Thursday 31 May 2007

A Murder Of Crows - Volume 7

Now in the simplest terms I can put it, I can’t believe the gall of George W Bush today as he spoke on behalf of the Illegal Immigration bill that was put before congress granting amnesty to basically anyone that is in this country illegally. He very emotionally and eloquently lied to everyone when he stated that some people will try to scare everyone into thinking that it is an amnesty bill, but it just goes to show that they haven’t read it, and I find that offensive. I actually read it and what it states clear as a sunny day in the middle of the pacific ocean is that anyone who steps forward and can prove that they have been in the country for a specified {I say specified because that hurdle is still under negotiation} time will be granted “Legal Status” and that is amnesty pure and simple. Some people quibble about the length of time issue but if the government is unwilling to prove they are here now then that is merely a formality that can be worked around, and they know that.

Then there are the parts that he and the Democrats in congress are quibbling about being the pathway to citizenship that they are promoting as the actual bill but what it really is happens to be that part that makes it so you can become an actual citizen. You will pay a 5000$ fine and you will go back to your home country and wait in line to be a citizen, but that is if they WANT to be a citizen. Most of the illegal immigrants that we are talking about have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they don’t want to be a citizen already. They won’t learn the language, respect the laws {like the law of stay the fuck out for example}, and they enjoy every benefit of being a dirty little secret {like free medical, not paying insurance, not going to jail when they drive without a license or even paying for people they harm when they do, etc etc ad infinitum} and the only thing they don’t enjoy is that minute percentage that they could get deported. Has anyone watched those 20,000 illegal immigrant rallies all over the country? I don’t see them exactly hiding either.

The inspired rage towards our president is not because I think he is evil, but I have finally been swayed to the belief that most of the Democrats have whined about for the better part of 6 years, and that being that he might be an idiot. My examples for this are simple as I watch his new found bravado on the one issue he has that I seriously hate, and sit around going “Where the hell was this when you should have been pushing the issues I cared about?” I mean he used to speak pretty good about the war in Iraq which I still support and I realize that that isn’t popular, but he has fought the war like a pussy and I am not to happy about that. People die in war and massive onslaught is the only way to enter into a war as we are there to kill people and break things, and his explanations of things these days are just corny at best. You dropped the ball George, and I am not happy about your new ball. I am a huge fan of defending the country and unlike all of the revisionists out there I don’t actually believe that Iraq was the only Middle Eastern country without terrorists but here we are as the left has dictated the argument so long that a lot of people do.

On that note let’s talk about Dubai. That was a great deal for America and a leader needed to lead the people of the country into understanding that. Dubai had all the resources to make our ports the greatest on the planet and would have. They have proven that their ports {which are most of the ports in the world mind you} are the safest and most secure on the planet, and they take their money really seriously. It actually would have been a slam dunk by uttering the simple phrase “Look it up for yourself,” and you didn’t. People like myself were left to defend you while you looked like an uneducated idiot. The tempo was dictated by people who knew nothing but the key words to scare everyone and make you look bad, and YOU let them. Again it’s about security right? Of course your plan to let upwards of 20 million people that have never been documented in their HOME country live here with a totally free pass because that is realistically all they want is what gets your passion? My new passion is getting rid of people like Ted Kennedy that has failed on illegal immigration 9 times in his too long in the senate, and you President Bush before you can help ruin it once out of Washington DC, and back wherever it is you two can fit in. This is not a “Party” issue because most of the morons on the illegal immigration issue are Democrats, and the big 2 idiots on the Republican side of the isle, Bush and McCain.

In less than 2 years when you walk out of the White House George {because he is not going to get impeached people, if you think he has done impeachable things then see a shrink} I will be applauding. There are things I like about you {thank you for the two justices you nominated I think they are top shelf} but there are too many things at this stage of the game I am embarrassed about. The way to do this is to absolutely barrage your congressmen and senators about how angry illegal immigration makes you and just hold down the fort until we can get a good president and a better house and senate. This includes making sure that John McCain doesn’t take your place because I didn’t like him the last time he ran and I really don’t like him now, but also making sure that I join the fray of people making your life hell until you leave. Mostly because your “new found” policies harm me, but also because I am vindictive that your once held policies are not as important as the new ones. If you don’t think so then I guess you didn’t read anything yourself buddy ;8o)

Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of J~ Crow}

Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy

All writings Copyright © 2007 .. Jeremy Fink and The Crow's Nest

Friday 25 May 2007

Life is a learning experience


CHAPTER ONE
I walk down the street.
There's a hole in the sidewalk.
It is a very deep hole.
I fall in... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

CHAPTER TWO
I walk down the same street.
There's a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in... again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place, but it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

CHAPTER THREE
I walk down the same street.
There's a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in... it's a habit, but my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

CHAPTER FOUR
I walk down the same street.
There's a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

CHAPTER FIVE
I walk down another street.

What a marvelous progression from... a helpless victim of life... to a victim of self... to taking responsibility... to self-discipline... to making better choices! --- Author Unknown

Tammy Lynn Michaels response to the Rosie situation

oh, sister, my sister

SHUT UP WOMEN
sit down or we'll ruin your careers
sit down or we'll shame you in front of all the world
sit down or we'll begin focusing on YOUR demise, instead of the globe's
sit down or there will be no rest until you have been thrown to the wolves and eaten

just shut up

SHUT UP DIXIE CHICKS

SHUT UP ROSIE

once, when my mother was beating us before a bath, we were sobbing. (make no mistake: wooden spoons hurt.) "SHUT UP!" she growled, her spit flicking us in our tear-drenched faces. she kept her rage a whisper, so as to hide it from her second husband downstairs; he didnt appreciate our beatings. "SHUT UP!! QUIT CRYING!!" she repeated over and over, each command was accompanied with another blow from the new giant wooden spoon, with each crash on the skin growing harder and louder than the last. she always went for the face, and so we cowered up against the washer and dryer, covering our faces. it's hard to shut off terror and pain, so the crying continued. i was only 9, you see. then she, a mother who still doesn't know how to mother, grabbed a roll of duct tape. she used it to tape little girls' mouths shut. duct tape on baby skin. the crying was too much, i suppose, and our frantic panic about a beating was ended with duct tape plastered across the mouth and face. it didn't make us stop crying, it only made our sobbing silent. and in the bath, we stared at each other's naked bruises, with duct tape hanging from our faces. and we said nothing. we had learned.

SHUT UP

i had to go to therapy for years to re-learn how to deal with feelings, without placing duct tape over my heart, to keep the sound of human connection quiet. but i'm still learning. and as i watch the world these days, i see many authority figures like i had, running around with duct tape rolls, trying to shut up my sister-friend who won't take her beatings quietly.

she

she doesn't shut up. she's crying, complaining, she's the only one FEEEEEEEEELIIIIIIIIIIIIING this war. she isn't taking the beating quietly, she isn't climbing into the bath, with the duct tape on. she's ripping that tape off over and over. she won't let them shut her up. her bravery causes me panic- old-fashioned, "Don't make them mad at us, sister!" panic. thank god she knows better than i.

the silly tv shows might allow us some escapism from this hellhole America has created, but i tell you the truth: we will only change this mess when there are more sisters willing to step forward and risk a wrestle with wooden spoons and duct tape. she is like a lighthouse, in the middle of an island-less sea, just a light she is, trying to show us what is really going on in the dark.

keep ripping the duct tape off-
do not shut up
do not shut up

thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you
sister-friend.

Come on People! Rosie did NOT say that!

shellys space

Posted by ro on May 23rd at 11:44pm in in the news
Dated: 2007-05-23

Did Rosie Call Our Troops Terrorists?

The is directly from the transcripts of The View for May 17th:

O’DONNELL: …… I just want to say something. 655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists?
HASSELBECK: Who are the terrorists?
O’DONNELL: 655,000 Iraqis — I’m saying you have to look, we invaded –
HASSELBECK: Wait, who are you calling terrorists now? Americans?
O’DONNELL: I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?
HASSELBECK: Are we killing their citizens or are their people also killing their citizens? O’DONNELL: We’re invading a sovereign nation, occupying a country against the U.N.

I just watched Chris Matthews and his panel of journalists including Howard Feinman, Jill Zuckman, and Jonathan Capehart. Matthews asked the panel after replaying that segment of the show if she in fact said that our troops were the terrorists. They unanimously agreed with Matthews that she did call our troops terrorists. That conforms with the majority of journalists who have reported on this comment.

Rosie does not mention the troops at all in that segment of the show. She poses a rhetorical question. “Who are the terrorists?” “I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?”In both of her rhetorical questions she refers to the “United States” and “us.” The policy of the United States or “our” policy in Iraq is not the responsibility of the soldiers who are ordered to execute the policy. It is obvious that state supported terrorism can only be implemented by those who have the responsibility of doing the fighting and dying. But, it is not the soldiers who are the terrorists in that hypothetical. And she was not calling the soldiers terrorists.

It is absolutely absurd that these journalists agreed with the interpretation that Matthews and the majority of the MSM had concluded.These journalists who are supposed to be experts on language and communication certainly know that she meant that the U.S. policy was the villain here and not the soldiers. Yet they persist in accusing the accusers who do not fit into their elite club. People like Rosie and others who have been branded as eccentric and outside the main stream are always fair game. They do it with many others who speak truth to power by carefully portraying sound bites out of context. They have done that to Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal for years.

The truth is that it was the elite reporters like the Hardball panel aforementioned who aided and abetted the rush to war in Iraq and fostered the terrorist policy that has resulted in this catastrophe. So it is not Rosie who is the villain. It is journalists like these who have to rationalize their lack of courage and appropriate skepticism of a “policy” that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of our soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

****************************
Thank Goddess for Shelly! I could not have said it better myself.

Label the M.H.P.s

Announcer Cut:
Step right up folks and get yer tickets here for the latest greatest craze sweeping the nation.
Welcome to the new gameshow called Label the M.H.Pees! Why should the mental hell professionals have all of the fun? Yessiree Bob and Betty, presenting your host for the evening Ima Freek.

Ima Freek: It's gonna be a really good show, yes indeed. Behind the curtains are the exhibits. Presenting Exhibit number one!
Note the snooty upturned nose, the rosebud lips. The marriage finger dripping with diamonds. The perfect teeth
dripping with venom. The keys to her snobby Saab laying on her desk.

Terrorpiss claims she understands queer culture. That is a blatant lie folks. Being a Rocky Horror Picture
Show groupie in her youth does not render her an expert on our delicious patchwork community.

Behind her stands her mentor He's Gottit All. She has been known to oogle him with her devouring eyes in front of "her"
"clients." She parrots him at every opportunity and uses him to boost up her false ego and flailing self-esteem.

Terrorpiss does not "believe" in dissociation outside of the label "borderline." Oh no. She wouldn't recognize
an alter if the alter smacked her smug little face. As further evidence of her dysfunctional e-glow, she has claimed that
"The book has not been written on" what she knows about the label "borderline." And she has also claimed that she has
"fixed" a previously "borderline" patient within the space of a single year! Borderline no more!

Like many tees, she has labeled the unsuspecting customer as "borderline" because they had the audacity to disagree with
her oh so very clinical assessments, ideas, and opinions. Oh dear, oh dear.

Terrorpiss is not currently working as a terrorpiss. Instead, she spends her days editing a center newsletter for
He's Gottit All and her evenings cranking out stained glass window art.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please find your voting cards underneath your seats and vote. Her label will be revealed after a few
words from our sponsor.

Announcer Cut: Here we have the brand spanking new indispensable label-maker! Close your eyes, open the book at random, and run your finger
down the page until the little voices tells you to stop. And presto-jingo, you have a brand new label for your patient!
Brought to you by the shrinks who voted on all of the labels in Da Systemic Machination 7.5.

Ima Freek: Ladies and Gentlemen, the results are in! Drum roll, please!

[Four zootsuits enter stage left, rolling a large drum. One fishes out a key and leads terrorpiss out of cage. Terrorpiss is shouting but she cannot be heard.

Ima Freek: Silence please! Terrorpiss, here are YOUR labels! Borderline Personality Disorder.
Narcissistic Disorder. Histrionic Disorder. Dissociative Identity Disorder not otherwise specified
with dissociative features and depersonalization. Zoots, take her away to the re-education center!

Terrorpiss number one: No! You can't do this to me! Nooooooooooo!

Ima Freek: Audience, please sing along with me! Du. Du. Du. Another one bites the dust!
Du. Du. Du. Another one bites the dust!

[And the audience begins to sing.]

Ima Freek: Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen. That was indeed rousing. And now, without further ado, I
present to you Exhibits number two and three!
Yes indeed, these two are quite the pair.
Exhibit number two is actually the doppleganger of a terrorshrink.
See the terrorshrink beat his head against the cage bars in rage.
Ah, he doesn't quite come off as a teddy bear now, does he?
Terrorshrink raped several of his patients.
He got away with it. The Medical Misconduct is Okay Board convicted him of poor record-keeping.
Seems he didn't keep adequate records of the goings on in his office.
Behind him lurk all of his co-workers, guilty by their silence.
Piteous. Piteous.

Exhibit number three is a surprise appearance by the infamous Cold Slut!
The Cold Slut was the terrorshrink's co-worker and fuckbuddy.
It is rumoured that she liked him to give her bubblebaths!

[Audience gasps in one collective gasp of horror.]

The Cold Slut has been described as a self-made woman.
Notice the nails filed into crafty points. See the vague resemblance to an actual humyn being.
Smell the cesspool of her inner being. The stench threatens to overcome.
If any of you feel faint, please raise your hand and the zoots will furnish you with oxygen.

[Zoots run around frantically, giving out masks and individual oxygen tanks].

Ima Freek: Ladies and Gentlemen! Once again please find your voting cards under your seats.
Labels for both the terrorshrink and the Cold Slut will be announced after these words from our
sponsor.

Announcer Cut: Are you a terrorpiss or terrorshrink? Are you afraid that your patients are contagious? Have
you forgotten how to be a human being? Cracking under the pressure? Terrified that you
will be found out as a fraud? Take a vacation! Come stay with us at the Re-Education Center.
At the Re-Education Center, you will be wrapped up in strait jackets, given mind-numbing
drugs, and exposed to meaningless drivel in both individual and group terrorpee.
Not covered by any decent insurance company.

Ima Freek: Welcome back Ladies and Gentlemen. And now without further ado, the hanging of labels about
the necks of these dastardly foes will take place.

[Four zootsuits enter stage left with large signs attached to chains. They swarm into the cages and bolt the
signs to the heads of the Doppleganger of the terrorshrink and to the Cold Slut. The audience cheers as both
dangerous beings are thrown onto hospital beds and held with five point restraints. The zootsuits exit after
carefully locking the doors of exhibits two and three behind them.]

Ima Freek: May I have your attention please? Now for the revealing of the labels.
Cold Slut, the race was close, very close. Here are your labels! Dependent personality disorder.
Bipolar Disorder with Psychotic Delusions of Grandeur. Both of your labels carry a special
footnote. And the footnote reads-- Poor prognosis!

[Audience begins to chant: Liar. Liar. Liar. Cold Slut begins to cry.]

Ima Freek: Cold Slut, it is too late for your crocodile tears. You should have thought about what your lies
would do to the former victims of the terrorshrink. But you didn't. You were determined to save
him from the consequences of his actions. Enough of you!

[Large hooks from the ceiling descend and hover over the cage holding the Cold Slut. Ima Freek claps her
hands and the hooks clink as they connect with the bars on top of the cage. The cage is lifted and disappears
into a hole in the ceiling.]

Ima Freek: A specially equipped helicopter is waiting to take the Cold Slut away.

[Audience begins singing "They're coming to take you away haha. They're coming to take you away hoho.
To the funny farm, where life is....
A bell buzzes.]

Ima Freek: And that is the Gong, audience. We are almost out of time. We have one more label.
It is a very weighy label for a dead man. What you did to your patients was sooo wrong.
Terrorshrink, your sign says psychopath!

[The cage sinks into the floor and disappears. The audience breaks out into sheer joy. There is dancing in the aisles.]

Ima Freek: Ladies and Gentlemen, don't forget these things! We are more than our labels. We are bigger
than our problems! We are who we are! The Never-A-Mother-Incompetent folks run shrieking
from our presence in horror. Terror piss-es itself when we empower our selves and our lives.
Never forget that Terror shrinks from thee. Feel you all next week at the greatest gameshow on
earth-- Label the M.H. Pees.

Announcer Cut: Brought to you by the rage of ten thousand liberated psychiatric survivors and sapphoq.

[Audience continues their liberation celebration. Fade to black.]

Thursday 24 May 2007

A Murder Of Crows - Volume 6

Friends, Americans, Countrymen … Lend me your ear! I have come to bury Bush, not praise him, and I am sure that is what quite a few people are usually trolling the newswire to hear these days. Realistically speaking I am sure that quite a few people have thought me to be the man’s water boy over the last 6 years and realistically I am not. Quite frankly I can’t stand the man’s politics but I also have a very bad habit of living in the real world, and most of his hard core detractors quite possibly never have. Reality often gets mired by what mud people can throw and how the perceptions bandy about, but let’s get one thing strait here that a lot of people still don’t get their fingers around, and that is that he is still better than the two clowns he ran against.

If I were to go back 6 years to the election of Bush the first time around I like to remind people that as it has been proven a million times that Gore lost Florida, there were other pieces to that puzzle that should have been looked at and of course are not. I have to deal with these issues a lot here in New Hampshire and the revisionism is on overload right now as for the first time in my lifetime the entire state’s political structure is “officially” Democrat controlled. I put it that way because as the borders of New Hampshire have been inundated with people escaping the messes they had made in Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont for decades and if you look at the voting habits here we have elected Democrat’s for president for 20 years aside from the first election of G.W. Bush and those 4 Electoral College votes that Clinton and Kerry got no matter what would have made Florida a moot point.

The dirty little secret on that little fiasco is playing itself out in spades right now as you see the great savior of the human race “Al Gore” running around forcing flawed environmental policy down our throats. That is the man he always was but most people won’t admit that that was what he was back then. He ran an excellent shell game during his campaign but the typical New Hampshire voters saw through all of his “environmental” apologizing and saw the entire state losing its lumber industry and having to support thousands of people incapable of working elsewhere. Simple economics dominated that discussion here but nobody talks about it because it wasn’t “sexy” like the whole Florida Chad crap.

Well we are at a crossroads again here in the state of New Hampshire which are pangs of reaction to that political retard that we have in the White House instead of the two bigger retards that ran against him. In the last election cycle the House and the Senate were taken by the Democrats on a national level as we all know but here in New Hampshire for the first time in over 100 years the “Live Free or Die” state was completely taken by the Democrats as well. It was a bit different though as the state is leaning harder left every year with the influx of people from across the borders. Every year more people leave the bordering states, because it is too hard to live there, and they never realize that they are the reason that those states were messed up. They simply think that New Hampshire can run as it does, and still have the social “mommy” state status that made them feel good where they left. The Democrats that have been running through the laws of this state like a bunch of retarded Bulls in China Shops.

The newest one that just got initiated by the state house is the mandatory seat belt law. Now they don’t even have the tenacity to lie to all of us like all the other states do when they enforce a mandatory seat belt law for everyone. I call it lying because when you say one thing and it “always” changes and you damn well know it then that it lying. Most seat belt laws always start off as “secondary violation” and then always go to “primary enforcement” so I am pretty secure in saying that, but in this instance it is going to be “primary enforcement” from the get go. I realize to a lot of you that the seat belt laws seem like a really stupid thing to get a beef about but not in my eyes as you have to use traditional “liberal” lying to get it going in the first place, and then the lying about every angle of it has to be full bore through the entire process. It always starts with “It costs the state less money” and “It’s about saving lives” and then always steamrolls from there. What it is really about is keeping law enforcement from going after real crime {which Democrats hate enforcement of} and making sure that the police departments are out there racking up easy profits {which Democrats truly adore} while never really having to get dirty.

Here’s where I have my issues in it all, and I will apply the whole denomination of “common sense” to it all that I would truly hope that everyone would like to learn to use. In your average automobile accident where a seat belt is not worn over the speed of 35 mph the person who is not wearing their seatbelt dies. Sometimes it can be really messy, and might require a lot of cleaning equipment, but these things are on hand at every accident anyway. The body is then placed in a body bag {even after being scrubbed out of the pavement or bridge abutment or whatnot} and then it is taken to wherever they put dead bodies in whatever community until the family claims responsibility. Most of the cost of this is incurred regardless of whether people survive or not in the accident. These facts are rather hard to deny when common sense is applied.

Now in the average accident above 35 mph where a seat belt is worn {and of course under say 100 mph, lets not be silly here} the person wearing the seatbelt will most likely survive assuming that something rather strange doesn’t happen like they are decapitated by a steel girder or something. In any case under most circumstances it is nice that the person is alive but a lot of the time they end up with injuries and quite often they are catastrophic. Shattered glass in your face, fires, broken ribs from the seatbelt, concussions, shattered legs, broken necks, etc etc etc happen and this requires some real cash from the state to deal with. Ambulances and helicopters and various rescue vehicles are merely the beginning. Most of these people will become a ward to Medicaid and often will never be employable again. A large portion of them will retain hospital bills in the millions of dollars and it FAR outnumbers the amounts of people who somehow survive without the seatbelt and are that messed up. Sorry to break it to everyone but that is common sense.

You then have to deal with phase two of the whole argument which is the fact that it saves lives. This is a wonderful argument in MY opinion but I happen to be a Pro-Life, Pro-God, Second Amendment, Right Wing Whacko, so that would kinda fit my policy now wouldn’t it? I also happen to believe in true freedom of self will, and that is where I have my issues with any sort of law that is imposed to protect me from me, because it is really a law to protect my free will from becoming an issue, and that is where the “other” side of the isle often comes into account. Let us analyze their usual motives in these sort of things. Take abortion for instance, since that happens to be a “woman’s right to do whatever the hell they want to with their bodies” and would sort of fit the bill of what a motor vehicle driver would want to do with their body. Again as we are talking about what constitutes a “life” or not, or who has control over what they want to do with their body I must say that abortion is the only one of the two that guarantees that a human being will be dead. Again it is a perception problem I think as we look at who seems to think a human being is dying? In all reality it doesn’t matter but it still seems to lend credence to lying.

This piece of crap bill added to the one they just passed banning smoking in all restaurants {and as I point out at least our Lunatic Left is a bit more honest where they simply came right out and are banning it in bars too instead of waiting for the dust to clear on the lying to begin with} and we have the makings of the “Live Free or Die” state losing its character all together. Like the “mommy” states around us guns would be next if they had more time, but they don’t. The ticking clock that is leading towards finally getting that “Illegal Immigrant” humping moron out of the white house is also the same due date for all of these clowns jobs to be reaffirmed as well. Like the last two year span that all branches of New Hampshire government was controlled by the Democrats this one is meeting the same end by rampant greed to effect change too quickly. With that I say, “Thank God” before they outlaw that in this state too ;8o)

Hang out with Jeremy Crow on CherryTap ... Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of J~ Crow}

Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy

All writings Copyright © 2007 .. Jeremy Fink and The Crow's Nest

Wednesday 23 May 2007

A Brief Intro to my High School Memories


I hated high school. I wasn't especially fond of elementary school but high school really bit the fat one. In a last-ditch effort to indoctrinate and inoculate me, I was sent to an all-girls Roman Catholic High School.

Ninth grade: The last religion class before summer vacation.
Priest: What did you learn in this class?
sapphoq: I learned I don't want to be catholic anymore.

Tenth grade: Anytime when we could get away with it.

Peggy: Let's go steal some of those wafers from the chapel.
sapphoq: Okay.
Or alternately.
sapphoq: Let's go steal some of those wafers from the chapel.
Peggy: Okay.

Eleventh Grade: The night of the school play and a bottle of Boone's Farm Grape Wine.

sapphoq: (barfing fluently into toilet in upstairs girls' bathroom)
Clueless woman: Oh my god, someone's having an abortion.

Twelfth Grade: The first week of school.

Carolyn: (coughing up a lung) This isn't pot. This is oregano!

sapphoq: Oh. I been smoking it all summer.


sapphoq on life

Tuesday 22 May 2007

Dawn 5/22/07

This morning I got up at 5:23 a.m., threw on some clothes, and waited impatiently for husband to finish his routine game of Civ III so he could follow me in the broken car down to the place where the car supposedly had an appointment "first thing." I got there. I could see the three mechanics inside the building. The one I had spoken with on the phone Sunday morning, so I thought, came out insisted that he hadn't been there on Sunday and he is "backed up" today. It left me scratching my eczema-filled scalp. I know who I had spoken to on Sunday. I've known the head mechanic for years, since before his dog was hit by an errant car whose driver was in a hurry to get away. I left my car there anyways.


I got dropped off back home and took Her Delightful Self for an early morning walk. There was little to no traffic. That was really nice. Just lots of birds chirping away, a couple of lone joggers, one or two people backing out of their driveways leaving for work I guess. The dog was Ecstatic With Happiness to be out so early with the dew still glistening on the grass and the sun like marmalade in a clear sky.

Yesterday, the water department was draining some of the fire hydrants. Ecstatic witnessed their gushing into rivulets pulsating down the dusty streets. There was none of that today, save for the one yard where the pool [must be nice] has been draining through a hose along the grassy boundary into a waiting sewer.

The news flashes pictures of Katrina and Kansas. The kitten, the youngest and most confident of the three felines in residence, pounces on his favorite green "mouse" and then stalks off to do battle with a spider plant whose only crime is also being green. Weather will be sunny today here but rainy again in Kansas. I had grieved long and hard for New Orleans after the rains came and the levees broke. I remember her bright shining like the sun. Years ago, I had walked somewhat stoned and drunkenly up and down her streets with some people who I used to call friends. She had captivated me then. New Orleans of the zoo with the white tiger, Bob Marley and the Whalers playing before the crowns at the Warehouse, glittering things discarded in the gutters the morning after. One morning, we sucked the heads out of crawfish and swizzled beers headed to the Blues Festival where we saw Z.Z. Top. Another, we had dropped acid. I freaked out cuz the youngest woman of the bunch was obviously pregnant. I wrecked her trip, I guess. Did she care about the stuff in her veins flooding the placenta barrier and bringing physical distortion or possible death to the developing fetus inside?

When death stalked those streets last year, I felt the death cries of the vodousaints rising up as one. The dikes have been patched. A shiny casino went up along the wetlands, once again defying the Earth our Mother to do her damnest. Wetlands are nature's defense against flooding. The French had build New Orleans on the wetlands years ago. We who have harnessed technology as our slave have not learned from that mistake. After Katrina, I wanted so to be part of the volunteer rescue effort. But I could not. Physically, I was in no condition to help. Knowing that, I wept bitter tears and stayed home. I convinced husband to send a pittance off to the Red Cross. I made a photolage on one of my blogs and wrote bad poetry. None of those things were enough.

New Orleans was re-built with the sweat of illegal aliens. There are so many jobs there now. Jobs going begging. Not enough people willing to live in a zone where Katrina is bound to happen again, any year now. Maybe this year. Maybe next. Within the decade for sure. Thanks, army corps of engineers for the information. Taco stands replace steaming plates of red beans and rice. Spanish supplants Creole. The destruction of one culture and rising up of another. This is the way the world goes. Knowledge does not always make things easier to bear.

Construction crews all over the States have their share of illegals working on them. When in Illinois, I heard about locals not being able to get those usually higher-paying construction jobs. Better pay than the tire factory even. The bosses were hiring wetbacks at lower wages. More ummph for the buck. In a train cresting the Rockies, my dinner mates concluded that we "have to" provide prenatal care for those women who are bearing United States citizens in their wombs. The Senate is debating the annexation of Mexico and Texas this month. Newt Gingrich read the Mexican Immigration Laws and the mediacs jumped all over him, accusing him of discrimination. They didn't know. Mexico does not want illegal aliens crossing the border either. Unlike the United States, Mexico takes meaningful action against those who would flaunt her boundaries. Time spent in a Mexican prison is time spent courting death, Mexican style. We imperialistic Americans forget that we are subject to the laws of the territory that we travel in. Our "rights" to violate the earth, trample over her sacred lands destroying the delicate balance between flora and fauna stops at our sovereign borders. We citizens of the United States forget.

We have forgotten how to live. We have forgotten the sheer joy of movement, of a dog delighting in an early morning walk. We have forgotten how to live. Broken cars aside, life is rich and succulent like the juice of platanos dulces running down our chins. The kitten warrior is strangely silent, staring out an open window at paradisio. The dog, sated, sleeps on top of the coverlet with the lilac print on her back, feet in the air like some strange apparition. It seems I've forgotten my breakfast napkin. I do not get up from my chair.

spike q.

Witch 5/21/07

Sunday 20 May 2007

Step Two

Step Two

Reading the Step Two essay in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions has always been an exercise in self restraint for me. In this piece, Bill marshals every trick of innuendo, misstatement, and misrepresentation that one might expect of the law school trained writer that he was. The arguments he presents are mostly threadbare repetitions of old, exploded pleas that have no place in a serious discussion of the existence of a “higher power.” However, Bill, consciously or not, is mostly preaching to the choir here; the essay does not appear to be designed to present a serious challenge to those who supposedly lack faith, but to reassure his constituency of the inerrancy of their views. Yesterday, I went to perhaps my 50th meeting at which Step Two was discussed, and as a result I have decided to examine the essay piece by piece, and to present specific criticisms and counterarguments. The format I propose to use is to present various quotations, and to follow each one with my own thoughts. This may not be instructive to the reader, but one thing I do know is that “venting” usually makes me feel better.

1) “Some of us won’t believe in God, others can’t, and those who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle.”

This is the opening statement that presents the putative dilemma of the “newcomer” to AA. It is worthwhile to look at this statement closely for the assumption that underlies it, and that is the smug belief of so many theists, that those who claim not to believe in a god are really fooling themselves, and “deep down” they really do believe, but refuse to admit it even to themselves. Notice the italicized word “won’t” which implies a stubborn refusal to admit an obvious truth. Also the word “god” is capitalized, as is the pronoun to which it is antecedent. This is a common convention used to emphasize the majesty, holiness or whatever, of the deity, and placing it in the mouth of the protester emphasizes the idea that the poor sap really does believe after all.

2) “Let’s look first at the case of the one who says he won’t believe—the belligerent one. He is in a state of mind which can be described only as savage.”

Oh, come on! Belligerent? Savage? How insulting! This is nothing more than an ad hominem attack against atheists and agnostics, a suggestion that only those of emotional instability can possibly deny the existence of a god. Notice also the phrasing “says he won’t believe.”(italics mine) Here again we see the implication that the nonbeliever is denying the evidence of his own deepest feelings. The suggestion is that if we could only get the poor atheist to “get in touch with” his own feelings, he would immediately see the error of his ways. Parenthetically, this may be the reason why treatment programs for substance abuse stress “getting in touch” so much.

I subscribe to Isaac Asimov’s expression of his personal beliefs that intellectually he is an agnostic, as he is open to anyone who comes up with a convincing argument for the existence of a god, but that emotionally he is an atheist, because he is pretty sure that there is nothing out there. I further have defended my agnosticism by noting to those who have a problem with it that it really doesn’t matter very much, as I would live my life the same way, god or no god. But I find I have to be careful about my language, due to this tendency among theists, especially fundies, to ascribe inner meaning to my words. I recently snarled a nonsense phrase of a theistic nature(God damn it!) at my misbehaving computer, and a coworker who happened to be passing by in the hall stuck his head in and suggested that it was odd how often I, as a nonbeliever, invoked the name of the Almighty. (There, I capitalized it myself! We are often prisoners of the conventions of our culture, as I learned when I threatened my computer with the wrath of eternal damnation).

3) “How he does cherish the thought that man, risen so majestically from a single cell in the primordial ooze, is the spearhead of evolution and therefore the only god his universe knows!”

Long ago, I had a history professor who referred to this sort of prose as a “purple passage,” meaning one in which the words are chosen for emotional rather than rational content. There is a sense of the futility of this belief contained in the word “cherish.” The phrase “risen so majestically from a single cell in the primordial ooze” suggests a desire to impart simple scientific facts with a purposeful and dramatic impulse. Man as the “spearhead of evolution” and “the only god” indicates a smug egoism on the part of the evolutionist (I use this word advisedly, because it is inaccurate, and has loaded connotations) that does not exist. Biologists compare the evolutionary process not with a tree of which man is the highest branch, but with a shrub containing a myriad of branches, none of which is more important than any other. A man being chased across the plain by a pack of hyenas is evolutionarily the loser, because it is unlikely that his ability to reason with his adversaries will have any effect on their splendid speed and powerful jaws. A man equipped with the product of his particular evolutionary advantage, say a Thompson sub-machine gun, considers those same hungry hyenas to be a mere nuisance.

“(T)he only god” also contains an echo of the belief, common among twelve steppers, that we have a “God-shaped hole” which we try vainly to fill up with drugs, alcohol, or in this case, reliance on a scientific theory for meaning.

4) “a one-time vice-president of the American Atheist Society”

Details, please. Who is this person, and how did he do it? Of course, you can plead anonymity and refuse to reveal his name, but did he develop a nontheistic view of a higher power, or is he currently attending the Church of the Nazarene? By the way, I do not find a citation for this group on the Internet. Is it a defunct organization, or did Bill have the name wrong? Or is it a case of Bill’s well-known tendency to exaggerate for effect? Whatever is the truth, this line is thrown in, without any verification, to provide a spurious support to Bill’s line of argument.

5) There follows a set of three propositions:

a) AA does not demand that you believe anything.

b) You don’t have to swallow all of step two now

c) All you really need is a truly open mind

Proposition (a) is the classic bait and switch. Anyone who has spent time in AA will tell you that there is overwhelming pressure to conform to group beliefs, including the one about the higher power. There is a smug assurance on the part of old timers that they have the answer, and that you will end up agreeing with them or drinking. They are able to maintain this belief in the face of any evidence to the contrary. My wife and I are both agnostic (I have a Zen slant, she Pagan) and we have respectively twenty-six and eighteen years clean. It is absolutely futile for us to point this out to other twelve steppers, including those with a good deal less time than us. They are blithely confident that eventually we will “get the spiritual angle.”

Proposition (b) is the beginning of the process of giving the lie to Proposition (a). The end result is stated at the end of the essay: “God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to Him.” Is there any question about what Bill means by “rightly?” I don’t think so.

Proposition (c) is double-speak. By a “truly open mind,” twelve-steppers mean the same thing as my aforementioned fundie colleague, who has used the same line on me, namely, a willingness to swallow whatever they choose to think that you should believe. The idea that an open-minded person is someone who weighs the evidence and takes into account all relevant factors, including the appropriateness of granting authority to a particular source, runs directly against their assurance that they are the ones with the truth. “God said it. I believe it. That settles it!” was a popular bumper sticker on my college campus, and I still see echoes of that sentiment here. This is what passes for an open mind among many theists.

Bill then describes a condition that is familiar to many desperate addicts, including me many years ago, that is, our perception that the percepts of AA are totally unscientific and there is no obvious reason why they should work.

6) “Then I woke up…It wasn’t AA that had the closed mind, it was me. The minute I stopped arguing, I could begin to see and feel.”

Many of us are personally familiar with the seductive charms of resigning our intellectual freedom to an attractive set of principles that only need to be taken on faith, and claim to be immune to rational investigation. However, the fact that twelve step organizations do work for a surprising number of people is not one of those principles. When I sponsor newly clean people who are troubled by this paradox, I advise them to first accept that it does work, and secondly, after gaining a foothold in sobriety, to worry about why it works. The majority of twelve steppers answer this question (Why it works) by adducing the proposition that “God is responsible for the miracle of my sobriety.” (For some reason, it’s never God’s fault if somebody uses again) But in fact there are sound psychological reasons why AA works for certain people, just as there are sound psychological reasons why it doesn’t work for others. This is not the place to go into that subject, and I certainly consider that my own understanding of these principles is imperfect and incomplete. But I do not need to stoop to the level of assuming that because I do not understand why something is the case, that there must be a supernatural explanation. (For the repetition of the phrase “closed mind,” see the preceding paragraph.)

7) “Many a man like you has begun to solve the problem by the method of substitution. You can, if you wish, make AA itself your higher power.”

Bait and switch again. Note the 50’s style sexism of the word “man.”

8) “Surely you can have faith in them. Even this minimum of faith will be enough.”

Faith is a filthy, dirty word the excrementality of which is only exceeded by the word “sin.” Hypothetically, when first contacting AA or NA, and discovering that the members claim to be abstinent from alcohol or drugs, one should address oneself to the problem of verifying their claims. I do not think it is difficult in most cases to accomplish this, although many seekers after sobriety reject AA/NA because they perceive that many of the people they meet there have not solved their problems with substance abuse. Perhaps in some (many) places this is true. But once I personally found a group of people whom I was satisfied had solved a problem that I desperately wanted to solve myself, I did not need “faith.” I had the proof of my senses and my reason. I was then able to devote myself to learning what they had done that I hadn’t, and if I liked it, I did it. If I didn’t like it, I didn’t do it.

Having thus disposed of the ‘belligerent, savage atheist”, Bill goes on to:

9) “(T) hose who once had faith, but have lost it. There will be those who have drifted into indifference, those filled with self-sufficiency, who have cut themselves off, those who have become prejudiced against religion, and those who are downright defiant because God has failed to fulfill their demands.”

This appears to refer to former believers, (who still, of course, believe “deep down”) who have rejected religion/spirituality because of its apparent inability to influence their lives. Well, if you’re drinking and drugging your face off, of course it doesn’t matter how much time you spend on your knees at the altar rail, your life is still going to be unmanageable. What these people do in AA is discover the limitations of their faith; that no one is going to work miracles for them unless they do the hard work of getting better. This is referred to as “doing the footwork and letting god take care of the rest.” Pardon me, but once I have done all the footwork, is there really anything left for this god of yours to do? Once again we see that twelve steppers tend to give their god credit for all the things they have accomplished themselves, while blaming themselves when things go bad. This seems to be the only real difference—they blame themselves for their misfortunes instead of god. But who was it that created the process that allows fermentation of alcohol? Whose creation includes coca plants with extractable resins? And who planted all those marijuana plants that only have to be dried and smoked? If there is an omnipotent, benevolent god, we are left with the insoluble problem of where evil comes from.

Let’s look at the above passage in light of emotional language as well. “Self-sufficiency” of course is a bad thing for twelve steppers, as it contains the impermissible thought that we can actually accomplish something on our own. And “prejudiced” is a favorite word Bill had already used in the Big Book to condemn nonbelievers (e.g., page 45). And the alliterative “Downright Defiant…Demands” brings up the arrogance of the mere mortals who require an accounting of their creator.

Why shouldn’t we require an accounting of god? As noted, he did apparently create all these lovely abusable substances, and he did give us fire earthquakes, famine and death. Read some of his commandments in the Torah, or the unthinkably cruel and despotic episodes he precipitated in the history of his chosen people.(one classic example is found in Numbers 31: 14-18) Why would I worship such an imperfect god? Even the New Testament god, who gives up his own son to be murdered, in order that he can let himself off from carrying out a rule that he made himself! Who could rationally believe such an absurdity?

While discussing the confusion of the wanderer from faith, Bill comes forth with one of my favorite blatherings:

10) “Religion says the existence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can’t be proved; and the atheist claims proof of the nonexistence of God.”

All three of these statements are false. Any reputable theologian is aware that the existence of a god cannot be proved. Thomas Aquinas did the best job, but his proofs have all been refuted, notably by Immanuel Kant and David Hume. An agnostic may indeed say that it can’t be proved, but is more likely to say that there is no known proof, and that he is certainly open to argument. An atheist may deny the existence of a god, but any educated man has to be aware that it is impossible to prove a negative. His denial is therefore based on best available evidence and Occam’s principal of parsimony, which states, more or less, that the simplest explanation is to be preferred. Bill is again using pretty phrases for effect.

11) “Now we come to…the intellectually self –sufficient man or woman…far too smart for our own good. We loved to have people call us precocious. We used our education to blow ourselves up into prideful balloons…Scientific progress told us there was nothing man couldn’t do. Knowledge was all-powerful. Intellect could conquer nature…the god of intellect displaced the God of our fathers.”

There’s that poisonous word “self-sufficient” again, accompanied by equally loaded words such as “precocious,” “prideful,” and “the god of intellect.” The implication runs in tune with the anti-intellectualism so often found in AA, a tendency which for me dates back to my first days in detox, when I was told by a counselor, who was also a twelve stepper, that he had never known someone too dumb to get the program, but that he had known plenty who were too smart. This is an extension of the anti-intellectualism of evangelical Christianity, which places its greatest emphasis on emotionalism as the justifier of faith. Bill then appears to resolve this dilemma, but for the majority of readers he probably only confuses it:

12) “(T)hey showed us that humility and intellect could be compatible, provided we placed humility first.”

The biggest problem with this statement is caused by the fact that, although they talk about humility all the time, ninety-nine out of a hundred twelve steppers cannot adequately define the word. Bill could define it, and did, on page 58: “(Humility is) a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be.” (Actually the second phrase is extraneous to the definition) The simplest way to define humility is “self-knowledge” which of course requires that we become familiar with both our faults and our good points. At this point, Bill’s statement almost makes sense. Of course self-knowledge is a necessary virtue. But the only way to acquire it is by the use of the despised intellect! We need to get our priorities straight here, and stop equating humility with some sort of groveling emotional response to the presence of a god in our lives, and get back to Socrates’ “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

13) “Another crowd of AA’s says: “We were plumb disgusted with religion and all its works. The Bible…was full of nonsense…we couldn’t see the Beatitudes for the begats…But it was the morality of the religionists themselves that really got us down. We gloated over the hypocrisy, bigotry and crushing self righteousness that clung to so many ‘believers’…This all meant, of course, that we had substituted negative for positive thinking.”

Well, yes. I can sympathize with the person who is disgusted with religion, the Bible, and the religionists. (By the way, notice that this mention of the Bible certainly betrays the ultimate end of our bait and switch routine.) I fail to see, however, how a realistic appraisal of the futility and waste of the religious life can possibly be characterized as “negative thinking.” Those of us who have abandoned the concept of a personal, rescuing deity, are not, contrary to popular belief, sunk in despair and desperately searching for meaning. On the contrary, the only feeling I remember as a result of my de-conversion was a sense of relief. Achieving a sense of purpose and meaning in my life was expedited by the realization that it was a matter of self-definition, 1.e., that purpose and meaning were something I defined for myself, rather than “discovering” it. Bill has indeed described a cynical state of mind that can be characterized as negative thinking, but we need not stop where he thinks we do.

14) “(D)efiance is the outstanding characteristic of many an alcoholic. So it’s not strange that lots of us have had our day at defying God Himself.”

A false parallel is being set up here, between disbelief in a god and defiance of God, and it is being attributed to the so-called “alcoholic personality” rather than to a reasoned examination of the claims of theism. This is another example of the tendency of theists to discount any statement of nonbelief as mere posturing. By claiming that I don’t believe in god, I am actually defying him, because it goes without saying that everybody really believes in god, whether they know it or not. In addition, there is here again a suggestion of a parallel between nonbelief and emotional abnormality. This business of attributing particular character traits to alcoholics, by the way, is something that Bill indulges in frequently, usually using unnamed medical sources as his authority. It is, as it happens, unadulterated hooey. There is no such thing as an alcoholic personality. Alcoholism is a disease caused by genetic abnormalities. There is no way to predict the personality of the person who has the proclivity towards alcoholism, except that statistically some mental diseases and personality disorders tend to be associated with alcoholism. But just go into any self help meeting in America, and you will see an aggregation of people who appear to mimic any cross section of American society..

15) “Sometimes it’s because God has not delivered us the good things of life which we

specified, as a greedy child makes an impossible list for Santa Claus.”

(How is it that Bill was able to make the connection between god and Santa Claus, without noticing the correlation between two imaginary beings?) We are leading up here, and throughout the following paragraph to the “resentment” argument, that we who do not believe are guilty of a resentment against god and therefore refuse to believe (are defiant). It’s surprising how many people automatically assume that we have a resentment against god. This is comparable to having a resentment against the Tooth Fairy.

16) “No man, we saw, could believe in God and defy Him , too.”

No, no. Exactly the opposite. I have seen several people over the years express defiance towards their god. I have never seen an unbeliever defy god, as I have never seen an adult defy the Tooth Fairy.

17) “Now let’s take the guy full of faith, but still reeking of alcohol…Valiantly, he tries to fight alcohol, imploring God’s help, but the help doesn’t come. What, then, can be the matter?”

Good question. Maybe if he gets off his ass and does the footwork, there will be nothing left for a god to do. Maybe if I distill out the essential parts of the program, discarding all the godtalk, then I can begin to practice a program of change, responsibility, and balance and then I will find I can get clean and sober without having to give god the credit and take all the blame myself. Maybe if I do all that I will arrive at a new consciousness of my place in the universe that doesn’t involve slavery to a non-existent higher power, or to a chemical dependence. Maybe.

18) “Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it.”

Actually, I have no problem with this statement. I merely wish to note that I can also say, “Few indeed are the practicing religious persons who have any idea how irrational they Are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it.” If this seems harsh to you, then all I can say is that you probably have never really had a conversation with a committed Christian/Muslim/whatever which involved the contradictions that he is forced to swallow to make his faith work.

19) “(E)very AA meeting is an assurance that God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to him.”

At other places Bill expressed a willingness to accommodate those alcoholics who did not share his beliefs, notably in a Grapevine article in which he meets an agnostic doctor whom he later discovered to embody the moral values that he (Bill) believed in. Why he refused to do so in the book which more than any other contains the directions for following the program as he conceived of it is anyone’s guess. My own feeling is one of sadness that I have had to deal with this…betrayal…of those who did not perceive the universe as Bill did for so many years now, and that so many of those who have walked the AA way have swallowed this line for so long.

I am now in a place in my recovery, and I am considered by those in my recovery group to be a person to be listened to, that I can get away with stating my convictions in public, and not many have the effrontery to contradict me. Yesterday, in the step group I attend, we read the step and then the chairperson opened the discussion by asking me for my thoughts. I responded, “My name is ------, and I think this is Buullshiiit!” I then shared a little of what I have placed in this essay. I like to think that over the years, my adoption of this attitude has prevented a few people who are turned off by the god crap from leaving AA prematurely. I hope that someone out there will get some benefit from my thoughts. If not, well, we all do what we can.

Friday 18 May 2007

JERRY FALWELL IS DEAD 5/17/07


By now most of us know that Jerry Falwell has kicked the bucket. [It just might be time for me to break out my "Jerry Falwell is the Antichrist" button and sell it on e-Bay.] Wikipedia has an entry for him which now includes his date of death. The Positive Atheism site has two categories of Falwell quotes-- "scary" and "more reasonable." Jerry Falwell did not care for folks who aren't heterosexual, people with A.I.D.S., feminists, feminazis, the separation of church and state, stem cell research, or the A.C.L.U. Some of us hated him back when the A.I.D.S. crisis was hitting a peak, and hated him more for blaming 9/11 on us. Yep, I was one of the folks who mocked him for deciding that Barney the Dinosaur was demonic and for deciding that one of the Teletubbies was "gay." [Understand please that I don't have any special love for Barney the demonic dinosaur or for the Teletubbies. It's just that I think it might have been better for Jerry Falwell to attack the trash on television as a whole and in the movies rather than focusing on two innocuous cartoons of the G-rated variety. Anyone who is attempting to live a life apart from the world would do well to get rid of the one-eyed monster in their living room. Or at least limit its' worship.] Other folks loved him for calling things as he saw them according to his fundamentalist take on the christian bible.

The Positive Atheism site leaves out his apology given via C.N.N. shortly after his appearance on Pat Robertson's 700 Club. In his apology, Falwell makes a clear distinction between who was responsible for 9/11 [the terrorists] and who has helped to create a secular environment which led the American people away from his Savior [that be us]. Cal Thomas, a conservative and a Christian, presents a nice eulogy of the man. Public viewing arrangements have been set. I hope that all of us will remember to behave ourselves and not use a family's and a university's grief as a time to haul out the protest signs.

For any fools who are "glad" to see the death of an "adversary," please know this: Jerry Falwell is survived by two sons who are both ready and able to carry on his ministry. Wishing for the death of someone we don't particularly care for is an exercise in mental masturbation best left in childhood. There will be folks coming up after Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, George Bush, Jesse Jackson, and all the rest just as there will be folks coming up after us. Now is not the time to proclaim our superior thinking, religious or non-theistic viewpoints, or political ideology.


radical sapphoq

Tuesday 15 May 2007

A possible way to lower gas prices

This is going on nationwide May 15 2007, tuesday. People aren't going to buy any gas from the gas stations. In theory this will help to get the outragous gas prices lowered. Right now in southern Minnesota the gas is at $3. 15 as of monday morning. All I can say to this is rediculous.

This is a possible way for you to help so please do so.

Blessed BE

Thursday 10 May 2007

Please read this.

I am totally pissed off. I have been part of an email support group for three years. It is for folks who have survived traumatic brain injury. Now my posts to the group [not that there are very many lately] have been put on "moderated" status because of the e-mail address I use for the group ending in "resistant-witches.com." Resistant-witches.com is my ten dollar push button domain that I bought a few months ago in order to stand with a couple of friends who were being bullied on-line. [Consequently, I also became a target, but oh well].


The owner of the group had originally written to me about others in the t.b.i. group who were writing to her because of their concern/paranoia that I am a witch, and/or the e-mail addy itself. I didn't save that short letter because I never expected it to escalate into this foolishness.
Excerpts of our correspondence follow:

Hi ________ ,

...It was another part of your e-mail that concerned me...you mentioned something about "how many people have written [to you] regarding the witch thing."

Are you meaning the domain name where I get my e-mails now? [which was set up to help people who have been targeted by on-line bullies]. Or my personal beliefs? [which I am not asking for anyone's approval of]
Or something else?
I am not understanding why either should be a matter of concern.

I have been willing to set aside my differences in order to remain on the t.b.i. list by practicing
celebration of diversity to include those who are christian of varying political persuasions or
who are heterosexual or who have different views of medications and natural healing etc.

Please clarify this thing about witches so that way I may contribute to an orderly t.b.i. survivor list.
I have no need to hijack threats or to convert people [forbidden in my religion, actually]
and at the same time when an adult asks me on the list what is the "iq" part of "glbtiq"
I would like the freedom to answer the same without going into any sort of gross detail.

And I certainly am not willing to hide my spirituality just as I am not willing for anyone else to hide theirs.

At the same time, I understand what an undertaking running a list is-- especially of folks who do not necessarily have to be similar
to each other except for the circumstance that we happen to share the experience of living with a brain injury.

sincerely,
spike q.


***

Hi Spike,

...After a B.I. so many are "paranoid" when something doesn't "look" or "sound" right
and they get antsy and unsubscribe...go through the subscribing thing all over again....

...Now the "witches" thing is what I've had a few people refer to and they are
wondering why anyone who would be a "witch" would be on this list, and it makes
them paranoid. So, I was hoping that you'd keep one of your old email addresses
that doesn't have anything about "witches" in any part of it....we're trying to keep
some sort of "family" and "normalcy" on the list...

...For those like me who aren't aware of why you got this email addy, the
"resistant-witches" sounds more like a "cult" than anything else and I really
don't want to give anyone on the list any reason to "doubt" or "wonder" about the
T.B.I. group. It just "looks" like something they should worry about, you know?

...You may give some thought as to "why" people are bugging you...

...___________...

***

Thanks for explaining stuff to this brain, _______...

...There are a few folks on the list from time to time with alternative spirituality practices
and it is for those folks that I will not go back into the closet of assumption.
I am what I am. And yes, I am a witch, and not even of the wiccan variety.
Part of dealing with a traumatic brain injury involves learning or re-learning how to live
in the world among folks who do not believe or think the way we do now.

...There are non-christians who come down with this t.b.i. thing
and maybe "ask spike" might also serve [in some cases, for the less jittery]
just as well as explaining that resistant-witches is an e-mail provider
or even that not everyone on the list is a christian-- depending upon who
you are responding to...

...[I will continue to]...leave my personal spiritual practices
off-list unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise
[and there never has been to date]....

...Peace to ya,
spike q.

***

Hi Spike!
I did some thinking about how to answer you...and then
decided to do a search for "resistant witches" because you
"said" it was an I.S.P. server....[dots hers] it was not. What I found was your web site
http://www.resistant-witches.com and found the "definition" of what you
practice...I also noticed that there was nothing about
"email bullies" , but only about witches and that you were tired of being quiet
(so to speak).

I also noticed that this web page was very "negative" and showed lots of
"anger." This is NOT what we are trying to pass on to the T.B.I. list either...
your...Yahoo profile page which is also very "expressive."...gays and all sorts of other religions
and polotics are being forced upon me, offensive clothing and such...
...but when a sex offender molests a child and is allowed to live close to
my neighborhood I don't like it...collecting welfare...I still have to fight for
my own rights. Fairness has nothing to do with it. As long as I live in
this country, I must abide by their rules...

...If you'll read the rules of the list once more, you'll see that "politics,
religion and sex" are NOT allowed...By letting you publically use this email name on this list you
are pushing your religious beliefs onto the list, whether you are talking about
it in an email or not. This is NOT allowed...

If my email address ended in JesusIsLord.com, I would be in violation of the
same rules. You don't have to "talk" about your beliefs because you've already
made a "statement" that you are a witch and that statement is shown in your
email address...

...I think if you thought
about the possibilities, you would understand why this can be trouble for a list
like this one and if you cared about being on the list or those on it, you would
say "ok, no problem."..."Why" give them a chance to bring up this subject on the list?

...Your posts will be moderated
at this time until you get your email address changed...following the rules....

_________

***

apparently i expressed myself wrongly.
resistant-witches is a domain which has e-mail addys attached to it.

i am to be judged because of an email addy.
i will not justify my beliefs or practices to you or to anyone.
nor will i justify the homepage that you found that is indeed
in response to internet bullies--
not "email bullies."
i have other avenues of support.
i am not defenseless.

furthermore, you know nothing of the situation at hand that
i have been dealing with.

choosing to exclude people whose email addys happen to end
in resistant-witches.com
or even in jesusislord.com is your perogative.

i am also tired of assumptions.
spike q.

I unsubbed from the group. Fuck it.

A Murder Of Crows - Volume 5

Well here in New Hampshire we have a really high profile news story going around that I had talked about last April {2006} and really should have died by now, but apparently has reared it's ugly head again. I was only involved based on the fact that the man who is accused of the things that he is being accused of happens to be my daughter's best friend's father. He was running for the Democratic nomination for the house seat in my district {of course he lives down the street} in Hew Hampshire, and at the time was involved in a rather nefarious automobile accident. They couldn't find him for 27 hours if my mind serves me correctly, and when they did he was suffering frostbite on his feet from crossing the Bellamy River. He apparently from what the story had said went into shock and wandered off. It was a huge hullabaloo and supposedly cost him the election. In reality as someone who usually understands punditry and all he never really had a chance anyway and perhaps his 10 percent of the vote was on name recognition from that.

Here's where I come in as I had written a blog and an article for the local paper stating that the person I knew as the father of my daughter's best friend was incapable of these things and was a super human being. I don't seem like much realistically, but in this area I am a bit of a outspoken lobbyist for certain things on my side of the isle {which was the opposite of his so needless to say he never had my vote anyway} which had at times transpired into many different things making press in the area. Most notably I had caused quite a stir as I had logged a lot of time in town and city council meetings railing for articles of succession from the state when the state decided to start distributing taxes heavily on my district. It was approved in two towns so needless to say I know a few things and people respect that at times. I felt it was fair for me to say my peace on a fellow father in the neighborhood that I had found to be an upstanding citizen, and of course his wife and his daughter were very important people to my daughter.

What a difference a year makes in the lifetime of a simple janitor from New Hampshire who happens to be the head of the poorest family in the richest town, as the headlines on all the papers yesterday was that he most likely was involved in an affair with one of his staffers and that was why this happened. It is because of the criminal investigation that has stemmed from the whole story based on him falsifying evidence in his disappearance, and I can’t deny that it looks like he did. The details aren't important but my first reaction was that the news media around here really needed better things to do with their time because not only was this story old, but he was never that important to begin with. Then of course I started feeling sorry for his daughter who was the best kid in school, the most positive role model in my daughters life, and an activist on very many important committees in the area at such a young age that I figured immediately that it must have crushed her. I blamed the news for simply dredging up something that was so unimportant to the world and damaging that poor young girl needlessly and was a lot angrier then I would have thought.

I then thought about his poor wife. She's a beautiful, sweet woman who volunteers for absolutely everything at the school. She tirelessly drives around tons of kids to the best recreations that will keep them out of trouble and has always adopted my own daughter as if she was her own. This woman is not prototypical of the type of woman we see now ignoring the infidelities of her husband in any way shape or form. She is no Hillary Clinton that that would probably prostitute her husband for whatever she wants, and will blindly accept it all as long as some form of power comes to her or she is allowed to hold the arm of someone so esteemed. No as a matter of fact this is Donna Reed and again I was furious at the media for bringing this shit up, and was ready to sit down last night and start writing the most abusive things about the local papers around here that I have always hated anyway. I was going to fight the power and take it down once and for all {as if they cared} and nobody was going to stop me.

The problem here seriously is that I was letting my emotions about the whole thing get the best of me and I hadn’t surmised what really was at stake or going on in all of this. I did a little homework and found a lot of things that can’t be proven whatsoever about the alleged affairs that are being reported by a fired campaign worker, but I could find a heck of a lot of evidence saying that his car crash and his story were a pile of crap. It’s too bad realistically that I am watching the life of a local politician and a family that I personally care about as they are intertwined with my own despite our definite political differences be torn apart in all of this but at the same time I am saddened that somehow there are things that are not being reported in all of this as well, and there unfortunately is only one person to blame regardless of what the truth is. That would be my daughter’s best friend’s father.

It’s an interesting paradox realistically as we have now spent about 14 years dedicating almost all political chatter to who in the white house lies. It’s that 24/7 hate cycle that goes around and in reality I am not going to put my slant on any of this because I have a dog in that fight, but apologists on both sides of the isle are making it impossible to have honesty in politics any more anyway. At this time we have former and unapologetic Klu Klux Klan member representing West Virginia in the Senate, and we have a man who left the scene of an auto accident that ended up killing a woman representing Massachusetts in the senate. I am pulling these two off the top of my head because I can and I know there are others that have done bad stuff, but these two have been there for over 40 years each and win by tremendous landslides, but the last two presidents fart wrong and they are taken to the woodshed.

It makes you wonder realistically what the real agendas are at all times, but here’s the part that really gets me seriously, and what I have been trying to tell everyone for years when they whine about why there isn’t any good politicians. In a day and age where a Supreme Court Justice can be ridiculed for weeks and there can actually be a clamor for him to be impeached because he did the “chin flick” to a reporter like a lot of other Italians in this world do, then how dare anyone cry about scripted politicians. In a day and age where the NAACP can tear down a politician because he called a guy “Macaca” at a political event while the guy he was running against actually admitted to driving around with their practice rifles pretending to shoot “niggers” {as he had stated it to the news reporters} when he was in college then don’t cry about who lies to get where they are. You have to be a total idiot or a power hungry liar to run for politics anyway and the American people will reward you for either every time.

I have no dog in this political fight really because the man I voted for is making this country an annexed part of Mexico as we speak. I’m not a revisionist either as I watch the two people he ran against trying to force socialist environmental policies down everyone’s throats right now as I told you all they would as president so I still made the right decision. The fact of the matter though as I am looking at it all is that there really are no right decisions anymore. I am not calling for a third party because that is actually throwing away your votes, and as the front runner for that other party is reminding me simply by being in the elections upcoming, that the results of that are horrible. Another 8 years of a convicted liar would not do anyone any good, but his wife scares me with her abilities or lack there of. At least her husband had charisma, she just has people that will destroy you like a Stalin regime for pointing out she has none. Nobody will call her on this either outside of the mainstream and again I am watching how the candidates running against her have to play the script, while she isn’t even good enough to act. For that I blame everyone, because it was the American people that made anyone who wants to be a politician either an idiot or a power hungry liar, and I don’t see anyone standing up and saying, “I want you warts and all” because what the majority of people in this country are screaming is “I wanna see your warts so I can slaughter you.” ;8o)

Hang out with Jeremy Crow on CherryTap ... Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of J~ Crow}

Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy

All writings Copyright © 2007 .. Jeremy Fink and The Crow's Nest