This eternal social conservative/libertarian war within the GOP (& my solution)

I knew there was a problem many many years ago when I was driving a van for a wholesale flower company. That was back in the day and you really met a garden-variety of people on your routes and one young guy in particular ran a flower shop in the countryside and he made no secret of his strong dislike for the then Democratic president at the time Mr. Bill Clinton and liberals in general. I never really brought up the subject matter at the time, why would I I'm only delivering product but apropos of nothing he complained to me out of the blue one day that abortion within the Republican Party needs to be taken off the table. FF to the present day and you have Patrick M, soapie, Pamela Hart and Malcontent to name but a few righties here who are pro-choice for lack of a better word and would pretty much say the same thing. OK so it's obvious to me this social conservative/libertarian tension-hatred/rift within the GOP goes way back even as far back when Sean Hannity was discussing Hummergate on practically a daily basis and even beyond that to the Barry Goldwater days when in his senior years he started making testy and snarky comments about Jerry Falwell and evangelicals in general. Libertarian-minded conservatives act like they can somehow drive a stake through the heart of social conservatism once and for all, the good guys if you will in an updated political version of Vampire Diaries but you know how that goes, there will always be one of us Originals around and it got me to thinking. The only real solution would be for social conservatives to leave the Republican Party AND for libertarians to leave the GOP as well. Why should one be asked to leave and not the other? Whose mansion is it anyway, can I see the deed? Why do we even need opponents of gay marriage and those who want to legalize angel dust in the same party? Instead of trying to purify your own party from within in whichever direction you happen to be, a never-ending task where there's more agita than rewards have your own party going and go all out with it. The 2-Party System is bankrupt anyway, not much of a choice for the average voter (yes yes I know there's tons of other parties out there to choose from but they're not mainstream in any sense of the word more like political trivia questions). Pat Robertson living in a house with fetal parts backing up the plumbing system, makes no sense to me:)

McDonaldizing the gangster

It's soon to be in production but John Travolta is gonna star in a new biopic about the late John Gotti. I'm kind of past this stage in my life, for me the genre of the mobster peaked with The Godfather trilogy. I'm so into other stuff and on a really slow Friday nite (showing my age since I'm not clubbing) I'll dig Sam and Dean on Supernatural even though I have no idea what the hell is going on. Heh, Simon showing his human side on The X Factor last night by apologizing to a contestant he just booted and bringing her back into the fold. He's losing his edge, he's been McDonaldized too. Flicks glamorize a life of crime, Burger King could have soda cups with Gotti et al on 'em and Moms would buy 'em for their kids. We've lost our moral compass. Few months back there was a major and I mean major federal roundup of some major mobsters and folks were writing letters to the New York Post all angry at the feds, leave the guys alone! I really don't do gangster blogs since, who knows a gangster might be reading this right now but it's how I feel. Been rereading parts of Maury Terry's Ultimate Evil since updated and some weird shit went down in Yonkers in the '70s and '80s. Seems some Satanic cult had regular meetings in Untermyer Park on North Broadway and killed some German Sheperds and left 'em on the Aqueduct, Berkowitz may have been involved. Personally know of stories of hospital workers at St. John's seeing the torches and hearing the chanting on some evenings, 'magine you're a patient who just had some major work done and you're recuperating and you lurch towards the window by the River and see some stuff. Been kinda sporadically blogging of late more like a hobby, the old work schedule again. Went to the biggest bookstore I've ever been in my life yesterday, the two-decker job with escalators Barnes & Noble in Poughkeepsie on Rte. 9, didn't buy anything but it was an experience. Is it just my imagination but are stores getting bigger? maybe I can do my walk there. Going home now to enjoy some fine African Rooibos Red Tea, good for the allergies:)

9/11 - the most historic event in recent history

I had thought when I went to work Monday morning some folks would have a different perspective in light of the preceding day's solemn and extremely moving events, don't worry about stupid stuff......uhm, no. We don't discuss current events much, I'm always the one to bring up the topic but then again I never married my job. It's been years since I read the late Claire Sterling's seminal work The Terror Network published in 1981 and what's changed is that then terrorism was mainly political whereas today's it's largely inspired by a warped vision of God. Sure Hamas and Hezbollah are still political but it's a weird development, after the Cold War never dreamed we'd be at war with radical Islam. You don't believe in Allah and we'll kill you, when did that happen? Saw Frontline's "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" the other night which while superbly produced and asked legitimate questions somehow left me uninspired and empty. Doesn't anyone ponder this puzzle that God chose to give us the gift of free will and that means the freedom to choose evil in many cases, to make bad decisions and that all too often those bad choices negatively, even tragically impact and impose themselves on others, the good, the innocent, the virtuous? Put another way if God forced you to be faithful to your spouse it wouldn't mean anything so I'm a little more on God's side here and also if you never had Evil could you really appreciate the Good? If the world was always and forever a perpetual Eden with no tears and sorrow, no suffering and no death would we even know what the Good is? How horrible those people died on that day and your immediate thought is there but for the grace of God. To make that terrible terrible decision to die in overwhelming fire or to jump 80 or even 100 stories hand in hand with a complete stranger in some cases. My own mother many months before this even happened was sitting on the couch one day and said she had a very bad feeling. She felt cold she said and then said she felt something very terrible was gonna happen to the World Trade Center and it's always struck me to this day. I've heard others say similar things so I do believe in a kind of psychic reality. 9/11 unified us as never before and how could it not? I'm sure those people who chose to jump sometimes again with that complete stranger were not contemplating their political differences or the stupid stuff that went on at work last week and that's one of the great lessons here. The other is this tragic event so mind-boggling in the magnitude of its sheer evil, this existentially surreal Happening brought out the worst but more importantly the best in Humanity. We also went from the sublime to Rachel Uchitel becoming one of Tiger Woods' bevy of mistresses so the poetic always somehow becomes mixed with the tabloid culture but that's to be expected. Then there was my lady boss who yesterday was doing her work as usual and asked me what date it is and I'm thinking but didn't say it just how uninformed are you? I mean I'm not a nerd or anything but when you go home what do you do? Do you at least pop on the News for 10 or 15 minutes before going to bed? Again an extremely moving and poignant day and make no mistake, we live in a post 9/11-centric world. It imbues all our thoughts, our very psyche and it did affect my sleep that night. Though it was an adequate sleep it was a kind of somber and fitful slumber and my dreams and thoughts drifted back to this tragic framework brought on by the day's events. What are your thoughts?

The crisis in Egypt and its implications for the geopolitical consortium

(Disclaimer: I don't know WTF I'm talking about here)

Sometimes certain major topical events pose a type of dilemma for the average blogger. I am not an Egyptologist, the Mideast is beyond my pay grade and yet I feel rather compelled to open up the crisis in Egypt for discussion. It's one of those topics you have to google or bing so as to appear semi-literate ("Mubarak's 30-yr rule", "Anwar Sadat assassinated in 1981", "Suleiman for VP", "40% of oil to Europe flowing through the Suez Canal"......) but you'll never rise to the rank of university professor rapping with Jim Lehrer (the reader will note I didn't have much to say on Tunisia of late). It seems to me Mubarak has to go, even his own generals are against him (how am I doing? OG I wish I could blog about Charlie Sheen right now!) but Mubarak kind of reminds me of Pinochet, our kind of dictator about whom we can look the other way at least for a time. Did the looters get to the Pyramids yet? there's a curse on that sort of stuff you know. I have to give my blog some heft with an occasional foray into foreign policy, people are still starving in Niger you know, but as Wikipedia would put it this article can use input from an expert or scholar in the field. BB?:)

Faith systems

Along the lines of Patrick M's recent musings on faith, what faith system coincides most with our own personal belief system this is a tricky one indeed. I would go so far as to say all the official faith systems of the world don't do it and fall short for a good many of us. Born and raised a Catholic, still am, theologically very in sync but there are problems. Just to choose four issues out of a hat:

Birth control: Tried understanding the Church's position on the matter time and again, damn I tried but I think what it all boils down to is this - Sex is a fairly animalistic act when you get right down to it and the Church is trying to ennoble it, pleasure for pleasure's sake even to express love become issues so have the act be open to the transmission of human life at all times even if it means winding up with ten kids if you're the sensual type...anyway don't recall the subject even popping up in the Bible per se so I'm very Sola Scriptura on this one you could say. It's a blue moon moment, me and the Rev. Pat Robertson see eye to eye on this one.

Confession: Probably my biggest difference right now as the oldtimers accept it without question but never got the logic here - Jesus or God won't forgive you and you'll wind up eternally damned even if you're sorry as hell unless you explain in morbid detail to the priest your most personal sins and then some. Makes me instinctively uncomfortable, is there some kind of prurient interest at work here and you have to question any person or institution that says thou shalt not use your mind, put reason away and obey blindly. The priest will point to the confessional, you'll feel like a million dollars afterwards, my thing is why do you need to know?

Transubstantiation: The doctrine that when the priest at Mass consecrates the bread and wine they literally turn into the Body and Blood of our Savior. Not buying it and it has cannibalistic overtones, why can't it just be symbolic? Literalism can get you in trouble but they insist so again it's not a perfect fit.

Priestly celibacy (and hell why don't we throw in nuns too?): Doesn't seem nat'chal to me at all, why can't a woman or man bring you closer to God? Of course you could be a layman and practice what I call involuntary celibacy but I don't want to get into that right now. Valentine's Day is hard for lots of folks but at least we have it as a goal, for them the goal is illegal.

So call me a cafeteria Catholic if you want, it seems to be the only way. Soapie HAS TO have some thoughts.

Which is most likely to be true?

spontaneous human combustion, haunted houses, UFOs, Elvis is still around, Sasquatch, Loch Ness, Oswald was a patsy, the Bermuda Triangle OR the VRWC really exists?

I'm sorry those are your options and you have to choose one. It's my hunch that BB is going with (none of the above) but I've discussed this with people and my personal favorite is Nessie.

The subject is ghosts

You can consider this a companion piece to my recent Why aren't there more miracles?, in short why aren't there more ghostly encounters? Having gone to a wake recently this thought's been rattling around the ole mental attic for a while but as it stands now the age-old question is there life after death is still quite up in the air. Now it's easy to make Casper jokes when this subject comes up but let's be a little serious here. The purpose of more visitations from our dearly departed would be twofold -- to ease the pain of the survivors and to add the weight of the evidence to that timeless question.

When I was a member in good standing at Hannityland I was mostly political but occasionally poked my nose around into other territory and I brought up the subject one day in the Religion Forum (please no dissing there, either respect any and all beliefs or consider yourself eternally banned). Monsieur Hben, the resident Protestant minister pounced on the topic and said consider any and all ghostly manifestations as the work of Satan but then two longtime and stalwart conservative Catholic posters chimed in too. Socrates and Apatriot agreed with Hben and pretty much said the same thing, that if your dearly departed Uncle Charlie walked through your living room one night to say hello that he's really a demonic imposter. Really?? I wasn't even aware the Church had such voluminous teachings on the matter, has Benedict given a recent statement? I'm aware of a few true-life ghost stories, some in the family and some I heard about involving friends and acquaintances. The tales are benign in nature and quite inspiring so Soc and Patriot's point would be what exactly, that some of these folks are actually in a rather bad place and the Devil is trying to hoodwink us?

I always liked that old TV series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir starring Edward Mulhare as the deceased sea captain and Hope Lange as the tenant of the house he's haunting. The ole Cap'n would appear constantly and converse with her and offer advice, take in and sympathize with her problems, he was a friendly spirit and took all the shock and dread out of death through his regular appearances, just a member of the family you could say. If only Real Life were this way instead of this eternal mystery, this perplexing and to many disturbing enigma that keeps us wondering and guessing right up 'til the bitter end, what's behind the curtain Monty? So anybody out there got any good ghost stories? I promise I won't tell Hben.

With so much study of the paranormal going on

I have a question. Now ghosts can do all sorts of nifty things, shake a hanging coffee cup for 20 minutes when there's no breeze in the kitchen, rap on the wall, turns lights on, move your glass of water you left on your nightstand, give off smells of which you don't know the origin of (perfume and pipe smoke are common ones), sit on the edge of your bed when you're dozing off, communicate to you in dreams, the list is as long as there are ghosts but I have as yet to hear of a practical case of a friendly ghost popping up your car door lock because you left your keys in your car.

BTW I'm not afraid of dead people, I'm afraid of live people.

My travelblog

Went up the line yesterday with my friend, on up the Taconic past Carmel NY where your ears pop, hooked up with I-84 W and up Route 9. Fishkill, Wappingers Falls, kind of a rundown town, a touch of ghetto, an element of romantic squalor. People who live here tend to work farther south towards the Westchester area where the wages are higher but live near Poughkeepsie 'cause the real estate is lower. There's a Giggles store here with its generic mind-numbing porn with a heavy bias towards the Japanese creepy stuff ("all actresses 18 or over and under duress"), seems a necessity in a depressed area, kind of in keeping with the theme and oh look, there's a Dairy Queen! don't see many of them around anymore. It was Tawana Brawley who put Wappingers on the map. There's a gourmet supermarket here by the name of Hannaford's, nice place. The main goal here was the Po'town Galleria, an ok mall as far as the mall scene goes but generic just the same with an overabundance of trendy t-shirt stores but I'm looking for practical, I really don't need a set of KISS whiskey shot glasses and a humorous set of mini-rubbers. I used to go fishing alot but now I'm a mallrat. After this we hit the Home Depot in the picturesque town of Carmel, this overall general store is so huge it's like an airport hangar, then back on 84 and on down the line. Now I just love the country but there's something about these pockets of civilization surrounded by the boondocks and these wide expanses of open field and swampland that, how do I put my finger on it? you're surrounded by woods and mountains and the possibility of a Bigfoot or two living up there in them thar hills and when the sun goes down there drops like a curtain a certain existential loneliness like UFOs can land here. A state trooper sits in his car on the divider of the highway, takes a couple sips from his hot cup of joe and a bite out of his cruller, glances up into the starry nighttime sky and goes WTF!?!, is that Colossal Man coming out of the saucer? (bleep-bleep) bb-idaho can relate but dunno, seems everything's generic these days. Caught part of the big debate last night of which I have a few thoughts, I always seem to sleep well after these things.....

Morose thoughts

Like why can't they scientifically prove once and for all time that there's life after death then we wouldn't have to worry (and for those of you who say you don't give it a second thought it's in the back of your mental attic somewhere next to the ice skates and the Flexible Flyer). Then again in some cases there may be some who would still have to worry, sorry I brought it up. BTW I'm not the least bit afraid of dead people, live people on the other hand.....

Spontaneous Human Combustion

"uh, this is z's mother. He's not coming in today, he spontaneously human combusted last night."

Rudy courting the NRA

now it's getting downright creepy

very Nosferatu-like, like the undead Danny Glick boy in "Salem's Lot" floating up to the bedroom window of his friend and tapping on the glass

"right-wing base let me in
right-wing base let me in"