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Equal sins

Friday, July 16, 2010

If any proof were needed that the Catholic Church either a) really doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks about it, or b) is incapable of grasping the way it is perceived by others, here is that proof via (Why Evolution is True):

The Vatican is preparing to update the 2001 norms that deal with priestly sex abuse of minors, in effect codifying practices that have been in place for several years.

At the same time, it will include the “attempted ordination of women” among the list of most serious crimes against church law, or “delicta graviora,” sources said.

Sexual abuse of a minor by a priest was added to the classification of “delicta graviora” in 2001. At that time the Vatican established norms to govern the handling of such cases.

That’s right, ordaining a woman is as serious a sin as sexually abusing a child. Actually, the Church is just kidding, because in the real world, the Church would never forgive the bishop who ordained the woman, but it would gladly accept a sincere act of contrition from a priest or bishop who ruined the lives of scores of children, would cover up for him, provide him a sheltered but comfortable retirement, and of course forgive him his trespasses. So long as he didn’t steal money from the church-that’s another story.


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Friday Night Music

Friday, July 16, 2010

I actually marked this song down as a possible last week. It didn’t quite fit in with the summertime theme for last Friday, but it came to mind while I was coming up for titles. I decided that it was a go for this week since, at least the title, pretty much sums up my week. I can relate first hand that this is yet another one of those instances where the metaphor gets a bit too extended; I don’t really think I’d care to be involved with someone who actually did give me Fever. Here’s Peggy Lee, with one of her signature songs:

As a bit of a bonus, here’s Rick Derringer and the McCoys singing a version that they made a top 40 hit. Not too badly done, but I’m including this mostly because I just can’t resist giving everyone a chance to see the type of stuff that was standard issue on Hullabaloo-a-Go-Go (yes, there actually was a show), back in the day, which is why the lip syncing gets a pass. I say this with a straight face-this stuff did not seem completely, nay, not even remotely absurd at the time, not even to those of us who weren’t high.

I understand, by the way, that Derringer, a Colchester resident for a while, and a client of mine for an even briefer time, will be touring with the Ringo Starr All Starr Band this summer. He’s the only rock star of any level of magnitude I’ve every met personally, and I can honestly say he was an extremely nice guy.

The earliest version of Fever I stumbled on over at youtube was this one by Little Willie John, who must have come and gone before I got my first transistor radio. I’m not including it because there’s no video, but he is definitely worth checking out. Clearly someone who has been wrongly forgotten. Peggy Lee’s Wikipedia page says that her song was a cover of his.


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Political Campaigning (Republican Style) 101

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Things not to do:

When you are campaigning as an anti-big government candidate, never, never actually get specific about what you intend to do. Certainly never let the victims beneficiaries of your anti-government zeal know how your policies are going to affect them.

Case in point, Minnesota Republican Gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, who recently proposed that big government should lighten up on small restauranteurs by reducing the minimum wage for tipped employees, many of whom, according to him, were pulling in a 100 grand or more a year while their employers were inches from bankruptcy.

Poor Emmer may never get to be governor now, because for reasons only he can’t figure out, those waiters and waitresses (hereafter, sporadically, “waiters”, sorry but there’s no good non-sexist term) aren’t willing to believe his protestations that he didn’t mean what he said, particularly because if you listen to the protestations, he still really means it.

If the man were a pro, he would have railed against big government, maybe even posed with one of those waiters, and promised, with the bemused or smiling (depending) waiter beside him, that he would free that person’s employer from the dead hand of big government that was preventing the business from thriving. Then, a good half, more or less, of those waiters and waitresses would have voted for him, along with half of those waiters and waitresses close friends and relatives. Once in office, he could have stuck it right to those folks and they would never know what hit them.

Now, poor guy, he may never get the chance.

I’ve always thought the flaw in Honest Abe’s formula is that, in a democracy, you only have to fool most of the people most of the time. But you have to put at least a little effort into fooling the people, even American people. Emmer has failed on that score, and, especially for a Republican, that is a mortal sin.


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My week so far

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

There has been very little written from this quarter lately, and that rather rambling, because I have been-not to put too fine a point on it-sick. This is a strange set of affairs for me, because I am so rarely ill that I can’t really recognize the condition. Typically I doubt my own motives-am I really sick, or am I just looking for an excuse not to work? Well, in this case if I was trying to avoid work I paid far too high a price, as I was running fevers way past 100 and climbing. Given the weather these days, it’s hard to tell whether you’re feverish or it’s just hot, but there was another sign that was a dead giveaway that I was sick. I ate almost nothing for about five days.

Turns out I have babesiosis, a tick borne disease, which, according to Wikipedia, is sometimes known as the Malaria of the Northeast. I appear to have gotten the disease in its full flower, with high temperatures, shaking chills, fitful sleep- the works. I’ve really been quite miserable, but-Glory Hallelujah, it appears that the medications the doctor prescribed are working.

The medication in question (or one of the two) had to be pre-approved, meaning my doctor’s judgment wasn’t good enough for the insurance company. This is a situation in which it’s hard to blame the greedy government protected and soon to be subsidized insurance company, because it was only trying to protect itself from the greedy government protected and already subsidized drug company. The medication in question costs $500.00 for 20 tablespoons of liquid.

But I shall not dwell on the iniquities of our medical care system. I can now believe that a time will come when I will actually want to eat, I can begin to believe that one can have a full night’s sleep unburdened with fever dreams, and I can foresee a time when it will not be a chore to navigate from one room to another.

If this keeps up I may even get back to writing about politics.


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Give Money to Kevin Lembo

Monday, July 12, 2010

Kevin Lembo needs a few more dollars to qualify for public financing. The race for comptroller is the only one that features a Democratic primary candidate, Mike Jarjura, who is wholly objectionable. Many would say that the fact that he is mayor of Waterbury is a sufficient disqualification for any post, anywhere. But if we get beyond our prejudices, as well founded as they might be, consider that Jarjura is the guy who gave John Rowland a do nothing job for the City of Waterbury, and Rowland is, of course, actively campaigning against Lembo in league with his ultra right gay baiting friends at the Family Institute, a Connecticut based group that would like to establish religion, and a bizarre one at that, here in the very secular state of Connecticut. It would be profoundly troubling if this throwback candidate should win the primary, and force our other candidates to ignore the stench he would bring to the room. For myself, his candidacy would cause me to choose my Lieberman (prior to 2006) option: don’t vote for anyone. New Haven should be ashamed of itself for swapping votes with Waterbury to ease Jarjura’s path to the primary. Some deals are just indefensible, and that was one.

You can contribute to Kevin here.


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We get letters

Monday, July 12, 2010

What was at first a trickle has now become something of a flood. A few weeks ago my wife got a mailing from a right wing organization of some sort. These things happen, and we assumed it was just an anomaly. However, since then missives from the right wingers have been appearing with ever more frequency. Along with solicitations from candidates, she was also invited to stop the ACLU dead in its tracks. Today it was Sharron Angle and David Vitter, leading me to conclude that she has somehow found her way onto a fairly extreme, if not exclusive, mailing list.

This is all something of a mystery, but it does give us a chance, however petty and trivial, to cost these groups just a little bit of money. The return envelopes are all prepaid, so she just seals them up and senda them back, sans contents of any kind.

Lest anyone suspect, I am sure my wife has not gone over to the dark side. She has not behaved peculiarly in any way, and she still sputters with outrage whenever Jon Stewart strains to show some sort of equivalence between Obama and the Republicans.

I should probably actually read these mailings, but I can’t bring myself to do so. Why raise your blood pressure to no end?


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Art on Groton Bank

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Art on Groton Bank will be returning to, where else, Groton Bank on July 17th. Details in the circular attached below. Below are some pictues I took at a previous year’s event. If you’ve never been to Groton, it’s an opportunity to buy some arts and/or crafts and to see the only real Revolutionary War battlefield in Connecticut, where our Benedict Arnold led British Brothers massacred the fort’s defenders after they had surrendered. The monument itself is undergoing renovations, and I don’t know if you’re allowed to climb to the top, but if you can it’s worth doing, if you’re physically capable. Quite a view up there.

Fort Griswold Monument

Fort Griswold


The Bill Library from the top of the monument

Art on Bank founder, Audrey Heard

Here’s the announcement:

Attached is the press release.

Art on Groton Bank Press Release

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New London escapes the rain

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Last night we went to a friend’s house to view the New London Sailfest fireworks. She lives quite close to Fort Griswold, the ideal place, on this side of the river, to view the display. The fact that they happened at all was a bit of a miracle. All day the forecast was for rain, but all day, according to Weatherbug’s maps, New London and Groton appeared to occupy a privileged point, with rain all around us, but never falling on us. In truth, there were a couple of drops at various points in the day, but despite forecasts of a 93% chance of rain, we got nary a drop during the fireworks. From a selfish point of view it worked out great, the forecasts held down the crowds, so we didn’t have to wait so long for the traffic to clear after it was over.

I took the video below from the eastern section of the Fort Griswold grounds. Every once in a while you can see the flag flying at the fort, lit up by the rocket’s red (or white, blue, or green) glare.

Fireworks appear to be far more scientific than they once were . This display consisted entirely, it seemed to me, of fireworks launched in tandem, which exploded in nearly identical bursts. All well and good, but for reasons I refuse to countenance as valid (assuming they exist) gone are those occasional and deeply satisfying ear splitting, window shaking, infant scaring booms that used to be a regular feature of a good fireworks display. Presumably, they have gotten even the noise under control.

I had to cut this down to less than 10 minutes to fit youtube’s requirements, but the fact is that I only had to cut about five minutes, and I filmed almost the whole thing.


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Hope for the rest of us

Friday, July 9, 2010

According to the New York Times, the rich are defaulting on their mortgages at a greater rate than the rest of us:

The housing bust that began among the working class in remote subdivisions and quickly progressed to the suburban middle class is striking the upper class in privileged enclaves like this one in Silicon Valley.

Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.

More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.

By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.

Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.

“The rich are different: they are more ruthless,” said Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s senior economist.

No doubt this means that stiffing the bank will soon become a patriotic act. Who knows, Congress may feel some pressure to rethink it’s bankruptcy position.Certainly there was no reason to let the riff-raff be able to do a cram down on their hovels, like the rich have always been able to do on second homes. But if this article is true, it puts the issue in a whole new light.


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Friday Night Music

Friday, July 9, 2010

It’s hot out there. Watch them all, or sample.

Summertime, first Janis, then Ella.

You need to be a certain age to remember this one: Mungo Jerry, In the Summertime.

No live versions from the Lovin’ Spoonful, but Joe Cocker does a great job on Summer in the City.

And finally, it really is Too Darn Hot, though I really think this fellow would burn fewer calories pitching the woo than he does in this clip. This is the 2002 UK cast of Kiss Me Kate.

UPDATE: I forgot this:


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