Sunday, December 9, 2012

THE BISHOP OF KANSAS CITY CONVICTED OF COVERING UP THE SINS OF HIS PEDOPHILE CLERGY

The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States have a choice, they can do what Jesus would require of them or they can continue to do what they have been doing. I believe the Church i.e., the ordained clergy was given a second opportunity to behave in a moral manner and like the first opportunity (the years immediately before the Reformation) they again failed. This second time it is fair judge the Church in light of current events and determine whether it is God's one true Church or another bogus and tragic example of evil masked as God's workers on earth. Every Catholic should review why he/she is a Catholic and try to determine if membership in the Church or even faith in God is still an option.

Concerning column in today's NYT by Frank Bruno on the new hit movie "Zero Dark Thirty".

Below find remarks from an invididual who calls himself "ostan" taken from this morning's New York Times.  He is commenting on the value and morality of torture.  Which I consider to be an issue not yet resolved in this country. 

"Many security experts, as the article notes, would disagree that torture "works" as a method of interrogation. There is the problem, most obviously, of misinformation and false confessions produced under duress. The brutalization of suspects can also fuel anti-American sentiment, helping to recruit new jihadists. But, more immportantly, torture is simply horrifyingly wrong, a violation of basic standards of due process and human dignity that can never be justified. That's why it's expressly prohibited the Geneva Conventions and other protocols to which the United States is a signatory. It's more than a leftist truism to say that a case could and should be built against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration for their advocacy of waterboarding and other methods that clearly violated international law and will remain to great shame of our country."

The take-away the reader gets from this, I hope,  is:

"TORTURE IS SIMPLY HORRIFYING WRONG, A VIOLATION OF BASIC STANDARDS OF DUE PROCESS AND HUMAN DIGNITY THAT CAN NEVER BE JUSTIFIED".




That I would even have to post this picture and comment comes as a realization that many Americans believe we can suspend basic rights and protections when it is convenient including individuals of power and influence. Such actions come from fear and the belief that the end can justify the means which is innately immoral. 
My Favorite Cartoon Ever
We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us...

WHAT IS IT ABOUT CHRIST THAT REPUBLICANS JUST DON'T GET?

My Passing Parade


"The Republicans biggest enemy is this man because he said Heal the Sick, Feed the Hungry, Care for the weakest Among us, and Always pray in private." -From "The Newsroom" on HBO




Sunday, November 18, 2012


The Men and Women of Wikes Bare and Scranton At the End of the Nineteenth Century - On Their Backs Was America Made.
This picture was drawn by Greg Guiteras a high school classmate and good friend. Besides capturing my likeness I would like to think he accurately captured what I hope I am about at this point in my life. Thank you Greg.

A Time To Think About Those Who Preceded Us


MY VISITS

I occasionally pay a visit to a cemetery usually to visit my family. During such a visit I sometimes would walk about and look at other sites.  I would stop and pay
a visit from time to time and take some pictures. On an emotional level over time I began to acquire a profound respect for those lying beneath my feet. They were monuments and family tombs as well as an ocean of stones or markers. There were clear chiseled markers with profound or clever sayings and occasional stones with some lines of poetry. There were stones for slaves some with a just a first name most others with nothing written. There were stones where the aged engraving was no longer readable. There were other stones where cryptic statements would read "Baby daughter died 3 MOS..." There were stones with nothing written and I wondered was a body present there. What I came to appreciate as I walked among the stones and markers was the human beings that once lived. Fools and saints, predators and victims, the innocent, the troubled the unloved, the ones who never grew to develop a complete personality. Failures, happy souls, philosophers and the self absorbed. Those who could and did love and others who could only love themselves.  All Honors to them all for their time spent here.