. Or better yet, encapsulate the bottle itself in a sealed bag of air, such as they use for cushioning and keeping the weight down in parcel posts- so we could just puncture and pull it out. Simple. And completely safe. Is the bag deflated? You know some nut's been in there.

And as to 'childproof' caps- how about more parental supervision and some locked, high cabinets where little ones can't reach to begin with.....how about that? How about the word 'no'? That's how come I'm still around today, and probably a lot of you.

How about 'use your head before you drink'? Shouldn't the steam coming out- or the way the cup feels be a pretty good indication you're probably gonna scald yourself if you spill it?

With these small measures of thought instead of regulations dictated by corporate attorneys, wouldn't this world be a simpler place? But as sure as there's ambulance chasers, the rest of us will be using steak knives, wet wash cloths, sewing needles, scissors- peeling and cutting our way into the next millennium, only worse...by then we'll be be wearing Hazmat suits and using robotics to open our stuff... probably from behind lead...and nobody will sue.

The Enemy Within

2008-07-20T22:22:00.007-04:00

Not since the folly that led up to the invasion of Iraq, and remembering the horror I felt that this country was actually going forward by putting 'boots on the ground' in a catastrophic approach to countering terrorism-- knowing absolutely it was ill-advised and rushed, angry with U.S. citizenry for not being able to identify emotionalism and fear and political manipulation as the REAL reasons we were going in, nothing has taken a toll on me as piercingly as watching what is happening to the boys who make it home, damaged either physically or emotionally-- with nowhere to turn. Uncle Sam has skipped out the back door when it comes to healing and caring for these men and women who have done our dirtiest work for us.

This story- the story of war hero Spc. Joseph Dwyer- has gripped me in a way this evening that both breaks my heart, and enrages. How many fine, generous, dedicated and talented people are coming home to the same sort of bureaucratic goose chase? No one understands the visions in their heads as they revisit horrors the rest of us cannot imagine and could no better endure-- with no structure in place to address it. Tell me....why all the paperwork? Why insult these battered psyches by making them prove that their emotional damage is crippling, is the result of having been sent to Iraq and that, NO, they cannot simply 'get on with life'. They need help- real help and right now.

Before this toll rises with post-service casualties of the system, we need to treat application for veteran psychiatric and medical benefits immediately. It must be done in the same way we pay our taxes: we fill out a form, we either pay or collect from the U.S. Government-- and afterward- there may be random audits of the veracity of what we claimed or paid. The veteran's impossible snarl of delays and paperwork is unacceptable, and it's killing people. Those who have given so much should never have to wait months or years in order to access what they are desperately in need of right now.

This is a national scandal. It's a ridiculously intricate system designed to postpone or deny aid, and it's being done to the ones who paid the highest price. Whether you believe in the war or not (and I don't, and never did)- the men and women sent there bore the nightmare for all of us. It's time to pay up. It's time to make things right. Joseph Dwyer should not have died. I want to see his brothers and sisters in arms taken care of as they re-enter the civilian world. No more f*cking statistics like this. No more..

If it walks like a duck.....

2008-07-19T15:30:00.005-04:00

talks like a duck, quacks like a duck.....chances are it's a f*cking DUCK.

The woman who brought the baby to the emergency room with the umbilical cord attached- the woman whose apartment reeked of a recent corpse--a corpse whose uterus had been cut into, that same woman stabbed another pregnant woman in the stomach 17 years ago, then tried to abduct a newborn from a local hospital.

She was sentenced 3 to 10 years, and was paroled in 1998.

Now I ask you........what happened after she got out? I can't believe she slipped back into society as whole new person, crazy head cured.

What sort of system releases these ticking timb bombs back into the general population and then just forgets about 'em till something worse happens, and then turns around to say, "Oh, yeah. We know that one. Been in jail before for something similar...."

No room in the jails, you say? No money for an extensive overhauling of the system? It seems to me the penal system is mostly filled with people picked up for drug offences- not criminal dealers, but users caught in possession. They clog the entire apparatus, and it allows a far more dangerous class of criminal to get out and walk around- and to repeat ever more violent acts just as we see in this case today.

The prison population is comprised of mostly poor blacks who are the most likely targets to be caught up in drug trafficking and usage, because they're easy marks and easy arrests. They allow police departments get a gold star for locking up bad guys. They're easy marks for the drugs themselves because so many of their young men and women have no prospects, no future- a bellyful of anger, and prefer to blot out reality when they can. A black man or woman is more likely to have the book thrown at them than a more privledged white person -many of whom are college age or young professionals who also take drugs and are sometimes caught- but much less likely to be prosecuted. It's easier to let them walk or do some civil service reparations, pay fines, etc.

Within prisons, offenders grow more calloused and more dangerous, and I can't help but believe that releases happen due to overcrowding and needed space, rather than evidence of true behavioral changes.

So the overhauling is of a much more global nature than simply building new prisons. It starts at its roots: racial profiling and prejudice, a better way of handling drug problems than the simple 'lock em up'- and for right now and until that day that blacks and whites are more evenly matched in privilege in this country, which I would suspect will take another hundred years- more intensive regulations on how released prisoners are monitored, with greater emphasis on accountability for both the parolee and parole officer, and within departments that need mental health workers and counselors, not just watchdogs and baggage checkers.

Prisons are for rapists, murderers- those who have been proven to attempt murder- and true major drug dealers (not those selling to promote their habit) and for all violent offenders only. That is my honest opinion. Thieves should be made to make restitution. Drug addicts given help in other ways. Prostitutes given health screenings and allowed to ply their trade because the johns never go to jail, and it's ridiculous to punish just one party in a two-way transaction.

I guarantee that if these policies were put in place right now, we'd have a better society all round. Almost overnight.

ok........another crazy woman

2008-07-18T22:17:00.005-04:00

WTF is going on? Here's another news story of the 'outer limits' variety today, and yes, here in town. This morning while driving to work, I was listening as NPR related a story about a woman who showed up at yet another local hospital, with an infant who had the umbilicus still attached.

Blood work quickly confirmed that she was not, in fact, the baby's mother. She said she'd miscarried, but had bought the baby from a woman she said had sold her the infant for a thousand dollars.

(Wait. It gets worse.) The police were trying to find this mystery woman, and in the process of their search, went to the crazy's apartment and found- yep- the decomposing corpse of an unidentified woman.

Is the moon full??

And yes.......this lady is under 'psychiatric evaluation'. I think I could stamp that ticket pretty easily, don't you? Holy crap. 'Looney Tunes' is what these people are....but deadly, deadly ones.

Keep closing down those mental hospitals, and we'll see more of this. Some folks need to be locked away forever and ever. At least this one's going to jail.

Testing 1,2,3......

2008-07-18T17:05:00.003-04:00

to see if this monkey can climb the trees.

Ok. It looks like I was able to get this sucker up using the template of an old blog of mine that I just deleted because it was plum full of horseshit and private nonsense and is now hopelessly outdated. But I'm pleased to say I was able to use the original Blogger formatting (and not this Googled-up crappy and confusing "drag and drop" "widget" malarky.)

In fact, if anyone uses the word 'widget' in my presence, be prepared for a swift smack in the chops. I HATE IT! (I also hate just about all that Google has done to Blogger since it took over and now damn near rules the world.)

As to what I intend to put in here......

well, any old thing that royally pisses me off. (I know, I know... I do a bit of that in my other blog Wired Karisma)- but this baby is for the 10 MEGATON RAGES that possess me at times when I read stuff in the news- or see stuff on 'boards'- or get a real festering burr under the saddle about the state of the world in general, or just a particularly irritating piece of it.

That said, at times I will be sticking poems in here- mainly spouting off about some outrage I've read and it becomes "spout or die", and I prefer to remain sane- and above ground, so where does the fury go? What do you do with outrage? You put it IN HERE. (I'm allowing comments along with spam protecton, so you'll have to retype nonsense letters to let the machine know you're a real person and not a phishing ad posing as a person.) AH! SPAMMERS!- great topic for future reference! --- so feel free to use the comment button if you are so inclined... and I will dish it out as well as take it, I promise you.

Today-(and incidentally, the thing that prompted creation of this 2nd blog)- is the nitwit psychopath from Tennessee who currently has her 4 month old son at death's door at a local hospital as he tries to survive her dosing of SALT mixed with Pedialyte, injected into his FEEDING TUBE- in attempted murder. (She was caught in the act this time right here in Pittsburgh. But sadly, after her successful attempts with the same poisoning technique that had the little fella hospitalized originally in Nashville.)

So let's hear it for 21 year old AMBER...

Post-partum depression, my ass! Mothers who suffer post-partum blues are more likely to fret about 'thoughts of harming their baby'- or worries over being inadequate as a mother- or their lives seesawing so abruptly- that's the sort of obsessive thoughts that go through the mind of a young woman in the grip of hormonal depression....I know because I suffered from just that sort of chemical let-down after the birth of both of my children and over the years havr talked to other mothers who've been through the same emotional 'bends' after childbirth. Believe me- homicide was not on the table. Ever

There is more here than post-partum depression, and you can take that to the bank.

Amber Alert

No.

It's not
a child gone missing
prompted this,
but a mother gone mad
by injecting her 4 month infant
with

salt.

Salt! Can you believe
it,
salt
kills babies

when you inject
it into a feeding tube
while
the baby
is in the hospital trying to recover from the first round
given
in Tennessesse.
From yahoo
land to Pittsburgh, Amber followed him
with Pedialyte
laced with table salt. The grandmother's comment
was

"I don't know
why
she done it.

Did she think the salt might
make
him
better? Maybe that's
the reason
she done it." No, you coonskinner. She

wanted to kill

that child.

(And yes, the grandmother was even more unbelievable than the homicidal mother. My take on it......with an enabler like that...it's no damn wonder how things turn out. What happened in the mother's life before this?-- when she was real small, what allowances- what lies were told and accepted?

This isn't a case of "there oughta be a law", because there is.......and the punishment is 'attempted murder in the first degree'.....but I'm willing to bet this girlie has a good shot a 'get out of jail free card' -courtesy of court-appointed, psychiatric paid experts. My God....I hope not. (And the term "Munchausen by Proxy" is just too 'prettified' a term here. This gal's a stone cold killer--- with a mother in loud and obnoxious denial.