Pedophile! Pedophile!....man of God?

I was raised in the Roman Catholic church, and while in my youth I viewed it as simply parental obligation as I've grown older I've found solace in the church. Over the past decade or so, it's come to light that there have been some Catholic priest who've abused their position and sexually abused young children in the church. This is both reprehensible and inexcusable. What angers people far more than the fact that these things occurred is the fact that a good number of these things were covered up.
Has this been going on in the church for some time? Obviously it has as people who've survived this come forward all the time and tell their stories. Should we ignore these stories? If so it would be at our peril. Should we act as if these occurrences are the exclusive domain of the Roman Catholic church? We'd be stupid if we did. Every so often I turn on my television and hear of some small town preacher or a local one for that matter accused of taking sexual liberties with the youth of his church, but more often than not as they are not Catholic it rarely warrants the big press and follow up stories that it would get if the clergyman were a Catholic priest.
In the song "Ode to Billy Joe" a young man leaps off a bridge to his death because he's tortured by having been molested by a church elder. Literature and popular culture are smattered with stories of the young and naive being taken advantage of by some in positions of authority in the religious bodies to which they belonged. Is it justified? Of course it isn't.
In the midst of the Catholic sex scandal I grew weary of non Catholic holier than thou types saying disparaging things about ALL priest because of the actions of a few. In the time that I've spent in the Catholic church as a child and as an adult I've never been privy to ANY behavior from my priest which I'd consider inappropriate. I wager that most clergy regardless of their faith are honest men who have dedicated their lives to the practice of their faith.
Recently the head of a mega-church was accused of bribing young men (with church funds) into sexual relationships with him. Do I believe there is any truth to the allegations? Honestly I've not seen enough evidence one way or another to either assume he's guilty or innocent of the charges. If it is true I'm upset that a clergyman would do something so reprehensible while preaching God's word, but what truly bothers me is that the same people who would incinerate every Catholic priest on earth simply because of a few sick men are coming to the defense of the accused minister. I even heard Reverend Al Sharpton asking if we as a people should even scrutinize the "private lives" of our clergy. I found this a tad odious. Men of the cloth are supposedly carrying the mantle of God. When one is a standard bearer for his God he IS held to a considerably higher standard than some politician or public figure. There are those who would say that the Late Reverend Martin Luther King engaged in activities that were quite unbecoming a minister. I don't know if those allegations are true or not, but as Reverend King was attempting to get a good portion of America to give basic human dignity to another portion of it and he was NOT attempting to get donations to give to mistresses on some church payroll, comparing MLK to some of todays wanton clergy is like comparing apples and water mellons.

I won't openly attack someone else's faith, or what I perceive to be "cult of personality" ministries, but I have to say I have a hard time reconciling those who would lambast my faith (from which the MAJORITY of Christian religions are derived with the exception of Coptic, Greek & Eastern Orthodox) while acting as if somehow theirs exist in a vacuum. We live in a country that is supposed to be devoid of religious litmus tests, yet I guess that only applies if one belongs to the "right" religion.

EVERYBODY...but me.

If oft been told that as an American I live in "The Greatest country in the World". Despite not having the world's highest literacy rate, (That would be Japan) not living the longest (that would be where the Japanese barely edge out the Swedes). Perhaps it's the ratios of doctors per hundred thousand people? Well if it were we'd lose out to China big time. What makes the U.S. so great? Well, THEORETICALLY you can be born dirt poor in the U.S and become a wealthy man or woman through hard work. Most DON'T live out that Horatio Alger story, but in theory it's possible (given you kiss up to the right people or make the right "connections.")
Let's face it greatness is like "sexy" you simply are because you CHOOSE to be. America became a superstar in the 1940s and 50s simply because we weren't in either Europe OR Asia. World War Two saw massive bombing in Europe and Asia saw the infrastructure of countries utterly collapse. The U.S lost no factories so we helped friend and foe alike rebuild their economy while building our military. Translation we got rich and strong helping everyone else out.
Now the rest of the world is on equal footing with us and economically while we're still the big kid on the block we've competition from some of the kids we used to bully like Germany, Japan, China and India. We barely manufacture ANYTHING but we excel in ONE area...blaming EVERYONE for everything.
The great thing ABOUT being an American is simply that NOTHING which ever goes wrong is EVER your fault. Face it through out our illustrious history we've ALWAYS had convenient scapegoats for EVERYTHING! In the early days of this country it was the Native Americans, then the slaves, then the immigrants, then various religious groups, people of color, communist. We as Americans while we can no longer derive a sense of pride from having more missiles and thermonuclear devices than what WAS the Soviet Union can at least say we blame others for our problems MUCH better than anyone else in the entire world.
Blaming other countries for your woes may be xenophobic...but damn it, it's the American way. But why stop at that. The blame game works in practical everyday situations.

In real life if your kid's an idiot, why blame YOURSELF for not paying enough attention to his education or making him/her read when he/she was coming up? Do you pause and think that maybe you shouldn't have given him the electronics store that IS his room and should have encouraged him to pay closer attention in school? NO You blame his overworked underpaid teachers and every musician and television personality whom he or she listens to.
Don't blame yourself for never changing the oil in your car, blame whomever BUILT what your driving when your engine falls apart. Low wages are not the fault of either a society which tolerates them OR the cheap a-holes who pay them they are the fault of people who sneak into this country because the a-holes in THEIR countries pay even LESS!
If you're over weight it's not because you've never eaten any form of vegetation, it's the fault of fast food conglomerates for being on every corner. Never mind the fact that no one has ever been forced into a burger joint at gun point and force fed a metric ton of french fries or a quintuple decker bacon cheese burger. They ran commercials (which you also weren't forced to watch or respond to) which made you want to become a morbidly obese diabetic.
If you can't get a good job, blame someone from a foreign country or of another ethnic group because an imaginary or insignificant government quota gave THEM a job rather than you. So what if that person was considerably more educated and qualified than you. Everyone is to blame...but US!
In the greatest nation in the world NONE of your problems can POSSIBLY be YOUR FAULT! The key to success in ANY large organization is having a scapegoat and the TRULY great (like we Americans) are infallible.

Stupid...just plain stupid.

I've never had much faith in mankind. I'll be the first to admit that the human condition saddens me to some degree. It's one of those things in which there SHOULD be some degree of hope but sadly again and again it serves to disappoint. Ben Franklin once said "The only things we can be sure of are death and taxes." Well, I contend that our good friend and canabis smoking founding father forgot human stupidity. Let's face it, courts are FILLED with people who did something STUPID who are suing someone else rather than simply admit they were at fault and incredibly stupid. While I'll admit I can be a bit of a misanthrope I have my softer moments when I simply can no longer watch people doing stupid crap without at least TRYING to warn them. So here goes, a list of just plain stupid things one should avoid.

1. Smoking or playing with your cell phone at gas stations: Okay there are signs two feet high with bold red letters and little pictugraphs telling you that if you're smoking near gasoline fumes OR carrying a small electronic device which CAN create a spark you MIGHT burst into flames. IF you ignore this and turn into the human torch...don't look for an invisible girl, elastic guy or a dude made of brick, stop drop and roll and be prepared to be the dumbest multicelled organism in the burn center.

2. Picking a fight with ANYONE with the word KILL emblazoned on any part of his/her body OR on any article of clothing they're wearing: This is ESPECIALLY stupid if he or she towers over you and outweighs you by 100 pounds. There is a good chance he or she...might not be right in the head.

3. Busting yourself on Twitter/Facebook. You call in sick and catch the Astros and Dodgers playing a double header. You have a $7.00 hotdog and $10.00 nachos and take lots of pictures. You then post on FACEBOOK how you got out of work by pretending to hack up a lung then post PHOTOS of yourself AT the GAME getting a noogie for former President George Herbert Walker Bush. You return to work the following day and find yourself unemployed. Were you fired for lying to the boss? No FOR BEING STUPID!

4. Dissin either your job OR your boss/boss' family on FB/Twitter. Your boss' wife looks like some kind of walrus and if he had less hair and lost 100 pounds would vaguely resemble some sort of orangutan. And the spawn and byproduct of these two heinous looking people doing the humpty dance looks like a cross between pound puppies and swamp rats. These things are ALL true, but by posting them you're saying "Cram it with wallnuts ugly" (Yes I stole that from the Simpsons) and please fire me...cuz I'm a MOE-RAHN!

5. Attempting to get drugs OUT of a foreign country: Your trip to Holland,Turkey, Thailand or Usukistan was GREAT! You met lots of Fantastic people and smoked something the name of which you couldn't pronounce. MAN! YOU GOTTA BRING SOME OF THIS HOME! No you don't you imbecile that's called smuggling and the penalties for it range from country to country. Most of the time it results in a lengthy prison sentence and in some places like Singapore it's an automatic DEATH (as in rubbin' your ass out) sentence. Even if drugs ARE legal, chances are leaving the country in question with ced narcotic is ALWAYS considered SMUGGLING and is as stupid as it is illegal.


6. ANY sexual activity which involves a member of the animal kingdom: Okay rather its gerbil play, making a SHEEP squeal like a pig or letting a dog lick peanut butter off your junk. Okay, spend a split second to ponder the BRILLIANCE of giving something with claws, pointy teeth and a strong jaw access to your genitals. Unless it's a 40ish divorcee named Sylvia...abort!

7. Imitating ANYTHING you've ever seen on Max-X or JackAss: Johnny Knoxville and Stevo should be coated in gasoline soaked rags and fired from a cannon into an active volcano and if you're compelled to set youself ablaze and jump into a pool because you saw THEM do it then you should wrap a flanksteak around your testicles and go play with a tiger.

8. Answer "Oh definitely" when any woman ask if another woman is prettier than she is or if she looks "fat.": It's just a good way to die.

9. Texting while driving past a police station: Run into a cop car you'll have a story you'll be able to tell your GRANDCHILDREN!

10. Tell your significant other about your affair: Yeah. You cheated on your wife only YOU and the homeless chick you picked up while volunteering at the soup kitchen and brought to that Sleazy Motel know about it...but the guilt won't let sleep so tell her to ease your conscience. Now you can sleeep...WITH ONE EYE OPEN FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! Yeah you made yourself feel better by making another person feel worse and that is just plain stupid. What's worse is that there will be repercussions. No who are we kidding, women are known for letting things go and not making a big deal of things right? They never bring up stuff you did in 1974 which they told you they'd forgiven.

Okay stupidity is part of human nature and always will be. Ultimately we can't stop it but we can collectively appreciate it's entertainment value.

She's fat...

I spent Saturday as I've spent many, on ice. One of the guys I skate with is an 18 year old, gangly sack of hormones who shall remain nameless. He and I stopped on the ice when I happened to notice a tall, muscular black man and his girlfriend walking past. The girlfriend was a short, pale blonde with a tiny waist, thick, muscular, well defined thighs and a rear end that looked as if she were smuggling volleyballs in the tight black shorts which barely contained her. My young friend skated up and asked what I was looking at, at which point I told him to gaze upon the small blonde. His response? "Damn. That's just TOO MUCH ass. Man, why do black guys always go after fat white chicks?"

I came to the defense of the girl I didn't know. "Okay. The girl's got a serious booty to waist deficiency...but I wouldn't call her fat. The girl just has a booty."

"Sorry man. I just don't see how any one finds that attractive." As I watched the thick, muscular, young woman swish away I respectfully disagreed with my young friend. When did we as a culture decide that the ultimate female form was a skeletal system? There is nothing wrong with being thin, but only a handful of people are genetically predisposed to be disturbingly slender and for some reason they are the yard stick that all women must base their self esteem upon. Women of color generally don't have the same issues with weight as white women do, but I'm thinking that might be in part to people like my friend.

Josef Göbels once said that "A lie repeated with a great enough degree of frequency eventually becomes accepted as truth." Sadly I think he might be right. Black and Latina women have no issue with not weighing 90 pounds because Black and Latino men like women with curves. Case in point? Wanna be celebrity Kim Kardashian has a larger than average rear end and prefers to date black men. Why? Because many white guys more than likely would try to get her to drop a few pounds.

The fashion industry constantly bombards women with size ones and size zeros then pretends to be completely innocent when they learn of eating disorders or women who suffer body image issues. Perfectly healthy women are currently sweating in gyms and starving themselves to attain an elusive body image which genetics has predetermined they shall never possess and why? Because some man convinced her she should.