Friday, September 23, 2005
Phila Priest Abuse
It took 3 years and 4 months for the Phila grand jury to issue it's report on the Philadelphia Archdiocese child abuse that has been going on for 40 years. Was it worth waiting for? I think so. It names names. It gives facts that were kept hidden by the church. It shows the pattern of cover-up in the name of God that was in use by the church in the United States for the last 40 years, or 100 years, or as long as they have held it over the faithful that the church is the final word on all that is God-given. And what is their response? Justin Cardinal Rigali says "Don't read the report!" Why not? It contains dirty, filthy sex. And he didn't say it, because it goes without saying, it does not contain the imprimatur, and the only literature a good catholic is allowed to read is that which contains the imprimatur of the church. Let me tell you something, there is an imprimatur on it, and it is printed in the pain of truth.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Oh No It's Football Season Again
I hate football. I cannot fathom how people love to watch it. It's just a bunch of guys in tight clothing banging into each other, slapping behinds, doing "I'm an asshole" dances when they make a touch down. No one agrees with me on this topic. Everyone loves the high school games, the college games, and absolutely adores the NFL. Why? I get the school "spirit" and rivalry stuff. Bought into when I was a kid. But I don't understand how poor and middle class intelligent people support these over-paid, under-educated goons who are financed by their payments to their mortgage and insurance companies. Who the hell cares if our city's team goes to the super bowl? It's a lonely time for me because I can't talk football and I get very annoyed by all the bullshit in the newspapers and on the radio and on TV about these "men" who are playing a game for a living and making millions of dollars.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Iraq & Katrina - Corporate Warrior Merger
Now that CNN went to court to sue the federal government for keeping jounalists out of New Orleans, and won the right to go in, I'm sure we will be seeing a whole lot more sanitized version. For one the water is almost gone and the bodies have been removed. But especially the bodies that the Blackwater brigade was brought in to kill. I'm not figuring it out. Why 40,000 body bags ordered, and then 25,000 said to be dead, and then less expected to be found dead, and what about all these thousands of people who refuse to leave? And no media allowed? Where did they put the bodies? Just how toxic is the water? How about those fires that the firemen were forbidden to put out? Why were all the volunteer firemen who went down to help out not allowed in? Why did so many NO policemen quit their jobs? Why did two of them commit suicide?
FYI - Blackwater = Halliburton.
FYI - Blackwater = Halliburton.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Let's Get Back to Iraq
This is insane. We have US soldiers fighting Iraqi soldiers over who will provide security at the airport after the outsourced corporate warriors went on strike. I thought the point was to allow the Iraqi soldiers to stand up so we could stand down. The aiport safety is provided for the safety of outsouced corporate warriors. Who owns Global Services? What happened to the money the Iraqi government was supposed to pay them? Who do you think gave them the money for their salaries. Who do you think is the "Iraqi Government" anyway? Who do these Asian merceneries think they are that they have a right to strike anyway? Too many questions, and answers given on a need to know basis.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Not on Fox News
Another first-hand account of amazing personal courage and brutal government inefficiency and stupidity:
What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.Read the whole thing. Yeah, blame the locals. Many of the locals were fricking heroes. One thing we have to learn from this. If a terrorist attack strikes, you have to fend for yourself. We have no competent government to deal with these things; and, given Bush's track record for reforming his own administration, we are at serious risk for another three years. Build up your own food supplies; line up your own evacuation plans; care for your own sick and needy and old. The government is broken
What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.Read the whole thing. Yeah, blame the locals. Many of the locals were fricking heroes. One thing we have to learn from this. If a terrorist attack strikes, you have to fend for yourself. We have no competent government to deal with these things; and, given Bush's track record for reforming his own administration, we are at serious risk for another three years. Build up your own food supplies; line up your own evacuation plans; care for your own sick and needy and old. The government is broken
You've Seen the Last of Katrina
Do you know that journalists are banned from New Orleans? The pictures you'll be seeing will be loops - cleansed photo-ops, like Georgie with "real folks" like evacuees, fireman (who were told to just surround him instead of helping out), toxic water gushing into Lake Pontrachaine. Do you know that journalists are being roughed up by National Guardsmen, and their cameras confiscated? Do you know that after the ban was put into place, one mortician was told to bring 40,000 body bags. Do you know that Halliburton was given a $50 Million contract to clean up the city BACK IN JULY? Do you know where George, Condi, Cheyney were for the first 3 days of the tragedy? Do you know that two helicoptor pilots are being punished by having to guard the caged animals of soldiers who had to leave FL because instead of delivering supplies to the military, they saved 110 people off of rooftops? Did you hear what Barbara Bush said? Does this feel like America to you?
