The New Genocide?

by Pa Rock
Heretic

It's been a while, too long in fact, since I blasphemed Pope Benedict XVI. The last time I went on a tirade about the sins of the Church of Rome in general and His Holiness in particular, I was skewered by a reader who felt that I might have been a tad on the negative side. And I was - and I will be again with what follows. But as a fallen Catholic who has been greatly disappointed with the inflexibility and dangerous positions of the Church, I feel that I have a right, if not a duty, to express some dissent.

I will admit to having slipped in my level of faith over the years, but it was Bernard Cardinal Law, a man whom I met on a couple of occasions when he was the lowly Bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in Missouri, who finally succeeded in driving me from the Church. Cardinal Law had a vision - a vision of himself as the first American Pope. In trying to protect the image of his turf, he spent years in the Archdiocese of Boston shuffling pedophile priests around every time one of them came to his attention. By not removing these sick individuals from the active priesthood and arranging for some serious treatment for their pedophilia, Cardinal Law sentenced thousands of innocent children to suffer needless and cruel abuse that has scarred them for life - just to protect his good image.

Cardinal Law's incompetence and/or complicit criminal behavior short-circuited his run for Pope. That, of course, was a plus for Catholicism. But Law's removal from contention had a negative impact as well - it left the field open to the evil Cardinal Ratzinger who was ultimately elected by the College of Cardinals as Pope Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, a German reprobate and former member of the Hitler Youth Corps, was Pope Paul's doctrinal enforcer, a man who had a personal mission to bring back the good old days of Catholicism as it was practiced in the fourteenth century.

Benedict hadn't been Pope too long when he stirred up the entire Muslim world with comments indicating that Islam was a religion built on violence. Way to incite, Man of Peace! Then, more recently, he stirred up the world's Jewish population by bringing an excommunicated Priest back into the comfort of the Church - a priest who believed and preached that the Holocaust was a fiction.

Those two acts were thunderously stupid, but chances are no one died from the addle-brained pronouncements of this old man teetering on senility. Last week, however, the Pope uttered remarks that could easily turn very deadly. While on a tour of AIDS-ravaged Africa, His Eminence pontificated against the use of condoms. Really! The Pope said that using condoms was not the answer, and then he prattled on about the virtues of abstinence.

Yes, sir, Your Popeship, abstinence is the answer - for you. (And it would be nice if you could get your "celibate" priests to practice abstinence also.) But human beings have human needs. Don't tell people living in poverty to give up the one small pleasure that they have in life - because they aren't going to listen to you any more seriously than American Catholics do. Telling people in Africa not to use condoms is tantamount to genocide. It's time to get real and use your big-assed church for health education and the prevention of disease. That, old man, is what Jesus would have done.

Thanskgiving Thursday

by Pa Rock
Parade Float

The Macy's had two Thanksgiving Parades today - the traditional one in New York City, and a west coast affair that stretched from San Diego to the center of Arizona. I paraded out to the airport this morning in a heavy rain to get Tim and Erin to their plane, then Nick and I paraded over to Coronado to return Scott's jacket that he had left in my car, and to say good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Files and little Sebastian. Nick and I completed the day by parading back to Goodyear, with the rain following us most of the way. It was so nice to see rain falling across the Sonoran Desert! There was a rainbow over San Diego as we left, and a rainbow over Phoenix as we got back. With omens that good, I had to buy some lottery tickets!

A fellow at a gas station in San Diego told me that he has lived there since 1973, and last night's rain was the heaviest that he has seen in all of that time. There were even tornado warnings for Coronado Island last night. Who knew they had tornado's on the seacoast?

Tonight Nick and I paraded around Goodyear looking for pizza, but to no avail. Even the local grocery store was closed. We finally stumbled across an Arby's that was open and were able to procure sandwiches for our Thanksgiving meal!

Nick will fly out of Sky Harbor early tomorrow, and my life will start to get back to some degree of normality. Tomorrow night I am going to a Phoenix Suns basketball game. They are playing the Miami Heat. I may also go by work for a couple of hours and clear off whatever has piled up on my desk this week - if the shredder is working!

Coronado Tuesday

by Pa Rock
Sentimental Tourist

Tim, Erin, Nick, and I were out on Coronado too early this morning so that Molly and Scott could borrow my car to go get their marriage license. We had breakfast at a 50's Diner on Orange Street (Coronado's main drag). When breakfast was over we headed out toward the beach where we ran into Scott's dad, Alvin Files. We walked along the beach, and Tim took his shoes of and waded into the surf. Our next stop was the beautiful Del Coronado Hotel where we walked through the lobby (adorned for Christmas), the shops area, and the gardens.

Coronado is in full bloom. The sidewalks are bordered with flower beds and flowering shrubbery. There is a type of canna common here that I have not seen other places. It is called "bird of paradise," and the blooms look exactly like the profile of a crane. We also noticed poinsettias planted in the flower beds with their red holiday leaves stunningly out of place in the warm Pacific sunshine.

We rode the Coronado ferry over to the San Diego Harbor for a few hours in the afternoon. En route we passed the USS Ronald Reagan (aircraft carrier) that just returned to port today after several months at sea serving in the Middle East and the Philippines. There was film on television tonight of its arrival - crying families, wives with babies that had been born since the ship sailed, banners and signs - much like the reunions that I witnessed in the aircraft hangars back at Ft. Campbell.

Our main activity at the harbor was just to walk along looking at the large art displays that line the waterfront. Alvin and Susan Files showed us how to get to the ferry. Molly and Scott were able to join our group for that outing. Susan Files is a teacher, and she and I had a discussion about education - with her catching me up of some of the changes that have happened since I left that profession. Alvin is an attorney. They live in Ada, Oklahoma.

The forecast is for heavy rain later tonight. It will supposedly be the heaviest rain since January. Molly and Scott have a Plan B for an indoor wedding, but they had their hearts set on getting married on the beach. Maybe the sun will come shining through!

This evening we went back to Coronado for dinner with Scott and Molly. Little Sebastian arrived this afternoon and was quite the center of attention. We ate at an Irish Pub and were entertained by an older male vocalist (somewhere around my age!) with an acoustic guitar who sang the songs of my youth - the Beatles, Jimmy Buffett, Simon and Garfunkle, James Brown, Janis Joplin, and Arlo Guthrie - to name but a few. It was a very nice evening!

Tomorrow is the wedding day, rain though it may.

We are having a grand time in San Diego!

Sugar

by Pa Rock
Confidence Man

Last week while I was in San Diego I decided to spend a day exploring the seamier end of Coronado Island. The northern end of the "island" (actually a peninsula) is home to the beautiful Del Coronado Hotel, thirty-some retired Naval Admirals (including Jim Morrison's dad), two condos with ocean views owned by Mrs. John McCain, thousands of other parcels of very pricey real estate, and a large naval installation. Four miles to the south at the tip of the "island" is the other economic extreme: Imperial Beach (referred to by the locals as "I.B.").

Last year HBO aired a series about a family of worn-out surfers and their weird, druggie friends who inhabited I.B. The show, John from Cincinnati, bit the dust after just one season, leaving me and the other dozen or so regular viewers feeling devalued and betrayed by corporate America. Ratings trump quality every time!

That morning I stopped by a neighborhood Subway for breakfast before heading south. There was an old Hispanic lady (probably about my age) with dyed red hair and grey roots leaning over the sandwich ingredients and rattling on (en Espanol) about each ingredient to the server. I stood behind her patiently for five minutes or so while she carefully ruled out each option. When she finally left, sans a sub, I placed my order and then asked the server about where to catch the public bus to I.B. The bus stop, he told me, was just around the corner and it ran every half-hour on weekends. The fare was $2.25. "No, no!" his assistant interrupted, "tell them you are a senior and it is only one dollar. I do that all the time!" Gracias, senora. I paid for the subwich and headed out the door to catch the bus.

There was a three-person bench at the bus stop. The red-headed sandwich critic was in the seat nearest to the street, the middle seat was empty, and a beautiful young Weimaraner dog was tied to the railing of the third seat. I considered my options and sat down in the seat to which the Weimaraner was tied. Then the young girls began to descend on the dog like so many Hitchcock birds. "Your dog is beautiful!" they chirped and tweeted. "Thank you." I replied proudly.

Old Red looked at me dumbstruck and asked, in perfect English, "Is that your dog?" "No," I told her honestly. And she began to laugh, and the laughs turned into guffaws! I was suddenly funnier than Leno!

The next flock of girls swooped in and began petting the Weimaraner. "She's wonderful!" They twittered. "What's her name?" "Sugar," I replied politely. "Oh," they cawed merrily, "that's so sweet!"

When the crowd finally flew on by, Sugar and I were able to finish my sandwich in relative peace. Old Red struggled for breath for awhile, but finally got it together without wetting herself. She and I hopped on the bus to I.B., and Sugar was left behind to pleasure the tourists on the classier end of the "island".

Coming Soon: The Roses and Surfers of I.B.