Today's Apocalypse Sign: As Real As It Ever Was...

I am still in Belize, curiously without YOU! Sorry, I am sure I am having a good time. I'll be back soon.

Here is another early post that seems to have gone dormant as a news item. There were only two orignal comments (Pat and Jesse) so I thought I would rekindle the memory of this heinous story.

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March 20th, 2010

The Hand Of God (And A Priest) Are Upon You

I tried to find a font that would be reverent enough for this post. I do not want God associating me with this subject matter in case rapture happens while I am asleep tonight. No accidental damnation for me...I will earn it on my own merits.

This subject is not new...hell the Catholic church being involved in it is not new. What IS new is that the church is now seemingly willing to enter the realm of full disclosure...at least that is what they say.

I am not a Catholic, or a particularly religious person. I was raised going to church on Sunday's and learned right from wrong from a strong family environment. I grew up knowing plenty of Catholics as my friends and classmates. I made no judgements on one religion being better or worse than the next. I guess you could say I was an equal opportunity religion friend.

I say that to hopefully not offend anyone who is a practicing Catholic by anything I may say in this post.

However...WTF is wrong with the Catholic church??

The church, any church, is supposed to be fundamentally on the side of right (not wrong) and good (not evil)...right? At least this is what I was taught in Sunday school oh those many years ago.

While the Catholic church (one of the largest religions in the world) has some differing views on sexual conduct of priests (mainly they must be male and they must be celibate), I would think that covering up this pedophillic abuse could not rank them high in God's eyes. If God has his own TopTen of religions, I have to think that the Branch Davidians and the wackos waiting for aliens to take them to heaven in a spaceship have just moved up a notch or two.

I was perusing the Catholic American website and grabbed some copy that is stunning to me:

The Los Angeles Archdiocese July 15 announced the largest church settlement of sexual abuse lawsuits to date, agreeing to pay more than 500 alleged victims a total of $660 million.

Last December, the archdiocese announced the settlement of 45 lawsuits for $60 million.

Under the latest agreement, the archdiocese will pay $250 million and the balance will come from a combination of payments from insurance carriers and religious orders whose members have been accused in the abuse cases.

According to a tally prepared by the Los Angeles Times, the previous largest settlement of abuse cases in the United States since 2002 was the $157 million the Boston Archdiocese agreed to pay to 983 claimants in several different settlement agreements. The Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., agreed to pay $129 million to 315 claimants; the Diocese of Orange, Calif., agreed to pay $100 million to 90 claimants, and the Diocese of Covington, Ky., settled with 350 claimants for $85 million.

Cardinal Mahony said the new settlement and the one for $60 million announced in November "will have very serious and painful consequences for the archdiocese." He said the archdiocese will re-evaluate all ministries and services, "since we will not be able to offer them at the same levels as in the past."
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For those of you scoring at home that totals 2283 victims of priest abuse that cost the church $1.441 BILLION!!! There are certainly more victims that have never come forward or have passed away or are locked up in prison...maybe even in mental hospitals.

Which of Dante's levels of Hell do you think is reserved for these so called "men of God"?

Do you think it could be the inner Ring of the 7th Circle (Violence):

Inner ring: Here the violent against God (blasphemers) and the violent against nature (sodomites and, as explained in the sixth circle, usurers) all reside in a desert of flaming sand with fiery flakes raining from the sky. The blasphemers lie on the sand, the usurers sit, and the sodomites wander about in groups.

Or perhaps it is as it should be, the very center of Hell itself:

In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing the ultimate sin (personal treachery against God), is Satan (Lucifer). Satan is described as a giant, terrifying beast with three faces, one red, one black, and one a pale yellow:

I personally like the "personal treachery against God" part of the last one. Maybe shared time between several levels might be an answer. Don't want them to get too comfortable in any one pain.

When did becoming a priest turn into a breeding ground for child abusers? What other industry (oh yes, religion is an industry) fosters so many abusers under the guise of some righteous cause? None that I can think of.

Then the church for years and years was able to sweep this "problem" under the rug. Several priests were just simply relocated...and of course, they started their abuse all over again. Some were sent to counseling (presumably by other priests). This is a clear case of the fox guarding the hen house. And then they were sent to new parishes where of course, they started their abuse all over again.

Now even the pope is calling for the police to be contacted when there is evidence of claimed sexual abuse. Shouldn't the police have been involved all along? What other industry is allowed to circumvent the legal system and solve their criminal sexual child abuse problems in house? The Mafia maybe, but not any legitimate organization.

These priests should be prosecuted under the law and sentenced to what ever time is legally mandated...preferrably with a cellmate named Bubba or Big Tank. This would certainly get them praying fervently again.

These were criminal activities and should have always been handled that way. For any other approach to be allowed was a signal to every child molester to become a priest and enter the endless buffet of children. In case you think that sounds too crude, do you really believe all these priests developed this affinity for children after becoming priests? And if so why does that happen?

I say the church should lighten up on the celibacy thing. By letting priests get married, date and have real sex, they could have saved themselves $1 billion...and given it to a good cause like earthquake victims in Haiti, Chile, and Turkey.

May whatever God you pray to be with you...

Amen

**This should conclude my religious themed posts for a while, unless of course something comes along that just can't be ignored.

Today's Apocalypse Sign: While On Vacation I Leave You With This

I am in Belize this week and you are not :p


I want to credit Lucy Corrander from the photography blog Message In a Milk Bottle for inspiring this repost of a very early missive on suicide. Originally had five comments. I hope you find this interesting and entertaining. Thanks Lucy!!

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March 10th, 2010

Ivy League Suicide

The shocking stories of things that happen on college campuses these days are many and diverse. Topping the list is the incidence of suicide at many universities. None more so than the tragic year Cornell University of the Ivy League is having.

So far six students have jumped/fallen to their death from the 90-foot high suspension bridge that serves as a entrance from town to the campus. It is a bridge that I would have an apprehension of crossing on a good day. Me and heights are not friends in any sense of the word.

Samuell Cornell back in the late 1800's decided the best place to build a prestigious university that bares his name was right between two gorges. And you gotta be pretty damn deep to call yourself a gorge.

They even have a nickname for the suicides here... "gorging out". Macabe to say the least.

Even back in the early years of this university and through the 40's, 50's, 60's and heavily in the 90's suicides were happening here. What was it about this university that triggered the big bungee jump of life without the bungee? Was it just the lure of the bridge like a Siren song?

And what about jumping to your death as a suicide in general? It is a precarious thing to do. If you are not up high enough there is a chance you may not die and end up living like Stephen Hawking for the rest of your now incredibily worse off life. Too high you could get sucked into a jet engine (probably not, unless you pick a really bad place to jump from) but more importantly you have all that time from fatal step until terminal velocity impact to think about whether this is really what you wanted to do. No take backs. No do overs.

Stephen Hawking

But what would make a college student (and at Cornell a fairly smart one) decide on this course of action?

1. Was pressured all through high school to get into the Ivy League but maybe that was not your idea of fun.

2. Once you got to Cornell you found out there were really some smart fuckers here and you weren't one of them (see #1 above).

3. Date after date seems to end really badly and instead of calling Hitch you decide life is not worth living.

4. Oooooh, there's something shiny down there!

5. I learned about updrafts in Physics...here, I'll show you.

6. Sorry, looks like it's Animal House for you Stevie!

7. If my parents find out I'm failing every class they'll kill me anyway (tuition, bye bye)

I'll stop at 7 so this doesn't turn into some macabe/gallows humor Top Ten.

This is a serious issue for a University that has picked up the nickname of Suicide U. Below is video and an excerpt from a CNN site:




The national average for school suicides is 7.29 per year for every 100,000 students, said Paula Clayton, medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. That means Cornell, with 19,639 students, should average fewer than two suicides a year.

Cornell had no suicides from 2005 to 2008, according to Marchell. And the school has consistently fallen within or below the national average, said Karen Carr, assistant dean of students at Cornell.

The school has been praised by psychologists such as Keith Anderson, chairman of the American College Health Association's Mental Health Best Practices Task Force, for counseling and prevention programs that confront the issue of student suicide with comprehensive training and understanding.

Cornell responded to a cluster of suicides in the late 1990s with comprehensive training for members of the university community.

By Ross Levitt and Susan Candiotti, CNN
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I for one cannot imagine what it would take to make someone walk over to the railing of a bridge and jump off. I also cannot imagine why they do not have the same kind of covering over these bridges by now that you see on walk-ways over freeway so whackos can't throw a cinder block through your windshield. I get the aesthetics angle and all that but really, if this suicide epidemic is a decison of opportunity, simply remove the opportunity.

Just one more justification for always carrying a parachute!

With that said:

ALERT ALERT ALERT

STM Update

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What a gig...one short little post and I mean short and BAM...100,000 tune in to read. Crazy!

Stay thirsty my friends...