Confused and Conflicted Am I

My heart hurts, my mind is befuddled, and I see no solution. I love Pope Frankie. I hate the Roman Catholic Church.

I am a Roman Catholic, baptized and confirmed. I wish the RCC would stop working so hard to manipulate me into sanctity.

I left the RCC behind when I was 13 years old. I made occasional check-backs to see if there was any change in their sexual and cultural insanity. In the Mass I went back to, a priest's homily contained the priest's observation that homosexuals 'deserved AIDS for their sin.' Left again and did not go back until this year.

I know this: the Vatican hired a Fux Snooze public relations guy when Benedict was Pope. They needed a whitewash desperately.  The RCC's poisonous pedagogy has closed nine parishes in Philadelphia.

And then Pope Frankie appeared. And I love him. I exhibit clearly that I love him and why I love him HERE. I love him especially when he tells it like it really is to his own. I feel proud to be a Catholic. I have not felt that in a long dry time.

And then critics of the RCC point to reality. Nothing has changed. The Magisterium takes no responsibility for their own doctrine. They begin to blame the laity for going the way they sent them. Some Catholics are intolerant and cruel, but it is all lay Catholics fault because we are not praying hard enough. Or praying correctly. I pray fervently often. Are you saying that I can pray religious insanity and zealotry of others away? I will work on that as soon as I have prayed my own away.

Caro Frankie, are you telling me that my not praying is why some priests stuck their dicks where they did not belong and Krol and Bevilacqua kept the dirts out of jail? My not praying hard enough caused Savita Halapavannir to die a miserable painful death? My not praying hard enough is why the Magisterium is not hearing the laity? Who is the Church. Its priests or its people?

I swore this oath below when I was a child and I meant it. Now the adult-me is trying to comfort the child-me who was earnest and believed what the RCC taught me. I was made to swear to things as a child that the adult me does not believe for a moment, I could repudiate my baptism but my inner child would scream in pain. In a very real way, Catholicism is me, my family, my culture. And I cannot run away from myself.

During the rite of Confirmation, the candidates stand as a group for questioning by the presiding bishop:

Bishop: Do you reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises?
Candidates: I do.

Bishop: Do you believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth?
Candidates: I do.

Bishop: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father?
Candidates: I do.

Bishop: Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who came upon the apostles at Pentecost and today is given to you sacramentally in confirmation?
Candidates: I do.

Bishop: Do you believe in the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
Candidates: I do.

Bishop: This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it in Christ Jesus our Lord.
All present: Amen.

We Won't Have John Boehner to Kick Around Anymore

John Boehner has resigned. This post has musical accompaniment below.

Man is a stone drunk. How can you tell? John the Roofer said "Drunks don't cry; they vomit through their eyeballs." It is always crying time for the Boner. I know from personal experience that drunks do not see well. That is why John cannot tell when he looks in the mirror that he is bright orange.

I say it is time to regularly and randomly drug test Congress. Start with Steve 'Cantaloupe Calves' King. I will add a link to a White House petition to drug test Congress maybe. I don't know why I persist. I never get more than a hundred signatures.

Do these assholes in Congress think we cannot tell an addict or a whackjob when we see one?

Here is what Sydney Blumenthal thinks below. I am glad somebody in the Red White & Blue Bubble is thinking.

Who did not know Boehner was a drunk? The USA is like a big dysfunctional alcoholic family. Nobody talks about the drunken Elephant in the room.

"Boehner is despised by the younger, more conservative members of the House Republican Conference. They are repelled by his personal behavior. He is louche, alcoholic, lazy, and without any commitment to any principle. Boehner has already tried to buy the members with campaign contributions and committee assignments, which he has already promised to potentially difficult members. His hold is insecure. He is not Gingrich, the natural leader of a "revolution," riding the crest into power. He is careworn and threadbare, banal and hollow, holding nobody's enduring loyalty. Boehner is beholden and somewhat scared of his base. He twitches when they make gestures that might undermine his position. His impulse is to hand out money. His aim is to recreate DeLay, Inc, with Jerry Lewis, who will be the new chairman of Appropriations. But Boehner is neither feared nor loved. He's a would-be DeLay without the whip. He's the one at the end of the lash. Which means he will be under great pressure and find it hard to sustain a moderate, reasonable strategy of restraint."

JEBYA SPEAKS!

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush warned America is “creeping toward multiculturalism” during a campaign stop Tuesday, and said he worries about areas where the assimilation process is “retarded.”

In response to a young woman’s question about how to empower immigrants as Americans, Bush said at an event at a Cedar Falls, Iowa diner that multiculturalism should not be the goal.

“We should not have a multicultural society,” Bush said. “When you create pockets of isolation, and in some cases, the assimilation process has been retarded, it’s wrong. It limits people’s aspirations.”
- By KATHERINE KRUEGER

Creeping toward multiculturalism? When did we leave it behind? Both my Grand Mothers were immigrants. Neither of them spoke English or needed to. They lived in ethnic enclaves. I learned more than one language to talk to them. I would go back in time to live in those ethnic enclaves in a heartbeat if I could.

I am not giving up the bodega and their Dominican Beef Stew with Rice and Peas. I am not giving up sight of the beautiful women in native dress at the mosque on the corner. Such colors. I am not giving up the ladies of the Hood View and our late at night on the pavement sometimes drunken multicultural discussions. I am not giving up having my choice of cuisine done by Thai, Ethiopian, Greek, Korean, Polish, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese cooks in small family owned places. I am not giving up the Gay Pride Parade or dancing in the Gayborhood.

I live in the City of Brotherly Love. I do not want to live in Whitebread City with you Jebya. Not ever. Fuck you Jebya. Eat my stromboli.

OMG GOP WTF? - Tongues in the Sauna - UPDATE BELOW

Get your mind out of the gutter, cher Reader. I know what you were thinking when you read the title. You thought I provided some more Filth and Dirt. Well, not this time.

This woman is a GOP candidate for Senate in Alaska. She is attempting to convert(?) someone in a sauna by singing in tongues.

What is there to say? 2016 cannot come fast enough for me. Many thanks to gtoSnipey for preserving this after she made it private and erased all the comments.

She is back with more and better batshittery. Alaska sent us Palin and this woman. Maybe it is something in the water?

Bede's Beat - Gloomy Sunday

Szomorú vasárnap was composed by Rezső Seress in 1933.

While the title of Seress' composition was translated into English as Gloomy Sunday, it was popularly known in both the U.S. and the U.K. as "the Hungarian suicide song" due to innumerable press accounts of people who cited the song in their suicide notes. 

The song was even locally banned by several radio stations in the interest of "public morals." Seress himself committed suicide in 1968,

Marozsán Erika: Szomorú vasárnap (Gloomy Sunday)

The first person to sing Gloomy Sunday in English was Paul Robeson in 1936,

Robeson's English-language version was quickly followed by many others, perhaps most famously, that recorded by Lady Day:in 1941:

Gloomy Sunday has been recorded in may different styles and remains part of the soundtrack -- and an essential entry in the songbook-- of the 1930s and 1940s, and is still performed to this day.

Charlie Adams: Gloomy Sunday

Björk: Gloomy Sunday

The Elephant in the Womb - A Poem for Asa Hutchinson

We're Baggers GOP.
We want to control your pu^^y.
We want to be like it's 1853.
Please elect us hopefully.
- timalways wrote this. 

"Governor Hutchinson has no business telling women in Arkansas where they can and cannot go for cancer screenings, birth control, HIV tests and other care," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

 In August, Hutchinson said the state would cut off contracts with Planned Parenthood because its values did not represent those of the people of Arkansas.

The Arkansas contracts involved services including nurse practitioners, pharmacy and family planning and were delivered through the Arkansas Medicaid program. No state funds were used for abortions, except in the case of incest, rape or when the life of the mother was at stake.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Editing by Sandra Maler)

If I wanted a legislator in my womb, I would fuck a Republican Governor. Best way to fuck Asa Hutchinson? VOTE! 

You can get the TShirt HERE and wear it in his face. I make no money at all from sales. 

Kim Davis? Spit Spot.

Happy Belated Birthday, Charlie Parker - Bede's Beat

Editor's Note: Bede was lost and now he's found. Huzzah!

It's a musical cliche to say that Charlie Parker changed the way we listen to music forever. It is also true.

In honor of his birthday, August 29, Bede's Beat presents a comparative listening set comprised of three of Parker's recordings of the same song -- Ray Noble's Cherokee -- which vividly illustrates the impact which Parker had upon the way we hear music and understand rhythm and harmonics today.

from 1941 with The Jay McShann Orchestra, the big band that first brought Parker to national attention:

from 1943, an home-recorded take on Cherokee -- This is bop at its birth:

from the famous Massey Hall Concert in Toronto in 1953, along with Dizzy Gillispie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach:

As a final point of comparison, here is the original recording of Cherokee by the composer's own band, The Ray Noble Orchestra, from 1938

SIGN OF THE MONTH - September 1, 2015

Works for me. Republicans have the rape and breeder slavery of women in their party platform. Republicans have contempt for women.

Trump: “Excuse me, you DROPPED to your knees?”
Brande: “Yes."
Trump: "It must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees."

"Rand Paul in Kentucky...wants the government to intervene if a woman gets pregnant because of rape or incest...to force a woman or a girl in that situation to give birth to the rapist's baby or to their relative's baby, no matter what she or the girl or woman's doctor wants."

Last week, Paul Ryan gave an interview in which, defending his position that there should be no excuses for abortion, he referred to rape as a "method of conception."