The Weight

William Rivers Pitt

It is brutally hard to be a Christian in America these days. Some of us Christians take that bit about doing unto the least of us deeply, deeply seriously. Some of us Christians think that it is wrong, sinful, and in fact a brazen form of Apartheid to deny certain Americans the rights enjoyed by other Americans based upon who they love. Mostly, some of us think Christianity in America has gone barking-mad insane.

I am a Christian. I make no apologies for it. I'm not sure if I believe that Jesus turned that water into wine, or if He raised up Lazarus, or even if He rose from the dead. That all sounds like a lot of magic nonsense from two thousand years ago when you think about it, which is why they call it The Mystery of Faith.

But I believe that I am my brother's keeper, that I should worship without bragging about it, that the poor will God-damned-right inherit the Earth, and that what you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do unto me. I believe that the first four books of the New Testament are a wonderful blueprint for being a decent person on this planet, and that's what I live by, as best I can.
...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to drink some new wine, hang out with a familiar whore, and listen to the dead.

I would have capitalized "Dead" but keep doin' whatcher doin', Bill. Keep in mind that the hateful throwback bastards that make the most noise about being Christians are using it for cover and really aren't.

Crazy ...

Sorry about the sporadic appearances but if we thought life couldn't get crazier, it has. As you know, we're dealing with my dad-in-law's passing and all that entails (the Mrs. is the executor), trying to get his house in order to put it on the market, trying to get my deck finished before the end of summer (maybe I should have put it off until next year), and the normal stuff we never seem to have time for anymore. Then, this week, my sister-in-law's sister passed away after dealing with cancer and diabetes (and the complications from both) for a few years. Not unexpected, she was terminal and, like dad-in-law, in a better place now. It's just made doing depressing stuff a little more depressing.

This song's been going through my head since we got the news. Apropos for her, I think.

The Kinks - Come Dancing

How to properly spank a nun

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford going on about nuns. Links at site.

Funny how no one ever talks about the nuns.

I suppose it makes sense. After all, Catholic nuns are so rarely embroiled in sex scandals. They are never caught pants down in the rectory with a 10-year-old altar boy, teaching him of the "mystical secretions" of the Lord. They never cost the church billions in litigious payouts for rape, abuse, millennia of pedophilic atrocity and shame. For that, you gotta look to the priests.

Have you heard? The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the umbrella group representing those 57K American nuns, they've been accused of having "serious doctrinal issues" and promoting nothing short of "radical feminist themes" (!) which apparently consists of gently supporting Obamacare (free health care for the poor? Nuns are all over it), endorsing the idea of female priests, ministering to the underprivileged, and being way too nice to gay people.

Horrible! You can see why the pope is furious. Some nuns are even accused of spending so much time working in local politics to help the needy, they leave themselves no room to bash gay marriage, wail about abortion, attack humanity for enjoying sex, or scold their own gender for having vaginas in the first place. I know! Those wenches.

But if you're like me -- and I know you are -- the question often gnaws like a squirrel in the rafters: In an age of bitter corruption, suspicious sources and ersatz meanings, where do you go to find true integrity of mission? Where do you go to find a quietly intentional upsetting of the long-established doctrine of idiocy and belligerence, patriarchy and hoary dogma?

Now we know. Now we can look to the Catholic nuns, those fierce n' fiery wenches of God, those cool goth cheerleaders of Jesus, for a hint of inspiration and temerity, just a tiny taste of delicious insurrection right when we need it most.

Ah yes, the Roman Catholic Church, perhaps the last holdout from the Dark Ages. They make the fundies seem almost modern, like something out of the radical upstart 16th century.

Update:

Get some, sisters!

Please pardon...

...the light blogging, but it's been spring here for five days and I'm already a month behind on spring projects. I may not catch up, I never do, but I'll get over the rush of getting to work outdoors, like in the garage.

In spring, an old man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of motorcycles and raking pine needles and cleaning out the "junk corner" in the office and...and...and...

Huntsman almost cleaned it up...

BuzzFeed

Former Republican candidate Jon Huntsman took a battle axe to his own party, comparing it to China's Communist Party and criticizing its standard bearer in a wide-ranging interview at the 92nd Street Y Sunday night.
...

Huntsman, the former Utah governor and once President Barack Obama's Ambassador to China, expressed disappointment that the Republican Party disinvited him from a Florida fundraiser in March after he publicly called for a third party.

"This is what they do in China on party matters, they punish you, if you talk off script," he said.

He got that right, of course, but Huntsman is now saying BuzzFeed "took it out of context" as if someone from Repug higher-higher subsequently had a moment of prayer with him about his political future. The line is verbatim but notice how it ends with a comma. Rachel Maddow played the whole comment last night (I can't find it) and the next three words are "but not here".

You can hear the comma as if he realized right there that he had waffle-stomped his weenie and tried to clean it up.

As any married man can attest, getting yourself outta trouble in the very same sentence you got yourself into trouble in the first place is a painfully learned ART. Heh. Nice try, Jon.

Shitbag Blogger ...

For all those, like me and Gord, who hate the "new" Blogger, look up on the right on the "Settings" page for a little gear-looking thing. Click that and then click "Old Blogger Interface" on the menu.

It would be nice ...

If we did this here:

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - An Icelandic court ruled on Monday that former Prime Minister Geir Haarde was guilty of one charge related to negligence in connection with the North Atlantic island nation's financial meltdown in 2008 but gave him no punishment. ...

He might not have to go to jail, but I could live with a public shaming of our corporate criminals and their political cohorts. Unfortunately, those here who are responsible own those who make the laws.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

 I can't make it come out the way I want it to with the new Blogger template, so fuck it. Just click on it.

Headline of the Day

The Top Five Special Interest Groups Lobbying To Keep Marijuana Illegal

No surprises.

The Ludlow Massacre

4/20 wasn't just Weed Day. From a good short history of the event at Kos:

The miners faced the grim prospect of going out on strike against the powerful southern coalfield companies, chief among them, John D Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The coal operators had steadfastly refused to recognize the Union and had ignored all attempts at negotiation. 

The miners had had their fill of dangerous working conditions, crooked checkweighmen, long hours, and low pay. They lived in peonage in company towns, were paid in company script, and were forced to shop for their daily needs in high-priced company stores which kept them always in debt. But, mostly they hated the notorious company guard system. Every attempt to organize was met with brutality on the part of the coal operators.

Also see Wikipedia.

About Woody's song:

Refers to the violent deaths of 20 people, 11 of them children, during an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914

Thanks to ReformingMe.

Corporate control of government, in this case using the National Guard to commit murder and arson to get what the bosses want and keep workers "in their place", is nothing new.


Update: Imagine having to fight management just to get to shop at stores of your own choosing.

This is a 10 minute documentary about the Ludlow Massacre that took place in Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914 and resulted in the deaths of 19 people. This doc was created in 2003 and entered in the National History Day Competition where it placed 1st at the state level and was a national finalist for the Junior Group Documentaries. (Written, Directed, and Edited by Sarah Goode and Lila Creighton)

Thanks to TheSarahgoode.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris singing "Red Dirt Girl" (2005) Farm Aid concert.

Thanks to jazzman67p.

Legalization or Bust: A Brief History of Marijuana Prohibition

In honor of 4/20, Weed Day, a little history. Post is from 2010.

  HuffPo

America's longest prohibition dates back to 1937 -- the "Reefer Madness" era when the country's earliest anti-drug zealots (led by former head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger) convinced a gullible public that marijuana caused people to commit unspeakable acts of depravity, such as when the hopped-up stoner runs over an elderly man in the guffaw-inducing exploitation flick.

          ...

Perhaps even more harmful is the stereotyping of marijuana smokers as lazy, dumb, slow, passive, apathetic, memory-challenged junk-food addicts. Though anti-drug organizations like the Partnership gladly re-enforce all of these supposed stoner traits, the media has piled on with constant jokey references to pot-heads adding "dude" to every sentence (ok, maybe that one's true, dude) with their groggy heads buried in colossal sized bags of Doritos. Stephen Colbert is one of the biggest perpetrators of this archetype.

Hey, I resemble that remark! Duuuude...

 Good post. Go read. Spicoli and Los Guys figure in. Smoke 'em if ya got 'em. The smoking lamp is lit. And so will you be...

Question of the Day

Is Peace Getting in the Way of Our War Plans?

This past weekend, the United States and other major nations finally spoke with Iran. In 10 hours of talks (or 5 with translations), minus a lunch break, Iran agreed to a framework for ensuring that its nuclear program is only used for civilian purposes.

If this keeps up, the whole basis for war could be lost. And it's all the result of having finally spent a few hours talking with Iran. The obvious solution is to cut off the talks, issue ultimatums, lower the threshold for what justifies war, and impose more deadly sanctions than ever. And that's just what some of our misrepresentatives in Congress are about to try.

No wonder there's all the right-wing backlash against birth control. Their plans include needing young men and women as cannon fodder for decades to come. Permanent war for profit, you know. The poor and unwanted are best because they can't do anything else but join the service and not many will miss them.

Nuge Dropped Like The Hot Turd He Is

The News-Enterprise (Hardin County KY)

Fort Knox drops Ted Nugent from concert plans 

 Following rocker Ted Nugent's recent comments about President Barack Obama, he has been dropped from a scheduled performance at Fort Knox, the post announced Thursday afternoon.

 ...

 Army Entertainment and the Fort Knox Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation are committed to carrying out the concert, according to a news release. REO Speedwagon and Styx remain scheduled to perform as part of the post's annual summer concert June 23. The possibility exists that a replacement will be selected, post officials said.

I sincerely hope other concert promoters won't want to get their hands all shitty as well.

Update:

NRA Scrubs Nugent Video From Website, YouTube

Heh. When you're too extreme for the NRA Gun Nut Lobby, you're too extreme. Period.

Update the Twoth:

  Kos

Ted Nugent himself is a cowardly pseudo-macho poser incapable of doing any real physical damage on his own. This disgusting pervert would rather sit around in his own feces than join the army and his sexual proclivities run to young girls rather than grown women for whom he has no appeal. Nugent is an admitted rapist and pedophile according to the VH1 documentary at the link. 

...

Nugent began his career with The Amboy Dukes and an album called Journey to the Center of the Mind. This was obviously a very abbreviated trip for Ted for which there was no return ticket. His philosophical musings went only so deep as the question Why is a Carrot More Orange than an Orange. The costumes and go-go girls in the video give us a glimpse of Ted's early affectations and his efforts as a guitarist whose musical style was "restricted to the Key of A and as melodic as a dial tone". The rather obvious limited musical talent is what eventually led Ted to his current shtick of gaining publicity for inflammatory rants on stage. As he has become increasingly irrelevant as a musician he has tried to become relevant as an outrageous wingnut firebrand.

Go read what bullshit like his can do, correction, has done.

Headline of the Day

Headline at BuzzFlash, link is to short post by Andy Sullivan:

Romney Hires Openly Gay National Security Spokesman for Campaign. GOP Base Implosion in 3...2...1...

Heh. I'm hoping for fireworks and a great sucking sound as their heads implode.

Note to Blogger

Your new template sucks.

Levon Helm 1940 - 2012

Levon Helm passed away yesterday. I'm sure we're all familiar with his work with The Band but he had a helluva body of work in later years as well. I particularly liked him as "Old Man With Radio" in The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada and his later alt.country work.

 Notable lyric in "Poor Old Dirt Farmer":

 "Well the poor old dirt farmer, how bad he must feel
 He fell off his tractor up under the wheel
 And now his head, shaped like a tread
 But he ain't quite dead"

Thanks to dirtfarmermusic.

So long Levon.

Update:

 A very good obituary:

[...] But the through-line to it all is that marvelous voice, an utterly American sound that somehow for five decades embodied the field hollers, Delta blues, minstrel shows, rockabilly, mountain ballads, and country crooners all in one exhilarating package. If you want to hear what American music sounds like at its best, listen to what Levon Helm left behind.

Word.

Useful and fun!

Go look up "hemp" and see all the uses it has, aside from the good one.

Happy 420!

Stolen from God.

Raese Compares No Smoking to Hitler's Jewish Star

It's getting harder and harder to find wingnut stupidity that's unique enough to bother posting on it. This one takes the fucking cake. So far today anyway.

Political Wire, video if you must:

West Virginia U.S. Senate candidate John Raese (R) compared no smoking laws to one of Adolf Hitler's most notorious policies.

Said Raese: "I don't want government telling me what I can do and what I can't do because I'm an American. But in Monongalia County you can't smoke a cigarette, you can't smoke a cigar, you can't do anything... I have to put a huge sticker on my buildings to say this is a smoke free environment. This is brought to you by the government of Monongalia County. OK? Remember Hitler used to put Star of David on everybody's lapel, remember that? Same thing."

Godwin is LHMFAO.