IT'S IN THE TREES

I am routinely reminded as to why as a species we have not advanced further than we have. Some scientists say we only use, on average, as little as 10 percent of our intellectual capabilities. When I, and others, wonder why we can't do more to cure diseases, live in balance and harmony and help raise the less fortunate masses up to a higher level, I need only look at the following.

In the last couple of weeks, large numbers of people have claimed either to have seen, or have taken away from their valuable time to go see, animate objects inside inanimate objects.

The one that is no surprise is the Virgin Mary. The other is Michael Jackson.

Now the Virgin Mary sighting is nothing new. For centuries she has managed to show up in the most outrageous places at least in the minds of backward, superstitious, uneducated morons.

This time it is a tree stump in Ireland.

Less than a week ago, a story appeared on the wires which had run in the Courier-Mail and was written by Charles Miranda stating, "it may look like a tree stump to some but for others it is a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary who appeared in a churchyard in Ireland after a willow tree was chopped down.

"The rural Irish village of Rathkeale in County Limerick is being inundated by hundreds of worshippers after workmen claimed the image of the Virgin Mary appeared in the remains of a felled tree in the Holy Mary Parish churchyard.

"Noel White, Rathkeale Community Council Graveyard Committee chairman, said workmen sprucing up the church land saw the image when they cut the tree.

"One of the lads said ‘look, our Blessed Lady in the tree,’ " Mr. White said yesterday.

"One of the other lads looked over and actually knelt down and blessed himself, he got such a shock. It was the perfect shape of the figure of Our Lady holding the baby."

The article went on to state how people from all over...up to 700 at one count...had converged on the site, light candles next to the stump and draped rosary beads over it.

A local priest refused to get caught up in the hype saying "I have seen the tree ... it's only a tree," he said.

The Irish Catholic Church has also called for calm and said it treated the phenomena with skepticism.

"While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition,'' a spokesman said.

Two thoughts here: first, given Ireland's recent history with sexual and physical abuse of children I am surprised a priest would even have time to comment publicly about anything, given that his attention would most likely be focused elsewhere. Second, the church saying it wished "to avoid anything, which might lead to superstition" is remarkably banal: the whole thing, all of this stuff, is steeped in superstition. That's how the church manages to survive.

Apparently, the last time the country was plagued by massive joblessness in the 1980s there were numerous reported sightings of moving statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

One of the most infamous was in Ballinspittle in County Cork, where locals insisted they witnessed the statue of Our Lady floating in the air! Floating in the air?

The claims drew worldwide attention as busloads flocked to see the roadside grotto.

Such psychotic-induced sightings were not confined to the Emerald Isle. Let's drop in to the San Francisco area for another example of why as a species we are only a few steps removed from the savannahs of Africa several million years ago.

"Dude Sees Image of Michael Jackson in a Tree Stump" said the headline in a story on the Net written by Robert Paul Reyes. Reyes is a NewsBlaze writer on Politics, Pop Culture and Pointless Pontificating.

"People have claimed to see the image of Jesus in everything from a Cheeto to a piece of toast. Now a California man says a knot in a tree stump resembles the image of Michael Jackson," Reyes Wrote

Reyes talked to Felix Garcia of Stockton, who said he first noticed the image last Thursday while working in his yard.

Word spread and then crowds of people who were earlier were no doubt busy drooling, dragging their knuckles and stumbling around like adenoidal louts, started to gather near the home to get a glimpse of the image.

"Michael Jackson impacted our lives more than Jesus or any of the saints, it's understandable that folks with a spiritual bent would see visions of the King of Pop," Garcia was quoted as saying.

“Garcia claims to have noticed the image of Michael Jackson while working in his yard. But he probably said to himself "that tree stump sure looks like the King of Pop", while trying to decide which bills he could skip paying this month," Reyes added sarcastically.

"Let me go out on a limb, and predict that the Michael Jackson tree stump will soon be up for action on eBay.

"Folks will soon claim to see the image of Jackson on everything from a Doritos chip to a rotten banana."

The Jackson image story made me think back to the old Monty Python series that the BBC used to air on PBS here in the States. There was a hilarious skit called the Lumberjack Song. I think the title, at least for now, should be the "Lumberjacko Song." The original lyrics also seem to fit given Jackson's persona in recent years.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay

I sleep all night and I work all day

I cut down trees, I eat my lunch

I go to the lavat'ry

On Wednesdays I go shopping

And have buttered scones with tea

I cut down trees, I skip and jump

I love to press wild flow'rs

I put on women's clothing

And hang around in bars

I cut down trees, I wear high heels

Suspendies and a bra

I wish I'd been a girlie

Just like my dear papa

Bigoted Bill Donohue

William Donohue fancies himself as some sort of modern day Martin Luther King, Jr. for Roman Catholics in America.

Donohue is the president of the Catholic League for Civil Rights and Religious Freedom. It postures itself as standing up for Catholics who are, they claim, constantly the victims of religious intolerance. That's fine in theory because religious bigotry and persecution is unacceptable no matter which religion is victimized. But, in fact, the Catholic League, and especially Donohue, are nothing more than shills for the Vatican. In the end, they do not represent, teach, tolerate or defend civil liberties, but instead are mouth pieces for Catholic policy and apologists for every position taken by the church whether religious or social in nature.

In addition, they will spew the most venomous tirades against anyone who expresses even the slightest criticism of the church or Catholicism.

In the past, Donohue has demonstrated that it is he who is the intolerant bigot.

For example...

He recently appeared on Fox News and supported the church's decision back in the 1600s to place Galileo under house arrest for the last 10 years of his life after accusing him of heresy because of his theories on astronomy. He is on record as saying that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity, especially Catholics." Later, he apologized for using the word "controlled." He also labels support groups for persons abused by Catholic clergy as "the enemy."

Among his more intelligent observations are:

"Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style."

"The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done."

Addressing former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in a press release Donohue said: "Why didn't you just smack the clergyman in the face? After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn't allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?"

"I'm saying if a Catholic votes for Kerry because they support him on abortion rights, that is to cooperate in evil."

"It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn't care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face."

The latest involves the report released a few days ago in Ireland in which a commission's nine-year investigation provided details of the inhumane abuse and treatment perpetrated by Catholic priests, nuns, monks and some lay people against children housed in Catholic-run institutions for roughly a 60-year period.

Just to prove that Wild Bill and the CL aren't going to back away any time soon from standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the church, they issued the following news release yesterday within hours of the release of the commission report:

HYSTERIA OVER IRISH CLERGY ABUSE May 20, 2009

After nine years of investigation, Ireland’s Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has published its findings. More than 30,000 children, most of them delinquents, passed through one or more of Ireland’s Catholic-run institutions from the 1920s through the 1980s.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the report today:

Reuters is reporting that “Irish Priests Beat, Raped Children,” yet the report does not justify this wild and irresponsible claim. Four types of abuse are noted: physical, sexual, neglect and emotional. Physical abuse includes “being kicked”; neglect includes “inadequate heating”; and emotional abuse includes “lack of attachment and affection.” Not nice, to be sure, but hardly draconian, especially given the time line: fully 82 percent of the incidents took place before 1970. As the New York Times noted, “many of them [are] now more than 70 years old.” And quite frankly, corporal punishment was not exactly unknown in many homes during these times, and this is doubly true when dealing with miscreants.

Regarding sexual abuse, “kissing,” and “non-contact including voyeurism” (e.g., what it labels as “inappropriate sexual talk”) make the grade as constituting sexual abuse. Moreover, one-third of the cases involved “inappropriate fondling and contact.” None of this is defensible, but none of it qualifies as rape. Rape, on the other hand, constituted 12 percent of the cases. As for the charge that “Irish Priests” were responsible, some of the abuse was carried out by lay persons, much of it was done by Brothers, and about 12 percent of the abusers were priests (most of whom were not rapists).

The Irish report suffers from conflating minor instances of abuse with serious ones, thus demeaning the latter. When most people hear of the term abuse, they do not think about being slapped, being chilly, being ignored or, for that matter, having someone stare at you in the shower. They think about rape.

By cheapening rape, the report demeans the big victims. But, of course, there is a huge market for such distortions, especially when the accused is the Catholic Church.

Gee, I guess if you follow Billy's logic, a nine-year-old little boy who had his genitals groped for a half-hour by a priest should be grateful that he wasn't buggered (which, I guess, would be rape even to Donohue.)

But, hey asshole Bill, more to the point. "Neglect" also includes depriving children of water and making them sleep outside in the cold. "Being kicked," you abhorrent son-on-of-a-bitch, goes beyond any normal and sane person's definition of corporal punishment.

Finally, he goes out of his way to make the argument that a lot of the abuse was by monks, not priests. Therefore, Dickhead Donohue seems to think there is some kind of moral difference in that. So Billy, are we to understand that a 12-year-old boy forced to perform fellatio on a monk suffers less psychological damage today than if he was forced to perform fellatio on a priest!! I guess the degree of emotional scarring in the eyes of Donohue and the CL is in proportion to the rank of the abuser. What would all that mean if you had to service a Cardinal?

I'm going to go throw up now. And Donohue...go fuck yourself!!