California, There You Go!

I am hugely disappointed and greatly pissed off about the CA Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. And maybe somebody could help me figure it out...how are 18,000 gay marriages legal and 36,000 gay Californians lawfully wed, and all the people who didn't get in under the wire now can't be the same?

It's not even "separate but equal." It's separate and UNequal. And it totally sucks.

I can't believe that California is such a backwards bigoted state as to allow its Constitution to be appropriated to special interests by a simple majority vote. A majority of simpletons, actually.

And who the FUCK do the Mormons and the Catholics think they are to try to impose their narrow-minded, mean-spirited, hypocritical values on everybody else? National Defense of Marriage? You can kiss my royal Irish Pagan ass! Here are thousands and thousands of people who would like nothing BETTER than to be married, and you godfreaks are preventing them. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. Nobody's making you wed a gay person. So why won't you allow gay people to wed?

If your church doesn't want to marry gay people, fine. Then don't come around with your hand held out begging for money from the government. You live by the sword, you die by the sword; your own god said so, and what could be fairer than that?

I wonder who the Mormies and the RCs will go after next in California. If it's so bloody easy to tamper with that state's Constitution, I bet the next target will be Mexicans. Or Arabs. Or Jews. Or Pagans.

So come on, like-minded Californians! Get your act together and trample these bigoted weasels underfoot like rotten, poisonous grapes. Grind their hypocrisy into the dirt and dance upon their faces.

And gay Californians and other outraged citizens of that state, don't pay your state taxes. Why should you? You're legally discriminated against, after all. Are you going to actually pay them to make you sit in the back of the bus? Hit the state where it hurts the most; it's fiscally almost bankrupt anyway. We see too that it's morally bankrupt as well.

If I didn't have so many friends in California, I'd like to see it sink into the Pacific.

That's all.

For now.

Jesus Weeps...

This is from the Times of London. I am speechless with fury, revolted to the point of vomiting, and also not surprised one little tiny bit. (I'd put this behind a cut, but I lack ths skill...)



May 25, 2009

Catholic Church is living with one foot in Hell

Don’t look away: it’s unbelievable that we still haven’t learnt the lessons from systematic child abuse in Ireland

Libby Purves



Understandably distracted by our own little crisis of trust, we have perhaps not taken in the apocalyptic import of a bigger one across the Irish Sea.

Perhaps it is a vague sense that we knew it all; perhaps reluctance to engage with the horrid details of the Ryan report into child abuse by Irish clerics. Perhaps some think it is old history, a 1950s horror. Maybe there is even a decorous sense that — as a new Archbishop of Westminster is enthroned here — it is tasteless to dwell on the wickedness deliberately concealed by his Church right into the 1990s. Or maybe our own child protection system now looks so shaky that we cannot bear to contemplate the toothless, deferential Irish respect for the priesthood that enabled thousands of children to be starved, raped, enslaved and beaten even as Ireland moved into its tiger economy in the new Europe.

But don’t look away. There are wider lessons. Ireland is at least looking squarely at it now, and trying to understand how history twisted its public values into obeisance to unanswerable clergy, so that cruelty and child rape became endemic. It was not only in orphanages and schools but in parishes where families dared not protest. For it was the courageous Colm O’Gorman who helped to prise this all open, when he spoke of his repeated rape, at 14, by Father Sean Fortune in his home village. He successfully sued the Church and challenged the Pope (whose nuncio hid behind “diplomatic immunity”).

The victim was accused by the Vatican of being part of a conspiracy; “Canon Law” defences were invoked and the first report — the Ferns report — ignored. “How can it be,” asks Mr O’Gorman, “that a church hierarchy who comment on a children’s film [Harry Potter] can fail to comment on a report, commissioned by this State, that found Rome culpable in the rape and abuse of Irish children?”

Now the wider, more terrifying Ryan report has met with almost equal evasion and the Church — which raked in millions from government subsidy over decades — has even managed to slough off most of its financial responsibility.

I am not exaggerating; rather the contrary. The Ryan report, merciless and forensic, finds the crimes “systemic, pervasive, chronic, excessive, arbitrary”. It speaks of the deliberate protection of priests and religious by their hierarchy; of inspectors and police backing off respectfully and senior clergy refusing to help the inquiry. It says that the order that housed the worst sadists, the Christian Brothers, made only a “guarded, conditional and unclear” apology, and cut a deal that no individuals should be named.

The children’s own testimonies are too harrowing to repeat: beaten, stripped, humiliated, hung from windows. Some got pregnant, some killed themselves. Sexual attack came not only from their keepers but visiting functionaries; one little boy who spoke of being assaulted by an ambulance driver was beaten by the nuns “to get the evil out of him”.

Enough. There is no defence, the evidence is overwhelming. It was a sickness of cruelty, exploitation, official cowardice and inward-looking hypocrisy traceable all the way to the Vatican. Catholicism has not been cleaned up, only lightly dusted. Some Irish dioceses have become properly robust, and Cardinal Seán Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, speaks of being “deeply ashamed”; but I do not notice him pointing his condemnation upwards or rejecting the culture of hierarchy and obedience, anonymity and deniability.

Our own new Archbishop, Vincent Nichols, expressed due horror, but then enraged survivors by praising the “courage” of clergy “who have to face these facts from their past”. Incredibly, in an interview on Five Live, he also observed: “it is a tough road to take, to face up to our own weaknesses. That is certainly true of anyone who’s deceived themselves that all they’ve been doing is taking a bit of comfort from children.”

Weakness? Comfort? God save us! It gives an insight into why the Church, quick to absolve, blithely moved known abusers on to fresh fields and fresh victims.

“They had their own laws that were written to ensure they were never in the wrong” says Mr O’Gorman, simply. And they covered their backs: when the former Archbishop of Dublin was told that he could be liable if abusers were returned to parishes, he did not prevent this happening. He just took out an insurance policy against financial losses from such claims.

It has been an Irish disaster, but has lessons for us all about the perils of respectful naivety. Archbishop Nichols, after his predecessor moved a paedophile priest to Gatwick, where he offended again, said that little was known about paedophilia then; well, he still knows little if he can talk about men “taking a bit of comfort from children”.

This is pure celibate silliness: we are not talking about cuddles here, but rape. I grew up with the Catholic doctrine of forgiveness of sins, I know the territory: but to forgive your own team and ignore their victims is not holy. It is corrupt.

When good people are smug and bad ones are slippery, great evils grow. When any institution slaps on a self-approving label — whether it is “Holy Catholic Apostolic” or like our MP’s, “Honourable” — and uses it to defy cynical inspection, the weak will suffer. What seems not to be fully understood by the hierarchy is how much damage this has done.

It gives me no pleasure to say so: I was raised a Catholic, and know what high ideals of gentleness it expresses, and how beautifully.

I learnt at 12 years old not to believe in the automatic holiness of the religious, in a South African convent where nuns hit us and spoke contemptuously of “kaffirs”. I then learnt not to condemn the lot, when I moved back to a kindly, intellectual English convent where they honestly tried to live the holy dream. I have always been able to believe the tales of evil without rejecting the whole shebang.

Many Catholic clergy do great good. The remarkable Colm O’Gorman, after decades of struggle, does not reject the ideal either: he says he wept for Father Fortune’s suicide and hopes that in afterlife he finds forgiveness.

Now that’s holiness for you, and without a smug label round its neck. And until the institutional Catholic Church recognises that, abases itself, pays up, allows whistleblowing and faces the unthinkable, it remains a disgrace. Until it learns humility, it has no hope at all. It is a Church living with one foot in Hell.



Me again...

And may they all rot and burn there for all eternity. They apparently don't believe that sin applies to them...won't they be surprised!

It is absolutely beyond me that anyone calling themselves a human being could condone and countenance such behavior.

It is beyond belief, in some other GALAXY, that men and women who pretend to holiness and cloak their festering souls in the name of Jesus could practice such cruelties on innocent children.

And it is beyond even this UNIVERSE why people of good will and clean heart continue to support and make excuses for such an evil, evil institution.

And I fault the Irish, too---my own people---for still being the superstitious, priest-ridden, forelock-tugging serfs they've always been, forever knuckling under and groveling to anyone who wears a cassock or a habit.

Why Catholics who still believe in decency (I know you're out there somewhere...) do not rise up in a body and speak out loudly to condemn and overthrow this TRULY Satanical yoke of hierarchy is a mystery and a revulsion to me.

You should be ashamed of yourselves, kowtowing and concealing and enabling such unbelievable evil, and the God you profess to believe in will account it against you for unrighteousness. Fear THAT, if you can't summon up any pity for these poor abused souls.

You people make me sick. And if I could wave my hand and destroy with a single flaming blast the Church that approves and condones this abomination and so many others, I would. Without even blinking. As it is, may the righteous curse of the Goddess be upon it and all its minions.

Karma, man, y'know?

Take It As It Comes

My friend Steve the rock critic sent me this. It's the doc that a team of Brits was filming back in December, I think it was; I may have mentioned it here.

It was probably the best interview anyone has ever gotten out of me on the subject. Because you're only as good as your interviewer, and this guy Tom was absolutely incredible. He kept on focus about Jim and his role in the Doors, in the world, and only then in my life; no gossipy crap here.

Questions nobody else has ever asked me: how I perceived (and reviewed) the band as a rock critic; how I felt about them as a personal-favorite act. Good stuff, and I think I gave good stuff back. We'll see.

Interesting that they're promoting me in this pr piece. Oh well, it'll just be something else for the haters to grab on to and take shots at me about...but know what? I DON'T CARE.

FINALLY, for once I got to talk about Jim as the amazing artist he was, in the context of his time and mine; what he meant to people, for good or for ill. That's not anything I've ever really been able to get into before, except in "Strange Days", and that was of course of necessity colored by the personal factor: the love and the grief and the wrath.

Here I got to talk about Jim as an artist-hero and also as a flawed, brave, tragic person, and hopefully it'll help make him real to a whole lot of people who persist in seeing him as some sort of icon. He hated icons.

I'll be interested to hear what the other critics have to say...Goldstein loved the Doors and gave them their first big publicity, but he kind of went off them toward the end, I think, more out of sorrow than anger. I don't remember if Christgau was a fan or not.

Anyway, something for you to maybe check out. I hope I can summon the strength to watch it myself. Oh, and I'm wearing a jewel Jim gave me, so that's something for the jewel porn fans among you...;)




THE DOORS
From The Outside
Brand new documentary featuring those who knew the group and its members best

Available on DVD
July 14, 2009
Through MVD Visual

MVD Visual and Sexy Intellectual are pleased to announce the home viewing release of The Doors "From The Outside" for North American distribution on DVD.

This brand new documentary film tells the story of The Doors, not from the perspective of the surviving members - as has been told so many time before - but from the recollections, memories, stories and anecdotes of those who knew the group and its members best.

The panel is headed by a woman who was as close to Jim Morrison as anyone ever was; his widow Patricia Kennealy-Morrison. Patricia has rarely spoken on film about her relationship with Jim, or about her own memories of The Doors. This is a once in a lifetime contribution from someone who knew just about everything that went on.

Also interviewed is Billy James, the man who 'discovered' Jim Morrison and an early incarnation of The Doors. Billy signed them to their first deal with Columbia Records, and gained the trust and respect of the entire group. Here he tells-all about those very early days when The Doors were known only to a select few.

Richard Goldstein - editor of Village Voice and close friend of the band is on hand too with his anecdote - heavy version of events, as is Mark Benno, the legendary blues musician whose searing guitar graced the L.A. Woman album.

The very finest Rock journalists and writers, and those who lived through and were affected by The Doors' music as it was being released also contribute to this most original documentary film. In this regard, we are joined by Robert Christgau, Johnny Rogan, Dave DiMartino, Ritchie Unterberger, Doug Sundling, and Jim Morrison's biographer James Riordan.

The program is further enhanced by the rarest footage of the band in existence, classic live and studio musical performances, seldom seen photographs, news clips, location shots and much more.

EXTRA: "Conversation with The Lizard Queen" featurette, in which Patricia Morrison reveals her own views about Jim Morrison as an artist, a poet and a visionary.


Hi Res Cover Art

Sales Sheet

Selection #: SIDVD547
UPC: 823564517292
Street Date: July 14, 2009
Retail: 19.95
Run Time: 139 minutes

A Jihad By Any Other Name...Is A Crusade

From the San Francisco Chronicle


Pentagon reports no longer quote Bible

Monday, May 18, 2009


(05-18) 16:21 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The Pentagon said Monday it no longer includes a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings it sends to the White House as was practice during the Bush administration.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know how long the Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets quoted from the Bible. Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer, who was responsible for including them, retired in August 2003, according to his biography.

For a period in 2003, at least, the daily reports prepared for President George W. Bush carried quotes from the books of Psalms and Ephesians and the epistles of Peter. At the time, the reports focused largely on the war in Iraq.

The Bible quotes apparently aimed to support Bush at a time when soldiers' deaths in Iraq were on the rise, according to the June issue of GQ magazine. But they offended at least one Muslim analyst at the Pentagon and worried other employees that the passages were inappropriate.

On Thursday, April 10, 2003, for example, the report quoted the book of Psalms — "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. ... To deliver their soul from death." — and featured pictures of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down and celebrating crowds in Baghdad.

"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand," read the cover quote two weeks earlier, on March 31, above a picture of a U.S. tank driving through the desert, according to the magazine, which obtained copies of the documents.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, on Monday said U.S. soldiers "are not Christian crusaders, and they ought not be depicted as such."

"Depicting the Iraq conflict as some sort of holy war is completely outrageous," Lynn said in a statement. "It's contrary to the constitutional separation of religion and government, and it's tremendously damaging to America's reputation in the world."



Well, now, isn't THAT a big old relief? I cannot BELIEVE they were doing this all along. What part of "separation of Church and State" do they not understand? This is absolutely outrageous.

I'd like to beat THEM into plowshares. Or at least beat them WITH plowshares...

I bet they never thought the part where Jesus says "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven" ever applied to them...

La Fheile Bhealtinne Sona Dhibh!

Which is to say, Happy Beltane!

I must say, the high holydays of our faith always give me such a wonderful feeling of continuity back to our ancient past...as the song sings it...we're still doing as our long-ago ancestors did, and even allowing for modern quirks and tweaks and retconning, they would still recognize what we do today. A joy and a comfort, to be sure.


Cup of Wonder, Jethro Tull


May I make my fond excuses
for the lateness of the hour,
but we accept your invitation,
and we bring you Beltane's flowers.
For the May Day is the great day,
sung along the old straight track.
And those who ancient lines did lay
will heed this song that calls them back.

Pass the word and pass the Lady,
pass the plate to all who hunger.
Pass the wit of ancient wisdom,
pass the Cup of crimson wonder.

Ask the Green Man where he comes from,
ask the Cup that fills with red.
Ask the old grey standing stones
that show the sun its way to bed.
Question all as to their ways,
And learn the secrets that they hold.
Walk the lines of nature's palm,
crossed with silver and with gold.

Pass the Cup and pass the Lady,
pass the plate to all who hunger.
Pass the wit of ancient wisdom,
pass the Cup of crimson wonder.

Join in black December's sadness,
lie in August's welcome corn.
Stir the Cup that's ever filling
with the blood of all that's born.
But the May Day is the great day,
sung along the old straight track.
And those who ancient lines did lay
will heed this song that calls them back.

Pass the word and pass the Lady,
pass the plate to all who hunger.
Pass the wit of ancient wisdom,
pass the Cup of crimson wonder.