If Edwards' blog bigots had called blacks 'spade,' candidate would have folded their hand by now

EDITOR'S NOTE: Do not click on any links to the personal blogs of Amanda Marcotte or Melissa McEwan unless you have been pretty well immunized against the F-word, S-word, C-word and MF-word, among others.

Blog Bigots for Edwards says its sorry. The brown-shirted RoboBigots -- Amanda "F-word" Marcotte and Melissa "Queen **** of **** Mountain" McEwan -- say they really, truly meant to give no offense.

"My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics," Marcotte said in a post on the Edwards blog.

Likewise, McEwan said in a similar post that she and Edwards "share many views -- including an unwavering support of religious freedom and a deep respect for diverse beliefs.

"It has never been my intention to disparage people's individual faith," she added, "and I'm sorry if my words were taken in that way."

Bull.

SPIN:

My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs . . . .

THE RECORD (MARCOTTE):

Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?

A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

AND THE RECORD (MARCOTTE):

I suspect Pope Ratz will give into the urge eventually to come out and say there’s no limbo and unbaptized babies go straight to hell. He can’t help it; he’s just a dictator like that. Hey, fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, the Pope’s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are cast into Satan’s maw. The alternative is to let Catholic women who get abortions feel that it’ll all work out in the end, which is just not doable, due to that Jesus-like compassion the Pope is so fond of. Still, it’s going to be bad PR for the church, so you can sort of see why the Pope is dragging ass.

AND THE RECORD (MARCOTTE):

One thing I vow here and now — you mother****ers who want to ban birth control will never sleep. I will f*** without making children day in and out and you will know it and you won’t be able to stop it. Toss and turn, you mean, jealous mother****ers. I’m not going to be “punished” with babies. Which makes all your efforts a failure. Some non-procreating women escaped. So give up now. You’ll never catch all of us. Give up now.

***

SPIN:

I'm not going to say a lot about this right now, but suffice it to say that the fact I cast a vote, without hesitation, for a Catholic during the last presidential election might suggest I'm not anti-Catholic. My degree from Loyola University might also suggest the same.

THE RECORD (McEWAN):

What don’t you lousy mother****ers understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?

The Holy Rollers are really on a tear lately. Aside from trying to make sure women don’t have access to life-saving medical procedures, not to mention birth control and emergency birth control, getting busy with the state initiatives to slowly chip away at abortion rights, revving up to bring the Marriage Protection Amendment to another vote, cutting funding for international family planning, increasing funding for domestic abstinence-only sex education programs, and about eight million other things we grouse about on a daily basis, now they’re embarking on a crusade to ban gay adoption in at least 16 states.

(snip)

Seriously, these wankers need to f*** off. Have a look at the thousands of American kids who need good homes, but had the audacity to become orphans after they weren’t cute wee babies anymore, or the impudence to have physical or psychological disabilities, or the scandalous impertinence to be not white. Older children, children of color, and/or children with special needs are more likely to be adopted by gays and lesbians. Not straight married couples. Not even straight singles. No matter how devout or how pro-life or how pro-family. Gays and lesbians adopt these kids in higher numbers than anyone else.

AND THE RECORD (McEWAN):

Liberals see an American tradition of slowly but surely making good on that promise of equality for every citizen, but we tend to call it “progress” and ourselves “progressives.” Social conservatives, on the other hand, define American tradition as the good old days, when there was no question that men were superior to women, straights were superior to gays, and whites were superior to everyone else. They want to preserve and protect that “tradition,” and, though some of them call themselves culture warriors, mostly they call themselves “traditionalists.”

Not only is that shorter than “sexist, racist, homophobic retrof*** jackholes,” but it sounds a lot nicer, too.

AND THE RECORD (McEWAN):

Da New Pope (as Ezra would say) doesn’t like da faggots. As anyone who’s spent more than five seconds hanging around this joint knows, here at Shakespeare’s Sister, we likes da faggots, and so we don’t likes da new pope.

In 1986, Pope Ratz (as by which he will heretofore be referred) wrote a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, in which he recommended that “appropriate forms of pastoral care for homosexual persons” be developed with “the assistance of the psychological, sociological and medical sciences, in full accord with the teaching of the Church,” even though homosexuality had been removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) thirteen years earlier. By 1986, the psychological, sociological, and medical sciences didn’t regard homosexuality as a “disorder” in need of treatment, but clearly, Pope Ratz (and the rest of the church) did.

(snip)

If it weren’t for the fact that this gay-hating bigot was just made head of the largest network of institutionalized homophobia in the universe, that would almost be laughable. A strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil, says the former member of the Hitler Youth. Whether he was compelled to join or joined voluntarily is a matter of debate, but regardless of the origins of Pope Ratz’s former Nazi associations, including serving in the German army, they surely gave him the opportunity to see intrinsic moral evil up close and personal. Those f***ers were marching the fags off to the gas chambers, not the other way around.

As many as a million gays and lesbians were killed in the concentration camps during the Holocaust, with particularly harsh treatments reserved for gay men, who were also widely recruited for bizarre scientific experimentation, in search of a cure for future Aryan homosexuals. Gay men also had the highest death rate (60%) of any other social group relegated to the camps by the Nazis. Lesbians and gays were viewed as a threat to the future of the Aryan race, because they did not procreate, and when the Nazis came into power, they facilitated a swift backlash against the progressiveness of Berlin which had fostered a vibrant and thriving gay community. The entire country was delivered a steady stream of anti-gay propaganda, and the Hitler Youth were indoctrinated with virulent homophobia, which may well explain Pope Ratz’s strange acceptance of violence against gays, even as he condemns it:

(snip)

I reject this pope, I reject his church, and I reject its teachings. I reject the notion that people I love are evil for being gay, or that any expression of love between two consenting adults is somehow sinful. There’s nothing sinful about love, and there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the way I love Mr. Shakes, and the way Pam loves Kate, and Mr. Furious loves Mr. Curious; I reject all claims to the contrary. And if that consigns my eternal soul to the fires of hell, then off I go, tra la la. I never f***ing liked harps, anyway.

THERE YOU GO, boys and girls. The self-serving, misleading "apologies" from the Blog Bigots for Edwards camp are bunk.

If you happen to be a social conservative, a Catholic who actually believes what the Church teaches -- or both -- Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan don't just disagree with you, they (to state it in the native language of the Queens of Bile) hate your f***ing guts, you f***ing, s*** stain mother****er.

The hate speech that emanated from their smokin' keyboards is nowhere close to what these women actually apologized for. (Having been raised in the Deep South, I use "women" quite deliberately, noting the world of difference between "women" and "ladies.")

And an apology that's a lie is no apology at all.

If you've read this blog much at all, you know that a) I am no political conservative, and b) I am no fan of George Bush or the Republican Party. A-tall.

Neither am I a fan of this stripe of Democrat. Its motivating force in politics and in life is the proposition that "f***ing is an entitlement." Peggy Noonan, in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, recounted how a friend explained that fact of modern life to her one day:

"Yes," she says, "but you're missing something. It's what I call F***ing as an Entitlement. F***ing has become another entitlement to urban liberals. They think twelve-year-old girls are incapable of not doing it, that homosexuals are incapable of any restraint, that little girls are ready, period. They think you can f*** without remorse, without responsibility, f*** yourself to welfare, f*** yourself to death.

What a speech. And she means it.

"You know," I say, "I believe liberals care. But if they care about kids and AIDS and kids and pregnancy, why don't they support a system that stresses telling kids why not to have sex? I mean, why not try to give them some kind of armor, some kind of moral protection, instead of just abandoning them to what we tell them is uncontrollable biological imperative? Why can't we try top influence them to hold off"

"They do that in their own homes, and think everyone else should too. It's private, between parent and child."

"Whoa. Then why isn't birth control and giving out condoms private, between parent and child?"

"Because f***ing is an entitlement."

"No, seriously."

"A lot of these kids don't have parents, or functioning parents."

"Most of them don't. Heather's lucky if she has one mommy. But why are condoms the answer? 'I know you don't have a father, so here's a rubber.' It's so disrespectful. It's so dismissive of kids' hearts."

We commune in silence.

"Well," she says, "at least it takes other organs into account."

You know, that book came out in 1994. If it was true 13 years ago that much of our society -- particularly the Outraged Left -- was animated by "f***ing is an entitlement," how true is it today?

Very.

Today, "f***ing is an entitlement" is the source and summit upon which we have built our Western house of cards. "F***ing is an entitlement" is the sacred phallic core of our being. "F***ing is an entitlement" is as close to a sacramental worldview as wingnuts like Marcotte and McEwan get.

Having rejected Jesus Christ as "the way, the Truth and the life," the Secular Left alternatively has embraced "f***ing is an entitlement" as an ersatz eucharist.

And I have little doubt those in the mold of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan -- if given the opportunity -- would demonize, marginalize, oppress and repress anyone and any church (most especially the Catholic Church) with the temerity to stand between themselves and the Holy Inconsequential Climax. Hell, they're halfway there, now.

TO BE BRIEF AND BLUNT, I'll put it this way: I have strongly suspected for some time now that President Bush and some of his cohorts have fascistic tendencies of some crypto-Mussolini stripe.

Of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, I have no doubt. None. And they ain't no mere Mussolinis, either.

This is what John Edwards has chosen to stand behind. This is what John Edwards not only chooses to tolerate but to put in key campaign roles -- with full knowledge of who they are, what they stand for and (most troubling of all) who they hate.

John Edwards is as unfit -- or more so -- for the office he seeks as the man presently holding it.

Crying on the breeze, the pain is calling, oh Mandy

Lisa “Robochick” Nowak

General Delivery

Orlando, FL 32801

Dear Mrs. Nowak,

First of all, let me express my deepest sympathies over your present legal predicament. Life's a bitch, then you get busted.

But look on the bright side of life: It has come to my attention that William Oefelein is not interested in Colleen Shipman in the slightest. So, while it is indeed a bummer that you drove 900 miles in a soggy pair of Depends to "talk" (wink, wink . . . nudge, nudge) with Miss Shipman, at least the little Air Force floozy ain't makin' time with the Astronaut You Love.

That's the good news.

UNFORTUNATELY, MRS. NOWAK . . . . May I call you "Robochick"? Thanks.

Unfortunately, Robochick, I have come across evidence that the Astronaut You Love is involved with presidential candidate John Edwards' new blogmistress. (See attached photo.)

This Amanda Marcotte person is a bad one, Robochick. I cannot repeat here the kinds of bigoted, hateful, foul, nasty and ugly things she has written online. I mean, I don't know you well enough to talk dirty with you -- and I imagine you would prefer to save that kind of talk for the Astronaut You Love.

Suffice it to say that my mama told me that a woman who writes filthy dirty hateful smut like this blogmistress is no lady. If you are OK with sullying yourself while still in the midst of your present ordeal, you may check out Kathryn Jean Lopez's column at National Review Online.

Once again, I must caution you that a woman of your refinement and position will be scandalized by such as can be found there. This Amanda Marcotte of AUSTIN, TEXAS -- a city not far off of a route you know quite well, by the way (and surely will require less than a pack of diapers) -- is an eeeeeeevil woman, Robochick.

The Astronaut You Love deserves better than such an angry harridan. He deserves someone more in line with your particular charms and refinement.

You have sacrificed greatly for love, yet when the sacrifice is for a loved one, it is no sacrifice at all. I know you know this. That is why I felt compelled to inform you that the Astronaut You Love is still in mortal danger from the claws of another woman (I hesitate to call this Amanda Marcotte of AUSTIN, TEXAS a lady, for she does not exhibit the qualities thereof).

Godspeed, Robochick. I think you know what you have to do.

Best wishes,

The Mighty Favog

Does Google pull this crap in China? Yeah, right.

It seems that the podOmatic atheist-ad-o-palooza is the doing of . . . (insert drumroll here) Google (insert cymbal crash here).

See, Google isn't just a search engine. It's an E-mail provider. It's in the video bidness (Can anyone say YouTube? I knew that you could). It's in the advertising sales and placement business. It owns Blogger, which is host to this web log.

And it slices, dices and makes perfect Julienne fries.

According to the fine folks at podOmatic, all of the ads appearing on podcaster pages are placed by Google. And Google only allows the recipients of their "network" ads (like podOmatic) to block ads on an individual basis.

In other words, according to the podOmatic folks, that company cannot go to Google and say "We will not accept any ads for nutball pro-atheism 'documentaries,' and you damn sure can't put them on the pages of faith-based podcasters." When people like me spot offensive -- or at least wildly site-inappropriate -- advertisements and raise holy hell with podOmatic, then the powers-that-be can go to Google and say, "Kill the ad for The God Who Wasn't There. NOW."

This is what the podOmatic folks report they've done, and I thank them for that.

NOW THAT GOOGLE also is expanding its "advertising network" to radio stations' unsold spot "avails" and even to the world of print advertising, this could get interesting. I cannot wait for the Trojan Man to make his way to a small-town radio station somewhere in the Bible Belt.

Or to the student newspaper at Bob Jones University.

D'ya suppose Google would let me place an ad for the Catholic Church (underground, not "patriotic") on a few mainland Chinese websites? I somehow doubt it would.

For example, go to http://www.google.cn and type in "Falun Gong." Then do the same thing at http://www.google.com.

If the price is right, American information conglomerates can ensure the free exchange of ideas will be Gone With the Yuan. Just as they can shove atheist apologetics down Catholic podcasters' throats.

Evangelism about Nothing

Now, I'm sure if podOmatic -- the host for the Revolution 21 podcast -- were to put ads for Fred Phelps' nutball "Baptist" church in Kansas on the homepage of a gay podcast, there would be hell to pay.

Rightly so.

But if podOmatic puts ads for an atheist movie -- say, "The God Who Wasn't There" -- on the homepage of a podcast devoted to the proposition of reintegrating faith into life (and into music radio).

Well, that's what podOmatic did with the Revolution 21 podcast page. Amazing . . . but not really.

What do we call that? Probably "diversity," for "diversity" is a one-way street in this society.

Frankly, I want to know what the @#$& atheists care whether people believe in God or not. It's no skin off their noses.

So what motive do they have to "evangelize"?

Fun from spreading misery? Jealousy run amok? Spite? A cry for help?

I mean, if you believe in God, live according to what you take to be His will, kick the bucket but it turns out there really ISN'T a God . . . what have you lost? Nothing.

If you're an atheist, do as you will, make "documentaries" trashing the notion of a deity -- specifically, the reality of Jesus Christ -- then you assume room temperature and come face to face with Jesus Christ . . . .

Oops.

Congratulations! You've just lost everything and gained eternal torment!

Atheism. It's not just nothing; it's a Hell of a bad wager. (Props to Blaise Pascal.)

Hitting close to home. Again.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all
the evil spirits, who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

SEX AND MONEY. If one doesn't get you, the other one will.

They ought to engrave that above the doors of every chancery in every Catholic diocese in every corner of the world. Then they ought to make a sign and post it in every priest's office.

And in every damn one of our homes.

Mrs. Favog and I always thought Fr. Steve Gutgsell was a great guy. When we were wanting to become Catholic, Father Steve -- then an associate pastor at Christ the King here -- made the time to give us private instruction because we worked nights, when RCIA classes (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) met.

We got solid instruction -- we used Fr. John Hardon's Pocket Catechism -- and we completed our studies in about half the time RCIA would have taken. We began instruction in January, and Father Steve confirmed us during a regular Mass in May 1990. (And there's a whole story there that can wait for another day.)

During our instruction, Father Steve took a philosophically pro-choice Favog and began to open his eyes, and heart, to the Culture of Life. He gave us copies of Humanae Vitae to read for ourselves . . . and when I did, the light bulb went on in my head:

This isn't a scheme to make sure there are lots of Catholics. This thing makes absolute sense.

Before our confirmation, Father Steve heard Mrs. Favog's and my first confessions. After our confirmation, he put together a group of married couples (including us) to study scripture and Church doctrine.

By this time, we weren't even at his parish anymore. Didn't matter.

AND SOME YEARS LATER, when Mrs. Favog was in the hospital for cancer surgery, he made sure to visit her. Even though he was a pastor in O'Neill, Neb., hours away in the farthest corner of the Omaha archdiocese.

Between then and now, there came -- apparently -- that "wickedness and snares of the Devil" thing. It would seem, for Father Steve, the master of deceit (who, by the way, is a true professional . . . I know) slipped past St. Michael the Archangel. And on his rounds prowling about the world seeking the ruin of souls, he is alleged to have made a stop at St. Patrick's in south Omaha.

From the Omaha World-Herald (free registration required):

To some parishioners, the Rev. Stephen J. Gutgsell seemed like the kind of man who would spend money on St. Patrick Church rather than take money away.

He made sure tablecloths were new for every season, as well as the scarves that hang on statues in the south Omaha parish. Once, organist Rita Carbonell watched him pay for Christmas flowers with his own credit card.

"He liked to make it so the parishioners could do what we're here for -- come to God," said Carbonell, a lifelong member.

But that image was marred Friday when Omaha Archdiocese officials accused Gutgsell, 48, of embezzling more than $100,000 from the church.

The archdiocese contacted the Omaha Police Department Friday, and Gutgsell resigned his position as pastor.

"At least for the time being, he's not going to have a pastoral assignment," said the Rev. Joe Taphorn, chancellor of the archdiocese.

Taphorn said there are no indications that anyone else was involved in the theft. The archdiocese started a financial review in early January after parish lay leaders raised concerns.

Gutgsell could not be reached for comment Friday.

St. Patrick, at 1412 Castelar St., stands in the middle of a neighborhood with brick streets, large trees and old houses with chain-link fences. The church, like the neighborhood, is a place where people make their home for generations.

The parish -- Gutgsell's home since June 2001 -- has about 320 households and 680 parishioners, small when compared to other Omaha parishes. The Rev. James M. Buckley, an associate pastor at Holy Cross Church, has been transferred to St. Patrick as the parish administrator.

Gutgsell grew up in Blessed Sacrament parish in north Omaha in a devoted Catholic family. His brother, the Rev. Michael Gutgsell, is a former chancellor of the archdiocese and is pastor at St. Cecilia Cathedral.

(snip)

In addition to his regular church work, Gutgsell said Mass at other places in the neighborhood, including the Women's Care Center of the Heartland, St. Joseph Villa and St. Joseph Tower. He even led a regular Mass for home-schooled children.

He oversaw the opening of the Women's Care Center, a residential crisis pregnancy center housed in a former convent adjacent to the church.

"He was always hustling and bustling, said Fran Rieschl, who lives across the street from St. Patrick and attends morning Mass. "I've never seen anybody who is as busy as he is."

Rieschl said she refused to believe he would do anything wrong.

"He is a nice guy," she said.

Not everyone was shocked, though.

When 84-year-old Jennie Grazziano died in September, her son contacted Gutgsell to arrange the funeral.

Tony Grazziano, 58, whose mother was a St. Patrick member for more than 60 years, said he recorded his phone conversation with Gutgsell because he "didn't have a good feeling" about the priest.

In the recording, Grazziano and a man identifying himself as Father Gutgsell discuss conflicts about the funeral date. After declining to change the date, Grazziano has Gutgsell talk to funeral director Patrick Henry of Council Bluffs.

"I expect to charge this fellow (Grazziano) a huge amount of money for this," Gutgsell tells Henry. "That's what I'm expecting to do. Don't tell him this at this point."

(snip)

Monsignor Edgar Wortmann of Blessed Sacrament Church knew Gutgsell as a teen. Michael and Stephen served as altar boys. Their mother attended daily Mass and cared for the altar and the vigil candles.

Wortmann said he didn't talk much about a vocation with the young Stephen Gutgsell.

"But he was certainly thinking of it," he said. "(He was) very devoted, very -- I hate to use this word, but a very straitlaced person. There was absolutely no indication that anything like that was there."

A video report from KMTV, Channel 3 is here.

Just call this Object Lesson 1,239,702,481,968,807 in How the Lord's Prayer Is Deadly Serious Bidness. I don't know about you, but I plan on praying extra hard next time when I get to the "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" part.

'Diversity' is not a cheap slogan at Revolution 21

People talk about diversity a lot, but we never see that much of it, really.

Well, this week's episode of the Revolution 21 podcast is all about diversity. We have so much musical diversity, it's gonna make your head spin.

And that's a good thing.

I've never understood folks who only like one kind of music. To me -- if it's really true that variety is the spice of life -- how lacking in savor must theirs be?

See, your Mighty Favog grew up on rock 'n' roll. But he also grew up on old-time country, and R&B, and a heapin' helping of soul and funk. That was the milieu of the Deep South in the '60s and '70s, and -- minus the old-time country -- that was Top 40 radio back in the day. That was the world of the "Big Win 9-10," WLCS in the Favog's hometown, Baton Rouge, La.

That was the earscape of "The Mighty 690," WTIX in New Orleans. And "The Rock of New Orleans," WRNO . . . mostly.

And to an even more eclectic extent, that was the freeform-radio world of the old "Loose Radio." Just a wee bit lighter on the soul and funk. And a little heavier on the "alternative country" acts.

Diversity. That word used to mean something apart from cheap political sloganeering. And that's what Revolution 21 is all about.

OH, YEAH. Back to the new podcast.

Let's just say that in the first 30 minutes, you're going to get from Echo & the Bunnymen to Billie Holiday to Diana Krall to the Ides of March. And, as they say, the fun is all in the journey from here to there. Or is it from there to here?

Also in tonight's "diverse" lineup: Nilsson, the English Beat, Criteria, My Morning Jacket, the Sex Pistols and Billy Bragg. That enough for ya', Skipper?

Be there. Aloha.

A poem for New Orleans

The president said,

'I'll fix levees like new,'

But talk is cheap,

And your lives are, too.

From The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune:

WASHINGTON — President Bush is expected to shift $1.3 billion away from raising and armoring levees, installing flood gates and building permanent pumping in Southeast Louisiana to plug long-anticipated funding shortfalls in other hurricane-protection projects, a move Sen. David Vitter describes as a retreat from the president’s commitment to protect the whole New Orleans area

Vitter, R-La., who unveiled Bush’s plans Thursday, condemned the move in a strongly worded letter to the president and called on him to ask Congress for more money to complete work that he promised would be done - and Congress financed - in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

“I believe your fiscal 2008 budget proposal would be a step back from that commitment, however unintended,“ Vitter wrote. “I am deathly afraid that this vital emergency post-Katrina work is now being treated like typical (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) projects that take decades to complete. We will not recover if this happens

John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for Public Works, said that the money will go toward critically needed hurricane protection on the West Bank that has left residents vulnerable. Without it, he said, work would have to stop in a matter of months when financing dries up

“We will come to a point later in spring when we will have to stop issuing contracts unless the additional funding is made available by some other means,“ Woodley said. “There is no question, as the senator says, of our commitment. It should not be seen as a step back from that commitment.“

It has been anticipated for months that there would not be enough money to finish long-planned hurricane-protection work on the West Bank, including raising levees to
withstand a 100-year storm and building flood walls on the east side of the Harvey Canal. Bush’s budget appears to be an attempt to finally complete those projects without asking Congress for additional hurricane-protection money.

Instead, his fiscal 2008 budget is expected to “reallocate“ $1.3 billion from what Congress appropriated last year to fix the failings of the region’s hurricane-protection system exposed by Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in American history.

Had enough, New Orleans?

Had enough, Louisiana?

Had enough, Mississippi Gulf Coast?

Had enough, America?

This one's for Molly

Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins – a true red-hot mama and Texas liberal firebrand – died Wednesday. She was 62.

I didn’t agree with her half the time, but I couldn’t fault her style. But in her final column, published Jan. 11, Molly nailed it with her final words to her readers:

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!”

AIIGHT, MA'AM. This one’s for you, from The Mighty Favog. May God rest your soul.

* * *

The Hon. Lee Terry
Representative, Nebraska 2nd District
1524 Longworth House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Representative Terry:


I will not take up much of your time – or, more accurately, your staffer’s – for what I have to say is simple:

Impeach President Bush. Impeach Vice-President Cheney.

These two men, it is plain, have lied and miscalculated us into a tragic, calamitous war in Iraq that (it is now clear to all) we had no business starting. There were no weapons of mass destruction; there was no nuclear-weapons program; there was no call to oust that country’s despotic president because that responsibility properly belonged with the Iraqi people, not with an American hegemon.

This unjust war is not about “freedom and democracy.” This unjust war IS about the stupidity and pride bedeviling the two fools who pilot our ship of state. Indeed, all we have done in Iraq is create the conditions for the rise of Shia mob-ocracy.

Tell me, sir, what kind of “freedom” is possible when you’re getting blown up daily by terrorist bombs or killed by sectarian death squads? We, at the instigation of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, are the perpetuators of a grotesque and catastrophic farce, for which the consequences have been -- and will continue to be -- dire.

The blood of nearly 3,100 American troops (and God only knows how many Iraqis) is on the hands of these two miscreants. And, by extension, the blood also is on your hands and mine.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, I (like you) believed President Bush and the “intelligence” he presented us. I thought Saddam’s Iraq presented enough of a threat that a pre-emptive war might be justifiable; I thought there was an Iraq-al Qaida link.

In retrospect, I was a damned fool. And so were you.

I now am trying to make amends for that; are you now willing to do the same? Are you now willing to hold a dangerously incompetent and mendacious administration accountable for its misdeeds and incompetence?

We have an administration that is systematically degrading our military and eroding our geostrategic interests in a deeply stupid, highly costly war -– a war that was unjustly waged from the start.

We have an administration that cannot and will not secure our southern border or seriously enforce immigration law in the American workplace. This has contributed to the suppression of American blue-collar wages, as well as to the plight of our most vulnerable fellow citizens.

We have an administration that utterly bungled the response to the biggest natural disaster in more than a century – the destruction of a large swath of the Gulf Coast in Hurricane Katrina.

We have an administration that has shown utter contempt for the Bill of Rights, as well as for the legitimate rights and powers of Congress.

If this is not –- at a minimum -– official malfeasance, what is, pray tell?

Sir, I write as someone who is not politically conservative but who most certainly is socially conservative . . . and ardently pro-life. I used to be a reluctant Republican; the Bush Administration has turned me into a disaffected Democrat.

Even as a Democrat, I do not relish the thought of President Pelosi. In all likelihood, she would pursue a social agenda I would oppose vigorously.

But this is what we have come to: the point where the presidential calamity that might be is preferable to the utter presidential catastrophe that most certainly is.

The war must end. Bush and Cheney must go.

And may God have mercy on us all.

Now, if the project were in Sadr City . . . or done by 'guest workers,' this idea might have a chance

In case you hadn't heard (and if this is the case, thank GOD you awoke from that vegetative state . . . IT'S A MIRACLE, I tells ya!), the federal government has been quite diligent about throwing good money after bad on a calamitous expeditionary war in Iraq and pork-barrel "earmarked" projects.

It has not been diligent at all about rebuilding the devastated Gulf Coast, including the New Orleans area, which was drowned by the Army Corps of Engineers' breakaway levee system. Nor has it been diligent about chipping away at pernicious poverty and social breakdown, even after Katrina laid bare the festering sores on America's body politic.

The government, and America's business leaders, instead found the economy can be kept limping along upon the backs of illegal Mexican immigrants, who demand little in the way of living wages, benefits or compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations. (All they ask is no one call la Migra.)

IN FACT, it seems to me that the federal government's official jobs policy goes something like: If illegal aliens can't do the job here, the Chinese can. In China.

In other words, screw America's poor, screw America's working class, and screw America's middle class.

And, still, the Gulf Coast molders.

As a certified neo-New Deal Democrat, your Mighty Favog has, from Day One, thought that the displaced and jobless of the Gulf Coast region ought to be put to work rebuilding their cities and towns in a full-fledged Works Progress Administration-style jobs program. In the process, the ill-educated could be educated, and the dysfunctional could be counseled.

But every able-bodied participant would know the dignity of honest and meaningful work.

FINALLY, BY GOD, someone -- a San Jose State professor -- has come up with just such a proposal. And someone in Congress has called for such a thing, too.

Amazing.

It probably doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell. This is the New America, after all.

Still, if you're like me and can't resist tilting at windmills, you can go here and tell your congressman and senators in Washington to DO THE RIGHT THING.

It would cost a hell of a lot less than our Perpetual Meat Grinder in Iraq.

Best Little Whorehouse in Toronto?

If both people are getting paid to have sex with one another, is it still prostitution? Or, if a crowd of people are watching, is it an illegal sex show at an unlicensed strip joint?

Or . . . are the Louisiana state and Ontario provincial governments just in the bidness of granting tax incentives for porno flicks? 'Cause if you're actually doing it, it ain't acting.

Those are just a few of the questions that come to mind after reading a particularly juicy gossip item in the New York Daily News about Factory Girl, which shot in Shreveport and north of the border in Toronto:

Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen treat us to some utterly convincing lovemaking in their new movie, "Factory Girl." And it's no wonder: We hear the costars actually coupled on camera.

"It's not simulated," an insider tells us. "They're really doing it."

In the movie, Miller plays doomed Andy Warhol protégé Edie Sedgwick. Christensen plays a folk rocker modeled after Bob Dylan.

It was during the film's Louisiana shoot that Miller ran into another squall in her stormy romance with Jude Law -- and turned for comfort to Christensen, the "Star Wars" heartthrob.

"They spent about a month hanging out," says one pal of Christensen. "But then she decided she didn't want a relationship. Hayden was devastated. He really fell for her."

Added a friend of Miller, "Sienna wanted to try to make another go of it with Jude. But, again, it didn't work out. At the end of last summer, she and Hayden ended up in Toronto for more shooting. They hadn't talked in six months. But it turned out to be a great reunion."

Apparently. When it came time to shoot the love scene, word is the former lovers dispensed with the flesh-colored socks and pads favored by actors on less familiar terms. And, once the cameras were rolling, the two 25-year-olds fell into old habits.

At the movie's premiere on Monday, director George Hickenlooper would tell us only: "Sienna and Hayden grew close during the filming. It was an emotional experience for all of us." As for the sex, he said, "We tried to portray it tastefully."

And was congress actually in session during the shooting?

"I can't comment," Hickenlooper answered. "You'll have to ask Sienna about it."

Miller left the Chelsea Hotel after-party before we could ask about the love scene - and where she now stands with Christensen, who wasn't at the premiere. Yesterday, Miller's publicist said the sex wasn't bona fide: "She's just a really good actress."

I'll bet.

ONCE UPON A TIME, folks in Louisiana could express pretty clearly what is alleged to have transpired here. But today, it would be politically incorrect to speak of "white trash up to no good."

So I won't talk about what the hell kind of trashy people get their freak on in front of God and everybody . . . including "mainstream" movie audiences. Sex between a husband and wife is special -- sacramental, even.

This -- if it actually happened as alleged -- is people with no shame and no decency rutting in the name of Debbie Does Dallas and The Devil in Miss Jones, which used to be known as "smut," not "art."

And this episode of Brats Behaving Badly was subsidized by somebody's tax dollars.

One, two, three . . . what are we fightin' for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn . . .

NEXT STOP'S GONNA BE I-RAN!

And it's five, six, seven,

Open up the pearly gates,

Well there ain't no time to wonder why

Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

As we all prepare for an even worse quagmire in the Middle East -- not to mention really, really expensive gasoline (as opposed to the mundanely expensive gas we've been dealing with on and off again the past couple of years) -- the CNN story excerpted below has gotten me thinking about the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964.

That and President Bush's bamboozle-us-into-Iraq track record, that is. Read on:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Pentagon is investigating whether a recent attack on a military compound in Karbala was carried out by Iranians or Iranian-trained operatives, two officials from separate U.S. government agencies said.

"People are looking at it seriously," one of the officials said.

That official added the Iranian connection was a leading theory in the investigation into the January 20 attack that killed five soldiers.

The second official said: "We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained."

Five U.S. soldiers were abducted and killed in the sophisticated attack by men wearing U.S.-style uniforms, according to U.S. military reports. (Watch how attackers got into the compound )

Both officials stressed the Iranian-involvement theory is a preliminary view, and there is no final conclusion. They agreed this possibility is being looked at because of the sophistication of the attack and the level of coordination.

"This was beyond what we have seen militias or foreign fighters do," the second official said. The investigation has led some officials to conclude the attack was an "inside job" -- that people inside the compound helped the attackers enter unstopped.

Investigators are looking particularly at how the attackers got U.S.-style military uniforms and SUVs similar to those used by U.S. troops. (Watch what could happen if the U.S. opts to strike Iran )

"'Who was behind it all?' was the fundamental question," the first official said.

The U.S. military on Friday confirmed accounts that the soldiers had been abducted and driven away from their compound. The military had said in a January 20 press release only that "five U.S. soldiers were killed and three wounded while repelling the attack."

Some Iraqis speculate that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps carried out the attack in retaliation for the capture by U.S. forces of five of its members in Irbil, Iraq, on January 11, according to a Time.com article published Tuesday. (Read the article)

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has a reputation for taking harsh and unrelenting revenge on its enemies, the Time.com article says.

The five Iranians are still in U.S. custody.

The U.S.-led coalition has said a preliminary investigation found links between the detainees and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which has provided funds, weapons, bomb technology and training to extremist groups in Iraq.

ONE THING IS FOR CERTAIN. The average American teen-ager's protests against having to study "boring old history that I'll never use anyway" has lost whatever cachet it might have possessed.

And, though I'd never vote for the guy, you have to hand it to dark-horse, libertarian-leaning GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul:

Rumors are flying about when, not if, Iran will be bombed by either Israel or the U.S.-- possibly with nuclear weapons. Our CIA says Iran is ten years away from producing a nuclear bomb and has no delivery system, but this does not impede our plans to keep “everything on the table” when dealing with Iran.

We should remember that Iran, like Iraq, is a third-world nation without a significant military. Nothing in history hints that she is likely to invade a neighboring country, let alone do anything to America or Israel. I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran.

Where girls are first but Jesus is scarce

Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus.

THERE. AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, I am now even with the very extensive website of Marian High School in Omaha, Neb., in mentioning Jesus Christ.

Remember Him?

If that's any indication of how prominent Jesus Christ and the authentic teaching of His Church is at the all-girls high school run by the Servants of Mary, a Catholic parent could do just as well in their daughter's faith formation by sending her to the local public high school -- which, generally, you can count on to be an excellent one, by the way.

And that Catholic parent of a teen-age girl could save quite a wad of Benjamins every year as well. Certainly enough to go a very long way toward financing four years at, say, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Which has a nationally lauded Catholic student center, by the way.

Mrs. Favog and I have been volunteering in parish youth ministry in Omaha for a long time now. As in, many of the first kids we worked with are now in their 30s.

Not to pick on Marian (because, God knows, it is more the rule than the exception in the Catholic high school world, from what I hear), but in our experience, if there's some serious teen-age, angst-ridden challenging to be done of some really basic, really plain teachings of the Catholic Church in youth group, there's a Marian girl behind it somewhere.

Or a Creighton Prep boy.

SO, YOU HAVE TO ASK . . . what is up with this Catholic School Thang? Are parents that clueless about schools that faithless, or are kids being kids and there ain't no dang thing that can be done about it?

Or is it all about prestige and tradition with a lot of parents, and not so much about Jesus? If at all.

I don't think it's unreasonable, as an adult Roman Catholic, to really wonder what Catholic schools are about anymore, and whether that happens to matter to anyone in charge. If spiritual results could be quantified, tested and reported -- and if Catholic parents and Catholic clerics worried about them at all -- my years-long observation leads me to suspect there would be a massive uproar and subsequent "No Christ Left Behind" initiative from the U.S. bishops.

Naw . . . instead we get annual PR campaigns and fund-raising appeals. In other words: You can bulls*** some of the people most of the time, but most of the people don't give a rip.

Amy Welborn, over at Open Book, has a thread going about Catholic-school angst. It's WAAAAAAAY more active than a similar one for I Heart Catholic Schools. F'rinstance:

I attended a Catholic high School, Schulte HS in Terre haute IN. The school was staffed in part by the Sisters of Providence. We were taught that it was undesirable and supersticious to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. We were discouraged from saying the Rosary. In religion Class the Priest, Fr. Godecker, told us that healing from the Anointing of the Sick was "too magical" and that sacraments sybolized community concern. We voted on the Real Presence and Transubstanciation, and they lost. The school was closed for financial reasons, people weren't sending their kids there. That's also where I learned to smoke pot, drink alcohol and commit several sins of the flesh. It too, was a classist institution.

My Kids went to Holy Family in New Albany. They are now Adults, in their early twenties. They didn't know why we would venerate relics. They didn't know to invoke the intercession of saints. They had no concept of the Eucharist as more than a community memorial feast. They were there on tuition assistance, and were treated a second class by teachers and other students, who somehow found out that they required assistance. More classism.

I dis-recommend Catholic Schools now. There are some good ones, but very few.

Posted by: Mitch S. at Jan 29, 2007 9:29:52 AM

Dear Diary: Why I almost quit Pope FM yesterday

EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's another in the occasional series of dispatches recorded some years ago from the front lines of Catholic radio -- Pope FM.

* * *

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 31, 2001

Dear Diary,


I didn't mention one thing that hap-pened earlier in the day yesterday. Probably because I was still too all-out furious about it.

The background (as if I didn't know, but humor me, Me):

We've been having trouble with the reliability of our teen-age hosts of Holy Spirit Rock, a music show that follows the Saturday rerun of Keys to the Kingdom. When they don't show, I've been substituting the computer-generated voices of John (an American PC) and his "lawfully-wedded co-processor" the British Marsha. I use a couple of text-to-speech demos on the Web to generate the voices.

Actually, I think John and Marsha are better than the "organics." I have a great deal of fun putting the show together -- actually, I put together the human-hosted show, too, by voice tracking the kids and then assembling the show with the music, bumper music, "shotgun" show IDs and sound effects. And it's commercial-radio slick, too.

But something happened that really, really pissed me off and damn near caused me to quit on the spot:

Yesterday, in a production meeting with the general manager, Mary said she was about to cancel the show if the kids didn't take it more seriously. I told her I thought the show was an important outreach to youth and to cancel the present hosts, not the show, if they didn't clean up their act.

I added that I thought the show had great potential and eventually could be syndicated nationwide.

She said youth programming wasn't "a priority" at this time, and that she didn't want me spending so much time putting Holy Spirit Rock together. She's starting a daily series of five-minute reflections by local priests, and wants me to concentrate on stuff like that.

I responded that I was seriously worn out and burned out by the long hours and constant technical crises, and that doing Holy Spirit Rock was the only thing keeping me engaged right now. She repeated that HSR wasn't a priority, and that people wanted to hear their priests on the air.

Besides, she added, "youth don't contribute to the station" monetarily.

Well, Me, I've always heard the expression "seeing red," but I thought it was just that . . . an expression (but, once again, ah reckon you knew that). But I think I really did "see red" yesterday when Mary said what she said.

It took every bit of my strength to control myself. I almost bit a hole in my tongue to keep from calling her a g**damn Pharisee and quitting.

Instead, I repeated that youth programming was important and that all the production work was getting done, despite the time I spent on Holy Spirit Rock. The rest of the day I alternated between intense anger and being near tears. I could not believe what I had just heard.

Then again, maybe I'm just naive.

Today, the development guy and I were talking about youth programming, and how many experienced media professionals had been offering to help out with things like Keys to the Kingdom. He agreed with me totally about last night's KTK blunder, and then I told him what Mary told me about kids "not contributing" to Pope FM.

This guy is the best money hustler I've ever seen, and his jaw literally dropped. His expression was one of total shock. He said "If youth programming isn't a priority, what is? That's the future." He couldn't believe she really meant what she said. Then he urged me to stick to my guns and keep hammering away on the subject.

But you know, it's not just Pope FM. There's a pattern of the Church as a whole not committing the attention and resources to its youth. And if you look at every other Catholic radio station in the country, I'll bet that what little Pope FM does in that area (generally badly) is pretty close to average nationwide (as far as radio goes . . . on the Web, there's AlphaMegaRock.com -- full time, yes, but it's just a jukebox and has low-budget written all over it).

The Church bitches and bitches about the Culture of Death, but I contend we're a part of it so long as we ignore our children.

I am just soooooooo tired. And I'm soooooo tired of how frigging Pharisaical and evangelism-incompetent "orthodox" Catholicism is.

Nighty-night.


-- Me

Hell on earth

Some people think Hell is somewhere in the nether reaches of the Earth's gastrointestinal system, and that you get there when the Big Man springs His divine trap door.

I think Hell can, and does, erupt in the bowels of Baghdad. Or New Orleans.

Or at 12410 Westwood Lane in suburban Omaha, Neb.

Here's some of a story that made the national Associated Press wire today, from MSNBC:

OMAHA, Neb. - Omaha police believed a 62-year-old man fatally shot his daughter, her husband and her two young sons before turning the gun on himself early Sunday.

Police responded to a radio call just before 1 a.m. and found five people shot inside a west Omaha home. All were dead except Jamie Lee, 26, who died later at a hospital.

Investigators believe Lee’s father, Richard Wilkinson, shot her and her family before committing suicide, police Sgt. Teresa Negron said.

“We’re continuing the investigation to attempt to determine what occurred in that
residence,” said Negron.

KMTV television in Omaha picks up the story from there:

Neighbors tell Action 3 News they heard shots coming from the house and when police arrived, neighbors were asked to stay in their homes, "I heard people yelling, then my mom said she heard a gunshot and we all went outside and started looking and the police told us to get back in the house."

Late Sunday afternoon, Omaha police spokesman Officer Chuck Casey said this is now a murder-suicide investigation and they believe the owner of the home, Richard Wilkinson, killed his daughter, her husband and her two children. Friends of the family say there had been ongoing problems in the home, and Jamie Lee recently moved out with her family, but returned Saturday.

Darrell Lee is listed on Nebraska's Sex Offender Registry as a Level 3 Offender, who was twice convicted on sexual assault on a child.

(Video)

Hell on earth. It's not just a saying; it's what fallen humanity is capable of, what Satan desires of us, and it's what we refuse to acknowledge until it slaps us in the face.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Dear Diary: Dear Rage Against the Machine . . .

EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's another in the occasional series of dispatches from the front lines of Catholic radio -- Pope FM.

* * *

TUESDAY, OCT. 30, 2001

Dear Diary,


I decided it would be unconscionable for me to bitch about the Keys to the Kingdom kids and not respond myself to the guy who E-mailed the show. So I did.

Here's the letter. I'm going to bed. It's late.

-- Me

* * *

Dear Rage Against the Machine,


Thanks for your question to Keys to the Kingdom last evening. I thought it was a valid one, and it cuts to the very heart of Christianity. As a Pope FM staffer, I was in the control room for the show, and I thought that maybe the panelists gave answers that were a little more complicated, peripheral and long-winded than they needed to be.

Then again, I've got a few years on the kids, have been through the School of
Hard Knocks and used to be in the newspaper business. I have a lot of years of experience at chiseling away bulls*** and cutting to the chase.

Bottom line: What has God done for me lately? The same thing He's done for you. Jesus Christ -- God come to earth, the second person of the Trinity -- has allowed himself to be insulted, tortured, beaten and hanged on a cross until He was dead. All this in order to be a perfect sacrifice to atone for all our sins, yours and mine (and I've committed some doozies in my life), so that we don't have to get what perfect
justice requires we have coming.

God, the Creator of the universe in the person of Jesus Christ, allowed Himself to be killed by His own creation because He was the only sacrifice good enough to make up for every s***, crappy, unspeakably awful thing that humanity had done, is doing or ever will do. And, as Catholics, we believe that one-time, perfect act of perfect love is brought into our presence, through time and space, at every Mass during the consecration. In that way, yes, giving His very life at Calvary is something Jesus has done for you lately.

Even now, it's hard for me to fathom that. My old man never cut me a bit of slack -- and nothing I ever did was good enough for him -- so I still have a hard time understanding that the Creator of the universe loved me so much he died so I might have everlasting life. He died for me. He rose again on the third day in a final conquest of death. And He waits for all the prodigal sons and daughters to come home, when He will wipe the slate clean.

Even so, we still suffer on this earth. The world still suffers from the effects of sin, and we suffer also. We have free will -- God loves us too much to make us mindless robots -- and that means we have the freedom to do what is wrong as well as what is right.

But that is here. Now. Because Christ died to atone for our sins, if we accept that great gift, the suffering one day will end for us and we will have eternal joy in the presence of our Savior.

And in that here-and-now suffering, God will grant us comfort and peace. He's the Father, brother and friend who doesn't care what you are but instead loves you BECAUSE you are. He's the one person who knows the most awful thing you've ever done and loves you despite it all.

So you're pissed off at God. Well, I've been pissed at God, too. So, tell God EXACTLY how pissed off you are. Tell Him you don't think he's done jack s*** for you. Ask Him what He has to say about that.

He's God. I think He can take it.

Then, listen to see exactly what He has to say about it.

You hate God. God loves you. I think you're getting the better end of the deal, frankly.

Listen, I don't know what parish you live in or even whether you're Catholic. But you're certainly welcome to come to our youth group at St. Matthew's most Sunday nights at 6:30. Our youth minister is a great guy.

And there's more than a few of us (alleged) adult volunteers who've been there, done that, got the T-shirt and by the grace of God lived to tell about it.

Just don't end up like my old man. He died of brain cancer in May at age 80, and he died a bitter and scared man. I still hear him on his death bed crying out -- just out of the blue -- "Lord have mercy." But I don't know that he really believed the Lord would have mercy. In other words, I fear he died without hope.

I'm not sure you fully understand what an awful thing that is. It haunts me.

In your heart of hearts, is that how you want to end up? You don't have to, you know.


God bless,

Me