A two-alarm fire has severely damaged an Episcopal church in Brooklyn, NY that has been serving as a storage and distribution hub for the Occupy Sandy relief effort, just two days ahead of Christmas. According to CBS News New York, fire department officials say that the blaze was intentionally set.
My Father was a hunter and gun enthusiast. He had at least four guns at any given time. He was the kind of Italian guy goes boar hunting in his 60s. He was kind of dotty toward the end there at 83. He managed to get a trophy boar's head and avoid killing people.
I do not own a gun because I am bipolar. I take legal drugs. Drugs legal and illegal are a common thread through all these mass shootings. So is mental illness for which we take ... wait for it ... drugs.
I am open to gun control. We need it here in Philly. But the PoPo and the Suits never go about it in a way that will actually work. I know a way. Bust nobody for drugs, just guns. Offer a reward to anyone who turns in anyone who has a gun and carries. Does not have to be much: a hundred dollars maybe. That will take many violent felons with guns off the streets.
As long as the War on Drugs continues, so will shootings. Don't innocents always get shot in wars? This war is being waged on our streets and in our homes.
Put the money spent on interdicting drugs into mental health facilities and public health. Take a close look at legal psychotropics being freely prescribed to children and others. The legal drug pushers need attention: Merck, Pfizer, Glaxo-Smith-Kline and many more. You know who they are. They push drugs on the TV and not the street corner.
I just went to the funeral of my friend Baby D who was shot by a paranoid drug dealer. A completely senseless death. I miss him every day. Children are being shot on the streets in my city. The children we lost in Connecticut were shot with legal guns. Gun control is needed. Gun killings are only a symptom of a larger problem. If we look only at the guns, we will miss the mark. We have a large group of people in this country who are zealots, armed and into shooting Doctors. Doctors. Violence in our society is about a lot more than guns. For God's sake, stop rewarding the shooters with a public circus.
Stop dithering SCOTUS, POTUS and Congress about the War on Drugs. You started it. We need to end it - as badly as we need to end the war in Afghanistan. Both are a money sinks that provide no discernible benefit that I can see. We are dying out here in America, Bubble Folk. Poverty creates violence too. We need jobs. We need health care. We pay you to fix this shit. You are not doing the job. You are bloviating. This shit is real. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/jared-loughner-mass-shootings-mental-illness
I used to be a Knicks fan long ago. Earl the Pearl was my main man. I warned you I was old. I find politics more exciting than sports now. And much more important in the grand scheme of things. And a whole lot more bloody.
I assume a certain level of political sophistication in my Readers. Particularly on the issues I write serious stuff about like child abuse and women's civil rights. I provide links to past history associated with today's Asshat Award to help out anyone not obsessively keeping score like me.
Today's Asshat Award is shared equally by an organization (CIA) and the first woman recipient (Karen Handel).
Ms Handel is now running for the Senate. And the Repubs are going to fund her to the max. Why? She carried water bigtime for their Religious Authoritarian Base and will continue to do so if elected. Have you read the Republican Party platform? Opinion at the first link and the entire platform here at this link.
This must be the Republican method of rebranding and restructuring their message. "Conservatism" will sell. It will. Sure it will.
"Rape is just another form of conception" will sound so dulcet and caring coming from the Lips of Handel instead of the Lips of Mourdock or the Lips of Ryan.
If Handel is preaching in ringing tones . . .
"And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” - Richard Mourdock
. . . all will be right in this 12 year old girl's world somehow.
And now for the CIA and the Military. I nominated these organizations for the Asshole Award because the Spooks and the Military get too much of our fricking money for the poor quality of the job they have been doing. Don't these people have anything to do besides lying and fucking and then lying about the fucking and fucking up the lying.
Cheyney was not afraid to take down a whole CIA network. We are still hearing about Petraeus and his ride. I could care less about the sex. Petraeus let a person not in his security grade get access to his computer shit. It is like Get Smart. Only without the smart. Asshats.
Introduction to this Long Book Review of The Feminist Papersby Alice S. Rossi
Alice S. Rossi is a Founder of the National Organization for Women. I had a paperback copy of her book that I bought long ago when it and I were new. A link to her obituary is below.
My friend Ocean was the inspiration behind this series. I will have Ocean speak for herself. She posted this statement of intent in a comment:
Click Me!
"I've read some great books on the history of the women's rights struggle in the past few years. Apparently, there were a lot of unbelievably stupid women who believed such nonsense as "women aren't interested in voting, because they have their men to do the voting for them." Some of the right-wing female fruitbats (love that term!) today are just as moronic, if not more so, than the anti-suffrage women in the 1850's.
During the summer, I came across a great collection of feminist essays at my public library called THE FEMINIST PAPERS, edited by Alice S. Rossi. I think it's well worth reading some of these essays, if your public library has a copy. Hell, I would seriously encourage ALL girls and women to read some of the great essays this book offers. I think too many women of younger generations have no idea what battles the women in the 19th and early 20th century had to fight to both get the right to vote AND to use contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Reading essays by some of these women, including Margaret Sanger, could help more young women understand that electing an anti-choice candidate would be disastrous for women. As President Obama has said, "we've been there, we've done that, we're NOT going backward, we're going forward."
From: THE FEMINIST PAPERS, "The Right To One's Body: Margaret Sanger," by Alice S. Rossi, 1973
Quote:
"Without the means to prevent, and to control the timing of, conception, economic and political rights have limited meaning for women. If women cannot plan their pregnancies, they can plan little else in their lives during the long period from age twelve to fifty, while they are 'at procreative risk.' So long as sexual pleasure could not be enjoyed without the anxiety of a possible pregnancy, women seeking wider and more demanding participation in professions or politics really had an either-or choice of marriage or a career, while those who attempted the combination did so with a sense of anxiety that can be anathema to creativity in work. Sexual abstinence has never been a banner that could attract very women or men, even in the nineteenth century, much less the twentieth.
As perhaps the greatest champion of woman's freedom to control her own life and body, Margaret Sanger has a central place in any overview of feminist history and thought. From the first issue of her magazine, Woman Rebel, in March 1914, to the financial and organizational support she gave to research in hormonal anovulants in the post-World War II period, her life was dedicated to a passionate single-minded commitment to bring the best birth-control methods to ever larger numbers of women around the world. . . .
Sanger's vision was not narrowly focused on the dissemination of birth-control devices. She believed that the whole modern movement toward new sex ideas was bound to be challenged by the conservative forces of society. In her view, sex morals for women had been one-sided, purely negative, inhibitory, and repressive, 'fixed by agencies which have sought to keep women enslaved; which have been determined ... to use woman solely as an asset to the church, the state and the man.' [Sanger 1920]"
Ocean - Editor's Note: Because the original introduction to Margaret Sanger's essay is quite long, I thought it would be more helpful to readers to quote what I believe to be the most important points. Anyone who would like to read the entire introduction can read it in THE FEMINIST PAPERS, if it can be found at the reader's public library or online.
"My Fight For Birth Control," by Margaret Sanger, 1931
Quote:
"One day a woman by the name of Margaret Whitehurst came to us. She said that she was the mother of two children and that she had not money to support more. Her story was a pitiful one -- all lies, of course, but the government acts that way. She asked for our literature and preventives, and received both. Then she triumphantly went to the District Attorney's office and secured a warrant for the arrest of my sister, Mrs. Ethel Byrne, our interpreter, Miss Fania Mindell, and myself.
The crusade was actually under way! It is no exaggeration to call this period in the birth control movement the most stirring period up to that time, perhaps the most stirring of all times, for it was the only period during which we had experienced jail terms, hunger strikes, and intervention by the Chief Executive of the state. It was the first time that there was any number of widespread, popular demonstrations in our behalf. . . .
The arrest and raid on the Brooklyn clinic was spectacular. There was no need of a large force of plain clothes men to drag off a trio of decent, serious women who were testing out a law on a fundamental principle. My federal arrest, on the contrary, had been assigned to intelligent men. One had to respect the dignity of their mission; but the New York city officials seem to use tactics suitable only for crooks, bandits and burglars. We were not surprised at being arrested, the shock and horror of it was that awoman, with a squad of five plain clothes men, conducted the raid and made the arrest. A woman -- the irony of it! I refused to close down the clinic, hoping that a court decision would allow us to continue such necessary work. I was to be disappointed. Pressure was brought upon the landlord, and we were dispossessed by the law as a 'public nuisance.' In Holland the clinics were called 'public utilities.'
When the policewoman entered the clinic with her squad of plain clothes men and announced the arrest of Miss Mindell and myself (Mrs. Byrne was not present at the time and her arrest followed later), the room was crowded to suffocation with women waiting in the outer room. The police began bullying these mothers, asking them questions, writing down their names in order to subpoena them to testify against us at the trial. These women, always afraid of trouble which the very presence of a policeman signifies, screamed and cried aloud. The children on their laps screamed too. It was like a panic for a few minutes until I walked into the room where they were stampeding and begged them to be quiet and not to get excited. I assured them that nothing could happen to them, that I was under arrest but they would be allowed to return home in a few minutes. That quieted them. The men were blocking the door to prevent anyone from leaving, but I finally persuaded them to allow these women to return to their homes, unmolested through terribly frightened by it all.
Crowds began to gather outside. A long line of women with baby carriages and children had been waiting to get into the clinic. Now the streets were filled, and police had to see that traffic was not blocked. The patrol wagon came rattling through the streets to our door, and at length Miss Mindell and I took our seats within and were taken to the police station.
As I sat in the rear of the car and looked out on that seething mob of humans, I wondered, and asked myself what had gone out of the race. Something had gone from them which silenced them, made them impotent to defend their rights. I thought of the suffragists in England, and pictured the results of a similar arrest there. But as I sat in this mood, the car started to go. I looked out at the mass and heard a scream. It came from a woman wheeling a baby carriage, who had just come around the corner preparing to visit the clinic. She saw the patrol wagon, realized what had happened, left the baby carriage on the walk, rushed through the crowd to the wagon and cried to me: 'Come back! Come back and save me!' The woman looked wild. She ran after the car for a dozen yards or so, when some friends caught her weeping form in their arms and led her back to the sidewalk. That was the last thing I saw as the Black Maria dashed off to the station. "
Dear Sir or Madam: You want to punch Grover Norquist in the dick? I congratulate you. I regret that whitehouse.gov took your petition down.
I would pay money to punch Grover in the dick. I would pay money to watch somebody else punch Grover in the dick.
Since the government is too stuffy to arrange this or even leave the petition up, I think we could run a raffle. One dollar a ticket. Some lucky ticket holder will get One Punch.
Think of it. We could pay off a good part of the national debt with the proceeds. Maybe Grover would volunteer. Or we could offer him part of the pot. We cannot kidnap him, tie him up and then punch him in the dick. That would be wrong. So wrong.
It would be incredibly patriotic for Grover to volunteer. And he does care about the national debt so. Might even be the best sex he has had lately. He has that look. Beat me, Daddy, eight to the bar. Apology to Mrs. Grover, if any.
I wonder if the petitioner was a little whacked when creating the petition because there is a typo. One would not want to leave a typo on a petition. Well, I would not. I used to be a typesetter. Old habits die hard. This petition is even better than the petitions I talked about here. Who knew the White House petition site was going to be such fun.
Volunteers from Occupy Sandy and other community organizations are running a massive humanitarian aid effort in New York City. Some say they are doing a better job than the Red Cross. Details at the link below:
If you cannot get to NYC or New Jersey to volunteer in the flesh and ride bikes to power, you can donate to help care for the Folks in need at the link below:
Here is the template and you can go to the link below to add your own captions. You can use any photo of your choice. Have fun! Do not forget to donate $5.00 to the website if you can.:
I give space to Adsense for Content which makes me a few bucks. Adsense has blog crawlers (creepy ain't it?) that relate ads to the content of your pages. That is why you will see Meet Latina Women! ads on here occasionally when I talk about SEX. I hate them goddamn dating ads.
I despise Mitt Romney the Lying Liar with a purple passion. His campaign advertises here anyway. Why, I ask myself? Because I talk politics? Rmoney has money to burn? Because his campaign staff is stupid? Because Rmoney has so much contempt for me that he would casually lie to me and on the pages of my cherished Blog? Who knows? Who cares? Paybacks are a bitch.
"Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday opened a meeting of Roman Catholic Church leaders from around the world to debate how to counter rising secularism on the 50th anniversary of the momentous Second Vatican Council." Read more...
There have always been agnostics and atheists in the pews. We all come to experience community. Secularism is not harming the church. The Roman Catholic hierarchy are harming the church. I do not know why they think this conference will help. The RCC actively discourages telling the truth and they excommunicate or demote any theologian, like Hans Kung, who points to reality.
The RCC can always tell you who is to blame for their decline. It is the Gays' fault. No, it is the children's fault. No, it must be secularism. It must be my fault. I left your church when I was 13, swearing to never come back, and so did every other sane Catholic kid. We all know the RCC is never to blame. Never.
It is the kiddy fucking and the kiddyfucker aiding and abetting that is the cause of your decline, stupid Nazi-Poop. It is trashing Gay folks. It is the Magdalen Laundries. It is prohibiting condoms in Africa. It is promoting Cardinal Law. It is the sad and sickening sexual dysfunction. It is your SIN, you dumbass arrogant Perverts.
“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Scott McPartland provides us with a real sense of the space, emotional and physical, that is Occupy Wall Street and Liberty Park. I felt there in spirit when I watched it.
I got mad at Governor Sam Brownback. I cannot believe what I twatted to him on Twitter. I am so going to Hell.
One day, young Miss Emma Sullivan tweeted a nasty tweet to Governor Sam Brownback. Con brio.
Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot
Somebody from the Governor's office called her school and reported her. How high school is that? It was so corn snorting pea picking stupid that news of the event went viral. The British press even got hold of it.
Brownback ended up apologizing to Emma Sullivan. I like to think I had a small hand in that. Some snarky blogger suggested we bombard Brownback's office with nasty tweets in a show of support for Ms. Emma. Seemed appropriate to me. Some people don't know what Peace is unless they have experienced Fuss.
I tweeted (twatted?) nasty tweets to Governor Sam Brownback in the service of Justice and the American Way. Old Women can say any goddamn thing we want to say. It is one of the perquisites of being older than dirt.
I have to confess (brag about?) how mean to Sam Brownback I have been. I need absolution, Cher Reader. You know what the worst part is? It was fun being a Filthy Tweeter. I discovered I am not half bad at it. It is like putting a message in a bottle and tossing it in the sea. One hopes for a response.
I twatted, among other things:
Yo Sam, stop sucking off prostitutes in the capitol rest room. You embarrassing the junkies. @govsambrownbacksucks scrofulous donkey dick.
I now have 20 new Twitter Followers. Filthy Tweeters of America Unite! You have nothing to lose but Sam Brownback. Phooey.
Thousands are gathering in Liberty Park for the one year anniversary of the Occupy movement. I am so proud of them. I hope no one gets hurt. They are really brave. There is a gathering in San Francisco also. More information at the link below:
I do not wonder what the sex workers are doing right about now in Tampa. I know that "Republican kink" isnota fantasy. It is an understatement. Think of the way they have been mentally raping women for months now. Translate that mindset into amorous expertise across the Bell Curve. It will be a hot time in the old town tonight. Shudder. Please note: Those who object to my attitude toward Law Enforcement (da PoPo, Sexpigs etc.) will understand me better if they go to this Website.
I am fricking old. So I do not entirely understand how Twitter works.
However, I have big brass ovaries and I often learn things by jumping right into the mess to see what happens. So I have Twatted in the past. I decided today that I can learn a lot more by creating a new hash tag and watching how it grows. Maybe it will grow; maybe it will not.
New Hash Tag:
#UpPaulRyansAssWithAWandOfBrass
My first tweet:
Paulie Ryan has a dick, Eee Eye Eee Eye Oh Who would fuck him? He makes me Sick. Eee Eye Eee Eye Oh.
Now you might ask "Why is such a sweet Old Lady saying such nasty things about Paul Ryan?" Eezy Peezy. Just read THIS. No that is not ME above. It is a protester at the RNC.
I draw your attention to this carefully researched essay on Rape. I recommend every woman and any man who loves women read it.
O, Romney-O, Romney-O, Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney? You flip-flop here, you flip-flop there, You flip-flop almost ev'rywhere. You ballyhoo what you're gonna do And then you pull a switcheroo; You now malign what you found fine; Seems like you've got a jellyfish spine. Obamacare, by you begun, Now you'd trash it on day one. Gun control you did extol, But now you're preaching decontrol.
O, Romney-O, Romney-O, Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney? We've got no clue what you will do Or what new view you'll pander to. Time was you championed women's choice, But you no longer heed their voice; On gay rights, too, guess you withdrew Support they once enjoyed from you. Global warming, EPA, Immigration, minimum pay, Roe V. Wade, also fair trade, All joined your flip-flop cavalcade.
O, Romney-O, Romney-O Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney? So many things that you were for You've turned against and slammed the door. Stimulus and cap and trade, Education, foreign aid, Campaign reform, tarp rescues, too, All victims of your switcheroo. You take your stand on shifting sand, We never know where you will land; You vacillate, you fabricate, A wishy-washy candidate.
O, Romney-O, Romney-O, Wherefore art thou Mitt Romney? As gov'nor you let taxes rise, Now ev'ry tax you demonize. You say regardless of the facts You'd take an axe to the millionaire's tax; You'd feed the greed of the richest few The poor and middle class you'd screw. Your tax returns you hide from view What evil lurks there we've no clue; If they're not bad why hesitate? Is it that they incriminate?
O, Romney-O, Romney-O, Wherefore art thou Mitt Romney? At Bain you plundered with a flair And walked away a zillionaire. You shipped off-shore, good jobs galore To China, India, Singapore; A job creator you are not. And to boast you are is tommyrot. As a total fraud, Mitt's got no peer; What we must do is crystal clear: Let's give Obama four more years! Yes, it's Obama – four more years! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!
Tomorrow, August 1, is Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day for the Fundagelicals. The Fundagelicals want us to know they hate Gay Folks and they want to let us know that they have a right to say so. I agree.
I hate to be left out. So I will express my appreciation for Chick-fil-A right here, right now. I do not know who this young woman is, but I would like to buy her lunch. Anywhere but Chick-fil-A.
For those who support our LGBT brothers and sisters and really like the sandwiches, I have a solution. Here are the directions for making your own southern-style chicken sandwich.
For those of you in NYC, Schnipper's Quality Kitchen is donating $1.00 to Marriage Equality USA for each chicken filet sandwich sold in August. See the link below:
Gay folks are not the only folks suffering under the yoke of Dan Cathy's "biblical principles." He fires women who have had a baby and replaces them with men. He fires Muslim managers who do not want to participate in Christian prayers at business meetings.
PHILADELPHIA — Msgr. William J. Lynn was found guilty of endangering children, becoming the first senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States convicted of covering up sexual abuses by priests under his supervision. Read more...
To see more of this New York Times article and get the facts, go to the link above. What you get here is a personal reaction from a lapsed (big time lapsed) Catholic.
I congratulate our District Attorneys Williams and Abraham and our brave Grand Jurors on this important conviction. Now get back to fixing the statute of limitations problem please. Archbishop Chaput has been defanged a bit. Thank you.
I take no pleasure in watching this (curiously boyish, chubby, gray, befuddled, cute) Old Man dragged off to the pokey. I think of him taking that book of offenders names from the safe late at night, and adding to it in secret. I think of Lynn keeping it when Rome wanted it destroyed. Think of it.
Monsignor Lynn did all he was allowed by Rome to do: keep his mouth shut. And then he did more. He kept the truth for us when Rome wanted the list of offenders destroyed.
Cardinals Krol and Bevilacqua, princes of the church, died quietly in their beds at home. They used their law degrees to shield child rapists upon orders from the Vatican. They never went to trial after hiding mucho child abuse with holy aplomb for decades. Think of me wailing here like a child "... but it's not fair."
Let me be clear. Monsignor Lynn deserves to go to jail for his part in aiding and abetting kiddyrapers for years. But Lynn is the least of the offenders.
Sure makes you wonder exactly what his fellow priests were applauding at the big dinner, don't it? Was it keeping the secret book of offenders? What heroic act were they applauding? Taking one for the team of course. Like I said.
Msgr. Lynn got standing ovation at Chaput dinner, say those at event:
Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former church official awaiting trial for allegedly protecting sexually abusive priests, drew words of encouragement from Philadelphia's new archbishop and a standing ovation from scores of priests at a private gathering last month, according to people familiar with the event.
During the invitation-only dinner for Archbishop Charles J. Chaput at a parish hall in Montgomery County, Chaput singled out Lynn in the crowd and noted how difficult the ordeal has been for him, according to one priest who attended and two people briefed by others at the gala.
Much of the audience, which included hundreds of priests, then stood and applauded, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.
Citizens of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, thank Governor Tom Corbett for his plans to make working people poorer by removing subsidies for public transportation and requiring food stamps recipients be absolutely destitute.
Evidently, Republicans as a group are bigtime into paying for The Shrub's wars and the deregulation of the banking industry on the backs of the average Joe and Josephine. And yes, the Republicans do expect us to thank them for these fiscally sound ideas.
The Tea Party and Rand Paul and Tom Corbett are evil little mushrooms.
What happened to the old style Republicans like Ike? Ike's tax rate on capital gains was 90%. And everybody had money and job. These MoFos want to take the food out of the mouths of children and old folks. Literally.
Maybe this Rand Paul guy should come down to my local church food pantry and see how poor and beat down some of the Mothers and Seniors look who come for food aid.
I bet this Rand Paul guy never went to bed hungry a day in his life. If you believe this FruitBat, I got a bridge for sale in Brooklyn real cheap and . . .
Thank you Kameron Slade. I am so sorry that you were kept from delivering your Excellent Speech.
If I were this young man's Momma, I would be bursting with pride. And then I would be on that school like The Banshee. I would wail so loud the ACLU can hear me.
Thank you President Obama for standing up for the LGBTQ members of my Family and for Public Education. The Obama campaign has posted Pride 2012's cover image to their Tumbler page. You can read the magazine online in its entirety.
Update 1:
Kameron Slade got to deliver his Awesome Speech after all. He delivered it with Pride in front of the New York City Council. God bless the InterNet. See the video at the link below. Go Kameron Slade and Kameron's Mom.
I have been missing, I know. It seems that I have Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. That means the last two fingers of my right hand are numb, electric shocky and not functioning. Try typing without two of your fingers. Yuck. In addition, my computer is broken. Thank God for Frankford Library and their public computers.
The good news is that my hand can be fixed and will be next Tuesday. It will, however, be even harder than it is now to type, slice good hard crusted bread and whack off. Poor me.
I will not be deterred. I have quite a few really rude things to say and I am looking forward to saying them over the next few weeks. And, old as I am, I know I can find somebody to help with the whacking off part. And eventually my computer will be repaired or replaced.
This must be the Republican method of rebranding and restructuring their message. "Conservatism" will sell. It will. Sure it will.
Introduction to this Long Book Review of The Feminist Papers by Alice S. Rossi
I feel just like Abigael feels. Tired down to the ground. I cannot wait for election day to be over. Dood Abides to the rescue. LOL. 
"Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday opened a meeting of Roman Catholic Church leaders from around the world to debate how to counter rising secularism on the 50th anniversary of the momentous Second Vatican Council." Read more...
I am fricking old. So I do not entirely understand how Twitter works.
Citizens of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, thank Governor Tom Corbett for his plans to make working people poorer by removing subsidies for public transportation and requiring food stamps recipients be absolutely destitute. 
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