the defeatists!

Problems and perspective at the Karma Bar and Grill

If you watched the HBO series “Rome,” you saw a re-enactment of Julius Caesar’s triumph of 46 BC: Caesar riding in a golden chariot, his face painted red, dressed in purple and white robes, a slave holding a wreath over his head. If you had looked up an explanation for this uncanny garb, you would probably have been told: the red paint was there to imitate the red-painted face of the statues of the god Mars; the robes were those of Capitoline Jove; and the slave was to whisper in his ear, “Remember thou art mortal.” 

  There's a combination of schadenfreude and sadness at the Petraeus affairs. A lot of us here know people like the folks involved here, and the problems are basically the fact that we're all human. Too human, maybe. The resignation is a shame in some ways, but in others probably not...it's a distraction, and the timing is pretty awful in that regard. While the beltway press pursues the latest shiney  object, well, who knows what nefarious things will go bump in the night.

Here's the thing that bothers me --There's another problem with this. The affair occurred in Afghanistan while Petraeus was the commanding general. Adultery is a serious violation against the UCMJ. In addition, sexual relations in the combat zone -- and under his desk in Kabul or at that monster base we've got outside Kabul -- certainly qualifies as a combat zone. Soldiers are routinely disciplined for this behavior, and this guy probably signed off on a few court martials and other punishments for this during his career. Fun facts to know and tell about generals -- when they retire, they really don't retire. And, this is definitely contrary to good order and discipline. I would expect that some disciplinary action on the Army side would happen for the affair. Possibly just a letter of reprimand or a fine; possibly a reduction in rank to the last rank at which he served honorably, which was 3 stars. Will be interesting to see what, if anything happens with this one... Of course, Ms. Broadwell was an Academy Graduate. It's interesting to ponder whether or not she retained a reserve commission; if so, an investigation by the Army could conclude that in addition to adultery, there was a violation of the fraternization policy. Basically reflects very badly on his judgement, and he is very clear about that in his resignation. Good for him by the way, and good for her in that she's handling this like an adult.

 But, the teenage crush aspect of it is kind of amusing. He gets to be head of the CIA, she decides to end the affair and he pursues her. Sends her dirty emails supposedly and generally acted like a 19 year old boy.Sheesh...

 I have an odd take on marriage these days. I think we just live too long these days for marriage to work. The fact that Clem and Elma were married for 77 years always elicits the "Cute, oh, they're so cute response." Not from me -- I've been married for 36 years, and frankly, it's a habit and an economic arrangement. We're fond of each other, but except for NCIS and baseball don't really share very much. Petraeus spent most of the his time since November of 2001 either deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq or getting ready to go -- his wife had a life, his kids are grown and GUESS WHAT! They'd been married for 37 years after getting engaged when he was in the Academy. Not an inevitable thing, but the seeds are there. I'm not making excuses for the guy, by the way -- I don't consider the affair particularly heinous, but the hypocrisy and silliness make you wonder. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. But, I can say that I never let any nuttiness about who was sleeping with who turn into persecution or prosecution when I was in the Army in leadership roles, and stopped more than a few puritanical witch hunts. But, if he ever signed off on a 15-6 for a court martial for any sexual relations issue, he's probably getting a payback in the old Karma Bar, Grill and Continuous Soiree.

 Supposedly he was pretty unpopular in the CIA as a know-it-all, outsider, Army guy. Not terribly surprising in a way -- and I never did get the idea that he'd be a great president. Intellectuals and generals have at best a spotty record as President. Washington, Jackson...and Zachery Taylor? Rutherford B. Hays? William Henry Harrison? Woodrow Wilson? Herbert Hoover? Jimmy Carter? Ike and Jefferson are the only ones I can think of to really set the world on fire...or in Ike's case despite the jingoist paranoia of the age, to not set the world on fire.  I generally don't have a lot of issues with generals, except if you want to talk about being out of touch with the American people, lots of them are so far removed that, well, they tell young people in good physical condition living in extraordinary stress that having sex is a bad idea. And, frankly, the whole counterinsurgency thing was vastly overrated. The Iraqis figured out that we were going to leave and this was a good way to get us out of there earlier. We basically bribed the militias and let the Shiites take over the country. And left...Afghanistan was never going to work, and the smartest thing to do is draw down quickly but not in a panic and leave. Most soldiers with an actual appreciation of history always saw that war as a mistake. Best thing to do with Afghanistan unless you're willing to kill 3/4 or so of the populace like the Moguls did is to bribe the bastards to stay in their cages and retaliate massively when they stick their heads out. And, I know a few Afghanis and I like them. But, substitue opium for moonshine, and they're hillbillies with Korans.

 Petraeus got out of there with his reputation intact because of the Gates-Panetta transfer and the fact that the Rs couldn't oppose his nomination. Logical move on the part of the Obama Administration. But, unlike Colin Powell, Petraeus was not a general with a lot of political experience. He was a light infantry guy, and while not as crazy as a Special Operations Guy like McCrystal, he wasn't used to the corridors of power. Check out his Wikipedia entry and look at his career. His high and mighty assignments were with soldiers. He's a dirty boots kind of guy.

In fairness, he is an extraordinarily bright guy - Princeton PhDs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy don't come easily -- and had a great reputation as just a helluva soldier as a brigade and division commander. And, in the Infantry you don't get stars by being a total prick and incompetent. You can be either -- most aren't -- but the total douchebags are rare. Tankers are different -- all the noise warps their heads. Special OPs guys have a tendency to be outlaws in a lot of ways. But in some ways this is a shame, in some a gut check for the Army , and in some just irony. And yeah, "the powerful are in fact people" realization is important.

 

"Why do they call this heartless place Our Lady of Charity..."

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

John Milton, “On His Blindness”

It’s been an odd summer at Defeatist Central. In the last few years, we’d have gone crazy with lots of stuff about how horrible the politicians, economy and so on have become. However, not unlike a lot of other bloggers, we’ve become strangely quiet. Is it because, as in the case of Mr. Fun, we are frustrated because once you go Pek you can’t go back and no Pony has arrived? Perhaps because of the arrival of Defeatist Babies while we mourn the departure of beloved Defeatist Pets? Is it perhaps because of more mundane concerns? Or, maybe greater concerns? Who knows what ennui and disinterest lurk in the hearts of men? Well, besides Yeats, of course….but I quote him often enough.

For me, it’s been an odd time. Mrs. AXE came home one day and announced that she wanted to retire from Federal Service because she was old and because she was working for complete assholes. Well, that was fine with me; I did some math and said, OK we’ll be fine. She then went through some totally unnecessary hassles over insurance coverage for some tests, submitted her paperwork, got the tests in early March and retired on the 31^st. That afternoon, we got the diagnosis – colon cancer with fairly large polyps that probably had breeched the walls of the colon. On April 20, they did the surgery. The surgeon said it went very well; on the following Tuesday, I got a call at 10PM saying they were taking her to emergency surgery because of complications; when I got there, she greeted me by crying “Goodbye…” Now, by nature I am not a nurturing type; my response was fairly unemotional and probably helped in this case – “Really? I don’t think so unless you know something I don’t.” The surgery went well – there had been an obstruction and the surgeon took out three feet of small intestine that was gangrenous. To allow everything to heal, he performed a temporary Ileostomy, that is, a procedure to route the small intestine to a sack outside the body. When she was healed, they would reattach the plumbing. In the meantime, she’d start with an oncologist and see if Chemo was the next step.

Except it didn’t work that way. The original hospital could not find a way to install an ostomy bag that would work; while she stayed there for three weeks, she spent a large part of that covered from the top of her abdomen to her groin covered in her own feces and stomach acid. The hospital staff was fatalistic and resigned; I was rapidly getting angrier – nuture, no. Defend, protect and raise hell, yeah…I can do that. Their solution was to send her home despite the leakage problem and figure that the home health care provider would be able to figure it out. I raised hell, the surgeon came by to see what the problem was and he reacted about as badly as I did. The next day, she was transferred to a new place, a “long term acute care” hospital. Exit surgeon, stage left, pursued by a bear.

Now, the surgeon was confused as to why the staff at the hospital was having so many problems. There are a variety of Ostomy suppliers producing supplies that work for some or most results of the surgery. However, each surgery is different, and each person is different. In the wife’s case, well, her Stoma (the intestine jutting through the skin) was a convex stoma, meaning it did not extend above the the skin. Silly me – I thought that for something this fraught with potential issues, Medical Science would have perfected a way to cap and channel the material flowing instead of basically trying to extend a sewer cutoff. Well, it’s not even close. It’s probably possible to fabricate a fairly good ostomy bag with some spackling compound and a good freezer bag.

Why do that? Why not get the right stuff – not surprisingly, the hospitals are under pressure to sign exclusive agreements for a lot of medical supplies and apparatus as well as drugs as a cost control measure. By dealing directly with the supplier, they can get the best price which makes the insurance company happy; however, it may not be what the patient needs. Tough shit…in this case, literally.

 What the hell is a long term acute care hospital? Regular acute care hospitals have an average stay of about 3 days for patients. If the patient stays there too long, regardless of medical necessity for care, the hospital will face complaints from the Insurance Companies. Are we starting to notice a theme here?

Now, the long term acute care hospital was about 75 miles away from the house. I got down there every other day, and for the most part they took excellent care of her. However, they are a for-profit hospital, and skimped on some things. It seemed that there was a constant battle between the wound care and physical therapy folks versus the ward staff. It was not uncommon for me to arrive and discover that she had been left sitting in a bed pan for a half hour or so, or that no one had come to give her the bed pan…I got quite good at helping install the bags, and actually helped resolve some of the issues with the types of bags they had. However, this hospital had the type of relationship with the insurers – in my wife’s case, Medicare and Tricare for life – that they could get what they needed, regardless of manufacturer.

Ultimately, they felt she no longer needed the level of care afforded by the acute care side of the health care system. I was told that they wanted to transfer her to a “skilled nursing facility” and had me check a few out in a “Renters Guide” sort of magazine. Too were closer but one did not have an RN on staff 24 hours a day and was primarily an old folks home. Because my wife needed IV fluids and feeding at this point, they couldn’ take her. However, there was a large facility near the original hospital. So, she was transferred there.

Now, the wound care team had given me a kit to take home of the sorts of bags, powders, adhesives and sprays that they had found worked with my wife. Remember, the use of ostomies is common, but they are all kind of custom. The staff at the new place ignored me and when what they were doing didn’t work, freaked out. One nurse was exceptional in her efforts and I’d do just about anything I could for her; the rest were absolute idiots. However, this was a doomed place – I refer to it as a “storage and disposal facility” or “ a human rendering factory.” I was there every day…I was rare. It was not a healthy environment for someone who was not dying.

Ultimately, all the good work that the second facility had done was undone by these people. The problem of course is that what they would refer to as a rash was really burns….because the food was coming from the small intestine to the stoma – the hunk of intestine pulled through the skin to drain into a bag—she was re-injuring the skin damaged by the same fluids at the first hospital. Now, they had an excuse, albeit a terrible one. These people, not so much. What they were doing had been proved not to work. But, they kept doing it anyway until finally, after a lot of her pain and her embarrassment, they accepted that they were unable to deal with this simple procedure. They decided to send her to see the original surgeon and see what he thought about it being time to reverse the procedure. Great…however, they ultimately decided that they just needed to send her to that hospital’s emergency room because they were totally incompetent to handle the situation. And so they tried, the day prior to when she was supposed to be taken to see the surgeon. You see, hospital emergency rooms are overwhelmed by poor people who have no insurance and for whom a visit to their family doctor. That hospital was overwhelmed in the emergency room. So, they sent her to another private, non-profit hospital. They told me about it a couple of hours after she’d departed, which I thought was just special.

Anyway, I joined her about 4PM (1600 in real military time.) The chief surgeon came by, talked with us briefly, said that he wasn’t going to operate on her in the condition she was in  -- burned, dehydrated, weak but would admit her so that she could recover enough for the surgery to correct the original resection either by reconnecting the plumbing or revising the outlet, so to speak. She was taken to the surgical ward, and the wound care and ward team immediately took care of her. Since she was given an IV shot of morphine because of the intense pain, I left by 6 when she went to sleep. When I returned the next day about noon, she was awake, and the bags that they were using did not leak. At all – she never had a leak there. She recovered enough that the operation was performed on Friday. She took about a week in the hospital post op, and then was released to home care.

Since she’s returned to her home, her stuff, her cats she’s made great improvements. I’m amazed at how well she’s doing. I had a Facebook Entry the next evening that she had finally been released from incarceration…err, hospitalization, and was already being a pain in the ass. She now is able to get around quite well with the walker, and I forced her to make her own tuna sandwich for dinner. She is eating reasonably now and even made her own tuna sandwich the other day. All’s well that end’s well, right, AXE? No, fuck you.

 You see, I’m not totally happy about this. When she was diagnosed, the cancer was quite large and probably had penetrated the wall of the colon. Colon cancer discovered during colonoscopy and taken out in biopsy, basically minor problem. Colon cancer discovered during colonoscopy and removed followed after recovery by chemo, not a minor problem but not terribly threatening. However, colon cancer that has penetrated the outer wall of the colon and spread or where chemo is delayed or refused by the patient, major problem. The original timeline was colon resection, return home in a week or less, follow-up in two weeks, referral to Oncologist, begin course of treatment. Now, we have had an extra 14 weeks plugged into the equation. But, she is now in a helluva lot less pain, she has some quality of life and dignity and has made her own decisions. Good for her.

Next, for those who’ve been following my writing for a few years, you may recall that at one time I was struggling existentially between a significant other and my spouse. I ultimately chose the easiest route because they were both crazy. Well, the gal I was so interested in and loved a few years ago and still do love, had a horrible bout of colon cancer in 2003. She was actually told that “we’re going to operate but you need to get your affairs in order…” Did I mention that she was a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy and a Navy Nurse? Her sister was also a nurse, only a return boater to Ireland; her parents were both immigrants in the 40s; her sister and her husband had decided that New York City was no place to raise kids and had returned to Eire, I believe outside of Cork but I could be wrong. My friend was a triathlete and a serious marathoner; her sister won awards as an athlete in her county as late as 2004. In early 2006, she died from colon cancer. My friend was able to be there when her sister passed; she had some fairly funny stories about the way the staff of the hospital handled the dying process. But, she also felt a great deal of guilt – you see, when the significant other got the word about her cancer, the only family member she informed was her sister, Kathleen, who caught a redeye from Shannon to the US and on to San Diego to be there for her kid sister when she went into the surgery. She knows that Kathleen couldn’t catch colon cancer from her; but, there is still an incredible feeling of guilt. I am stunned by the irony…

Another thing I’m keeping in mind is the problem of the economics of healthcare. Now, I spent 23 years in the Army, and am grateful every day for that experience. I am incredibly grateful for Tricare and in the case of my wife, Tricare for Life. I know that the total bill for this great time up until now will be well into six figures; in fact, it already is. My total financial liability at this point has been $58 that I probably could have gotten out of paying. Now, we earned this; we paid for the Medicare in her payroll Medicare taxes and the part B in cash prior to starting to take her Social Security benefit and now in deduction from her benefit. But, talk about value; and yet, we know that the current healthcare situation is abysmal in this country and we know that we’re faced with the possibility of it becoming worse. The GAO has released estimates that because of the Supreme Court’s decision that the states do not have to extend Medicare as required originally by the Affordable Health Care Act, at least 3 Million People who would have been covered under the Act will not be covered. Which means that if they become as sick as my wife, they will go bankrupt and they will die. And Republcian voters will cheer as they cheered Ron Paul…

Well, we all are going to die, but there should be some degree of human dignity in the situation. But, we don’t seem, as a nation, to get it. The people most at risk are working class Americans without adequate health care insurance. And, there is absolutely no reason for this. I find the fact that France, Canada, the UK and my beloved Ireland have far better health care systems by any objective standard than we do to be a national disgrace. I am ashamed when I try to explain it to people from other countries that are supposedly not as great as we are. No Patriotic American should be able to stand this shame. So, those who oppose continued reform are what…un-American?

Remember Death Panels? There are death panels under the current system – they’re the insurance companies who determine what they will cover and what they will not based solely on market decisions. They are the insurance companies that raise rates so that people are no longer able to buy insurance or must cut back and buy only for the breadwinner as opposed for their whole family. These may be decisions made by the Marketplace (rigged, corrupt and based on debased values, where it’s reasonable for Ann Romney’s horse to be worth more than the annual tuition for 20 college students at a mediocre college.) However, from a human perspective, these results condemn those decisions. No, these are the decisions forced by fate on Frank McCourt’s mother Angela, whether to care for her family or take food from their mouths so that she has enough to survive. Hey, it’s a market decision. Compromise is a satanic thing here, because you’re dealing not with a possible win/win but with definite lose/lose. This was not acceptable in Ireland in the 30s and 40s and shames that Catholic nation as much as the Magdalenes Sisters, the history of betrayal to the British empire, and the current economic crisis even today. IT CANNOT BE ACCEPTABLE TO ANY AMERICAN NOW. NO FUCKING WAY! USA!USA!USA!

And, yet it is. If Mitch McConnell gets an unfortunate pimple on his ass, he can go to Bethesda and the entire United States Navy is mobilized to handle his departure from the norm. Hey, a pimple on the ass of the worst American Senator since Joe McCarthy is a really bad thing. But, most people in this country, insured or not, unable to pursue that kind of treatment. If Mitt Romney wakes up with the sniffles and an odd growth on his dick, he can afford to endow his own wing of a hospital to handle sniffling dick growths. Why should a man who builds elevators in his house for his cars concern himself with the health care of some poor kid in Harlem? It’s God’s will…

It’s not that these men are inherently evil. (Well, I think they are, but let’s assume they’re not.) They lack imagination and empathy for those who they see as not quite up to their standards of wealth, power and connection. Somehow, they’re not quite up to God’s standard. The market does the will of God so if you’re not able to hedge your bets and profit from the misfortune of others, you deserve to be poor, wretched and sick.

You know, it’s one thing for Milton to accept his blindness as the will of God and see that as it is God’s will, it’s a good thing. It’s a totally different thing to see someone else’s horror, pain and suffering as the will of God. That’s not stoic acceptance of the Almighty’s will – Stoicism is about your relationship with the world, not that of others! And, if the idea is that by not paying taxes at a reasonable rate in an industrial democracy you can accrue unconscionable wealth, you are doing what God wants, you are deranged, or you worship neither Jesus, nor Yahweh, nor Buddha, nor Allah nor Vishnu but eternally damned CTHULHU or Satan.  Willard Romney and and Turtle McConnell and the Paulline Faillacy and John Boehner are tools of Evil and the Republican Party is the Party of the Rich, the Party of the Evil, the Party of the Ignorant and ultimately, the PARTY OF SATAN.

 Ok, that’s a little rich, even for me. But then, I profess that the arbitrary decisions of the universe about life, death and the baseball game speak to the underlying problem of God – there is no God, or God is an evil sonofabitch with a nasty sense of humor, or God is really a teenage girl with lots of behavioral and emotional problems that, since we’re not her parents, we should try to stay away from lest she do something awful to us. I feel guilty when I see a beggar and I don’t stop; in my idea of America, there are no beggars, no homeless, no hungry – this experience with my wife underlies for me the importance of the America as champion of a world dreamed of by Franklin Roosevelt and expressed so eloquently in his Four Freedoms.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called 'new order' of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, January 6 1941

 

 

 

 

 

Walking the walk as opposed to being full of shit...

When it comes to the Vatican’s crackdown on women religious, I believe it’s time to declare that for the purpose of this struggle:we are all nuns…if you can spell Catholic, you are probably asking: how dare they go after 57,000 dedicated women whose median age is well over 70 and who work tirelessly for a more just world? How dare the very men who preside over a Church in utter disgrace due to sexual misconduct and cover-ups by bishops try to distract from their own problems by creating new ones for women religious?--     Mary E. Hunt, Theologian, Catholic Activist and Academic

I don’t really have a dog in this hunt anymore;  as an anti-theist who has reached the conclusion that the only way there could be a god would be if God was a very arbitrary and angry teenage girl named Tiffany who was primarily interested in Justin Bieber and whether or not her jeans make her ass look fat, I’m not a logical choice to defend the various orders of Nuns from the Holy See. Except, of course, that I remain a cultural Irish Catholic and a recovering victim of 16 years of Catholic confinement, most of which was largely under the attentions of the good Sisters of St Joseph and then of the good Sisters of St Francis. And, I have to admit, that the Sisters provided more encouragement to me than anyone else did. In many ways, the various orders of Catholic nuns were instrumental in most of what’s good in terms of Catholic teaching and social justice. The priests generally got all the “press” but while Father Damien gets the historical kudos for the colony at Molokai, the good sisters of the third order of St Francis – the ones who taught me from 4^th through 8^th grade – provided the nurses and the necessary assistance to make the leper colony actually work. At present, and one of the primary distractions I have been dealing with this past month, my wife is recovering from a colon resection at St Mary’s Medical Center which is managed jointly by an order of Christian Brothers and the Sisters of St Joseph of Orange, a spinoff of the Order of St Joseph that taught me how to read and cipher and make marks on paper. Now, Nuns seemed arbitrary and overwhelmingly dictatorial to a lot of Catholics over the decades. But, beginning with Vatican II, the number of nuns has steadily decreased. Those who have maintained their communities are primarily involved in social and medical work and advocacy as well as in education and foundations. I find them very admirable; in fact, I think we can say with a certain degree of certainty that Sister Mary Twinkle Toes has long since vanished from the scene, and has been replaced by what was really always there – smart women who were dedicated to a cause and a belief in caring for others and trying to live the gospel as they understood it. So the current nonsense by the Catholic hierarchy to try and “discipline” these women or drag them into compliance is a really difficult piece to justify. Nicole Brodeur of the Seattle Times does a good job of laying out the story as does Ms. Hunt. The Conference of Women Religious, basically the American Nun equivalent of the NCAA, isn’t doing what the bishops want them to do. The Sisters aren’t complaining about abortions, god, guns and gays and contraception. They’re arguing about the need for more attention to health care, poverty, education, hunger, the environment. Who the hell do these women think they are? Uppity bitches…They need to get back in their convents and bake some more wafers, say some more rosaries and iron some more Albs. Andrew Sullivan has an interesting piece on this; I find it interesting that Drew has moved from a Republican apologist to someone to the left of, well, me on a lot of things. It actually gives me hope – people like Andrew Sullivan and George Will are really too smart to go along with that right wing crap as presented these days.  Of course, I say that conscious that Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene had no public complaints and that Teilhard de Chardin remained loyal to church and order despite intellectual persecution and religious toment.  Sullivan wrote in an article in the April 2 edition of The Daily Beast  that The Catholic Church’s hierarchy lost much of its authority over the American flock with the unilateral prohibition of the pill in 1968 by Pope Paul VI. But in the last decade, whatever shred of moral authority that remained has evaporated. The hierarchy was exposed as enabling, and then covering up, an international conspiracy to abuse and rape countless youths and children. I don’t know what greater indictment of a church’s authority there can be—except the refusal, even now, of the entire leadership to face their responsibility and resign. Instead, they obsess about others’ sex lives, about who is entitled to civil marriage, and about who pays for birth control in health insurance. Inequality, poverty, even the torture institutionalized by the government after 9/11: these issues attract far less of their public attention. I am no fan of abortion, but at the same time, since I could never bear a child myself don’t really think that I should have a say in the decision of a woman to terminate her pregnancy, and if that termination occurs, then it should probably be under the most humane and medically safe conditions possible.  The subject to my mind is open to debate, but contraception provides an alternative more palatable than unfunded orphanages and foundling homes or back alley abortions or the type I’m hesitant about. The good enough is enemy to the good, but the perfect is enemy to the good as well. I also have come to a position which for an ubermale old soldier and Holy Cross Grad is perhaps odd – but, I really don’t care about homosexuality.  Hell, I’ve had close friends who were gay and lesbian and they never threatened me in any way, except possibly in college with a forcing bid in bridge.  Their sex lives don’t interest me --Not my business, not my concern. Now Pedophilia is my business as a citizen of the civilized world who believes that we have a duty to protect those unable to protect themselves; the abuse of power is my business, as a guy sworn to uphold the constitution and to uphold the gospels. I’m a not a priest, or a minister, or a theologian or a Catholic anymore. But, I was confirmed, and I did swear an oath to do that. Since I feel very comfortable with the parts of the New Testament that are not batshit crazy, like Jefferson, I think it’s something I can and should support as the basis for the way we treat each other. There are a lot of things in the New and Old Testament that are batshit crazy. They deserve to be treated with the same respect we treat Gilgamesh. Interesting, but not really instructive. But, the things that in the New Testament are real are certainly more direct and as articulated in the traditions of Catholic Social Justice and the Social Gospel as preached by folks as diverse as Reinhold Niebuhr and Dorothy Day, more applicable to our lives as human beings responding to St Augustine’s imperative question of “How then shall we live together? “ than any other approach, tradition or set of concepts floating around. The princes of the Church pay lip service to this and then focus on issues tangential and to do with their own power. It lies in the Sisters, the priests who defend them and the poor, the orders of nuns, priests and brothers dedicated to serving the poor, the destitute, the abandoned, the condemned to live that code. Jesus knew about homosexuality; it was not only a subject of condemnation in Leviticus but was a pretty common practice in the ancient world. He didn’t have anything to say about; he didn’t have a lot to say about sexuality; he did say a lot about love, and care, and concern for others. While I’ve seen articles that indicate the author believes that the Sermon on the Mount is like some Delphic statement or Sybilline book filled with ambiguous and confusing stuff, it’s really  not. Nor is there a lot of room for argument over what the many parables about the virtues of the poor and the need to help them. Yes, Judas complains that the oil used by the repentant hooker to tend to Jesus’ feet should have been sold to raise money to feed the poor, but Jesus’ response “The poor are always with us” seems pretty obvious to me. Leave her alone, she’s trying to do what she thinks is right and it harms no one, while doing her soul good. Judas, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Rich, the Bankers, the Moneychangers, the Tax Collectors who cheat the poor get a lot of the back of Jesus’ hand…or, as Maureen Dowd put it in her column on Sunday, a sharp rap across the knuckles.  The Bishops and the Church Hierarchy joined the plutocracy of wealth and power when Constantine took over the rule of Rome and decided that everybody would be a Christian…or else. The Bishops have always sought that kind of ecclesiastical power; the Richelieus, the Borgias and the rest of the figures in Catholic history along with the Pat Robertsons, Ian Paisleys and Benny the Rat provide cover…Jesus has damn all to do with organized Christianity. I’ve written of this before, of course, but I remember talking with a parish priest in College Station 20 plus years ago who spent his vacations in India, working with Mother Teresa. He told of being there when a journalist asked her, “How can you expect to win?” and she replied with a smile, “It’s not about winning.” I expect that the good Sisters will continue to do what they are doing, ignoring the hierarchy when they can and doing what they think is right. And, in focusing on doing good instead of telling the world, that they are good and holy  and everyone should listen to them, they show what should have been Catholicism in practice. And sadly, is not and never has been. We probably should reflect that on Easter morning, the Apostles, those first Bishops led by Simon Peter, the first Pope, were hiding or trying to get out of Jerusalem as quickly as possible. Mary Magdalene and probably Mary and Martha were on their way to the tomb to anoint and care for the body, trusting that God would convince the soldiers, Roman soldiers, to move the stone aside so that they could tend to their duty…not because they had to, but because it was the right thing to do. Odd, but in a way, both bishops and nuns are fulfilling their roles in Christian tradition. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve known Mary Hunt for over 45 years, and have followed her career with interest and occasional snark. We met as sophomores in the diocesan high school where we haunted the halls and occasional classrooms, identified by some of the good sisters as the “brilliant and obnoxious one” (Mary) and the“brilliant but erratic one,” (me.) I concede her brilliance and I guess I accept my erraticism. We agreed about a lot of things, disagreed about a lot and took very divergent paths. I have a lot of respect for her, and she’s an interesting person and author. And, probably still consistently obnoxious to people in authority. Go for it, dear.)

Just so we're clear...who exactly is we?

So, the Japanese are "quietly" encouraging people who live within 19 miles of the reactors to leave. In case you're wondering, that works out to an area of about 3560 square miles. Granted, at least half of that will be Ocean, but 1700 square miles in Japan is a pretty big deal. And, of course, the Japanese depend on the ocean for a lot of food -- fish, seaweed, shellfish. In case you're wondering, the problem with the settling particles, known as fallout, is that they will enter the food chain. Now, if you can stand to not eat food items made in Japan, not a problem. Except, there are these things called migratory animals -- fish, birds, etc. and ocean currents. Do we have a problem? As always, define "we." The global WE has a problem, and the Japanese We have a problem. The US we, not so much...until the quake hits California.

There is one area where the WE is pretty universal. Conventional wisdom, by its very nature, may seem normative, but it's not wisdom. The economic unravelling that we're experiencing is a pretty good example of that...Now, if somebody advocates a set of ideas that do not work and that everybody else thinks are stupid, why do we consider them prophets? And, why is it that the political classes are so eager to go down rabbit holes? Rabbit holes where there are no rabbits, just vipers and dragons? Paul Krugman has been a strong voice urging against this, and supposedly we have a messianic sort in the White House who combines the soaring beauty of his rhetoric with pragmatism. Krugman is starting to find that funny, by the way; so, to a certain extent, am I. It's either that or go psycho and have an aneurysm. The US is not Greece; nor, is the US Japan. But bad ideas played out elsewhere are still bad ideas; and you can learn from mistakes vicariously. It's better to learn that way -- it hurts less. But, the conventional press and the Republicans have managed to get us in a situation where we're determined to do the same dumbass thing that other people have done to solve the wrong problems in such a way as to guarantee the greatest possible disaster...

But couldn’t America still end up like Greece? Yes, of course. If investors decide that we’re a banana republic whose politicians can’t or won’t come to grips with long-term problems, they will indeed stop buying our debt. But that’s not a prospect that hinges, one way or another, on whether we punish ourselves with short-run spending cuts.

Austerity doesn't work to jump start a modern economy. I do not mean that the unemployed all need to be given Escalades. But if you increase demand, you'll get money moving which will result in them at least getting Kias. Or Chevys... But, Krugman eloquently points out that the political classes are mired in a debate about what is not the problem. The immediate problem is demand, not deficit. By focusing on spending cuts, the Republicans are going to do to the US what the Tories have done to Britain. However, we seem stuck doing dumb shit things over and over. Need more energy -- let's put Nukes where they can fuck up a lot of things. Got a problem in the Muslim World -- shock and awe. Got an economic crisis -- let's do what has been proven not to work. As Krugman points out...

And then there’s the British experience. Like America, Britain is still perceived as solvent by financial markets, giving it room to pursue a strategy of jobs first, deficits later. But the government of Prime Minister David Cameron chose instead to move to immediate, unforced austerity, in the belief that private spending would more than make up for the government’s pullback. As I like to put it, the Cameron plan was based on belief that the confidence fairy would make everything all right. But she hasn’t: British growth has stalled, and the government has marked up its deficit projections as a result.

Which brings me back to what passes for budget debate in Washington these days.

A serious fiscal plan for America would address the long-run drivers of spending, above all health care costs, and it would almost certainly include some kind of tax increase. But we’re not serious: any talk of using Medicare funds effectively is met with shrieks of “death panels,” and the official G.O.P. position — barely challenged by Democrats — appears to be that nobody should ever pay higher taxes. Instead, all the talk is about short-run spending cuts.

In short, we have a political climate in which self-styled deficit hawks want to punish the unemployed even as they oppose any action that would address our long-run budget problems. And here’s what we know from experience abroad: The confidence fairy won’t save us from the consequences of our folly.

I found myself in a strange discussion the other day -- my chiropractor's wife who is the practice business manager was advocating a "flat tax." Her idea of the flat tax was that everybody has to pay the same AMOUNT of tax; that way, if you can't afford the taxes, you can't live in this country. Elaine makes no pretense of being at all political...but, she has an atomistic view of things that is similar to the nonsense spouted since the 80s by first the supply siders and then the Contract On America types and now by the Tea Party. The worst part is that some of the spouters should know better. Dick Armey and Phil Graham are economists -- they know better. They have to...they can do arithmetic. But, philosophically driven by a failed ideology, they continue to proclaim the world is flat and its only by chugging down some more of Doctor Reagan's magic elixir that we can be saved. Or Friar Tetzel's celestial passport.

Passport to Heaven by movieclips

Execute me in absentia...

you were flaxen-haired,
undernourished, and your
tar-black face was beautiful.
My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am the artful voyeur

of your brain’s exposed
and darkened combs,
your muscles’ webbing
and all your numbered bones:

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge

Seamus Healy, Punishment, 1975

Crusader AXE is an Irish-Catholic American. My religious beliefs have wandered far from what the good sisters and priests tried to map for me; while I donate to my Jesuit college and to Catholic Charities, I do so because of what they do and do well, not because of who they are. Of course, having made the 9 First Fridays more than once, I can sin very boldly indeed. Of course, the ravings of a French teenager in the 19th century are probably not worth more than a moment of sad reflection; but, Bernadette believed, and so do a lot of people. Still. I can respect that, and I can understand it. Hell, there's a strong possibility that it's my reluctance to get up early on Sundays that led to the whole Tiffany-Anti-Theist thing.

Now, over at the other place where I write under an assumed name, I have been in a bit of a pissing contest over a commentator who thinks that all soldiers who have been in Iraq and Afghanistan are, ipso facto, war criminals. The fact that he also appears to believe that the Jews were behind 9/11 should make me less worried about responding to the idiot, but I'm bothered by it. That sort of simplicity and conspiracy-theory nonsense may reflect strong ties to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion combined with Palinesque desire to blame the mainstream media and the Liberals and the Federal Reserve and the fucking Bildenbergers and George Soros and the Koch brothers and eveybody else including victims for horrible nonsense. While I have none of the volumes of poetry I wrote as an undergraduate -- thank god -- I do remember one line in a poem to girlfriend named Anne Winschel who has led a marvelous and productive life with nothing to do with me with lines to the effect that "But, I said she's too tall!/When what I meant was "I'm too small..."

Self-awareness is a hierophany in a teenage boy, especially an Irish Catholic American teenage boy getting ready to go off to Holy Cross. Rare as they are, hierophanies happen occasionally, and that was one occastion. In something like the Irish Catholic Church and in the Catholic Church as a whole and in all organizations, self-awareness is critical and yet so non-existent. It's called for in fact -- anyone who has attempted or even read the Exercises of Ignatius Loyola and the other people like St John of the Cross or St Teresa knows that. If you want to approach the fundamentals of existence, be you Catholic, Jew, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan or Devil-Worshipper, self-awareness is critical.

Self-awareness is not self-centeredness, of course. And this article by Russell Shorto from the New York Times Magazine about "The Irish Affliction" reflects the problem both from a religious and an organizational dynamic point of view. The Irish Church is Catholicism writ large; as the article points out, the Catholic Church is established as a partner with the government and the Irish Nation in the Irish Constitution. The article cites one activist in this way:

Certainly many Irish people find the idea of abandoning Catholicism to be as counterintuitive as giving up their racial or sexual identity. A televised panel discussion on the abuse crisis last summer ended with a reporter asking a woman who was voicing her anger if she was ready to leave the Catholic Church. She paused, as if befuddled, then said, “Where would I go?”

Certainly there is a reflection here of something deeper than self-identity. I am compelled to think of the Book of Ruth, of all things. The language in the King James Version (Chapter 1, verses 1-20) is marvelous, and I have to admit, the allegory is worth considering.

Naomi is a widow, and with two of her daughters-in-law, decides to go back to Isreal from Moab. She asks her daughters-in-law to leave her and return to their homes. She is old, and has nothing to offer them. Oprah, one daughter in law, kisses her and leaves. Ruth, the other, does not but in the words of the text, "cleaves" to her.

 ¹⁵And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law.

 ¹⁶And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

 ¹⁷Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

Interestingly, the article describes an organization and website that was intended to help Irish Catholics to leave the church formally. To respond, the Church changed Canon Law, eliminating the ability to defect from the Church. Of course, I'm sure they maintained the right to excommunicate. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have been excommunicated for years -- and, as a Tiffanyist Anti-Theist, quite comfortable with that.

The totalitarian mindset really doesn't like to let you leave. Like the Book of the Month Club from Hell, they're not ever going to let you go. I left one cable-internet provider about a year ago for another because I was really unhappy with the one I had. They call, they write, they email -- Baby come back. Well, the closed totalitarian organization doesn't need to do that; the Irish are certainly used to that as are any one who's ever joined a secret organization (Illuminati, Masons, Skull and Bones, Delta Tau Chi, the Mafia, whatever). The IRA has a very direct and fairly simple point of view on this -- Once In, Never Out.  The Mafia has a rather more florid approach --

"I (NAME GIVEN) want to enter into this secret organization to protect my family and to protect my brothers. ""morte alla Francia Italia anelia!" With my blood. (A knife is used to place a cut on the right index finger or hand) and the blood of all the saints, and the souls of my children.  
(The sign of the cross is made) I swear not to divulge this secret and to obey with love and omerta. I enter alive into this organization and leave it only in death." 

Although the Catholic mass has been simplified, the nature of the priesthood is understood that way -- the Consecration contained the words "Remember you are a priest forever, by the order of Melchisedec."

Well, the problem with this is fairly simple. As Brendan Behan said once about an IRA internal catfight in Dublin, "They tried me in absentia, convicted me in absentia, and sentenced me to death in absentia -- so, I said they could execute me in absentia."

What we're seeing in the Irish response is interesting -- Catholicism is part of our heritage, part of our way of looking at the world. Less so in American Irish, by the bye, than in Ireland. At the same time, the Church has done horrible, horrible things in Ireland to the people. And, the clergy has conspired to not only protect the guilty but to go out of their way to blame the victims. Again, the article cites some fairly horrific examples. Some of them are either hysterical false memories or the sexual abuse was a reflection of out and out Satanic practices in various orders. Shorto quotes an abbot who has achieved some level of awareness light years beyond the senior hierarchy...

“Ireland is a prime example of what the church is facing, because they made this island into a concentration camp where they could control everything,” Mark Patrick Hederman, abbot of Glenstal Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in County Limerick, told me. “And the control was really all about sex. They told you if you masturbated, it meant you were impure and had allowed the devil to work on you. Generations of people were crucified with guilt complexes. Now the game is up.” (AXE emphasis added)

One of the things that I note in these accounts as well as others from around the world is that the issues usually are not sexual. Priests and brothers and preachers and politicians and other people who perceive themselves as having power are not so much as reflecting their sexual urges as their power, their ability to inflict themselves on others. This is debased, but it is human. Totalitarian organizations develop these practices because they can. If you consider the treatment of most "heretics" in history, you realize that you're dealing with sexual fantasies played out by people who can play them out. The Templars were accused of horrible practices that were largely sexual in nature -- the Jews of the same sort of things. Priests and Nuns and Catholics in general were accused of sexual deviance, rape and murder of babies by Protestants in Northern Ireland and in the US. The College of the Holy Cross was established in large part as a response to the burning of an Ursuline Abbey in Boston in 1841 by a mob of Know-Nothings convinced that there were tunnels with the aborted fetuses of the nun's babies underneath the place.

So, blanket condemnations tend to make me wonder about large organizations in general. I find something both hopeful and at the same time mournful about this passage from Shoto's piece...

To reach the geographical heart of Irish Catholicism, you leave the main road in windswept County Donegal and drive through miles of gorsy heath, past sheep poised on gray knuckles of rock, until you come to Lough Derg, a wilderness lake edged with pines. Half a mile offshore lies Station Island, where according to legend, St. Patrick had a meditative epiphany in the fifth century, during his mission to convert the Irish.

Station Island has been a place of pilgrimage since the Middle Ages. Its director, Prior Richard Mohan, who has worked there since 1974, greeted me as I stepped ashore, while a brewing autumn storm roiled the tea-colored water of the lake. Over lunch in the staff dining room, he told me how he has modernized the pilgrimage center. Early pilgrims relived the saint’s experience of huddling in a pit in the ground. Today there are updated dormitories, showers, even a gift shop. Prior Mohan said that Station Island “is in the genes of the Irish people,” so much so that there is a phrase for making the pilgrimage: going in on Station. Indeed, Ireland’s greatest living writer, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney, devoted what is perhaps his most beloved collection, “Station Island,” to a meditation on the pilgrimage, the Irish and their tug of war with the church.

Mohan reckoned that the island’s impressive number of visitors — more than 20,000 a year — actually relates to a drop in church attendance in Ireland. Many people have abandoned the institutional church but not their faith, so they come to this wild spot in an effort to plug directly into their historical religious tradition without the mediation of the church. “This is seen as independent,” he said. In fact, the Catholic Church maintains control over the island, as it does over dozens of such places around the world.

Everything that is fun is bad for you...and we can make it worse!

The news that there is a link between oral sex and tonsil cancer is really intriguing...since somebody decided that those vestigal organs that primarily act as sacks to hold dormant infections like strep should be nutured instead of removed at the first opportunity, we now have this threat. Tonsilectomies are safe, quick to recover from and have the side effect of not being a place where you can have cancer if you don't have the place. Also, and more to the point, another reason to have women vaccinated against human pampolona virus. Maybe the sexist twits in Texas who opposed it because not worrying about cervical cancer would make their teenage daughters more sexually promiscuous will get in line with reality since they now have some self-interest here.

Not sure about alternatives -- tongue condoms?

Plotshave I laid, inductions dangerous...

"I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other."--Richard III

The governor of Alabama denies the universal brotherhood of mankind. I have tried not to get too weird lately, but this one is pretty much out there. If you're not a Christian but a Jew, a Buddhist, a Zororastarian, an Atheist, a Deiist, an Agnostic or a Tiffanyist and you are a resident of Alabama, the governor denies you. He'd like to be your brother, but he just can't...I'm actually thinking it's even more restrictive -- you probably have to be a born again Christian. Roman and Orthodox Catholics, Episcopalians, Anglicans, Lutherans and Quakers need not apply for his love; it really makes you wonder. One guy hallucinates various founding fathers; one guy wanders around the house babbling inane crap; one guy shoots signs and threatens people; this guy is stating that he feels that non-Christians are lesser creatures in spirit. Is it necessary to handle snakes or speak in tongures? What the hell is wrong with the public life in these places that nutcases get elected and then are free to babble this nonsense?

I like Alabama; I like the south. I like a lot of people. I suppose that if I were to sit next to the governor of Alabama on a plane, I'd find him polite and courtly. That said, doesn't this set up a religious test? If Muslim is convicted of a capital offense in Alabama, can he expect a fair hearing by the governor? Who denies his basic humanity...

No New York City Firefighter feels they're disrespecting their religion by being on duty on Chrismas or Christmas Eve.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Worst Responders
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

I've been not so quietly getting pissed at the country's stupidity for a long time. Well, I guess my irritation hasn't exactly been a secret to my friends, family and anybody who happens to ask...but this just pisses me off deeply. You want a story that symbolizes what's wrong with this country and whose fault it is?  THIS IS IT!  People who risked everything without hesitation are being disregarded by the nation, the state and the city but Donald Trump is going to get the money for a new hairpiece...there will continue to be folks to send the donations to fund the parties at the Lesbian-Bondage themed strip clubs. So the Republic is safe...because the Republicans can continue to stoke outrage over Islamo-terrorism while ignoring the American victims. Proving that the Islamoterrorists are kind of right about us...but, that's an irony for another day.

Stewart has probably done more segments this year on the legislation known as the Zadroga Bill than any other topic. The bill would provide $7 billion in benefits for those who first responded on 9/11 and are now experiencing subsequent health problems such as cancer and respiratory disease. While it passed the House, Republicans have blocked the bill from advancing in the Senate.

Stewart noted that, while the 9/11 first responders bill is stuck, Congress did manage to pass the controversial tax bill that will extend tax cuts to everyone including the super wealthy.

The untold story behind 9/11 is what's happened to the first responders who spent months there, twelve hours a day, seven days a week doing and seeing horrific things...and breathing in and getting covered with toxins while the EPA and Rudi 9/11 were saying everything was ok. No health hazards here.

 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
9/11 First Responders React to the Senate Filibuster
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

Well, a lot of them are sick -- desperately ill. There is a bill in the quque to cover their medical expenses and some compensation. It got behind the tax cut for the rich thing; it got behind the DADT thing; it got behind the speeches about retiring Senators things. The House did what it was supposed to do. The Senate -- no, not so much. Actually, the Republicans did the same thing to this that they have done to everything except dysfunction. They covered their ears with their hands and screamed about how awful it is! Two networks have covered it in detail...I don't mean a favorable mention or a barb at the Republicans which MSNBC has done. That's nice, but the Dan Choi channel has done a lot more on other things. Including, by the way, the whole issue of the filabuster. There's a lot more here that maybe, just maybe, if it had been fully covered by the media and campaigned on would have changed things in the last election and been the sort of issue that could have energized the American People.

Look, being an American should be about being a part of something greater than yourself. If not, then don't pretend you're a patriot. It's really simple -- brave men and women do things that probably are not rational, but they do them because it's their job, it's their duty, it's their country/city/family. You move toward the danger, not away from it. You don't stop to think "Gee, this might be bad for my health down the road..."

Well, at least two stations have covered this bill adequately. Fox News didn't mention in it's coverage that the reason the Senate was filabustering this was because the Republicans were filabustering it. So, fuck them, they're useless and evil.

I respect Rachel Maddow, but the country is not going to become outraged over the delay of DADT reversal. It's not immediately revolting to the average person. There's a process, and it's grindingly slow for the folks involved, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. And, some of the characters she's lionized are not totally wonderful. You don't do political things in uniform; the wearing of the uniform is not intended to be a political statement. So, getting chained to the White House fence in the Army Combat Uniform might seem a nice symbolic gesture, but it violates the Unifomr Code of Military Justice. And, it's not cool with me.

But, the two networks that have done right by the First Responders of 9/11 are -- Al Jeezera, described by Jon Stewart as the network Osama bin Laden sends his mix tapes to -- and Comedy Central.

What the fuck is wrong with us? Why are we not enraged? Are we stupid? What is wrong with the Democrats? (Silly goddamn question, I know...) But if there was somebody in charge of the Senate with some balls, this could have been the issue. This, Veterans Benefits, Unemployment, Jobs, tossing families off insurance -- on and on and on because of the deficit. We don't want to stick our kids with a tax bill -- bullshit. So cut spending, change the rules of the game to benefit the rich so the rich kids of the future can have more limos. I don't think that most Americans are all-in with that sort of logic. But you know, I've been wrong before.

UPDATE: Shepard Smith appears to be a real Journalist working on Fox News! And a man with a conscience...Mirable dictu!

This is the way it goes down...

You lose your job. Your wife loses her job, you lose the house, the cat gets rabies and bites you, you have to have rabies shots, you have to sell the Ford and get an old pickup truck to move to West Virginia to be a FUCKING MIGRANT FARM WORKER! With rabies. Your wife runs a house of ill repute out of the house trailer you have both moved into in WEST FUCKING VIRGINIA servicing coal miners who are going to vote for Sarah Palin. The rabies eats away at your mind and you end up as the SARAH PALIN REGIONAL COORDINATOR for WEST FUCKING VIRGINIA. And, then you die...

Negative fantasies are just that. Negative and fantasies. There can be a reverse Pygmalion effect, though -- keep acting out the negative fantasy and beware of the wish fulfillment.

Is there a petting zoo somewhere nearby? Go find something wholesome and kick the motherfucker. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwOE-1yAlck&feature=related

"If I was going to Afghanistan, this would be the last song I'd fucking want to hear but he asked for it, so..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbY-mHqqM0o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awcv95jwWqY&feature=related
You asked me to play some Dylan and I said Dylan who and you said to kiss your ass...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGHi8CVv4qM&feature=related

And then Sarah Palin feeds you smoked Tofu...

So, a prayer room was ok then but not now...

Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes is not sure which is more likely on this one although given the choice between ignorance, bigotry and hypocrisy, I'd probably go with ignorance and bigotry for the fruitcakes in Florida and elsewhere who are so vehemently opposed to the Park 51 Project. Some of the leadership trying to push this for publicity purposes are of course driven by hypocrisy.

But the presence of a prayer room in the South Tower for Muslims is really troubling...are we, as a people, so ignorant as to not recognize that the World Trade Center was not just part of New York but also a somewhat seperate community, a vibrant and incredibly diverse community? Barring any faith from the area based on the fatuous sacred ground argument is evidence of an evil spirit flowing through our national psyche -- Bar one faith, bar them all and make it a secular monument to profit? Really -- certainly, a lot of people really worship Mammon but still not all.

There were probably Muslims at prayer when the aircraft struck the towers. There were Muslims killed by the terrorists. The ash and debris included Muslim Prayer Rugs, ritual materials and, yes, Korans. And now, a bunch of pinheaded crackers led by Mustache Pete there outside Gainesville are reaping publicity from this debacle cum disaster cum disgrace.

While I know my friend IOZ and a bunch of other people are finding this amusing and probably wondering what the hell is wrong with AXE, and my brothers are probably metaphysically seeking the cold towels to wrap me in, here's the deal. The Muslim Community behind Park 51 are proposing a Community Center. It will contain an Islamic Prayer Room; it will also contain a Christian Room and a Jewish Room. Muslims are no more basically oriented toward inclusiveness than Christians or Jews -- I remember being told that I was a devil worshipper because I was a Catholic by my Protestant friend while I was in 2nd grade. I remember being told all sorts of weirdness about Protestants. Bigotry binds religions together in ways that amaze the anti-theist. (By the way, as Keith Obermann pointed out on Letterman, the Park 51 Iman has not provided a secular liberal prayer room or an atheist reflection room in his plan, and probably should do so...) The Park 51 Community has responded to their better spirit and the hope of Islam as a religion of peace. And, those so incensed and those so ignorant as to demand it be moved away from the stip clubs and delis and the rest of the New York neighborhood to show respect for our White Christian Dead are so wrong as to be funny.

It's been said that God takes care of fools, drunks and the United States. I wonder if he protects the United States from our homegrown fools and drunks. By the way, the Park 51 site will begin to accept donations next week through it's blog. I recommend going back to it and I will do my best to not go totally insane and repost the address then.