Blame It On The Rain

Okay the other night on one of the news shows they had Representative Mark Foley on to talk about what he did and why he did it. For those of you who don’t know who he is, Foley was a State Representative for the state of Florida who got in trouble for sending explicit text messages to teenage boys who were at the time congressional pages.

Well last night he was on some news show and of course offered up his apologies for failing his constituents and then proceeded to break down and cry as he gave the reasons for what he did, because he was abused as a child by a priest at his church. Now I’ve noticed in the past few years that many people who get in trouble for abusing children, improper behavior, and sometimes silly screw ups; have been blaming their childhood priests and churches for making them that way. Mark Foley isn’t the only person lately to be saying this even a priest has said that he did what he did because he was abused as a child.

Now the people that are being blamed by these criminals are all either dead or close to it so Foley and the others really have nothing to back up their claim since most of the adults from his childhood aren’t around anymore. So they are just trying to ride the sympathy wave that happens whenever someone says that they were abused as a child in an effort to deflect the fact that they broke the law and it is nobody’s fault other than their own.

Everyone likes to blame the church these days for pedophile priests and improper acts by the clergy as if the church is making them that way and promoting child abuse. It isn’t the fault of the church completely and I’ll tell you why I think this. A gay man who grows up in a religious household where the bible is held sacred and nightly prayers are a standard, like many homes of the early 20th Century, most likely will hide his orientation from his parents, family, and friends. Meanwhile he will be told by everyone that homosexuality is a sin and that those who men who “lay with men” will go to hell and burn for all eternity. This would bring a dilemma within the mind of this man, he could either continue on with his life the way he is and most likely be ostracized from everyone he knows or he could look inside himself and hope that his faith in God would help him to “not be gay”. Those that put their faith in God might even join a seminary and become a priest in the hopes to better understand what he has to do to “not be Gay”.

That is how a gay man would become a priest, but are all gay men and all priests pedophiles? Of course they aren’t, there as they say some rotten apples in the bunch and you can’t know what goes on in the deepest corner of a person’s brain to know just how they will act around someone else. Everyone has a fetish, this much is true, and some people have those really, REALLY dark and demented fetishes like pedophilia. Sometimes people don’t even know they have a fetish of any sort until something happens in their lives and it clicks inside and they hear an “Ooohhh, I like that” pop in their heads. A fetish isn’t exactly a bad thing either until it involves a criminal act like rape, pedophilia, or assault. Everyone has a fetish whether it is something simple like blonde hair or the exotic look of your partner; or if it is something that isn’t exactly accepted by the mainstream public like S&M or dressing up as a schoolgirl while your partner wears a Halloween mask and Easter bunny ears. Everyone has something that makes them click and just because they have a preference doesn’t mean that they should be pushed away or treated any different, people of the world need to open their minds more so that they can realize that we aren’t all different, we’re all the exact same on the inside in our own little ways. Now where’d I put that Santa hat?

Random Retail Rant

Okay so I’ll be working in the mall this holiday season, selling candy in a seasonal store. I won’t go into names of companies or what mall I’ll be in simply because I don’t want to make any trouble for any of them that might cause me to be sued or arrested or fired or even pelted with chocolate covered raisins. I know it’s not exactly a career job but at least it’s something to have and make money from since I’m still looking for another career job. I don’t feel so down and useless since I will be in a position of some responsibility as a key-holder and responsible sometimes for either closing or opening the store.
I hate retail and I know I’m going to be miserable from time to time these coming six weeks simply because I hate people and it hurts my face to smile at someone while they treat me like a retarded goat. I really don’t know what I was going to write in this blog post today but since it’s turned into an anti-retail rant why don’t I just let loose then.
Customers suck. There that’s it for today; I need to go find my honey dust.

Book Smarts

Yeah I know what you’re saying, “Here he goes again complaining about politics”. Nope not today, well not entirely today I will touch on it only to complain about how it always gets muddied in with today’s subject. Religion, I am going to take the time right now to apologize to everyone who reads this who might take offense at what I say here. I know my father will probably be upset about what I have to say but since all I get from him are chain email jokes of the nonsensical variety I highly doubt he even reads my posts here. So if you don’t want to read my complaints about organized religion then please stop reading here and realize that I don’t want to hurt your feelings and am doing this not to insult anyone in particular but to share my feelings on this that I have kept bottled up for quite some time, and you know what they say about keeping your feelings bottled up inside; your eyeballs will explode in flames and watermelon seeds will blossom in your stomach. Okay I might have gotten some sayings mixed up there just now.

I was raised in a Roman Catholic denomination family, if you could call it that since my parents divorced when I was very young and had shared custody of my brother and I. We went to church every other Sunday when we were with my father and as we grew older we went through all the usual rituals of the catholic faith; baptism, first communion, and confirmation. Through the years that we went through the instructions for these milestones we went to CCD every Wednesday night, this could be considered “Sunday school” but it was on Wednesday instead for some reason. For the most part we paid attention to what we were being taught but of course we were all kids going to class in the late afternoon after we had already been in school all day, so of course we screwed around from time to time but remember we were kids. For me however there was always a twinge in the back of my brain that kept asking questions about what we were being taught. I’ve always liked to read and I still do, much to the annoyance of my family and some of the groups I join in my online games, so of course I read the Bible and enjoyed it quite a bit when compared to many of the books I read back then. It was an enjoyable read, and as fiction it had a lot in common with the other books I read; swords, war, heroes, villains, and lots of conflict and an underlying storyline to pass on a message of understanding and cooperation to further the cause of humanity in peace and harmony.

Oh I bet that pissed off some of you just now huh? I bet you’re saying “FICTION?!? He called the Bible FICTION?!? That’s blasphemy and he should be stoned with really big rocks”. I dare you to try and stone me, I have NERF guns by the bed and plenty of whistling darts for them, but first stop and think about what I said and then compare the Bible to other types of writing. Fiction is a “made up story” from the imagination of the author. The majority of the time there is a protagonist and an antagonist (hero and villain), minions for either side (hero helpers and villain helpers), a goal to be met by at least one of the sides (save the princess, free the land, stop the end of the world), and most of the time there is a moral within the storyline that relates to the real world at the time of when the story was written (Beowulf and the moral within that story, which I never understood, doesn’t relate very well to the 20th century for example).
Non-Fiction is an accurate and actual recording of what happened. Non-Fiction books sometimes also include the author’s personal thoughts or theories in regards to the subject of the book such as their interpretation as to why a particular event occurred or why an individual made a decision. The persons within a non-fiction book are actual people and not a product of the author’s imagination, these people actually existed; or still exist today; and in many cases their family tree can be mapped out and their descendants might be able to provide personal items handed down through the generations that actually belonged to those people such as George Washington’s false teeth or King George II’s chamber pot.

Now if we apply all those descriptions to the Bible you can see where doubt might form in a child’s mind. I had read history books and they happened to be my favorite subject, I had also read books from the science fiction/fantasy classification of writing. The Bible had several characters in the book that were actual people; King Solomon, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, and Pontius Pilate; and more information about them has been written in other historical texts. The Bible also had several characters which could be classified as fictional characters since they only show up in this one text; Adam and Eve, Noah, and yes even Jesus. For the most part the fictional characters take the role of protagonists (the good guys) in their struggle for acceptance and freedom from the antagonistic historical figures (the bad guys). In this sense the Bible would fall under a third classification of book, historical fiction.

Historical fiction is a genre that I have only recently begun enjoying in the last few years and I’m digging it. The combination of fictional character heroes fighting against historical figures is just intriguing to me. There are several types of historical fiction that I would recommend to you and if you’re reading this then you know me and those types will all be warfare related so you shouldn’t be surprised at this. The Sharpe series of books by Bernard Cornwell was my first taste of historical fiction, the story of an enlisted man in the British Army after the American War for Independence and continuing through conflicts in India and then the conflict against Napoleon’s armies in Spain and Portugal. Along the way Richard Sharpe goes from lowly uneducated ranker to Sergeant and finally receiving an officer’s commission for saving the life of Sir Arthur Wellesley (known now as the Duke of Wellington). In his adventures he and the small detachment of riflemen under his command participate in nearly every important engagement of the Napoleonic War from Trafalgar to Badajoz and the war’s climax at Waterloo, and of course saving the day at almost every turn for the British Army. Recently I have also begun reading the tales of Horatio Hornblower and also Jack Aubrey both storylines involving the Royal Navy in the same time period of conflict against Napoleon and his allies. Though the ship captains and crews are all fictional, many of their opponents and other vessels in the stories are true as are of course the cities and towns they visit. The most in depth and intriguing however was a single book called The Ten Thousand by Michael Curtis Ford and it tells the story of Xenophon and his leading of stranded Greek mercenaries and their comrades from Persia all the way back to Greece all the while fighting every combat force that stood in their way of getting home and also defeating the forces sent by the Persians to follow and harass them. It is intriguing because though the story is true and all of the names within the story are true and actual people, this book gives a fictional though completely plausible account of what might have been going on in the heads of these commanders and their soldiers during their gallant ordeal. Wow I got off subject there didn’t I?

Okay I’m just going to close out now by saying this, don’t worry I’ll try to be brief. It’s good to have a belief in something but you should still be able to keep your mind open to ideas and other people’s beliefs. I don’t believe in God anymore and I don’t think I ever really did, my mind has always had those questions and you can’t tell me that there is a God simply because you say it is since it says it in a book. I have books that tell me all sorts of things but I’m realistic enough to know that those books can’t prove that dragons fly and magical swords are hidden in lakes. I asked my father once when I was younger, why he never joined the military. He told me that he couldn’t take orders from someone and do what they told him to do simply because they said so; “Go dig a ditch there” “Why?” “Because I said so that’s why”. He couldn’t do that and the same reason applies to me when it comes to religion. “God says we should live our life this way” “Why?” “Because God told us in the Bible this is how it should be done”. Yeah okay I’ll be over here eating a bowl of chili.

A Loss For Words

I’ve been sitting here this morning reading the comments posted on my local newspaper’s website in relation to Florida’s Amendment 2 and I just can’t fathom the way people think these days. I have read comments both for and against the Amendment that range from the clear and concise thought out type of reply to the downright completely hostile and bigoted reply. There has been the usual rhetoric of religious views being spouted to proclaim that gay marriage is an affront to god and that homosexuals are that way by choice and not by birth since god would never make a homosexual in his image. There has also been the by now stupid saying of “let gays marry, why should they be the only ones without a miserable marriage”. But by far the dumbest thing I have read in these comments was from someone saying that most people who voted for Amendment 2 don’t have a problem with homosexuals or even with homosexuals living together as a family, though of course the idea of them raising children is just sickening to them. My question to them is if they don’t have a problem with gays living together as a family, then why the hell did you vote for this amendment? There was already a ban on gay marriage in the state of Florida to begin with, four separate bans in fact, so why be even more bigoted and discriminatory and take away their ability to be safely covered by insurance or medical emergency choices.

The Pro-Amendment 2 side is continuously saying that those affected by this amendment can still get insurance or make decisions for a sick partner and that’s true to a degree. Take my predicament as an example, I don’t have a job so I do not have an employer at all that offers any sort of medical, dental, or accidental death coverage. My WIFE (because I will call her what I want no matter how much you whine), has a job and through her employer she is able to get all of that insurance coverage I just mentioned and if we were actually married with wedding license and all that nonsensical paperwork I would be covered under her insurance as her spouse. However we are not “married” instead we are in a domestic partnership which prior to Nov. 4th was accepted and insurance coverage was offered, which we took, at a slightly higher cost than as a married couple would pay but it was insurance and we needed it so we took it. So right there you see it still wasn’t exactly fair to a domestic partnership insurance-wise, they paid more than the heterosexual married couples but at least they could still get insurance coverage for the both of them. Now Post-Nov. 4th all benefits that we and other domestic partnerships would have been able to receive are now gone, I will not be covered under her insurance meaning if I get horribly sick and need to be hospitalized before I find a job and get insurance from that employer, we are thoroughly screwed financially since we have no hope of paying for any serious medical bills. Yes I could have gotten insurance through the state after I left my last employer, it’s called COBRA insurance and I have no idea what that name stands for. However the price for such insurance is more per month than what I made in a month’s salary at my last job so there was no hope of being able to pay for that insurance either.

Now medical decisions, if one half of a domestic partnership had been hospitalized before Nov. 4th then the other half would have been able to make decisions of medical care for their ill partner. That includes rehabilitation care, surgical authorization, new treatment permission, and even DNR orders (Do Not Resuscitate, “pulling the plug”). Of course now Post-Nov. 4th that responsibility would now fall to the next of kin within the sick person’s family such as mother, father, siblings, or even children and as many of us know due to media, television, and movies there are some families that do not agree with the choices that their family member (who is now the ill one) has made with their lives. And because now they have the responsibility to make decisions for their ill relation they might take the opportunity to get back at them or even the partner that they do not approve of by either keeping the person on life support even though the partner knows that they would not want to be kept in a vegetative state or even refusing to allow a surgical procedure that may be risky or somewhat dangerous simply because they “don’t want their baby to be cut up before they go up to god”. Now is that really in the best interest of the hospitalized half of the partnership, no it isn’t but by law now the hospital would be forced to adhere to whatever the non-partner family decided to do even though they might not wish to do so either they would have to.

Not quite at a loss for words am I? Oh well, time to write something else for later or tomorrow, eat a pickle.

Well Done Florida

Well it’s finally over, Election Day has come and gone and here we are waiting for the final results that will then be argued over and appealed and recounted until somebody finally throws their hands up and says “SCREW IT! I don’t care anymore”. Incumbents shall fall and laws shall reshape the land anew and fully screw up everyone’s lives. Well done America, well done.
Anyways it is late Tuesday evening here in South Florida as I write this and even though not all of the precincts reporting in yet I am already disappointed, no I’m disgusted with the results so far on Amendment 2. Hopefully you read my earlier post about this ridiculous and useless ballot initiative that would further restrict those of us who choose not to engage in “the bonds of holy matrimony”. Who cares if all people want is to live their lives the way the Constitution actually says they can, who cares if people want to live together and be happy, who cares if someone wants another to be able to maintain some semblance of order in their lives when they are sick and unable to make decisions for themselves, well apparently most of Florida doesn’t give a rat’s hind end about it

Is this Amendment brought on by the religious groups of the state in another attempt that they might “cure” the homosexuals of the world? Perhaps. Is this something brought up by the insurance companies in Florida to further limit the number of people they have to cover under employment or partnership guidelines? Perhaps. Maybe it is even a collaboration of the two or even one side planting seeds of thought in the other to further their own agenda. I don’t know, but I do know that the people of this state who voted for Amendment 2 are not true Americans since they are intent on restricting the basic liberties of this country; Life, Liberty, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Great job Florida you have made yourself out to be the backwards and uneducated people that you always wanted to be. I need a nap.

In My News

Good Day you crazy people who read this endless babble of mine, today I’ll be informing you of some news bits that have piqued my interest or otherwise made me do a double take and say “What the…” I will tell you about several things including “studies” that yet again state the blatantly obvious and yet took years to compile and probably millions of dollars in cost, a bit of news from the Christian Children’s Fund that includes a bit of irony and stupidity (funny how those things all go together most of the time), armed paranoids, and another reason to park smart.

To begin several studies were released recently including one that linked sexual content on television to teen pregnancy. Wow, what a shocker huh? Yet again a report that crazy censor nuts will grab onto and use as a reason to ruin even more television shows for the public. I’m sure that by making all television wholesome and delusional that teenagers will stop having sex on the sofa in the living room and instead go back to their rooms or the backseat of their cars. Television, the evil sex god of the 21st Century.

Now on to something I read about just this morning, GenCon ’08 a gaming convention (yes one of those groupings of nerds and geeks where people dress up as klingons and wookies) was held recently and like every year they held a charity auction. After raising over $17000 in this charity they made a donation in the name of Gary Gygax (creator of Dungeons and Dragons who recently passed away) to the Christian Children’s Fund (their commercials are the heart wrenching ones that talk about donating for pennies a day a child can have food) since it was Mr. Gygax’s favorite charity. However CCF turned down the donation because they did not wish to be considered an endorser of the GenCon which is a gathering of people who play, among other things, Dungeons and Dragons the role-playing game. Clearly the ability to roll dice and swing an imaginary axe at an imaginary creature is a reason to not help the children of the world. Imagination and Free-Thinking, always something to be looked down on by organized religion and their associated offshoots.

People here in Florida are rushing to buy their new handguns, shotguns, rifles, and assault rifles before the Democrats get into office and ruin their chances of waiting for better economical times to buy them. These wing-bats have gotten it into their heads that if the Democrats take over in Washington then all their fears of gun ban laws and other legislation to restrict their Constitutional right to bear arms will pop up and ruin their hunting experiences. I’m all for the right to bear arms especially if it is for self defense, defense of another, or to halt a violent act in progress but do you really need an AK-47 to take out that deer. Folks they suggest that you wear ear protection when you fire your guns, start doing so please so that you might allow some common sense related brain cells to heal up and start firing off a bit more often.

Recently a man accidentally ran over his wife, no really it was an accident. He hit the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal while parking. What was she doing while he was parking you ask? Well he was partaking in a ritual of the boneheads who think that backing into a parking space is a smart idea. His wife was giving him directions from outside the car while he backed into the parking spot. Moron. This guy is old enough to have learned by now, hopefully, that backing in doesn’t help exiting. Most parking lots have angled spots so that you have to go a certain direction down the lane to park safely and quickly; and even to back out of your spot and leave quickly which is the argument of “The Backers”. Can you see where I’m going with this? Angled spots, backing into them means more turning as well as travelling against the intended flow of traffic for that parking aisle. Just follow the flow, park, shop and leave. Or better yet park on the top floor of a parking garage and hit the wrong pedal while you’re up there.

Good Day and have a Purple Tomorrow.