George Carlin

"The Greatest thing since sliced bread". So this is it, huh folks? The Pyramids; The Great Wall of China; Even a lava lamp, to me is greater than sliced bread. You got a knife, you got a loaf SLICE THE FUCKIN' THING!!

I think he was a great social commentator in the vein of Mark Twain (not the novelist but his public persona) and Will Rogers. In my case as a North American, Irish, Catholic, Atheist, I understood his perspective.

Most people get lower key when they get older. George got angrier. He was willing to take on religion in a country where you are pretty much not allowed to do that. Where the most idiotic idea, if it's author calls it "religion", gets you on CNN during prime time. There is no other 1^st world nation where that happens.

As Jon Stewart said, the good thing about George is that he left us thousands of hours of video.

In all that video and audio, one really always makes me chuckle. The famous 7 words lunched a law suit. One minister objected to them being aired. At some point during the process, George said:

Hey Reverend, the radio has two knobs, although I am pretty sure he is uncomfortable with anything that has two knobs. But, the first knob changes the station. The second one TURNS IT OFF.

What was also amazing is that I even missed the first decade and a half of his career, due to my age, yet he was a comic presence from my teens until my mid-forties. He never caught on as an actor, like other comedians, but he did do a children's show!

Along with Richard Pryor, and even before them Lenny Bruce, he expanded the boundaries of what was acceptable in stand-up comedy. But like a Picasso of gags, George knew the rules he was breaking. A lot of today's comics are obscene and vulgar, but far from Picasso-like, they are monkeys flinging paint at canvas.

George, as much as any single performer, actor or individual artist, seemed to take my brain where it was going to go anyway – but he paved the way.

Unfortunately, unlike Twain, rumours of his death were not at all exaggerated.

RIP You irreverent old Hippie!

Tom

Hardship

“Rich people are different”
“Yes, they have more money"
- The Great Gatsby

An article in today’s paper, begins:

A number of charity and awareness walks may cause some serious traffic congestion in the city today.

Um, ok, factual and practical – but it kind of shows what priorities people have these days, or perhaps, have always had. It must be hell for a hung-over rock star puking in his limo to be held up by people out walking to raise money for children with autism.

After my “80” in grade 13 economics, my knowledge of the subject has been on a downward bust cycle, no booms. But I once heard that when the employment rate goes up, stocks go down. Isn’t that awful? Mr. and Ms. Suburbia have to wait another month to re-model the breakfast nook because some low-life jerk gets herself a minimum wage job serving coffee.

It must have been a strange world to live in – czarist Russia, where 97% of the people were serfs living at bare subsistence level, and 3% of the people owned everything. At least in our world I think that 1% own 90% of things at least there is 10% left for the rest of us to fight over.

Intersting Observation

I was waiting for a subway train at union and I had some gum I wanted to get rid of. Then I remembered hearing that I would not find a garbage can (and I DIDN'T) as they are really neat places to hide bombs and IED's. I forget if that was a post 9/11 change or a 7/7 one. I do recall some Jewish fellows all named "IRA" placing bombs in garbage cans in the 70s in London. So I spat the gum on the tracks which i assumed would not result in a derailment.

TF

Eight Belles

A horse finishing second then breaking both ankles and having to be euthanized right on the track is a nasty thing. Barbaro died of injuries sustained in 2006. I first remember this happening in 1975. Another Filly, in fact the most successful Filly of all time, Ruffian, broke a leg and later had to be put down. I had followed this horse’s career for some time. I never really followed racing again because this broke my heart. I had to be taken aside and told she had been put down like an aunt had died. I am actually unofficially named after an ancestor who was a harness racer.

Garth Woolsey in today’s Toronto Star asked the same question I had asked myself: Is this a cruel sport that should be banned? Well, certainly as in any sport, such as getting rid of rug turf in football that injuries (which with horses usually means fatalities) must lead to changes in safety.

Joe Theisman broke his leg on national TV, but he ended up in the broadcast booth, not in the ground.

Ray Chapman was killed by a pitch in a 1920 game between Cleveland and New York. This lead to major changes in baseball.

An outcry has likened racing to cock or dog fighting. We find these "sports" to be repugnant. We don’t mind it when people fight. But then again, people choose to do it.

No, it is not the same as dog fighting, as horses naturally run.

As sad as I am at another beautiful animal dying for money and entertainment I am going to go with the theory that what happened Saturday is rare. We don’t hear about the thousands of daily races where nothing happens. We don’t hear about planes that don’t crash, bridges that don’t collapse or people who did not get murdered.

Being a race horse is much, much safer than being president of The United States. There have only been 43 of those and 3 of them were murdered. Reagan came close, and shots have been taken at many more. But we don’t ban this job.

Tragedy yes and, I hope very much, rare.

Tom.

A Stan Rogers Line

On a Stan Rogers Live album, as he is introducing a song he says "Ontario is now a 'have-not' Province". 35 years later that phrase was used all over the place. I am not going to get into the actual condition a province has to be in to officially be one, nor am I going to actually learn what it means. The spirit does fine for me.

There was an editorial in The Toronto Star recently. I think it was abour how EI differs between provinces. The Star pointed out that these decisions are made as if there are still tons of jobs in Ontario. There aren't.

There aren't

TF

A Decade Since

These days when I am at work doing tech support, if I want to feel/act very old I’ll throw in the phrase “hey, I go back to the punch card era!”. I guess I am only a few cranky rants away from wearing my pants under my armpits.

I have been using the internet since 1991 before there even was a WWW. Newsgroups were where scientists exchanged information about particle physics. Ok, in my case it was the latest episode of Star Trek! But I won’t even go back that far, let alone to punch cards (and Van Halen and The original cast of SNL, work boots worn to school….).

Let’s go back to say 1998: An even decade. By then almost everyone I knew was using computers and the internet either at home or at work. E-mail had become an acceptable way to communicate with others. But everyone was still on dial-up so downloading music or full-length videos was in its infancy. Yahoo was the number one search engine. If you wanted to hear a radio program you had to, well, listen to the radio or record it on to a cassette. You could buy CDs but few could make them themselves. DVD players were around if you were rich and no way anyone was ever going to make them themselves (what do DVD-Rs go for now – 40 cents?).

Most people were still learning from things called “books”. Now it so happens in that year all my books were about computers as I was a tech student at tech college.

Yes, it was a very primitive world. You were lucky to get 75 channels on your tv! If you even had a cell phone you could not get an e-mail there. AND you had to make phone calls from a phone and not your computer. That’s right you had to use your radio for radio, your phone for phone calls and your computer for emails. What the fuck?

Camera’s used something called “film” and unless you had a neato Polaroid, you had to pay someone to develop this film. Only then would you find out that 11 of your 12 pictures completely sucked! (There was no “delete” button).

When you rode the bus, or drove your car, you had to play a CD that you actually had to buy, or deal with the performance loss of a cassette player if you wanted to cheap out and record other people’s CDs. Anyone with a laptop on the bus was actually WORKING and not watching Season 4 of “Corner Gas”.

And while there was spam, it did not comprise 95% of all e-mail.

Today I got an e-mail from Stanley Kowalski. That’s right – Spam is now so bad even fictional characters are sending it!

STELLA!!!!!.....HEY STELLA!!!!!!.....

TWF

Naval Holiday

Wanting to write just comes and goes for me. I haven't posted much for about I guess 18 months.

It's not that things stopped pissing me off - being French-Irish I wake up pissed off, just that nothing new has really pissed me off, or in a new way that I wanted to write about.

The criticisms I have of Harper were there before he was even elected and he is still him. At this point it's like making Lincoln top hat jokes. (K what WAS up with those hats? I think that's when we started to poke holes in the ozone layer). Ditto Bush and they have fallen.

The major change is having a job where I am not only allowed to think, but expected to do so. So in most of my previous jobs I had to put my brain on stand-by at work, and to paraphrase the brat pack, "do my thinkin' in the evenin' time". Now, I have to power on and go through the boot process to go "live" at 2:30PM when my shift begins.

And since I talk on the phone to anyone in the world who can speak English, life is laaaak a baaaaauxxx of choclaaaaaaatttts. I have no idea what is coming up next.

For instance:

A caller was in London but he was an Italian fellow who bought his stereo equipment in Milan. European electricity and stuff works differently from North America.

a French guy from Paris was living in Hong Kong.

A very sweet 85 year old woman was in England. And she said that when it comes to technology her knowledge was like "that of the apes". I burst out laughing.

Oh, oh and the American customers. Apparently my vowels, especially my "o"s give me away.

"Where are you", one guy said.

I replied:"Just outside of Toronto".

"Canada? Jeez, what are you French or something?"

Well... actually...hee hee....

I did inherit the wine and cheese gene for sure!

Viva La Canada Libre!

TF

WKRP In Cincinnatti

This show is now coming out on DVD.

In 1978 WKRP in Cincinnati debuted. – it was a big hit with my high school crowd even though it was not a huge general success out of the gate. Andy Travis is hired as a program director to run a radio station that is 16^th in an 18 station market. In fact the station is owned by “Mother Carlson” and is essentially a play toy for her son Arthur. Andy decides to take the job seriously and he changes the format from snooze fest to contemporary rock. It also helped that as a kid I was a huge Reds fan - I never took to The Expos even though I was born not far from Montreal.

Of course most television shows, and especially comedies, are character-driven. Can you imagine Seinfeld without Kramer? Andy was the hunky cowboy who rides into town. Jennifer was the sexpot who had no particular function you could ascertain yet she drew a large salary, had rich men dripping off of her, but had wisdom of her own and was no dummy. Bailey Quarters was the quiet “girl next door” that just needed a bit of self-confidence. Herb Tarlek encapsulated the polyester “shoes match the belt’ excesses of the 1970s. Johnny Fever was the ex-hippie DJ who suffered from acid flashbacks. Venus Flytrap was the hip funkmeister DJ, a Barry White style ladies man.

The characters were well-set right away in the pilot even though it took us some time to get to know them. Andy and Jennifer always liked to let Carlson think he was running the place and they would protect him from his tyrannical mother.

Topics that are now routine were once new – in the 70s you could have a character that people mistakenly thought was gay, but not a gay character (think of Jack Tripper). Les Nessman, the bow-tied news announcer, is the victim of a misspoken comment when someone calls him a “queer little fellow”. A "Les is gay" rumour goes around and Les goes out on a ledge ready to jump off of the ledge at the station. Andy talks him back into the building.The misheard word or mistaken premise is a time honoured comedic trick that goes back to Roman farce, and of course flourished in Shakespeare.

The funniest episode maybe ever was when Carlson decided, as a Thanksgiving promotion, to throw 20 live turkeys out of a helicopter. The only problem is, they crashed to earth and died a splatty death. “With God as my witness”, Carlson says “I thought turkeys could fly”.

Who could ever forget the bait shop that was the station's main advertiser and their jingo that went: “Red wigglers – the Cadillac of worms”.

It was certainly one of the best comedies of the late 70s early 80s, and that means it stands up against the likes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Barney Miller.

If not the Cadillac of comedies, it was at least the Lincoln.

TF

How Language Changes

There is a book out:

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

I have never read her but I have seen her in documentaries and she is wonderful. She was talking about the book with Jon Stewart. Lincoln said "It is better to have your enemies in your tent pissing out than to have them outside pissing in". In another passage, she describes a letter between two civil war generals who were friends, and this is not a gay thing (If you want gay from that era, read Walt Whitman). Anyway, the one writes to the other "I cannot wait until we meet again by the lake, hold hands and engage in gentle intercourse".

In 2007 if I get an offer of gentle intercourse from another man, my response would begin "While I am certainly flattered....."

The famous line "It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" was written by Tennyson regarding the death of a male friend.

No, he did not hang out with a steelworker, a guy in native headdress, a guy in leather chaps....

Thomas.

Denial

"I don't believe in Beatles "
- John Lennon

I am not talking about people with the wit and poetic talent of John Lennon! Denial is a great hobby these days for many people, and 3 major things come to mind:

The Holocaust

Nobody denies Pearl Harbour or the Yalta Conference, but from the very same conflict people deny something that was so immense that it would seem to me to be about as undeniable as the 2004 Tsunami. Hitler had the big lie and his modern followers, or bastard children, have the big denial. This has included the leader of Iran. Maybe some people in New York City should deny that Mohammed ever existed - oh, the Iranians would get quite the chuckle out of that - why don't we depict it in a cartoon!

Evolution

Another world leader who knows bupkes about world history is George W Bush. Acoording to him when it comes to Evolution, he says "The jury is still out". As comedian Lewis Black said "WHAT jury?. The jury from the scopes trail in the 1920s?". Religions such as Christianity are wonderful, amazing, complicated often very dangerous belief systems that people have spent life times studying. In complexity they kick the shit out of evolution. Here's evolution - sitting down folks? - "Things change over time". Boy, that ain't Thomas Aquinas or St. Paul! And why isn't George W Bush a Catholic? Because religions...um....evolve...over time.

Global Warming

Another world leader who knows jack-shit about world history is our own - Steven "W" Harper. He said since we can't predict the weather next week how can we possibly know anything about climate change? As Jon Stewart I think said "just because Venus is our sister planet does not mean we want IT'S CLIMATE".

At least the heartless bastards who took away Pluto's Planet standard do not deny it exists!!

How long will it be before people deny John Lennon was shot to death??

Thomas.

Internet Software Tips

To err is human, but to really fuck-up you need a computer.
- Ancient Proverb

Norton Personal Firewall.

If you only have one computer on your network, you need not read this. If you have a home network, this might help. If you have Norton Personal Firewall installed on a computer it will no longer have the ability to communicate with any other computers on your home network. I can see no way to configure this. Uninstall it, but make sure you have anti-virus, anti-spyware and some software or hardware firewall, even windows firewall that comes with XP. Norton Personal Firewall may have come pre-installed with your computer so don’t shake your head trying to figure out how you installed it.

Firefox:

Firefox is, for utilitarian purposes, the best and safest browser. It had a severe memory leak but I installed an automated upgrade today (I am now at version 2.0.0.1) and it seems to be much better. There are many websites that require Internet Explorer (from now on to be called IE ) for security reasons or simply because of bad HTML, but most systems should allow you to install both browsers and you can experiment with each.

IE 7- Upgrade?

Be very wary of upgrading even though Microsoft is pushing this. The security updates are a huge plus in this version. But, like Firefox, many websites need Internet Explorer 6 or 5.5 and cannot function in 7. I don’t run any machine older than a P3 Celeron 1GB, and I do not run any OS older than XP so I don’t know the cojones that are required to run it. Many people require the use of a browser at work to access websites (such as government ones) and at home for important things like banking – you might be unable to use these websites (as I found out myself this week) with a browser other than IE 5.5 or 6. This is what is known as “industry standard”…or a monopoly.

Windows Media Player 11: Upgrade ?

It did not work out for me. I cannot get my iRiver MP3 player to talk to my thinkpad nor my workstation now - yes I did attempt to upgrade the firmware, it did not work, so now I have to use my video-streaming server to load and manage my MP3 player! That's like asking Shakespeare to write you a shopping list.

I think the rule of thumb is that maybe you should only upgrade things if it looks like you have to. "if'n it ain't broke, don't fix it!".

TWF

War of Terror - 5 Years In

9/11 changed a lot of things and I don’t think much was for the better. It is one thing to defeat an armed force on a battlefield but “terrorists” are not sitting over the next ridge. The United States had an opportunity to learn some lessons from a very horrific attack. They could have concluded that the can’t just go in to any country they wish, even with the consent of that nation’s government, and not expect some people to be upset with that. Bill Maher lost his TV show by pointing out, and I agree with him, that Americans were used to bombing people all over the globe expecting that they could never be hit, and now then were hit themselves – and right in downtown USA.

Did Bush conclude that American foreign policy needed to take a step back? No, he concluded it needed to get even heavier. Did he conclude that the obnoxious flag waving and self-love that no other nation really does needed to be toned down? No, he concluded that it needed to get worse. Did he conclude that it was OK for some people to have values other than the ones Americans have? No, he concluded that everyone needed to have American values shoved right down their throat.  

The decision to invade Afghanistan was a weak one and invading Iraq as it was a “threat” to the US was simply a lie. I do admit I too thought there would be some weapons of mass destruction as Sadam bragged about them so I don’t see the venture as a failure because they were not there.

Was Iraq full of terrorists before 2003? Nope. But it is now. In fact Osama bin Laden released a tape just before the 2004 US election. Why? Because Bush is good for business, that’s why!

War and rhetoric are old companions, back to at least antiquity. But the American media started to brand people as cowards and traitors if they dared to speak out against the Iraq war before it began and during its first few months.

Stephen Colbert put it the best in regard to how “detainees” have been handled “If you love freedom….set it free”.

Bush and his cronies are always telling us that the terrorists “hate freedom” – ignoring for a moment that that makes no sense at all, Bush has done a pretty good job of pissing on freedom himself.

CSI

I had been told by CSI fans that I would like it so I took the plunge and have watched the first 4 seasons. Yes, I do like it - it helps having the most beautiful woman on television in the cast, and she is even over 40 - purty rare for a US network these days !! They put in some gruesome (as opposed to "Grissom") stuff like skin peeled back to reveal a brain, but they get the mix right and it is not simply gore for gore's sake. The case-solving methods remind me of classic "whodunits" like Sherlock Holmes.

Yes, it is not a realistic portrayl of a CSI crew as they shoot people, arrest them and interrogate them. Remember McMillan the Chief of Police who solved every crime as did Quincy, the Medical Examiner. If I want "realism" I will sit on front lawn and take notes.

Grissom is just a wonderful character and a good leader, in the Picard mode, who can admit he's made a mistake, and preaches to his charges never to get emotionally attached to people on a case, which he of course does all the time!! Dawg dishes up The Bard, and in places where it applies which is cool with me.

The editing and music are awesome - smooth presentation!

TWF

It's all about corn!

Starting sometime between WWII and the early 1970s, in North America (the best America of all), corn started to seep its way further and further into our diet, First, it became cheaper to feed animals corn than grain. Then, corn syrup found it's way into more and more items such as breads and pops. Your happy meal - fries, burger and pop? corn + corn + corn. The fries are deep fried in corn oil, the burger bread has corn in it, the cow for the meat was fed corn and the pop has corn syrup.

Our Irish heritage has taught us the danger of relying on one product - in the 1840s in Ireland, the potato famine killed a million people and 5 million more moved away to avoid starvation when the whole potato crop failed.

Also, good idea for terrorists? Small doses of posion in corn fields and watch it concentrate its way into our diet (the DDT way).

Oh yeah and all that corn stuff is making us heavier and less healthy.

TF

"In Season"

It's a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
- E.Y. Harburg, lyricist for
Harold Arlen



When was the last time you heard that phrase to describe, not fish or game, but regular food? Today if you want a food item, and I mean nothing special like the rarest caviar, but say tomatoes or blueberries, and you live in an urban enough environment, you can get it. That is because we no longer, on the whole, eat the plants and animals that are raised near us. Instead there is a huge global distribution system where most food now gets to market via truck, rail or even air and travels hundreds or thousands of KM to get to our tables.

This means yet another factor is adding to global warning - fossil fuels used to transport food to markets all over the place.

We don't say, as our grandmothers did, that blueberries are "in season", we say "put blueberries on the shopping list" and then we go get them.

Yes, you can investigate options for free range chickens and organic plumbs, but be prepared to quadruple your grocery budget if you do that for all of your food.

Many foods are shipped pre-ripe and actually ripen during shipping, or are "ripened" with a chemical agent nearer the end market. Compare the taste of a tomatoe grown in your own garden with one that came from 2,000 KM away!

Maybe we should explore "in season" again, but of course we can still import the odd treat here and there - they don't make Brie in Ontario like they do in France .

My source for this and for the corn article: Several science radio podcasts. Maybe in the old days if you wanted to know about food you would ask your grandmother (in my case my grandfather was a chef, and no NOT the French one).

TF

Website offer

Back a decade ago, after watching a tv documentary and reading about 8 big books, I got interested in writing some things about European history from 1870-1945. I ended up posting a website: http://www.geocities.com/greatwars. I worked on it off and on for about 2 years then in typical "me" fashion I moved on to other things. Even though it was one person's ideas about things, and not associated academically with anything, I did get mentioned as a source for a university, I think in Australia, for The First World War, and the "Battle of The Somme" in particular, one of two great battles that started on July 1st, my birthday (Gettysburg is the other).

I did not make it to 1945, only to about 1919.

A few weeks back I had an offer to "buy" the website, and I think he was as much interested in the Domain name as it had "great war" in the title, then in the actual articles. I thought about it and one idea was that since I hadn't looked at it much in so many years, that it might be nice for someone else to take it over and continue on.

I ran this idea past some friends who of course cautioned me that it would mean it would be totally out of my control. Google me and you get that website. I am associated with it for maybe all eternity! Worst case scenario would be that a person who does not share my views might steer it in a direction that it should never go in, such as, why the Nazis were not so bad a bunch of people, or that The Holocaust never happened.

I declined the offer.

TWF

AIDS

There has been a lot of AIDS talk over the past few weeks with the conference in Toronto. Unfortunately, since we still live in a mostly homophobic society, and AIDS struck the gay community in its infancy, there is still a stigma attached to this disease. Our wonderful P.M. , Harper, leader of the Reform Party, choose to skip the conference because he can’t handle homosexuality, even though AIDS kills people from all walks of life. He is likely to cut funding to the needle park in Vancouver and AIDS in general, not, in this case, due to any ideological reason beyond his party’s belief that government should only give money to people who already have gobs of it, or rather, tax them less, and to take away money given to people who really need it and not give them any more.

What a nice fellow!

TWF

Popular Music Thoughts

How much of popular music would be different if the "glad" did not rhyme with "sad"?

"We shall overcome". Would that, you know, hurt?

What, exactly, are the "pompitudes of love"? Are there pompitudes of hate? Indifference?

If a band is mostly male, but has one female, why is it likely she plays the bass?

If bass is as important as any other instrument, why do bass players, when they go solo, start playing guitar? (Paul McCartney, Mike Rutherford, Sting).

Back in the 80s when they started colourizing old black and white movies, in one film they gave Frank Sinatra brown eyes.

Is there anything worse than listening to a great live song recorded in the 70s than all of a sudden there is that 5-12 minute drum solo? That was just so everyone but the drummer could go to go get high, right? I Guess the drummer got high during the acoustic set?

Ian Gillian, on the album "Made in Japan" says, on a sound check, "I want everything louder than everything else". This is not an observation, but it is funny. The man played Jesus after all!

Once in 1983 while driving my parents' Dodge Omni, with some friends, one station played Genesis' "Supper's Ready". On the same night another station played the live version of that song. If you do not know, that song is 22 minutes long so the chances of that happening, even back then, are less than being shot by a terrorist, winning the lottery and being struck by lightning on the same day. Heck, there will be a black or female president of the United States before it happens again!!!

TF

Food for Thought

I read an article by Milvi Tiislar in The Toronto Star which was published on July 3rd 2006 and it really made a dent in my head.

We all know obesity and awful dietary choices are a problem in modern North America (I don't think we are any better than The Americans on this). The price of good food - fruits and vegetables - is much higher than sugary, starchy, fatty pre-packaged food. For most of us this just means you notice that when you look at the grocery bill. We have the choice to eat well if we spend a little more.

For very poor people, those on welfare for example, money is so tight that every penny has to be accounted for so you need to buy the cheapest food you can to can fill stomachs. This means that fresh fruit is just too damned expensive to even be considered.

In another article in The Star, way back in 1995, Thomas Walkom, who had the Queens Park beat then, hit the Mike Harris nail on the head: The problem was that poor people had too much money and rich people did not have enough money - this was not only wrong it was in fact "common sense" that we reverse that trend.

Well this is what we got folks - obesity and borderline malnutrition in poor people because they have no choice and obesity and poor nutrition in the rich who have all of the choices.

The rich can afford liposuction.

What helps you when your child has "rickets" ??

TF

Religion, in and of itself, is not a bad thing

Sir, I am a Catholic - I can feel guilty about anything
- Ben Stone


You may conclude, by reading some of these entries, that I think religion is stupid or evil or causes cancer in lab rats. I need to explain where I am coming from because I don't think any of those things.

When I take issue with people who hide behind religion, it is not the religion that I think is the problem - it is stupidity USING religion to make stupid things sound like they make sense. You can be a Muslim without flying planes into buildings, You can be a Jew and not be killing Arabs and you can be a Christian without beating Homosexuals to death.

I have a problem with stupid people in all walks of life.

Most Jews, Christians and Muslims are not out to hurt anybody: same as most Athiests.

I was born and raised a Catholic and attended Catholic school until grade 8. As a post Vatican II Catholic, I was taught not by sadistic nuns, but by Hippies who told us to be excellent to each other. Catholicism has many aspects to it and one of the aspects is that you question everything, including your religion and faith. Today you should want to be a Catholic knowing what it is you are getitng into.

Without Catholicism I would not be the person I am today. The education I received was far superior, in the 1970s, to that which was available in the public school system. Yes as "doubting Thomas" I was given an apt name!!

Anyway here are some straw man questions that I will attempt to answer:

1. Relgion and Science are incompatible, and you have to choose one or the other.

No way - people down South try and make people think this, but there are some people, even scientists, who not only say they keep their faith even though they teach evolution, they in fact see in evolution convincing evidence of God's existence. I just don't think creationism is a worthy theory to be taught in science class (Actually, this is also the Vatican's position on this). A Jesuit priest, Georges LeMaitre, created the Big Bang Theory. Copernicus - who changed our views that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa as we thought before that, had his work commissioned BY the chruch.

2. You can't be gay and be religous.

Nonsense. The Bible tells you how to sell your daughter into slavery. If we can set aside that as a canon belief so too can we stop saying gays are evil people. A commentator on TV once put it this way: There are a few scattered lines about homosexuality in the bible - the fight against poverty is mentioned over 4,000 times - which is the piority?????

3. You can't be religous and accept homosexuality.

Nope - next question. You can totally suck and still claim to be religous.


I think you see my point.

If I wanted to go back to being a Catholic, I could pretty much be the same skeptical person as I am - I'd never make Pope, but I would not have to change more than 3 or 4 of my opionions.

Some of history's best science, art and music were created by very religous people. I not only recognize this, but see religion as woven into the fabric of history. Maybe one day American bible-thumpers will see that homosexuals too have created some of history's best art, music and science and that it too is woven into the fabric of human existence.

TF