Obligatory September 11 Post

As the airwaves fill up with undignified mawkishness and glurge intent on marking the 10th year anniversary of September 11th, it seems to me that most of these demonstrations are being subverted to suit the purposes of those expressing them.

So, here's my take.

Heroes? We seem to live in a time bereft of genuine, unsung heroes. This one, though known and admired at the time for a multitude of qualities and accomplishments, has become a lightning rod since a bunch of earnest, well-intentioned catholics decided to informally canonize him - for being a celibate gay man.

Fundamentalist Christian zealots are shrieeeking that they are being deprived of their media entitlements and an opportunity to spew their islamophobic screeds because the official NYC commemorative event will remain secular and focused on the families of people who died in the September 11 attacks.

And, according to this, the fall-out continues to kill more people.

More than 18,000 people are suffering from illnesses linked to the dust from the attacks on New York's World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.

The figure comes from the US government's monitoring and treatment programme for 9/11 emergency workers, volunteers and local residents. The most common afflictions are respiratory problems including asthma and sinusitis, but muscular and intestinal conditions are reported as well.

The senior US official managing the health legacy of the attacks warns that early deaths are possible among the survivors.

Note: I started drafting this post while listening to Radio-Canada's live coverage of Jack Layton's cross-partisan state funeral. The first photo was found here.

Fetal Pr0n Is Too Disgusting. . .

. . . even for Catlick bishops.

“The Alberta Bishops have decided not to participate in the 2011 Alberta March for Life,” announced Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith in a March 9, 2011 blog post.

The reason given for the bishops’ withdrawal is that the organizers of the Alberta March are unable to guarantee that participants will not bring graphic abortion images.

Well, of course, they are 'unable to guarantee'. Fetus fetishists can't work up to a good martyrgasm wank-fest without their preferred pr0n.

Cue the SHRIEEEKING here in 5, 4, 3 . . .

Remember this from the Fight the FetusMobile campaign in Calgary?



Maybe it's time to rethink your strategy when so many people -- including Catlick bishops -- are put off by it.

Was this last year the annus horribilis

or maledictus? Happy Birthday Joe, Benny - whatever. The Devil knows your real name.

Bonus present: Catholic Church members who benevolently say stuff like: “If there is a body of people around an offender who monitor their day-to-day activities and help manage them adopt a ‘good life’ model, this is more effective than brandishing them on the wider community, which evidence suggests could lead to more offending.” when defending the practice of not defrocking priests who have sexually abused children or not turning them over to civil authorities for prosecution.

Indeed. And that worked so well, did it?

What's the saying about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions?

Candidate for Offensive Analogy of the Century

. . . hell, maybe the millennium.

So, there I was at the Google News main page and saw this headline from the Globe (it's an AP story):

Pope’s preacher likens sex-abuse allegations to violence against Jews

I sat there blinking for a few minutes and decided that I don't even know where to begin with that.

Oh, and if you read the story, you'll see that it's OK, because this insane counter-attack was suggested by an actual Jew.

MORE: From the New York Times:

Rabbi Riccardo di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, who hosted Benedict at the Rome synagogue in January on a visit that helped calm waters after a year of tensions, laughed in seeming disbelief when asked about Father Cantalamessa’s remarks.

“With a minimum of irony, I will say that today is Good Friday, when they pray that the Lord illuminate our hearts so we recognize Jesus,” Rabbi Di Segni said, referring to a prayer in a traditional Catholic liturgy calling for the conversion of the Jews. “We also pray that the Lord illuminate theirs.”

See? This is what happens when you let your priesthood marry and have normal lives and everything. Not only can they keep it in their pants way better, they're relaxed enough to say pretty funny stuff under pressure.

Priest enslaved girl he claimed was his orphaned niece.

Raoul Deveau was a Catholic parish priest, a predator and a pedophile.

It is claimed by two victims in Nova Scotia - there are likely more - that Deveau preyed on them with impunity and that Church officials and possibly others in positions of authority knew what he did yet let him continue.

Deveau told Linda Deschamp to call him "uncle" because parishioners and teachers asked him about the relationship; Deveau claimed that she was his orphaned niece. In fact she was a child neglected by her family; he gradually enslaved her by sexually abusing her and forcing her into servitude. She cleaned house and prepared meals for him for over 10 years. Deschamp was 12 years old when Deveau first approached her.

"This is so wrong. You're tired of hiding the secrets. They need to come out and people need to be made aware of that," Deschamp told CBC.

Deschamp said her large family was poor, so she was sent to work for and then live with Raoul Deveau, a parish priest in Shelburne. He died in 1982. She remembers him as a jovial person, a "community god" who seemed genuine about helping
parishioners. She trusted him.

"At first it was consoling and it was, 'poor girl,'" Deschamp said. "It kind of gradually built up — offering me food while I was there, and when you're hungry that looks pretty good as a child. And then it was clothing. And then of course there were trade-offs after that."

Deschamp said the abuse by the man she was forced to call uncle lasted for nine years. She ended up moving with Deveau to another parish. "He had me so dependent on him," she said. "He owned me 100 per cent."

From here. More information here.

Institutional collusion between the Catholic Church and local authorities, with regard to the physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children, also occured elsewhere Canada. Hundreds of orphaned or abandoned children suffered like those in Ireland did, in the province of Québec.

Bruno Roy died last night; he was instrumental in leading the adult survivors (Duplessis' orphans) in a civil suit that held the government as well as the Catholic Church accountable for the harm that was done.

Slow news day at the Beeb - maybe.

In order to get the blogging engines revved up, bloggers often check out a range of information sources for inspiration and intellectual grist. Sometimes the posts almost writes itself since a news item can provide a choice argument to a post in construction. Or it can be the last straw, when the brain switches to RANT mode.


Today, aside from the latest updates on the Somali pirates story, the BBC has 4 top stories about the boggling range of pleasure-seeking behaviours that confound and delight human beings. Hard versus soft news.

High-speed sex costly in Norway - A man faces a hefty fine and a driving ban after being caught having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on a motorway in Norway, police have said.

Who knew Norwegians take that whole orgasm = la petite mort metaphor to extreme limits? Now we know why the parrot pined for the fjords.

Scientists find 'pleasure nerves' Mothers use touch to sooth their babies. Scientists say they understand more about how the body responds to pleasurable touch.

Touch deprivation as well as physical contact with the intent to cause pain has been demonstrated to cause mental health disorders. It's high time research was done to chart the specific ways that touch is positive, appropriate and enhances brain development.

Woman with lingerie turned away - A Brazilian woman was refused entry to the UK when she arrived at Newcastle Airport with luggage containing only T-shirts, a dressing gown and lingerie. UK Border Agency officials said they suspected the 32-year-old of being involved in the sex industry.

If those officials are so vigilant about such things, then how do criminal organizations manage to traffick thousands of girls, boys and young women for the purpose of physical and sexual enslavement?

Paraguay leader admits love-child - The ex-bishop admitted having an affair with a woman 30 years his junior. Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo has admitted he is the father of a child who was conceived when he was still a Roman Catholic bishop.

Perhaps if the Vatican accepted the consecration of women as clergy and gave permission for priests to marry, the opressive reign of its abusive power would end and the Catholic Church could follow through on the humane transformations that John XXIII proposed. Just saying.

“We believe this bill is designed to bankrupt the Catholic Church."

Because, of course, that would be the one and only reason that a woman or a man who was sexually abused by a priest would want to initiate a lawsuit against a Church who silenced any attempt to hold their clergy or religious institution accountable for the great harm that was caused.

Perhaps, had the Church Fathers had responded in a humane, caring and responsible manner when children and parents approached them with evidence of these transgressions, instead of sweeping these crimes under the carpet, such legislation would not now been necessary.

A friend recently lent me a novel by Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death. The author admits that she allowed an anachronism or two to slip in so that the narrative flowed.

The basic historical background is rigorous however, and there is one issue critical to the storyline that returns in Franklin's subsequent novel, The Serpent's Tale. The Catholic Church maintained then that members of its clergy were not obliged to obey man-made laws. This was the question that divided Henry II and Thomas Beckett:

"The clergy have Christ alone as King and under the King of Heaven; they should be ruled by their own law."

Centuries later, the Catholic Church perseveres in following medieval principles and maintaining that its ecclesiastical rules are the only ones that are God-given and irrevocable.

Un grand merci to JJ who blogged the news item quoted.

Is that a gun in your pocket or

did you just catch a whiff of past-their-freshness-date eggs?

A malodorous gas behind the smell of rotting eggs has been found to play a key role in giving men erections. ...

A study has shown that, prior to sexual intercourse, minute quantities of hydrogen sulphide are released within the key nerve cells of the penis which control the engorgement of the male organ with blood to stiffen it.

Scientists believe that the discovery could lead to the development of a new class of drugs to combat erectile dysfunction by affecting a different biochemical pathway to the one targeted by Viagra.

So, the smell of sulphur makes some men hawt. That goes a long way towards explaining the the .... ah, fervour that many priests and male preachers in fundamentalist religions exhibit when launching into rants about the torments of Hell.