Most Incredibly Euphonious Headline Today…

“Twitting Moldovans Outwit Communists“

 

It’s a story about how people in Moldova outwitted their media-controlling regime by using Twitter*.

 

*I’m not even exactly sure what Twitter is, though I have friends who are trying to entreat me to participate in whatever it is…

Crazy Papistry, revisit’d

Mark Morford is one of our local columnists.  He can get a bit wordy sometimes and I think he’s more than a little in love with his pen, but his pen is mighty, and I like his most recent column, revisiting the topic of the Pope’s incomprehensible pronouncement to all of Africa about the evil of using condoms for the prevention of disease.  You can read it here. 

Rhonda’s Clean Bill of Health

Rhonda is my ‘91 Honda Civic.  For the past month I’ve been smelling coolant burning off somewhere under the hood, and although there were no visible leaks beneath the radiator when she was parked, the coolant needed to be replaced about once a month.  It smelled like some horrible chemical mixed with rancid maple syrup, burning.  Ugh.  

In dread anticipation I took her into see Konrad Habelt, of Habelt’s Auto, to see what he could do. He called me this afternoon to tell me that he had done an oil change, changed the oil filter, checked the breaks, rotated the tires, balanced the tire inflation, pressure-tested the coolant system, and fixed the problem under the hood, which turned out to be the ‘water outlet gasket’. It was all done and I could pick it up after work.  It was a couple of hundred bucks, but no more than that, to my huge relief!  

I loved the ride home, not feeling the gnaw of worry and denial eating at me anymore, but just listening to NPR and only occasionally glancing at the temperature guage.  Feels good to ride on tires whose air pressure has been meticulously checked by a pro, and not smell the acrid-sweet coolant vapor anymore.  

Nice to get the Konrad stamp of approval: “Alfred, this is a really good car!”

The Muse Appear’d as Bidden, or Seize the Moment.

I’ve  been experiencing moments when song tunes and titles just appear in my mind.  Since I’ve been paying attention to these things (they’re usually there but lately, chord practice has been leading me to the idea that I can catch these snippets of music and word and maybe hold onto them and develop them into fully-blown songs; hence the increased attention), I have been kind of amazed at how many there are.  Assuming that some of them are inspired by having heard but imperfectly remembered having heard music written by others, there are still quite a few that seem to have just come flying down the tunnel from wherever it is that songs come. 

As with poetry I’ve penned before, the inspiration usually appears in my mind in a sort of ‘kit’ way – disassembled but mostly complete.  When this happens, there’s a moment of great clarity which ebbs after the ‘arrival’ of the main thematic material.  Guess it’s a visit from  Euterpe (muse of lyric song).  Euterpe doesn’t usually seem to hang around long – just long enough to clearly let me know that I ‘have mail’.

Well, this morning I woke up (not totally, since I still was unready to rise or even move the covers even a tiny bit) having just had such a muse-visit.  There was a song title that was astonishingly good, two words, one of which began with a C.  The other I can’t remember.  But even in my almost-awake state I was already able to think with my Waking Mind: “Wow!  Awesome title!  I will definitely write it down in a few minutes!”  There was also a really beautiful tune along with it, which I told myself I would apprehend as soon as I was up.

So beneath the covers I daydreamed for a while, though I didn’t go back to sleep, and finally got up about ten minutes later.  I sat down with the guitar and a notepad, only to realize that I could retrieve neither the tune nor the catchy two-word title.  I’d better send Euterpe a thank-you note and an apology!

And note to self: next time, it’s worth throwing off the covers and grabbing a pen and pad kept on the bedside table!

The Odd Viewpoint of the Holy See on the use of prophylactics, or Are You Out of Your Papal Mind?

It’s not that I don’t know about the Holy See’s traditional vilification-of-pleasure stance, and the astonishing culty depth of Dread of Sex that has a time-honored place in the Catholic Mind.  But it’s as if the Catholic gestalt doesn’t actually even validate the existence of sex.  It allows for it in a small, controlled way – within the bonds of Church-santified matrimony, but without pleasure, and as fast and efficiently as possible, and only as a means to produce more Catholic people who could eventually add their 10% to the purses of the Vatican;  through an embroidered hole in the sheet being the best way, of course.  And if one has devilishly managed to experience pleasure in the process of building new Catholics, or even if one hasn’t, sex is still awful and wrong and inherently evil.  In marriage it is allowed to occur, but infrequently, and always dismissively, and with much resultant guilt arising afterwards.  Seems there is a model somewhere of some perfect model of womanhood who managed to become pregnant without the unpleasant necessity of engaging of all that animalicious rumpy-pumpy, which I guess is taken to mean that if *she* managed to do it, then the rest of humanity must be failing at something, probably holiness, since they still have to use the old pestle-in-the-mortar method.   Yes!  Married Catholic couples should aspire to produce children virginally, without any poking about.

I wonder when the massive anti-sex thing arose?  I mean, Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, not the Judaism of today but the Judaism of two millennia ago or so, and Jewish law, though it abhors many things sexual, still manages to accept and even endorse the idea of sexual pleasure (within the bonds of marriage only, of course, but still!).  How did Catholicism develop such a perverse canon of behavior out of its earthy Judaic roots?

I’m not sufficiently interested in that to keep asking; however my next question is for His so-called Holiness: Are you out of your freaking papal mind? 

People still listen to the Pope.  A lot of them.  Millions around the world make their best efforts at obedience to this celibate male sitting on the Throne of St. Peter, and that includes in matters of sex, which is ultra-weird because Catholic clergy are people who do not have sex.  Or at least they’re not supposed to.  Why the hell do people seeking advice on sex heed advice from people who have (officially, and in many cases, probably, actually) never experienced it? 

Given that people, for whatever reason, do indeed heed the mouthings of the Bish of Rome, many of which are good, of course, such as the Pope’s occasional brave and open statements to governments regarding things such as war and oppression, doesn’t the Pope have a ready-made audience for endorsing the widespread use of condoms as a means of helping check the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa?  In Africa it is an epidemic the likes of which we in the ‘developed’ world don’t have (yet).  People are gonna have sex whether or not they’re Catholic, married, or sick, and the Pope, I guess, just won’t accept that.  He, as the Biggest Authority in that giant psychological pyramid gestalt that is modern Catholicism, could just by opening his mouth save millions of lives.  Benny, dude, is it that that you are so intent on valuing the devaluing of pleasure that you’re actually willing to let impoverished, uninformed people kill themselves and their families rather than take the pragmatic approach and say yes to condom use?  This is bad and wrong.  This is placing abstract principle, which in this case has perilously little to do with real human behavior and needs and aspirations, above the value of the lives of the very human beings to which the Holy See supposedly exists to be in service.  Jesus, if I may, would whup you once upside your papal head with an acacia wood clue-by-four if He were there.   He’d knock off your white satin Papal yarmulke.  He’d give you lip.  He might even overturn your Papal Table.

If He were still in his grave, He’d be spinning in it.  And his awesome girlfriend, Mary M., would surely have a piece of her mind to give to you too.

Hey Pope!   If you really gave a shit about the souls whose health and well-being you allegedly are supposed to serve, you’d not only say ‘yes oh yes’ to condoms in Africa (and the rest of the world), but you’d be facilitating Holy Supply Drops all over Africa, sending out bales of condoms (with appropriate expiration dates…no old stock  given in charity – they break!) and doing counselling with people to encourage them to act in a life-affirming way.  You have the luxury of not needing to think about whether you’re going to live for another day; imagine if you will what if feels like for the poor, who can barely scrape their lives together each day.  You, who have taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience,  live in baronial luxury in a freaking palace with servants.  You hold one of the foremost art collections on the entire planet.  Your corporation is insanely wealthy.   There is so much you could be doing, and yet you do not!

Your stance smells, somehow, colonial.

I might  consider you a valid religious leader if you opened your eyes and accepted condoms.  If you were to do so, so will the members of your church, and they will be the better for it.   But since you don’t, and with all that power that you have to make things better yet don’t, you’re a bad leader.  You’re guilty of lèse majesté, and the injured majesty in question lives in the hearts and spirits of your flock, not in you.  Go away!  Get some experience…get poor, get laid, get sick, get freaked out by the lack of options for survival, and then get smart.  Then come back to the Chair of St. Peter and start holding meetings, because you should be ‘entering into’ the lives that your flock lead before you get to go around telling them what and what not to do.

Anniversary revisited, and other stuff…

That’s a pic of Carlos at Okina sushi on Arguello Blvd here in San Francisco, which I took over the weekend.  We were astonished to find the restaurant so empty since it is usually a bit challenging to get into the restaurant since it is small and very popular.  Maybe the economy.  In any case, you see here the beatific smile of a very handsome and beloved guy happily fed on sushi and ‘watered’ on sake and beer.

anniversary!

Yesterday was our 1st anniversary. 

We had great sushi, played hours of music, and watched DVDs of Deadwood.  Awesome…!

“Bishop” Richard Williamson…

One of the greatest minds of the twelfth century.  He’s still alive, though.  Here is a bit about him.

FORMER President Bush!

Former former former former former.   Shyeah!

Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

I had dreamt of winter,

In which all the windows of my room

Were found to be unexpectedly cracked.

All the people in my quarter

Were heard to be speaking another’s language,

Revealing legitimate surnames not of my culture.

 

In my own beloved quarter,

I wanted charcoal

With which to record upon the fast-crumbling walls of my room

Some ponderous icon of my dolor.

I searched for charcoal,

But no one remained in our quarter.

Nor was I pursued, but rather left alone.

I could not reach the clay, and had no pen.

 

Plastered into the isolation,

For days I paced

Within this confused medium.

 

One day, I thought I heard the rain,

And dashed outside to partake of its humidity.

But outside it was dry

And there were many crickets.