Let us review/ last hgf of 2010

2010 is over, THANK GODS! Let's not go into lot's of detail, it wasn't the best year and I'd like to move on from it.  I'll be finishing it in the hot tub with a bottle of Veuve Cliquot.  I hope it mixes well with the antibiotics for my wonderful gift of strep throat from Christmas.  See why I want this year over?  It just keeps reminding me it's here. 

So in honor of the end of 2010 here's the best song I know to commemorate it:


And one final 2010 hgf:

i hate colds 70 posts til 1k

I realized this morning while wallowing in my cold induced self-pity, that I am a mere 70 posts away from the 1000 mark.

Being the inexhaustible windbag I am it comes as no surprise, but it's a fun milestone.



Today's photo may be a repeat but he's worth repeating. I'm going back to bed.

And so it goes:

 

motivational speakers

Yesterday my horoscope said, "DO SOMETHING!" I was instructed that no matter what I shouldn't do nothing. Even if I "didn't know what I was doing" I should do something.

So I did, and it was a mixed bag. I cast the show I' working on. After almost two weeks of trying to locate people with holiday plans and those that apparently don't check their voicemail I got ahold of two people who are interested in working on the show and that's finally settled, i felt much better.

then I went out to look at a house. Let's say it was a complete and utter misunderstanding of what I told the agent I'm looking for and leave it at that.

So here we are in a slow news cycle with very little to complain about, though the Chief of Police in Palm Springs, of all places, thinks we're filthy motherfuckers. And Pastors, God Bless 'em, in Dallas think they should steal people's stuff to keep others from stealing it. (huh?) we have very little to talk about  In fact it's so slow, that Towleroad ran a piece about the Loma Prieta quake. Now THAT'S a slow news day.

And so it goes:

celebrity deaths 2010

I have a code id by doze

In yet another prime example that having a child is a biological function, there is a young man, a teenager really, a child truthfully, he's 16, who works part time as a clerk at the grocery.  He's a good kid, never in any trouble,  motivated to do well.  Not very receptive to nagging or yelling, so one must learn to approach him with a reasonable attitude and he almost always responds well.

I came to work Sunday to learn that his mother, may she finally mercifully get deported back from whence she came, allowed her bf, who apparently is abusive to this kid to come over on Christmas eve.  Fisticuffs ensued.  BF was told to leave and not come back.  Kid awakens at 2am to find abusive bf in living room laughing and having a grand time with mom the scumbag.

Next morning it was time for Christmas presents.  They all opened theirs...then they were done.

The kid didn't get one present.

After succumbing to the lividity I am heir to I went immediately to the gift card rack and bought the kid a $25 best buy gift card and a $25 gift card to Olive garden so he can take his gf there.  I put them in a card and gave them to him.

All was well until he came in my office and hugged me.  Why, oh why must people feel they have to make me have PDA's.  Why?


In any case it was a small attempt to right a massive wrong.  What is wrong with parents?  Do they think their job is done at some point?  do they think that simply because the child has learned a certain set of rules that they're able to just turn their backs and send the child on their way?

Anyone who brings a child in this world is responsible from that day forward, no matter what a court of law says.  They're responsible to see to it that that child has every single advantage they can provide, every ounce of support they can muster, and every opportunity to understand they are loved.

Too bad i'm automatically suspect because of who and what I am, cause I'd take these kids home and give them a room and a home and say,  "here, have a normal life."  Cause that's all they want.

Alas...

And so it goes:

The true spirit of Christmas in America

Yesterday in our local paper there was an article about a woman,(I'm going to leave her name and the man's name out of this ) who apparently decided one day to take up the cause of helping a man who had been convicted and imprisoned for a crime he apparently didn't commit.

She spent nine years on this endeavor, she spent her own money, she did all this voluntarily.  The man it seems, never asked her to take up his cause, or did he discourage her when she persisted.

In the story she is quoted as saying that after she took a job in this particular prison "it changed my life."  and "I wanted to sow the seeds of God's love in their lives.

 The man has been released, he's also been awarded almost $7 million dollars as a result. 

Guess who wants some money?

This is the brand of Christian this country breeds.  They "give of themselves" yet they seek compensation.

Now, this guy may not be the best guy ever born, he had been previously convicted for robbing a gas station, and hung out with people who obviously told stories that got him convicted of this murder.  So why would one undertake such a huge task and then suddenly go very public about their desire to be compensated.

God's love indeed.

And so it goes:

 

Let's look at those loving caring meek and kind Christians...shall we?

No HGF today, pehaps tomorrow, I have nothing to do then.  But today on this eve of the most important Christian holiday we should look at actions and words,  the difference, and what each may really mean.

This morning I came across an article noting that Christians are facing increased persecution.  This is presented as though they're innocent victims of an anti-Christian world.  Not exactly the truth. 

To a person those mentioned in the article have gone out of their way to insult another religion, ensure the persecution of others, attempt to convert to Christianity, those of another religion, a tactic the Catholics made famous the world over.  And I learned the other day, that my high school alma mater is now sending kids on mission trips around the world to introduce those poor sould around the world to Catholicism,as though the ignorant wretches can't make up their own minds and have to be brought to our god or else. We're so fucking presumptuous.

And we marvel at persecution.

Here's the article:

Christians face rising persecution, experts say

By Richard Allen Greene, CNN

A pastor sits on death row in Iran. His crime? Renouncing Islam  for Christianity.
A Christian mother of two faces execution in Pakistan - and a preacher  has put a price on her head in case the president pardons her. Her crime?  Insulting the Prophet Mohammed.
In Iraq, dozens of Christians lie in fresh graves. Their fatal mistake?  Going to church.
And these are not simply isolated incidents, but part of a broader  pattern, experts say.
"There does appear to be an upsurge in violence directed against  Christians," said Leonard Leo, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on  International Religious Freedom.

He says part of the problem is that "governments are not cracking down on  sectarian violence the way they should."
"We've got to have governments taking ownership of these problems and  enforcing the laws that exist," he said. Whether it's "Christians in Iraq or  Afghanistan, or Copts in Egypt, the government has to prosecute (people) and  put them in jail for killing people on account of their religion."
The problems are worst in the countries with the greatest amount of  division, he said. Anti-blasphemy and apostasy laws also are problems in some  countries, he said.

The commission is particularly worried about Egypt, where plans to build  a church near Cairo sparked riots in November. A Christian was killed in  clashes with police.
That violence came on the heels of attacks on the homes and businesses of  Coptic Christians, Egypt's local Christian community, the commission said. The  burning and looting in Qena province, in southern Egypt, was sparked by rumors  of romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, a  commission statement said.
Bad as that violence was, "the worst place of all undoubtedly is Iraq,  where there was a recent church bombing," said Nina Shea, who also sits on the  religious freedom commission.
At least 70 people died in the attack on Our Lady of Salvation Church in  Baghdad on October 31. Fifty-three of them were Christians.
Iraq's al Qaeda affiliate, "the Islamic State of Iraq, vowed to kill  Christians wherever they find them," Shea said.
"As the (overall) violence has decreased in Iraq, it has gone up against  the Christians," she said.
Six weeks after the church attack, the United Nations High Commission for  Refugees said it was tracking a "slow but steady exodus" of Christians from  Baghdad and Mosul, two of Iraq's major cities.
Even relatively moderate Morocco has taken action against Christians this  year, Shea says.
"Morocco expelled foreign Christians who had long been in Morocco - the  head of the George Washington  School in Casablanca, the director of an orphanage, educators - about  100 people," she said.
"That followed a petition by Muslim leaders to stop the Christian influence in Morocco," she said. "There may be some pressure from more  conservative Muslims."
"I would not say that Christians are the only target," she added. "We are  seeing it against other groups as well, Shias and Ahmadiyyas in Pakistan, and  Baha'is in Iran."
But, she said, "this has been a very bad year for Christians worldwide."
Christians are one the largest religious minorities in the broader Middle East, she said, and they are a target "because they are there."
"Many of them want to stay. They have been in this region for two  millennia. They are indigenous. This religion started there," she said.
And they have a unique culture, she said.
The Chaldean Christians of Iraq still speak Aramaic, for example.
"If the Chaldeans are scattered to the four corners of the globe, the  language of Jesus will not be preserved," Shea warned. "It will die out."
CNN's Joe Sterling contributed to this report. 

I have to note that the catholics weren't worried about any other ethnic groups religions dying out when they forcibly converted, en masse the native Americans they encountered in this country.  The Franciscan Monks  weren't a bit concerned about the mayans  and their history when they ordered the destruction of thousands of mayan sculptures and manuscripts in the 1500's.  Where do these hypocrites get off whining about their own persecution? -ed

Now let's turn our attention to some of the most recent examples of good old American Christian hate:

First we have the Rt Rev Steven Anderson of Arizona:

 

Christian hate Pastor Steven Anderson is praying for President Barack Obama's death. Anderson, yet another hate spewing homophobic Christian, is Pastor of the Faithful World Baptist Church, in Tempe, Arizona.
Aside from praying for President Barack Obama's death, Pastor Anderson seems fixated on homosexuality. His fixation is clearly unhealthy, and could very well be indicative of an individual unable to process his own sexual confusion.
Anderson trots out the usual Christian slander and smear on the gay lifestyle. Anderson claims that homosexuals recruit through rape and the molesting of children. Yet Anderson goes one better than most hate filled Christians. Christians usually mask their hatred and bigotry with a cutesy expression like: "hate the sin but love the sinner".
To his credit Anderson is not so two-faced. Anderson says what many Christians are frightened to admit: Anderson wants the death penalty for homosexuals. The source for such a draconian response? The Bible, of course.
Christian Pastor Steven Anderson wants homosexuals put to death, just as the Bible mandates. In addition, the good Pastor prays for President's Obama's death. One can only suppose that his flock shares similar hopes and aspirations.
Her is a quote from the good Christian, the good Pastor, a man of God:

Let me tell you something: Barack Obama has wrought lewdness in America. America has become lewd. What does lewd mean? L-E-W-D? [Pause] Obscene. Right? Dirty. Filthy. Homosexuality. Promiscuity. All of the -- everything that's on the billboard, the TV. Sensuality. Lewdness! We don't even know what lewdness means anymore! We're just surrounded by it, inundated with it!

... And yet you're going to tell me that I'm supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth abortion and all these different things -- you're gonna tell me I'm supposed to pray for God to give him a good lunch tomorrow while he's in Phoenix, Arizona.

Nope. I'm not gonna pray for his good. I'm going to pray that he dies and goes to hell. When I go to bed tonight, that's what I'm going to pray. And you say, 'Are you just saying that?' No. When I go to bed tonight, Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.

That was August of 2009.

Next we have a lovely and charming group of concerned citizens in Texas, (whom God will have to forgive if he actually exists, because...well they're in Texas.) who wll move against anyting they don't like in any conniving way they can:

An evangelical Christian hate group called “Repent Amarillo” is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, “spring break events,” and pornography shops. On its website, Repent has posted a “Warfare Map” of its enemies in town.

Calling Repent an “American Taliban,” blogger Charles Johnson notes that the group’s moniker “Army of God” is a rough translation of “Hezbollah.” Led by a man named David Grisham, a security guard at a nuclear-bomb facility called Pantex, Repent first gained media attention in Texas following a campaign to boycott Houston for electing a gay mayor. The group, which is associated with Raven Ministries, collaborates with other Christian groups as well as forced pregnancy advocacy associations like “Bound 4 Life.”
According to a new exposé by the Texas Observer, Repent set out earlier this year to destroy a discreet club of swingers they discovered in town. On New Years eve, the harassment began, with Repent members, almost exclusively young men, showing up in military fatigues and bullhorns, blaring Christian music at the swingers’ club building. The swingers, made up of “regulars” of middle aged, working class couples, were then stalked at every following visit to the club. Repent not only took video of each member, but obtained the swingers’ license plates and dug through their trash, informing neighbors and coworkers of what was once private. Watch a Texas Observer repor
Repent has struck with some success at many of its enemies within the town. A community theater attempted to open “Bent,” a play about the persecution of homosexuals during Nazi Germany. But the day before opening night, Repent members helped shut down the play by calling in fire marshals to complain about the theater’s permit. Staffers at a nature preserve were featured on local news defending themselves against Repent accusations that their site represents something related to witchcraft.
But grassroots opposition to Repent is also building. A group called “Angel Action” has mobilized against Repent, and blogs and Amarillo-based Facebook groups are springing up to protest Repent’s hate. (HT: LGF)

And of course, those wonderful understanding and forgiving Christians in Fort Worth, Texas who chose to denigrate one of the basic tenets of our country, free speech, when they hired vans with an opposing message to follow busses around the city after the Athiests of America bought advertising saying that thousands were good without God.  So Christian.

So ask yourself as you participate in those pagan rituals that are about to begin all over the world; "Do I really know what this is about, and what I'm supporting when I stand here with a bunch of "devout" christians and sing carols, or attend mass, or put money in one of those little kettles for an organization that wouldn't help me if I were in need because they don't believe in my "lifestyle" as moral?" 

Do you really know?  Or have you been duped like most of the world?

I'm reprinting here an article from the Daily Kos originally posted in 2005 not just because I'm not as eloquent as I should be of late, but because i doubt i could have said it any better. 

-The Coming Christian Hate

by environmentalist

Thu May 05, 2005 at 06:47:04 AM PST

"The [National Government] regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life." -- Hitler
I got caught smoking with a kid named Richard, down by the Arkansas River when I was 14 years old.  I hated smoking.  I hated Richard.  But what I really hated was the catechism classes my mom sent me to every Tuesday and Thursday night.  So Richard and I decided to sneak out.  The fumble up came when I told a girl named Becky where we were going.  I was in love with Becky and I thought she would think I was cool if I ditched out on catechism and went smoking down by the river.  Instead, she told Father Stovik.  He gathered Richard and I in his car and sped us back to St. Therese Catholic Church where we faced the wrath of Sister Mary Hugh.  She yelled at us one by one, Richard first, then me.

She paced in front of me screaming that I was ruining my life.  I had such potential, she said, but I was messing it up by hanging out with bad apples like Richard, smoking, masturbating (how the heck did she know I was doing that?), and reading about evolution.  Yes, evolution.  A year before, I had likewise found myself in trouble for teaching a first grade class at St. Therese that Adam and Eve were metaphors and that there were no people before the dinosaurs and that Neanderthals and Australopithecines were really the first people.  She paced.  She yelled.
Then I told her: "Go fuck yourself bitch."
Anyone? Anyone?
So began a ten plus year search for a religion that I could call my own.  I poured over the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the book of Mormon, the IChing, the Tao and so on.  I attended services, prayer meetings, philosophical discussions.   I experimented with every thought, belief and philosophy I could get my hands on.  My search ended in 1997 at mosque in Lyon, France when a very close Moroccan friend of mine (who laughed when I told him I had gone all the way to Jerusalem to convert to Judaism, spent several months in the government `conversion program', and then dropped out afraid of committing) handed me a revised translation of the Tao and assured me that Islam wasn't for me.  "We all find out own way," he said.  "Don't embarrass my religion."  He was laughing but I got the point.  He was and remains a devout Muslim and a good friend.
That said, this post in not intended as an attack on Christians or devoutly religious people of any sort.  I care what you believe in.  I find religion and belief fascinating, lovely and inspiring.  What this post is an attack on, is the inability of certain religious fundamentalists to allow other people to live and believe as they wish to.  If I learned one thing in my years seeking religion (what I found was spirituality) it is tolerance.  As long as your way of believing does not interfere with mine all is good.  I will not condemn you for your beliefs if you do not condemn me for mine.  Unfortunately there is a growing segment of the American population who does not agree with tolerance or acceptance.  So, let me again make this perfectly clear, I am not attacking all Christians nor people of any faith.  In any following discussions I will not engage with those who seek to find persecution where there is none.  The intent of the following is to highlight my fear of Christian Fascism and the Coming Christian Hate.
Sometime in early 1987 I fell in love with a girl named Victoria who was a member of the church known as Assembly of God.  Being that I was both, looking for God and wanting desperately to get in her pants, I eagerly followed her when she asked me to come to her Church.  What I found, even at 17 years old, was appalling.
At first I just didn't get it.  The Bible-study leader, Steve, rarely read to us from the Bible.  He constantly spoke in a sort of code that nearly everyone understood but me.  For example, again and again he spoke out against "enjoying the world".  I finally had to ask him if that meant that enjoying a nice sunset was wrong according to the Bible.  No, but enjoying food, drink, TV, music, sex...even friends...too much was a sin.  There were other types of code and when I finally came to understand a lot of this code, I found that if I was to belong to this church I would have to end a number of friendships, change to music I listened to, cease taking my studies seriously, stop doing a lot of the things I liked to do (sip whisky under a moon-lit sky while fishing with my Dad) and entirely change my world view.
None of this jibed with the Bible I had read.  The Jesus I knew fought for the poor, the ill and encouraged us to turn the other cheek.  Clearly, one can pull whatever one wishes from the Bible.  What I found, particularly in the New Testament, was compassion.  As hard as I fought against my Catholic family, if there was one thing they taught it was compassion and understanding.
I stayed on with this church for a nearly a year, growing ever more leery of what I was hearing.  Finally, one Sunday, I attended an Assembly of God church service.  The space was like an airplane hanger.  It was decorated in stale browns with pink sashes and white flowers.  There was a giant TV screen above the alter and a man screaming at us and people talking in `tongues' and crying and yelling out.  The whole thing reminded me of the old videos of those huge Nuremberg Nazi rally's in the late 30s.  At one point the man launched into an attack on the USSR, unions and Democrats; organizations and governments working against the will of God.
I distinctly remember feeling ill at that point and I remember a voice telling me to leave. To get out quick.  I finally left.  By the time I got to my car I had a fever.  I pulled over several times to vomit before I got home.  I was in bed for several days with an unbelievable fever and, right or wrong, I took that as a sign from God that I was to stay far a way from the Fundamentalist Christians.
But I forever found them fascinating.  Later, I went back and talked to them.  I was actually told in one conversation that Hitler was correct to kill the homosexuals and Catholics.  A society must rid itself of those that threaten its moral standing.   I was also told that the poor deserved their situation because they were clearly non-believers.   Everyone, it seemed, was to be hated for one reason or another.  When I warned my high school biology teacher that one day, these occultists would be in power in our nation and would disallow the evolution she was teaching and would want to put gays into gas chambers...she said no way.  It could never happen.  Never in America.
Madness
Read Americas Descent Into Evil And Madness by Linda Kimball is a bizarre and utterly hateful example of what the Christian Right offers as `thoughtful' discussion.  I hold it up as an example of much of the writing and preaching coming from the Christian Right these days.
Most strikingly, it is completely hysterical.  She begins by attacking gays and lesbians.  Then she attacks judges ("black-robed, morally insane tyrants"), those who divorce, and those of us who believe in equality and tolerance.  If there is one thing you will find in this article and others like them, it is HATE.   These people are so very full of hate that they cannot see the possibility that others DO NOT HATE them.  They hate and so they feel hated.  They seek persecution at every turn.
A sample:
Wicked Red Queens and Mad Hatters have taken over and are trashing and depraving America, her culture, her laws, and even her children in their maddened frenzy to force their immoral whims and evil sexual fantasies to become our new reality.

Just as the wicked Queen cared not at all about the pain, suffering, and degradation of the flamingoes, America's deviants don't care that along with turning children towards depravity, they are also condemning them to suffer from the same mentally and physically degrading behaviors and debilitating diseases with which deviants always suffer and die early deaths from. Neither did the corrupt judge nor the Extreme Associate producers care about the consequences to society , and women in particular from Constitutionalizing the making of violent, degrading porn. "Public morality," opined the black-robed tyrant, "is not a legitimate state concern sufficient to justify infringing on private, consensual sexual conduct even if that conduct is offensive to the general public's sense of morality." Morality is out, and depravity, no matter how violent it is, is in.
As Mel Seesholtz points out in his excellent critique of the article , Kimball's writing resembles the 13th century Goebbels' Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda published just before Kristallnacht.
Humanity has descended into "evil and madness" before. Two notable excursions occurred at Treblinka and during the Dark Ages when a politically motivated, perverted form of "Christianity" ruled most of Europe with an iron fist, sanctioned the slaughter of "infidels" in the Holy Lands, and conducted a Holy Inquisition that resulted in the torture and murder of millions of innocent people during its 300-year reign of terror. When humanity and civilization went in the other direction, it was called the Age of Reason and The Enlightenment. Ms. Kimball, the evangelical Christian Right and their political minions are advocating 21st century America return to the good old days of the Dark Ages when hate and greed masqueraded as religion, when science was heretical and "equality" was deemed a perversion.
Her claims of love of life and respect for those who suffer do not match up with her religion's actions.  There is incredible hypocrisy in the beliefs of these fundamentalists - but when it comes to `belief', hypocrisy doesn't matter.  Everything can be explained away.
And then there was this amusing tidbit:
Ms. Kimball frets that America is continuing its headlong plunge into the "sea of insanity" and the "sewer of immorality" because "immoral man is in charge." Well, let's see . . .
George W. Bush is "in charge" in the White House, Bill Frist in the Senate and Tom DeLay in the House of Representatives. Louis Sheldon is "in charge" at the Traditional Values Coalition, James Dobson at Focus on the Family, Don Wildmon at American Family Association, and Jerry Falwell at the Moral Majority Coalition. All these card-waving "Christian" collaborators would seem to be working in opposition to Christ's message of love and inclusion when they use religion to justify discrimination and encourage hatred. And that is exactly what their rhetoric and actions are doing. Make no mistake about that.
But then again, that point may be too obvious to you people.
I guess that, at one time in my life I would have read this and just laughed it off.  But several things happening in our nation these days make this kind of hysterical hate so worrisome - and none of this will be of any striking news to Kossacks or Kosmopolitans.
1.  Fundamentalist Christians are already in power. Both the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen to install these people in power.

2.  An illegal invasion of another country.
3.  The attacks on the judiciary and the interference of Congress (many members are Fundamentalist Christians) in the Terry Schaivo case.
4.  The apparent unwillingness of pharmacists to fill prescriptions for birth-control pills (!?!?!)
5.  The increasing combination of religion and military imagery.
   

I am sure that you all can point to other items that scare you.  But what this demonstrates to me is that we may have already missed the boat.
The bulk May 2005 issue of Harper's Magazine is dedicated to an in-depth look at the Christian Right-Wing, surely one of the most frightening segments of modern American society.  It is entitled Soldiers of Christ.
What you find in the articles by Chris Hedges, Gorden Bigelow and Jeff Sharlet is a picture of an increasingly powerful, very wealthy and very large Christian cult that is founded almost entirely on the belief that its members are righteous above all, persecuted by the state and trusted, by God, with a mission to conquer the world for Jesus and rid the world of those who do not hold those same values.
The authors estimate that there are maybe 150 million people (not all in the United States) who associate themselves with this cult.
It also seems the center of this cult is Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Forty-five miles north of where I was born and raised.
One should not have the impression that this cult is all cohesive.  There are a number of different sects spread throughout the county.  But what ties them together is Dominionism, that is, a lust for political power.
Dominionists preach that Jesus has called them to build the kingdom of God in the here and now...

America becomes, in this militant Biblicism, an agent of God, and all political and intellectual opponents of America's Christian leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan.
Essentially, what Christian Dominionism wants is to take over the government, the social, educational and financial institutions of our country and rid the society of anyone they term as `deviant'.  That is, anyone who disagrees with them.  Then, they will use the might of the United States military and our nuclear weapons to conquer the world in the name of God.  The images associated with this cult are nearly all ones of violence.  Swords, flaming eyes, spears, blood, mallets and battle.  They are preparing their people for war.  That war will be against us.
Our favorite Fundamentalist, Dr. James Robin of Focus on the Family, is by far the most influential leader of the Dominionists.  But there are others like Pastor Ted who oversees 45,000 churches and 30 million believers, prays at for buildings and is a close confidant of President Bush.
I guess one of these occultists might say is `see, you and people like Harpers are persecuting us by spreading lies.'
Unfortunately, what you will read in Harpers is what I have seen with my own eyes.
They hate so very much that they can't stand to have their hate taken away.  Take a read of  "Clinton's War on Hate Bans Christian Values"  I guess what they are telling us here is that "hate" is a Christian value and that our society does not have a right to protect itself from their hate.  How do you feel about that you Dkos Christians?  Hate makes them what they are and it makes this brand of Christians very very dangerous - not only to our society but to our physical being as liberals, leftists, progressives.  These people are a threat to our health, safety and welfare.
The Coming Christian Hate
"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good . . . Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism." - Randall Terry, Founder, Operation Rescue, 1993."
Hedges ends with a thought back to his Divinity School ethics professor, Dr. James Luther Adams, who held a deep-seated fear of a coming battle against "Christian Fascists".
He gave us that warning 25 years ago, when Pat Robertson and other prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all major American institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to transform the United States into a global Christian empire.
A global Christian empire heavily armed with nuclear weapons.
I am morally opposed to violence.  Yet the coming Christian Hate cannot be allowed to happen.  And to be honest, I am not quite sure I see an option to stop it's advent that fits within my morals.  If you look back at the rise of the Right-Wing in every nation or people throughout history, what you find is that the left always tends to get blindsided by what is coming their way.  At first they just don't get it.  Then, they can't really even fathom what is happening.  And in the end, they get eaten alive.  History repeats itself again and again.
Then as now, Adams said, too many liberals failed to understand the power and allure of evil, and when the radical Christians came, these people would undoubtedly play by the old, polite rules of democracy long after those in power had begun to dismantle the democratic state.
[emphasis mine]
Make no mistake, my friends.  The dismantling of the democratic state is well under way.
We had better `get it', and we had better get it now.  Because, don't fool yourself.  They may begin with the homosexuals or the minorities but then they will come for us.  They will come for the environmentalists, the lawyers, the scientists, the educators, the literati, the entertainers.  Make no mistake; once they begin they will come for us.  For all of us.
In the end, we can't let this happen.

Adams told us to watch closely the Christian right's persecution of homosexuals and lesbians.  Hitler, he reminded us, promised to restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933, then imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations and publications.  Then came raids on the places were homosexuals gathered, culminating on May 6, 1933, with the ransacking of the Institute for Sexual sciences in Berlin.  Twelve thousand volumes from the institute's library were tossed into a public bonfire.  Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said, would be the first deviants singled out by the Christian right.  We would be next.-

Young men and women the world over are murdered every day because they're gay.  Where are the articles about that? They're not executed here in America like they are in other countries such as Iran:

  or Iraq:

 Here in america we have far more insidious ways of getting the job done.  We torture them mentally and emotionally until they do the job for us, just look at the sidebars of this blog for examples of how America kills it's gay and lesbian young. 

So know what you're getting into when you give approval, even tacit approval, to Christianity and it's ways of hate and manipulation.

For a great example of the duplicity of American Christian hate go ask a black person of Christian faith where their inspiration comes from.  The answer will be God and the bible.  Then go ask a member of the Ku Klux Klan where they learn their lessons of hate. 

And so it goes:
o why not-

Eve Eve

Well the Christian holiday is bearing down upon us with alarming speed.

I, in fact, will indulge in the purchase of a few presents for family members and won't actually be doing that until tonight.  I forgot, what can I tell you.

Barack Obama signed the repeal of DADT yesterday, and Harry Reid gave Dan Choi a ring.It's all very cool and yet we're not done.  There's still marriage and employment, and oh yeah not getting killed for walking down the street, that would be nice. Not to sound ungrateful, but I'd like to not have to worry about that stuff anymore thanks.

There are rumors of a white Christmas here. We had one last year, I don't remember that it was that special.  In fact it was a blizzard and we were all snowed in.

Still need to cast my show.  I've got people who can and will do it but there are others who I really want who might not be able to participate.  The show MUST go on though, particularly this time. At this late date I'll likely wait until Monday to make calls.

So have a Happy Merry, my blogging is rather spotty as of late, no idea why.  But I'll try to do better, even though I have three jobs, I'm directing a show, and it's the holidays.  I'm sure I'll do better soon...yeah.

And so it goes:

 

-from  but i like it photography

The public is filled with Christmas Spirit i tell you!

Miserable bitching whining demanding bastards.

I am hopeful that yesterday was an anomaly, and that this Christmas week isn't as mean-spirited as yesterday was.

they were not a friendly bunch. They were looking for a fight.

I am not inclined to assist them in finding it.

Be nice to people out there this week, stop acting like your needs are more impotant than anyone else's

Recognize that others exist.

Please!

And so it goes:

Woohoo!

I rarely post on the weekend, and in half an hour I will have about 15 people here for holiday dinner, but they can stand outside for a minute while I celebrate this historic and most human of moments.  The United States Senate voted this afternoon to repeal DADT!

As regular readers to this blog know, it's a rare moment I tip my hat to anyone, let alone the Senate. 

All I can say is thank you.

And so it goes...

HGF

Pope: Christians are most persecuted group

Someone please find a nursing home for this old man. 

Perhaps, Sir, Christians are so, "persecuted", (waah!) because they practice hate themselves.  They practice exclusion, and the very hateful notion "if you're not like us, you're wrong."

Payback is a bitch ain't it Bennie?

 

No Negroes Allowed

If, as I grow older, I weren't becoming accustomed to the notion that we are growing more and more stupid as a nation I'd be appalled. The news here isn't a new business, but the recent development that a strip club owner in Wisconsin has posted a sign in front of his new, and yet to be opened business, stating that he intends to openly and apparently proudly discriminate against people of color.

Dear God!

Where are the No Fags Signs? Oh wait, I know, the love that dare not speak its name can't be mentioned, because children might have to have it explained to them and we wouldn't want to have to talk openly and honestly about anything sexual in this country would we now?(if you think we never go to strip clubs think again)

No we'd rather go around proudly wearing our ignorance and hatred of others simply because they have skin of a different color on our sleeves.

If I thought it'd make any difference at all I'd ask all the obvious questions. Such as: What possible difference could it make? Where did you learn such hatred, and why do you think it's alright to perpetuate it? When, When WHEN will we get smart and start teaching our citizenry that living, working and yes, lusting together is the only way we're going to survive?

Oh, wait, that last question gave me the answer to the problem.  Black men lusting after white women.  Wow this proprietor IS stupid isn't he?

There ought to be a law!

oh wait...

And so it goes:

 I love Jimmy Carter!

No Christmas Spirit but a Christmas Cactus!

The Christmas Cactus is blooming...yeah!

Here in the midst of what is purported to be a season of goodwill toward men, people show up at school  board meetings and start shooting. After Holbrooke tells us that we must end the war in afghanistan and then dies, someone graciously comes out and says ,  "weeel, don't put too much stock in that, the guy was dying.'

And I wonder why people show up at school board meetings and start shooting people...maybe I shouldn't.

Looking at a house this afternoon. I haven't engaged in this activity in many years so it's almost fun except for the pressure from some agents.  Not that i have a problem setting them straight.

There's a lot of junk out there masquerading as a place to live. Mind-boggling what some people call an acceptable domicile.

And they're still shooting each other on the redneck riviera.

And so it goes:

Perhaps it's depression

I recall when my stepmother died a few years ago I felt strangely disconnected all winter.  Then in spring when I began to emerge from hibernation, I realized that I had been depressed the entire winter.  No idea why i didn't realize it before then.

Perhaps this is why I'm not motivated to post, or do much of anything but sit around.

Poor me, what a pity.

Anyway, not much is changing, The Republican's still portend to stand for fiscal responsibility, John Boehner is still crying in public, and Barack Obama is still clueless about how to get us what we really need.

Oh!  and Christians are still not getting the whole free speech thing as they chase busses around Fort Worth attempting to negate the placards bought by he Athiests. 


And so it goes:

a few things

First, what the hell could our leaders be thinking when they propose a payroll tax holiday?  I realize the government has plenty of money, yet, they seem to think there will always be lots of it to go around, and i'm getting nearer and nearer to needing my social security benefits.  At my age I'll get them, but the struggle to keep them will be ongoing and there will be times I'll have issues surviving on them and what little I'll make as I grow older.  

IT'S MY MONEY AND I WANT IT NOW!

Well, it's sort of my money, I figure that if everyone else in the world thinks that every tax dollar spent is theirs personally then I can act like my social security benefits are mine for the asking. 

On another note:

Dick!

And I got an email from the Smithsonian the other day after sending them a rather scathing little epistle regarding their immediate and resistance-free capitulation to the demands that they censor their exhibits to satisfy the sensibilities of the "Christian" among us. They assured me they're committed to the art and it's message, yet as a "publicly-funded institution" need to be attuned to the sensibilities of all.  All the bullies that is.   All the people who hold the purse strings. Not it at all actually.

I didn't figure they'd get it.  

And please please please go to Joemygod and read this week in holy crimes.  It's a semi-regular feature he has that  demonstrates the "good" our religions do on a daily basis.

I'm sure Sal Alosi is talking with his clergy for advice this very day.  A head hunter who specializes in high school coaching jobs wouldn't be a bad idea either.

And so it goes:

 

HGF

Oh well shit happens

I'm about to pay cash for a house soon,(provided I find one I want) and in my feeble little mind it was partly in an effort to avoid the following scenario. Yet, it appearz one does not have to have a mortgage to find he evil and I do mean evil, Bank of America pounding on your door attempting to take the house they never had anything o do with. Bank of America is evil and must be stopped.

oh and what was there reaction when today's excuse for a press inquired? "Shit happens, it's all over now though."

By MICHELLE CONLIN
The Associated Press
updated 12/8/2010 8:11:48 PM ET

Christopher Marconi was in the shower when he heard a loud banging on his door. By the time he grabbed a towel and hustled to his front step, a U.S. marshal's sedan was peeling out of his driveway. Nailed to Marconi's front door was a foreclosure summons from Wells Fargo, naming him as a defendant. But the notice was for a house Marconi had never seen — on a mortgage he never had.

Tom Williams was in his kitchen thumbing through the mail when he opened a letter from GMAC. It informed him that the bank would confiscate his house unless he immediately paid off his mortgage balance of $276,000. But Williams had never missed a mortgage payment. And his loan wasn't due to mature until 2032.



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Warren Nyerges opened his front door in Naples, Fla., to find a scraggly-haired summons server standing on his stoop. He plopped a foreclosure notice from Bank of America in Nyerges' hands. But Nyerges had paid for his house in cash. And he'd never had a checking account, much less a mortgage, with Bank of America.

By now, you may have heard the stories of bank robo-signers powering through hundreds of foreclosure affidavits a day without verifying a single fact. But most of those involved homeowners who had stopped paying their mortgage. They were genuine defaulters. Now a new species of homeowner is getting pushed into foreclosure hell.

People have always loved to complain about their banks. The push-button circus that passes for customer service. The larding on of fees. But the false foreclosure cases are hardly the usual complaints. These homeowners paid their mortgages — or loan modifications — on time. Some even paid off their loans. Worse, those on the receiving end of a bad foreclosure claim tell similar stories of getting bounced from one bank official to the next with no resolution while the foreclosure process continues apace.

Many have to resort to paying a lawyer, even after presenting documentation. They say they have to sue not only to stop the wrongful foreclosure but also to attempt to win back their costs.

There are no official statistics for these homeowners, but lawyers, real estate agents and consumer advocates say their ranks are growing. In November, during foreclosure hearings on Capitol Hill, senator after senator scolded the banks about wrongful foreclosures. They said their offices were deluged with complaints from people who had done everything right but were being treated by banks as if they had done everything wrong. And the Florida attorney general's office is also investigating the issue as part of its foreclosure probe.

"This is the worst I've ever seen it," says Ira Rheingold, an attorney and executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. Diane Thompson, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, has defended hundreds of foreclosure cases. "In virtually every case, I believe the homeowner was not in default when you looked at the surrounding facts. It is a widespread problem throughout the country."

Homeowners in Florida, Nevada, Texas and Pennsylvania have filed lawsuits alleging that they were victims of mistaken foreclosure. In many of those cases, the bank went so far as to haul away belongings and change the locks on the wrong homes.

One such suit was filed in March by Pennsylvania homeowner Angela Iannelli. She was up to date on her payments when, she says, she arrived home in October 2009 to find that Bank of America had ransacked her belongings, cut off her utilities, poured anti-freeze down her drains, padlocked her doors and confiscated Luke, her pet parrot of 10 years. It took her six weeks to get the bank to clean up the house.
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Iannelli's lawyer says the parties are in the process of "mutually resolving the issues" and the lawsuit is "in the process of being discontinued." Bank of America did not immediately respond to a request for comment on her case.

But the incidents haven't stopped. Maria and Jose Perez of Seguin, Texas filed suit in October after Bank of America sent them a notice that their house was scheduled for a foreclosure sale Nov. 2. The couple say they are current on their mortgage payment and they have no loan with Bank of America. A trial is set for June 13.

Now the class actions are coming. In Kentucky and California, class-action lawsuits have been filed against major lenders on behalf of homeowners in loan modification programs who allege that they made all of their payments but got foreclosed on anyway.

"It is mind-boggling that these large banks accepted billions and billions of TARP money from the government, and they are just committing a fraud on the American people," says Jack Gaitlin, who filed the Kentucky suit on Oct. 4. He was referring to the 2008 government bailout of the banks, the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

To understand the banks' back-office dysfunction, you have to travel back to the credit bubble of the early 2000s. Rising home prices were turning real estate into the new national casino. Lending standards evaporated. No job or down payment necessary! Banks, meanwhile, stopped holding on to mortgage loans and pooled them into securities that were sold to investors.

The banks charged fees for servicing the mortgages — tasks such as collecting monthly payments. The banks slap on the biggest fees when a borrower can't make payments and the bank forecloses. Says Rheingold, "They created a servicing model where they made the most money by foreclosing on people as quickly and cheaply as possible." When a foreclosed house is put back on the market and sold, the proceeds are used to pay creditors, like mortgage servicers, first.

Now it's becoming clear just how chaotic the whole system became. Depositions from employees working for the banks or their law firms depict a foreclosure process in which it was standard practice for employees with virtually no training to masquerade as vice presidents, sometimes signing documents on behalf of as many as 15 different banks. Together, the banks and their law firms created a quick-and-dirty foreclosure machine that was designed to rush through foreclosures as fast as possible.

Former employees at banks and foreclosure law firms have testified that they also knowingly pushed through foreclosures on the wrong people.

Tammie Lou Kapusta is a former paralegal with the law offices of David J. Stern, a Florida firm that works for all the major banks and handles up to 70,000 foreclosure cases a year. Kapusta testified in September that she received as many as 50 calls a day from homeowners who said they were the victims of mistakes. But she was told, she testified, to ignore the callers and push through the foreclosures anyway. The law firm is under investigation by the Florida attorney general.

The banks say they are reviewing their mortgage and foreclosure procedures and most of the people involved in foreclosure deals were behind on their payments. As for people wrongly caught in the foreclosure net, they say they are reviewing those cases, too.

But what emerges from court filings, depositions, and interviews is that once the bank places you on its foreclosure assembly line, it becomes nearly impossible to get off.
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The minute Marconi ripped the foreclosure notice from the door of his house in Garrison, N.Y., on Oct. 20, he saw he was named as a defendant along with a woman who had run a red light and smashed into Marconi's car four years earlier. Marconi had received a payment from her insurance company. It was her house, in Rye, N.Y., that Wells Fargo was foreclosing on.

Marconi explained the bizarre mix-up to Wells Fargo's customer service department, its ethics complaint department, its law firm and the office of the chief executive officer, John Stumpf. Marconi says they all told him that they could not help him and that he needed to get a lawyer.

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Vickee J. Adams says Marconi was named in the foreclosure suit because he filed a judgment against the woman in the car accident. It is common for lien holders to be mentioned in foreclosure documents. But Marconi says the judgment against the woman was satisfied in April 2009.

"Now I have to pay a $3,500 retainer for a lawyer to get my name pulled off some lawsuit by Wells Fargo," Marconi says.

Equally puzzling is the case of Williams, the chief executive of a food distribution business in Kansas City, Kan. Williams lives in a 3,000-square-foot house with a luxurious patio and pool out back. Before his GMAC nightmare began, he says his credit score was 794 out of 800. "I've never been any days late on anything, ever," Williams says.

But when Williams, 52, tried to pay his $2,500 monthly mortgage payment online on Aug. 5, he found out that GMAC had put a "stop" on his mortgage account.

Since that day last August, Williams has found himself trapped in an alternative banking world worthy of the Twilight Zone. The trouble couldn't come at a worse time for Williams and his wife, Carol. She was in the process of buying the upholstery business where she has worked for 10 years. Bank of America lowered Carol's credit limit, citing "serious delinquency on other accounts." And the couple's credit score is sinking by the day.

During the past four months, Williams says he has talked with 25 GMAC representatives. He has twice contacted the offices of the CEO and the chief financial officer. He has sent packages of paperwork documenting and verifying his claims. And, he says, various GMAC employees have promised to straighten it out immediately. All the while, GMAC has repeatedly refused to take his mortgage payments, going so far as to mail them back to him. It is routine for banks to refuse payments once they start foreclosure proceedings.

Finally, on Nov. 9, a GMAC employee who said she worked in the executive offices contacted Williams and told him that an audit had revealed the bank had lost his loan's paperwork. But she couldn't explain why the stop had been put on Williams' account, why the bank was rejecting his payments or why the bank was assessing him for late fees every month. She said she would send letters to his credit agencies to correct the misinformation.

On Nov. 15, she sent Williams a package of documents for a loan modification and stressed that it was urgent that Williams "immediately" sign and return them, "prior to the Nov. 24 regulatory deadline." If Williams didn't do so, the GMAC employee said in an e-mail, the loan modification "would no longer be valid."

Williams emailed the woman with several concerns and questions about the documents but he never heard back from her. He felt the only option he had left was to hire a lawyer. "It's really a bite — and I can't tell you how it chafes me — to have to pay hundreds of dollars an hour just to get to make my house payment because the mortgage company can't find their loan documentation," says Williams.
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GMAC spokesman James Olecki says the bank is looking into Williams' situation.

Even those who have managed to clear up their misunderstanding say the fight was a full-time job.

After going to court and serving as his own lawyer, Nyerges got Bank of America to drop its foreclosure action. All along, he had been showing employees of Bank of America a copy of the $165,000 cashier's check he used to pay for his house in September 2009. "No one at Bank of America could wrap their brain around this concept that I had no mortgage," he says. In September, the court awarded Nyerges $2,500, plus 6 percent interest, for his costs.

Says Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens, "This was an unfortunate error that was corrected when it was brought to our attention."

And so it goes:

The finer points of teaching hate

We've succeeded in our half-assed effort to create the stupidest people on the earth. (evidence below)

From the Bristol and Willow Palin's homophobic remarks on Twitter, an organization whose very existence  can never be explained to me.  To this "asshat" (jmg) in the following video who has brought a new twist to the birther notions for me, he thinks Obama is an emissary of the devil.  AND THIS GUY IS BLACK!

 




So let us never fear that America is the leader of the free world. We feel free to take our stupidity out for a very public walk anytime we damn well please, and we're proud of it.


If you want a good laugh or cry whichever is more appropriate, you should check out Joemygod's weekly feature "This week in Holy Crimes" where he lists the top ten indictments, convictions, and outrageous acts by America's clergy.

They're so exemplary.

Have a safe and happy Pearl Harbor day.

And so it goes:

a brief but unpleasant conversation

No time today, but a discussion needs to be had about the ever growing popularity of the Palin's, and their particular brand of home grown hate.

Ted Nugent?  Really?  ick.

And so it goes:

hgf