I Agree with the Catholic Church

Here is some wisdom for you.

Its a quote by the pope on a visit to Africa.

The Catholic Church teaches that fidelity within heterosexual marriage and abstinence are the best ways to stop Aids.

I agree, your… Hatness, or whatever. I’m not sure. But I definitely agree that fidelity within heterosexual marriage (assuming your partner wasn’t infected before you got married) and abstinence are the best ways to stop aids

I agree with another fact.

If your wall is dirty the best way to stop it being dirty is to paint it.

How about that? All clear so far? Cool.

Now.

Lets take it a step further.

Say your wall has pipes running through it, or underneath it, and one of them springs a leak. Of course you realise as soon as the marks appear again that you can paint the wall all you like but the watermarks that caused it to be dirty are going to return before the new paint has dried. So you realise, as would most people of approaching normal cop on that you need to get to the root of the problem, fix the causes and maybe chase out the pipes to repair them (which will be a pain in the hole but its the only solution), then fix up your wall, paint it and Roberts your mothers brother.

In short, you realise that your solution isn’t working and even though you don’t like what you have to do you are smart enough to realise that it needs to me done and you are big enough to do it. Let me break it down even further.

Walls. Dirty.

Aids Epidemic – Real

Paint – Metaphor

People – Suffering

Children – Dying/orphaned/abused

Abstinence – NOT FUCKING WORKING.

Preaching a doctrine you know hasn’t helped, and using your political clout to enforce it to the detriment of the people who will follow you blindly because they believe in you and trust in you is simply nothing short of abuse of that trust and belief and, frankly, criminal. Its 2009. Not 1422. Lets wake up and get with the program Benny. Your policy has been failing for 20 odd years and only serves to worsen the problem. The Aids epidemic in Africa is the result of complex social, political and environmental problems you probably don’t understand and as such the best thing you could do is look to the rest of the world where awareness and responsible sexual behavior with condom use at its core has pretty much stopped the Aids crisis in its tracks. People are still being infected all over the world, but the problem isn’t compounded by poverty, war and plain old keeping people ignorant as it has been in Africa by priests who have no problem in letting you starve should you not happen to be Catholic.

The Catholic Church teaches that fidelity within heterosexual marriage and abstinence are the best ways to stop Aids.

In Reality,

The Catholic Church teaches that they have no problem with a good idea so long as you don’t point out to them that in order to implement the idea in any meaningful way you might have to drag them kicking and screaming out of the dark ages and possibly force them to take a self inclusive critical look at the world around them and how their lies are killing people. Who will be left to pray for you when they are all gone? But why should Benny care.

They didnt vote for him, did they?

Food is the new Treason

I’m not sure what to think about the mindset that would allow someone to point a loaded gun at another human being and pull the trigger. And I have thought about it. I’m sure we all have. When we were kids we played with toy guns, or upside down hurleys, or sticks. I regaled Mrs Orgasm this very weekend about my adventures with peg guns as a nipper. Eye gougers so they were. Made from elastics, nails, springs and a piece of door frame salvaged from the pyre on bonfire night. But a peg spring in the arse doesn’t really compare with knowingly and willingly looking someone in the face and then consciously deciding to end their life. Its on a different level to the one people like you (probably) and me (definitely) operate on. But I’m sure some people see it differently.

Some people have their motivations and the justifications are there, regardless of how ramshackle they may appear to the rest of us. Disillusionment seems to be a hallmark of male youth. Sometimes it can be beneficial to people who use it as an impetus to learn more about the world that surrounds them and to become active in society, because surely the education and engagement can only lead to a consolidated world view. For my own part, I have been strongly opinionated regarding certain matters. Some savoury. Some not so. However I have learned in my modest years that the only way to a lasting understanding is through compromise and understanding towards mutual benefit. Eventually the problems go away, but only if we let them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve led a comfortable life. Surrounded for the most part by good people with my best interests in mind, and a million miles from the sort of troubled society that can thrust ordinary people into extra-ordinary circumstances in a flash and a bang. One which all to often calls upon the disillusionment aforementioned and moulds it into a lasting anger bordering on the dogmatic. From where I sit its easy to stroke my chin and be philosophical about such goings on.

However, some people dont have the luxury of detachment, those who sit by the bedsides of their loved ones who’s only crime this weekend was to deliver a pizza to the wrong address. Collaborators. No better than the occupiers they were complicit in feeding. No better than the minimum wage they earned. One young man from Northern Ireland. One young man from Poland. With names. With mothers. With fathers.

Of course, the perpetrators of this will pass no apology for targeting occupiers and facilitators of that occupation with no realisation of the fact that tomorrow they will be bemoaning the slow service from their local pizza delivery outfit. Some of the drivers didnt turn in today. The cheek.

There were two more young men. Two young men who were having their last meal before leaving these shores forever. Two young men who, once seen to be defenceless were cut down with no regard for who they were or what their crimes may have been other than choosing the wrong career path. I very much doubt either had ever pulled a trigger in anger. Regardless, once seen to be vulnerable they were then made incapable through a volley from a safe distance. Then, when they were seen to be made safe they came to stand over them. With misguided and terrible disillusionment in their hearts they decided that these two young men would be no more. 

And such they now are.

Two sons no more.

Two friends no more.

Two young men, no more.

Let Them Eat Cake

The BBC and Sky Television have refused to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for aid for the people affected by the recent war on Gaza. The children who are left to drink from open sewers. The doctors with no medicine. The men and women who’s homes are now piles of rubble and faces have been burned by the white phosphorus shells. The BBC have cited impartiality issues and Sky had the following to say;

“Our commitment as journalists is to cover all sides of that story with uncompromising objectivity. That is why, after very careful consideration, we have concluded that broadcasting an appeal for Gaza at this time is incompatible with our role in providing balanced and objective reporting of this continuing situation to our audiences.”

So there it is. Feeding the starving and healing the injured are incompatible with balanced reportage.

I’m just off the phone with Sky.

I’ve cancelled my subscription. I’d like to cancel my sub to the beeb but seeming as it comes with the Sky package I wont be watching that either.

Its not much, but there you have it. I wont be complicit in any way.

Looks like it’ll be the pub for the Heineken Cup matches from here on in…

Self Defence? You decide.

Now that the dust is settling in Gaza some very harsh reports are coming out regarding the behaviour of the IDF in Gaza over the last few weeks. I would highly recommend anyone who is interested to keep their eyes on the news over the next few weeks. I am very much looking forward to seeing what action, if any, is to be taken against Israel after its wholesale slaughter of a defenceless people. Reports surfaced regarding the IDF preventing Red Cross workers attending to dying civilians. Hear what an Israeli spokesperson has to say on the matter.

Here it is from the horses mouth.

And here is a video showing in no uncertain terms how Israel treats the children of the subjugated.

Israel needs to be called to account for its actions in Gaza. Not just for the recent offensive, but for decades of brutal internment of an entire people.

Their actions have been proven to be utterly deliberate, if by nothing more than the fact that they stopped immediately when their chief enabler lost his office. I’m hoping Mr Obama takes a more firm line with his Clients, and that the International community can use this atrocity in order to take a firmer line on whats acceptable.

Israel and the New Solution

I’ve been watching the situation in Gaza unfold over the last two weeks. When it fisrt kicked off I was going to write something about it, but I didnt as I felt I was underinformed and could not offer anything people had not seen already in news papers, on the news or through the countless people already writing about it. And its nearly two weeks in now and to be honest I still feel woefully unqualified to speak of such injustice. I have read my fair amount on the Middle East. I have spent my fair share of time thinking about fairness, justice, morality and ethics. I have spent a lot of time since I became a parent coming to terms with the realities that come home when you want to give your small person better than what you had. When all your life revolves around making sure they are safe, warm, happy and above all protected from the ills of the world for which they can only hold cures. And its this that finally drove home to me the utter madness of whats happening in Gaza today.

I’m not going to post pictures because they upset me. I’m not going to post a video because all that I have seen infuriate me. I’m just going to offer my view on what I see as the utter abandonment of all thats decent in Humanity by a people who should really know better.

An entire people have now been whittled down to 1.2 million, by hook or by crook, and forced to live in a territory which they do not own but which they cannot leave. They are stateless, homeless and completely at the mercy of the Israeli soldiers, settlers and militias who have commandeered their lands in Golan, Sinai, The West Bank and everywhere else that used to be known as Palestine which has now been planted with settlements which they have no right to become a part of.

They are crippled, starved and humiliated. They fire modified fireworks into Israel. Israel retaliates with F16s and tanks. Isreal have corralled a desperate group of ordinary people into a Ghetto. Now it seems they feel like clearing it, and the world stands by and does nothing. Yesterday they bombed a school flying the UN flag as a center for families fleeing the figthing. And the world watches. And I cant help but wonder, what will it take for the international community to say enough is enough? Stop the killing, stop the humiliation and get back to the negotiating table. Since its declaration of independance in 1948 Israel has never known peace with its neighbours. The whole sad story has been drawn out by unconditional support for Israel and no one really caring about the displaced who were forced to make way for them. No one caring about the children who are forced to dodge bullets and cower from bombs and poison gas. No one caring about the parents who have to watch their children scream and bleed while the run the gauntlet to a hospital, hoping they are not targeted by an F16 on the way. Hospitals are denied medicine. The injured are denied aid. Who will care for these people? Who will comfort the grieving parents? The orphaned children? Who will help them?

Who?

Shame on Israel. Shame on her supporters. Shame on her people who do nothing. Shame on you all.

God loves a Tryer

When I saw this on the news this morning, oh how I laughed. Fitting that a lame duck president, surely to be remembered as one of the greatest fuck ups in world history, has shoes thrown at him in Iraq. Now, for a guy in his sixties he was well able to bounce out of the way. Loath as I am to give him any credit. Then I saw this. Same scenario, different angle.

What struck me was the smirking from Bush towards the end. The first time I saw this clip it was subtitled, the aggressor shouting ‘this is for the widows, this is for what you have done’ with this in mind, to see the smirk reminded me that there was nothing funny about this whatsoever. George W Bush is a disgusting excuse for a human being, a war profiteer who has demolished two soverign nations in his time as US president. Here is a man that is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children who were guilty of nothing except being in thier homes when the bombs started to fall. Parentless children, fathers and mothers robbed of their children and those lucky enough to have avoided bombs are dying because of a lack of clean water and antibiotics if they can avoid the mayhem brought about by the deconstruction of any form of common law and order brought about by the power vacum caused by the murder of Saddam. Call it what you will. Murder is Murder is Murder.

Akeel Faisal Ghazi. June 2008

And he smirks.

Maybe some morning he’ll wake up and realise the nature of his reign. But I doubt it. He’ll admire how much his children had the chance to achieve without casting a thought to the lives he took in persuit of something I dont think he is to clear about himself. The great Dr King called on us to let freedom reign. I very much doubt that this was what he had in mind.

Smirk on, Mr Bush. Maybe the next guy to have a pop at you will get it right. Maybe there wont be a next guy. One way or the other, maybe you will look back from some point and feel a pang of guilt for the pain you felt it unavoidable to inflict. But again, I doubt it.