That is it...gloves off

I'm not Catholic, hey, I'm not even Christian, so when the Cardinals voted someone with Nazi ties to the papacy, I said nothing here. It was an 'internal matter', after all. When the latest sex abuse scandal broke with papal ties to a coverup and the same Pope made it seem like poor him and isn't that awful, and who cares about the victims anyway, I didn't say anything on this forum, either, because I'm not anti-Catholic and didn't want to seem to be. I actually liked the last Pope pretty well.

Then this, on Good Friday, during Pesach, no less:

Pope's preacher compares abuse row to anti-Semitism

Pope Benedict's personal preacher has compared criticism of the pontiff and Church over child abuse to "collective violence" suffered by the Jews.

Say what????

So this case--in which, incidentally, the victims are people who were abused as boys and girls whose trust of priests led them to betrayal and exploitation, and not the pontiff or the offending priests, at all, let us remember--the pope's personal preacher believes that the Church's suffering is equal to the millions upon millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust, in pogroms, in various anti-Semitic attacks over the ages, often from a mistaken Christian belief that Jews killed Jesus?

Granted, the Pope was not sitting in his infalliable chair putting this forth as doctrine. But it was a comment from someone in his entourage, who was no doubt picked for that position and will probably not be reassigned or censured for his offensive remarks, so he might as well be talking for the Church.

The Vatican is out of touch with many of its Western adherents, and it's out of touch with good marketing/crisis control. It should welcome the prosecution of predatory priests, not cover their activities up--because what they're doing is unholy. Just yesterday I read that the Pope himself, as a head of state in Vatican City, need not testify about the cover ups because he has immunity. How absolutely fortunate for him. And it may hinder the prosecution. But you know what? If I were Catholic (and fortunately I never was, as the indoctrination of Catholicism is harder to escape that that of any other Christian sect, I believe), this would really rock my faith in the Church terribly, if there were any faith left at all to have.

Is there any way to recall a Pope? Weren't there ways in the Middle Ages, or did they just poison them? I should know but papal history rather bored me--so many Roman numbers. Can the College of Cardinals go back and say, sorry, Satan showed up that day and made us do it?

They're going to have to do something to deal with this disease from within the Church to reassure their followers that they still have the ticket to God's plan, or suffer schism or flat out emigration from the ranks to other faiths (if any). And so far, they've been ineffective, clueless, and offensive. If they were an individual they could just go into rehab and apologise, but they are the premiere institution of faith in all of Christendom, celebrating their holiest time of the year, and failing miserably to inspire anyone to the goodness of the message. And that's rather sad.

Okay, enough ranting, my pizza is here.

A well-known voice silenced

Dynasty actor John Forsythe dies aged 92
Although many remember him from 'Dynasty', he is also well-known for the role where he was never seen--that of Charlie on 'Charlie's Angels', who gave the girls their assignments at the beginning of each episode.

Here's the 1976 pilot episode's opening, featuring his voice:

I've watched three episodes

of Doctor Who (the two-parter where he became a human in 1913 named John Smith and 'The Doctor's Daughter') off the DVR and I feel loads better. My knee is still a problem, so I'm staying inside, although I'd like to go out to eat. I might order pizza later, though. For now, though, I think I might take a mid-afternoon nap with the window up and the sunlight streaming inside. It's something like 79 degrees outside. Yay.

Best April Fool's Story Ever :)

From cnet|UK:
Man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he's from the future

Oh, well, chin up

This is a compilation of all the regenerations of Doctor Who, including the last, if you don't want a spoiler. But after all, the new one's coming out in about two weeks--so you'd better go ahead and watch End of Time whilst you can. :) [Well, it Britain it will be on Easter, lucky dogs.]



A bit later...I'm adding this here so you don't think I spent my whole birthday with Doctor Who ;).

It's the 'Universe Song' from Animaniacs, Who style:

Thank you to the Commonwealth of Kentucky

for ruining annoying me mightedly on my birthday. I hope you really enjoyed yourselves, but of course, it's just business, right? I know I am to blame, but your timing couldn't be worse. Well, at least I know I'm not going OUT to have fun.

I'm not sure how to have fun

I've been told that before, but it came up again because it's my birthday, my original plans fell through, and I haven't figured out what to do. I thought about going to a movie like I did last year (Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D; I loved it), but didn't see anything at the regular cinemas, dollar theatres, or art places that I liked. Today's the opening day at Keeneland, which I've never been to, even after living in this town for twenty-six years (Gods, has it been that long? Since 1984?), but it'll be packed between being opening day and the beautiful weather, and besides, part of opening day at Keeneland is being seen in your finery. I don't really have finery. :) My friends called earlier to wish me a happy birthday (one sang, beautifully) and the other suggested I go bungee jumping sometime before I die. Um...no. So what do you consider fun? What should I do?

Quiet, at home

after a day of work followed by getting together with Angelica for dinner at Golden Corral and then going and seeing Teressa, who couldn't get off work. Teressa's son's helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan but he just had some minor scrapes, thankfully. But she had terrible news about someone we used to work with; her mother was run off the road in Florida by a semi and drowned trying to get out of the car. My thoughts and prayers are with Christin and her family.

That's just so awful, and it puts some of my issues today in perspective. I woke up in a lot of pain (especially my neck and knee). I must have slept wrong or something. The neck is better, but I can barely put weight on my knee. I think it's my arthritis. My body just feels like it's breaking down, and of course my weight is a big issue. I turn 43 tomorrow, though, so I guess it's normal to have some aches and pains. I elevated and iced my knee for awhile a couple of times today, and that helped. It's worse when I first stand up, then gets a little better as I walk. I hope it eases up before I work on Saturday.

Tomorrow I'm off at both places and my original plans for my birthday fell through, so I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do. I checked and there's really no movies I'm dying to see. I need to go to the bank and get my rent paid tomorrow, and most likely should stop by the library, but otherwise, I'm not sure what to do. I guess I'm not used to having fun by myself. I may go on out to eat anyway. Any ideas?

I work Saturday and there's the game Sunday. I need to work on the notes tomorrow; I've only gotten a bit done so far, even though I've had two weeks to do them. And I suppose even though I said I didn't want to clean on my birthday (I've been cleaning my apartment and a friend's house all week), I still have the kitchen and part of the living/dining area to go. Maybe I'll watch some movies or shows on cable or DVD (although for the latter, I'll need to use my computer; my connexion to my DVD player is out because my VCR died) and pick up things as I go.

Monday evening I'm going to go spend the night with my grandmother in Danville, then come back home on Tuesday. This time I will remember to take the CPAP machine (the Christmas visit was a disaster as far as sleep went because of this).

I inadvertently got myself a birthday present the other day. I watched 'Doctor Who: The End of Time' Parts 1 and 2 last Saturday, which was about three hours' long and very, very good. It was the last appearance of David Tennant on the show and the first appearance of Matt Smith, who's to play the 11th Doctor come later this month. I cried for about the last half/third of the show. Now, YKWIA has several of the DVDs, but I didn't think he had the one with the specials, including this one, so I went onto Amazon and ordered it for him. I was being really good at keeping a secret until about three days later when he asked me to put an insert back into a DVD case, and lo, it was the specials DVD. So I confessed that I'd gotten it for him and it was on its way for Game Master's Day (which is March 4th, but at least I was ahead from last year, when he got a gift certificate to the Rusty Scabbard in December). At least the thought counted. So I got the DVD when it arrived, and I'll get the other seasons as I can. I've not really seen any of the Christopher Eccleston ones, but I've seen several with David Tennant and really love them. I also wish there were more Tom Baker ones out there, but they tend to be released as an episode or two, rather than a whole season. I think BBC Wales has done an excellent job with the newer seasons, incidentally. It should be interesting to see what kind of Doctor Matt Smith turns out to be.

Okay, I guess I should sign off here. I think I'll go ahead and go to bed, and wing tomorrow. Good night.

We are not defined by our adversities, but rather by how we cope with them

This came to mind earlier, and I tweeted it to remember the thought so I could discuss it here. The idea's not original; I'm not even sure the wording is--it just came unbidden fully formed in my mind.

The other day at lunch all the women I eat with were bemoaning the difficulties of their lives. They were certainly within their rights to complain--one has had cancer (twice), others have had family issues or deaths to deal with. One woman wondered what she had done to deserve this. Another believed it was the end times. I realised I was the only person there who wasn't dwelling on the bad things in life, or taking it personally. Sometimes, I believe, things happen. They don't need a reason. They just are, and they are there to endure and hopefully grow from.

Sometimes it seems like the bad continues to march through your life, and you'll never feel good again. But I think many of us underappreciate when good things do come. Life is full of ups and downs. Sometimes they are of our making, and yes, we should learn from our own mistakes. But other times they simply happen beyond our control--a tornado takes out a house, a person we know commits suicide, an elderly relative dies after a long, lingering illness; cancer rears its ugly head, someone loses his job in downsizing and fails to get another despite working towards that goal due to a recession. There are all sorts of things that go wrong in our lives.

But it isn't what happens to us that is truly important--it's what we do with our adversities. How we cope shapes our lives. We can either rise to the challenge or become passive and shriveled, unable to act, and self-loathing, for it had to be our fault.

There was a news story not long ago about a woman who had survived a horrible crime in another part of Kentucky. She had been accosted by a man with a weapon and forced into her home, raped, and then when her children--two teenagers and a 5-year-old--came home, he killed them in front of her, then stabbed her repeatedly in the throat and set the house on fire to cover his tracks. Somehow, she survived. Somehow, she had the strength to go on. Somehow, she confronted him in court for his crimes.

I found myself asking, how could anyone endure that? How would life be worth living? That is perhaps one of the worst ordeals I could think of for someone to go through. And yet she lived. She wasn't attacked because she was a bad person. Her children didn't die because of some sort of karmic backlash. They were simply at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with a sick man armed with a knife. Yet we also cannot live like things like this will happen any moment. Life would not be worth living, with that much fear.

I'm not a strong person. I know that. I've been through a lot, and yes, I've gotten through with a fairly positive attitude, but something like what she went through would probably break me completely. Oddly enough though, even though I don't believe that this sort of experience is punishment for some sin, I believe in a higher power, so I can't help but think that there is some meaning to her life, some purpose, that could not be accomplished without her survival. I guess I just believe in a kinder, more rational power.

Maybe we're all meant to do something in our lives, something small or large, some thing that somehow fits into the grand scheme of things.

It's late, and I know I'm rambling. But it seemed important to put down my thoughts. I guess they help me not dwell on the bad things in my life, but maintain some optimism grounded in reality. I recognise that slowly my life is getting better, and that much of my pain was in some sense self-inflicted, and so since I can control that, I can make things better by taking the steering wheel of life by the hands. But for things I don't have control over--I have to just let go on that one. It's not sin. It's not the end times. It's not karma. It just is. You deal with it, you cope, you find yourself changing as a result into (hopefully) a better, stronger person. Through suffering, we learn, a friend often quotes to me. That's true.

I guess the point is rise to adversity, learn from your mistakes, and grow as a result, rather than dwelling on the whys and wherefores.

Two individuals who deserve to be raked over hot coals

but I'll settle for life in prison:

Life term for father who raped baby daughter

A father who filmed himself raping his baby daughter has been jailed for life.

The 29-year-old man raped the girl at least twice and carried out other sexual abuse which he recorded on his phone, St Albans Crown Court heard.

In a victim impact statement the baby's mother said: "He is her dad. If I couldn't leave her with him, who could I leave him with?"

The man, from Hertfordshire, must serve a minimum of five years and 291 days before being considered for parole.

Please, never parole someone who is this depraved. I don't know which bothered me more; the fact he raped a baby or that he filmed it on his camera phone and thought that was cool.

Cops: N.J. teen sold stepsister, 7, for party sex: Trenton mayor calls crime “sickening,” says cases among worst he’s seen

A 15-year-old New Jersey girl set up her 7-year-old stepsister to have sex with as many as seven men and boys at a weekend party near their home and also accepted money for herself, police said.

Trenton police Capt. Joseph Juniak said Wednesday that the older girl started by taking money to have sex with several men at a party in a high-rise apartment. The teen then gave some of the money she had collected to the younger girl to let the men start touching her, Juniak said.

"It went from touching to straight out assault and rape," Juniak said. "They threatened to kill her if she screamed or told anyone."

She needs to be tried as an adult. She needs to be locked away. A fifteen-year-old is mature enough to know this was a terribly sick and wrong thing to do. As YKWIA said, she should be imprisoned until her stepsister no longer suffers from the trauma--which in all likelihood would be a life sentence. And certainly the men and boys who had sex with a seven-year-old (and the 15-year-old, depending on the statutory rape laws in New Jersey) should have the book thrown at them completely.

I have a generally positive view of humanity--its strength, its ability to pull together, the wonder of being alive and being a part of something bright and wonderful. But it's stories like this that remind me of the darker side of humanity, the perpetrators of which lurk in amongst the herd sometimes for years before their depravity is discovered. Some are obviously wrong, and people avoid them. It's the others that scare me. I'm so glad I don't have children; I'd be so neurotic about his or her safety that I'd never give the child space to grow. I recognise that.

These children were not protected from the depravity of others--only by removing these predators from society can we hope to protect more. Lock them away and throw away the key, and be done with them. No parole. No privileges. Nothing. Put them in isolation. Never let them see another face; I don't care. But most of all, never let them be in the presence of a child ever again. They are worthless to society and deserve no less. At least that's my opinion.