Can I get an inflatable Ted Haggard Sex Doll anywhere?

Ted HaggardA lot of us have literally fallen in love with Ted Haggard, and now that he is immersed in sin he seems even sexier! So that brings me to the question of where can one go to get an inflatable Ted Haggard Sex Doll? Don’t worry, I won’t molest it if I find one, I strictly want him around for a platonic relationship based on Christ.

Now you might think that my desire to have this doll, Ted, is quite sick, but there may be places that will begin to help men like me out? For example, if we enter into Book 22, we might find that obsessive sexual attraction to Ted might still not make oneself incapable of being accepted inside the big tent of Love. The doors are being widened by the Obama Era and that’s a good thing for those being torn apart by their own sinful lusts!

At Book 22, where ‘intimacy products for married couples’ are being sold, I saw no inflatable dolls at all for sell. But inflatable sex dolls are the type of ‘intimacy product’ that do bring levity and joy to married couples daily! It will only be a matter of short time before the arousability factor of these dolls becomes better know to Christians! So why not have one with the likeness of sinful bad boy, Ted Haggard?

Sure, stick with an inflatable Pope doll or Franklin Graham one if you desire, but for me, it’s Ted all the way! I just can’t help it…. since I’m kind of a Christian Nympho and still love God, and some of God’s products still love me. Can I get an inflatable Ted Haggard Sex Doll anywhere?

Ted Haggard is less shifty than New Life Church

COLORADO SPRINGS- Ted Haggard’s inconvenient sex life surfaces again! And this time the scandal is all New Life’s. Ted Haggard’s PR talk show onslaught to remake his image has prompted an altar boy to go public. But it seems this violates an agreement the young man made with New Life in the aftermath of the Haggard prostitute meth-habit scandal.

According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, New Life Church leader Brady “Boyd said the church reached a legal settlement to pay the man for counseling and college tuition, with one condition being that none of the parties involved discuss the matter publicly.”

First let’s clarify what New Life has failed to make clear. The young man was in his “early twenties” when he approached the church about the relations between he and Haggard. According to Boyd, the “inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship” had gone on for “a long period of time.” The church denies that the young man might have been a minor when it began.

Second, according to a letter sent to its congregation members as a result of the new revelations, New Life Church admits now that it has “received reports of a number of incidents of inappropriate behavior.”

In light of Ted Haggard trying to repaint himself as a victim in an HBO documetary, and on Oprah Winfrey, and an upcoming Larry King Live, the New Life ex-volunteer now wants to go public with his story.

While the church told the public, and its congregation, that Haggard’s impropriety did not extend beyond the Denver prostitute, it looks like New Life Church deliberately kept this story under wraps, despite an “overwhelming pool of evidence” to indicate otherwise. In the face of the hush-up coming to light, their official response is even more duplicitous.

“It wasn’t at all a settlement to make him be quiet or not tell his story,” Boyd said. “Our desire was to help him. Here was a young man who wanted to get on with his life. We considered it more compassionate assistance – certainly not hush money. I know that’s what everyone will want to say because that’s the most salacious thing to say, but that’s not at all what it was.”

An agreement to keep quiet appears to have been what New Life Church thought “it was.” Asked whether the church will pursue legal procedures against the young man, Boyd replied:

“We have legal standing to do that, but not the desire to.”

The future of socialism and LGBT rights in Cuba

Ted and Gayle HaggardThe future of socialism and LGBT rights in Cuba, an interview with Mariela Castro. I thought this interview might be of some interest to Colorado’s LGBT community, as it shows not quite the monster leadership of Cuba as is usually portrayed by the Right Wing here in NORADlandia when they talk about Human Rights. Ted Haggard might even ought to ask for political asylum in Cuba? Take your whole family, Ted, and at least have a vacation there! Break the law! Psst… I hear you’re changing your views as a Christian… right?

Smile, your mom chose life!

masturbation is murderOn Fillmore Street there is one of those giant, obnoxious billboards with a giant smiling baby on it, and the words, ‘Smile, your mom chose life’. Probably put up there with the help of one pedophile plagued church, too. You know the name of that church, I think?

All over the world this church that aided the Nazis and aided in the genocides against indigenous people in the Americas and aided in the pogroms against Jewish people even before the Nazis, is on one giant campaign to make people think that they respect life because they want to impose their will on young women. Smile, but did your mom always not have an abortion when she got pregnant? One rather thinks that it is not quite that simple at all, in fact.

You see, these crazy church people are often liars and hypocrites. They do one thing for themselves and urge something else entirely on others. Does Ted Haggard come to mind? Maybe many of those religious moms did have an abortion even if they did later on life give birth to you and your brothers and sisters? Maybe they had several abortions before they started to raise kids? Maybe they had an abortion or two after you were born? It’s not quite as simple as that billboard portrays it as being, now is it?

These crazy religious nuts don’t even choose much life at all, but choose death most often instead. Imagine advocating that women give birth wholesale in countries like Nicaragua, where this obnoxious church, the Catholic, has gotten the government to ban all abortions for all reasons. The Nicaraguan people do not even make $1,000 per year per capita to raise their families on. Does this church do anything to ‘choose life’ when these children are born? I rather think that they do not. How about you?

You know what this church does with its money? It invests it in real estate. It invests it in sanctimonious propaganda billboards that tell others what they should do. But they don’t help raise those poor families in countries like Nicaragua where they force women to give birth to often unwanted and uncared for children. They spend it on lawyers to get out of paying money to people molested by their priests when these people were still children. This is the Catholic Church for you. This is the American Catholic Church.

‘Smile, your mom chose life’ my ass. The Catholic Church has a totally checkered attitude towards choosing life, and that’s their little secret they don’t want you thinking much about. Life with the Catholic Church! What a trip! And NO, life does not begin at conception. And NO, there was no ‘immaculate conception’ either.

So keep your nutty religion away from the rest of us, OK? And reform yourself before you go getting ‘papal’ on those you disagree with you on this issue. (No Catholics were actually harmed by this commentary, I might mention) And Catholics, stop trying to force women to do dangerous things to keep from getting themseves financially sunk into a hole! They have kids to raise, you know? You’re not going to raise these kids for them. Now are you?

It is logical to assume that Barack Obama is God’s answer to our prayers

automatic-prayer-times
 
 
Joel Hunter and Barack Obama, Son of God, were in prayer together just hours before Barack Obama was declared the Grand Victor for running The Empire image repaired! Who is Joel Hunter, and Why Is Obama Praying With Him? All those ‘liberals’ were praying (and not at mosques either) and asking for Jesus and God in Heaven to intervene and throw out Satan and his flock of fallen angels and demons from The White House!

Now it is true, that Joel Hunter and the others that did this conference praying by telephone (I had never even heard of telephone prayer sessions before!) with Barack Obama are probably better ‘theologians’ than say Ted Haggard or Jerry Falwell, but what can one really say about preachers that are so politically adept as to be able to shift with the political winds like this? And how many rings does it take before God picks up the telephone in heaven? But they finally did get through to him, it appears, and their prayers were answered by God. Sweet Jesus!

I’m just jealous you know, and ‘ranting’. I don’t think that Barack Obama will be tele conferencing with atheists like me, with Time-Life writing about it afterwards? We atheists cannot contemplate the intricate complexity of the universe with Barack, and that makes me just furious! He is a Christian Crusader and I am not. PLUS, I cannot speak in tongues with him as many of the tele pastors most certainly can, and did! I am unable to get God to win elections for me, like Joel Hunter implies that God might have done for Barack and him.

Evidently God got fed up with the Bush family and friends (my friends), and he listened to Barack’s prayer to him to intervene! And now because of that, it’s a new America that will be seen now that Satan will soon be removed from DC (God will wait 11 weeks still, respecting election law).

BTW, if you need to have a prayer session by telephone, you can go to Jesus Calls Ministries. Good luck in getting God on the line! May your prayers be answered! May you achieve Heaven on Earth!

heaven-telephone

Cuba is a gayer place today than it was yesterday

Such a repressive place, Cuba! Hateful and nasty communists run the island. They are hateful and nasty that is, unless you happen to be Gay! That’s right, Cuba is a gayer place today than it was yesterday.

And I’m hoping that John Weiss, publisher of The Colorado Springs Independent, will run a piece about how Gay Havana can be! What about it, John? The Castros are gayer than the Teletubbies are even! Gayer than the teachers of Harry Potter! Gayer than Ted Haggard! Yes ! Castro champions gay rights in Cuba Got to love it!

Republican Bad Boys, what you going to do when they come for you?

No truth to the rumor that Ted Haggard does a version of the theme song from the TV sitcom called ‘COPS’.

Republican Bad Boys, what you going to do when they come for you? Bad Boys, Bad Boys…

Read Bad Boys, Nasty Boys: Out of the GOP’s Closet
by Michael Parenti
for some interesting dirt on the Republican bad boys.

‘Democracy’ marketing

Ask the average American if advertising influences kids decisions and they will say that YES IT DOES. Ask them if advertising influences their own decisions and the overwhelming majority will deny that advertising effects their decisions in the least. Nobody wants to think of themselves as childlike, so they give out this childlike response!

So it is election time. What do we see all the American children doing? We see them responding to ‘democracy’ marketing just like little children in front of an advertising for a ‘Happy Meal’. Barrack Obama is the young person’s candidate, the CHANGE guy, the ‘we can all get along together’ man. Hillary is the ‘women first’ candidate, the ‘stick by her man’ woman. All the Democrats are into ‘democracy’ marketing because liberals, like conservative American, are little tiny tots. Slick Willy was the ‘First Black President’ even! Al Bore is Mr. Environment (forget about all those toxic computer items he pushed for the longest time) and Jimmy is the Man of Prayer Peace Center Guy! Madelyn Albright is Ms. Stop the Genocide woman!

The Republicans are skilled at Mr Tough Guy, Mr, Protector, Mr Family Values stuff. Yes, I know that the family values are more like those family values of Ted Haggard, the Pope, and Pat Robertson, but still…. America has a lot of sick, sick, sick families out there that this marketing approach appeals to.

Ask yourself, does this marketing act add up to DEMOCRACY, capital letters? Or is it just Gunsmoke, brought to you by…? the Devil himself? You so smart that all this propaganda doesn’t influence you any? Add it all up then.

Moneychangers in the temple

It’s official, the New Life Church Killer Matthew Murray died by a self-inflicted wound. Perhaps this will take the heat off volunteer church security guard and disgraced-cop Jeanne Assam who may have fired on Murray from a concealed position and kept firing on him as she advanced according to her police training. What does this latest distinction mean? This is what it suggests to me:
 
Troubled-teen Matthew Murray, according to his own website postings, may be America’s first suicide bomber, using smoke and assault rifle to penetrate and injure a temple of American militant fundamentalism.

This is American sectarian violence, perpetrated by a former adherent rebelling against the oppressive reach of American smiley-face religio-capitalism, church of prosperity Fundamentalism. The same corporate spiritualism that drives our war machine, the rotten heart of Pax Americana, the misplaced sense that American vacant-headed fundamentalist values must police the world, and dominate, or at least prosper from the bulk of its resources. Murray believed this kind of Christianity was at the core of the world’s problems, and church leaders like New Life founder Ted Haggard as much as brag about it.

Matthew Murray was the product of too-far-isolated fundie parents, who terrorized their children with fire and brimstone nightmares. His ostracism justifies public education, where home-schooling entrusted to zealots yields intelligent but incompatible offspring.

Where are you from?

AFAIn college, when asked where I was from, I would proclaim, “I’m from Colorado Springs!” Eyes would light up in recognition. “Isn’t that…?” “Yes,” I would nod. Nestled at the foot of Pikes Peak. The inspiration for America the Beautiful. Home to Garden of the Gods, the Air Force Academy, NORAD, the Olympic Training Center. I could proudly claim them all.

My how times have changed. Still happy to reside in Colorado, I do not readily admit that I live in Colorado Springs. When my secret is uncovered, eyes narrow with suspicion. “Isn’t that…?” “Yes,” I say as my shoulders sag. Focus on the Family, New Life Church, Ted Haggard, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin.

My home town, my slice of purple mountain majesty, has become ground zero for war profiteers and religious zealots.

Although we don’t know many of them by name, they have a profound impact on our community. They shape local politics. They vote down cultural and environmental initiatives, and deny tax support for helping organizations. They control school boards and change school curricula. They chase away our artists and our young idealists. They drive our gay population back into the closet. And they profit from the spilled blood of our children.

They and their ilk put George W. Bush in the White House. They continue to support our country’s assaults on sovereign nations in order to advance their narrow ideologies and line their gaping pockets. The shame I feel when people discover that I am from Colorado Springs is the same shame felt by many Americans traveling abroad. “We are from the United States,” they mumble. Ground zero for war profiteers and religious zealots….

I had to say something

James Harris has a great interview on Alternet with Mike Jones, friend and counselor of Ted Haggard. It is about his book, the one rejected by local lizard small shop keeper Poor Richard, and is titled, ‘I had to say something’. Thank good he did say something, too.

Jones is quite a contrast to many in America, who turn their back on the issues and turn their back on their own liberal communities and constituencies in cowardly, defeatist, and self serving manners. Leadership on issues and causes often can come from stranger quarters, while those who stand as leaders often or not leading.

If you get this book ordered from elsewhere, be sure to go into Poor Richards, and let the employees know that their owner, Richard Skorman is a pathetic nitwit for not carrying the book in his bookstore. With Democratic Party tied ‘liberals’ like Skorman all over America, rest assured that their call to reform that political party is as weightless as the multitude of advocates for that political orientation themselves.

Let me show you Bad Writing

New Life self awarenessPoor Richard writes that his bookstore will neither carry the Ted Haggard expose nor host a book signing by its author Mike Jones, sex worker to reluctant habitue, Ted Haggard. Skorman can do what he wishes, but to say the reason is because the book is badly written is a cop out. Any bookseller in this city has to admit they carry a not inconsiderable mass of atrocious dreck. Bad books sell, and alas Richard’s stand for a higher literary standard is the first to my knowledge.

I think Jones’ choice of an incompetent writer to ghost his Haggard Days memoir is likely spot-on for a Colorado Springs audience. What’s the best selling book here? The home-grown LEFT BEHIND series! I guarantee you a fourth grader has not encountered less inspired writing.

Not that our city is atypical, even today’s NYT bestsellers play to a descending literary IQ. From Dan Brown to whoever is your cheesy favorite I’ve no doubt. This phenomena was clocked most distinctly when Stephen King was given the 2003 National Book Award for his contribution to [the sales of] American Letters. What a banner year it was, 2003.

So why pick on poor male escort Mike Jones? I think it’s pure political cowardice. The New Life Crew and their fallen gay-bashing leader have done irreparable harm to the progress of acceptance of homosexuals. Here’s a chance to teach them something about from where comes their misplaced hatred, and Mike Jones stands without allies to do it. Jones is not an opportunist, he’s a hero doing a dirty job. Maybe the right man for the dirty job, to crack a cheap joke, but if Jones was truly out for himself, he’d have taken a mega-fortune from a conglomeration of fundie gay-hating institutions interested in keeping Haggard in the pulpit. Remember Bill O’Reilly’s non-consensual phone-sex while penetrating himself with a lifelike vibrating phallus? He and Fox paid an undisclosed fraction of a BILLION to make that story go away.

If I knew THE BOOKMAN could handle the heat of accusations that we were only doing it for the attention –we’ve exceeded our limit, thank you KVOR creeps particularly– my bookstore would of course host this reading and book signing. And I commend Jones for tastefully steering past whatever might have been the unwelcome lascivious play by play.

I believe the Ted Haggard comeuppance is of capital importance for Colorado Springs, not to gloat about Haggard’s suffering or about the humiliation of his flock, but to lift the veil from their self-hatred of homosexuals. Haggard is unrepentant about this by the way, and if I might offer a simplified analysis, he hates gays because he hates himself. What reason has he the temerity to suggest that we should hate them?

Let’s welcome Mike Jones to our town. Jones unmasked the Haggard hate monster, let him claim the lair. Jones can satiate our curiosity, feed the spectacle, accept our thanks for showing personal integrity, and move this story along. I most certainly think it took a lot of bravery for Mike Jones to do what he did. He showed the kind of courage we can’t even summon, as we deliberate about whether to extend him our hand.

Perhaps as a community of independent booksellers we can do it. Why ever are we afraid of the religious right? They don’t buy our books. When Christians do buy a book they buy it new from an Inspirational Bookstore, because it feels like a more deliberate investment in their faith, I’ve heard it explained, sort of like paying down on a tithe or Indulgence.

Do I fear the Fundamentalist wrath? If they’re under-educated, under-literate, bigoted ditto-heads, of course I do. I fear them like I would Brown Shirts or union busters. Fundamentalist have a terrible tradition for that kind of immorality. Ask anyone in retail, if a customer declares themselves to be a Christian, you actually have to watch them closely because experience has shown they are more likely to try to steal or cheat. Probably because that’s the sort of conflicted person who is drawn to simplistic religious dogma in the first place.

Of course I fear them. But Ted Haggard’s fall must not go without every spotlight we can summon. He’s still behaving like a bastard and we really should shout him down. Jones has given us Haggard’s Achilles Heinie/ [Meth]Habit, let’s use it! If no one is really going to step up to ask Mike Jones to town, I most certainly will. I’m sorry I came late to this discussion but good grief!

Clarifying a few terms…

Because some have expressed disdain at the mere thought of being considered right wing apologists… aka people who wish to accommodate and justify right wing philosophy, here are a few things to remember: Catchwords and phrases, talking points, something you might see on a bumper sticker; using these will probably get you tagged as a right wing loon. And in at least some cases the tag would fit perfectly.

examples: Love it or leave it (one recently) The Police are always right, If you have done nothing wrong why would you fear the police?, Support Our Troops, These Colors Never Run.

Recycling myths like: left wing liberals were the reason we lost in Nam… FALSE. Right Wing planners like Westmoreland, Johnson, Nixon, Al Hague, and the “Super Patriots” who supported them, were much more of a coherent and consistent reason for the loss of the VietNam War by the United States. The new crop of such losers is causing America to be drawn into yet another defeat.

Also contributing much to the American loss in VietNam was the courage and resourcefulness of the VietMinh, that’s Charley to some…

For those who don’t remember anything about it, these guys used a mix of primitive and modern technologies, small arms, improvised explosives and equipment taken from American, Australian, French and South Vietnamese soldiers, tactics which were also a mix of ancient and modern, to defeat the above named governments, even against a Shock and Awe campaign of greater magnitude than the one currently being played in Iraq.

Also like Iraq, there was never a war declared between the United States and The Democratic Republic (Hanoi).

Much as it pisses off those who see the POWs as uncompromising heroes, (some were) and the Hanoi Hilton as a hellhole, (it was) it should also be remembered that the Hanoi Hilton is about a standard in third world jails. And since the North Vietnamese didn’t do a “show trial” followed by an execution every time they captured an American airman, the treatment they accorded the Americans was one hell of a lot better than that accorded to the VietCong prisoners by the Saigon government.

a lot of Americans will scream loudly that American soldiers didn’t torture captured Charleys. Given the readiness these same people have shown to rationalize torture at Gitmo and worse places, i tend to doubt that. Probably not widespread but not nonexistent either.

But on the other hand, the Saigon government DID torture and summarily execute captured “terrorists” “rebels” “insurgents”.

Leave us remind everybody that the Americans captured in North VietNam and Cambodia and Laos had exactly the same legal status as the captured Charleys had in the South. No more, no less.

It was a combination of supporting an openly repressive government and the determination and resourcefulness of the “enemy” that dashed the American intervention in SE Asia.

The same things that are now dragging down America in South WEST Asia.

Empires are destined to fall, usually very soon after they are declared to be Empires. Such as the one declared by George Bush Senior when he proclaimed a New World Order, which is being dishonorably carried on by his son, King George the Incredibly Stupid.

Another talking point is that VietNam and Iraq were fought for American freedom.

They were not, nor has any war in which America has been engaged since 1814. To say otherwise is to propagate a myth, if you believe that myth, if you know it is false but say it anyway it is ramped up all the way to a Deliberate Lie.

The military did not fight for our freedom, they did not give us our freedom, or our rights, we do NOT OWE them our obedience, or the willing surrender of our rights.

Especially annoying (not to mention stupid) is the repeated attempt to make us believe that Freedom means we are free to do as we are told, to say only what we are allowed to say, and that we have some moral obligation to support the wars started by people who have anointed themselves our “Leaders”.

Some of my fellow Christians are of the strong delusion that God has commanded us to obey George Bush because he is supposedly “OUR” King.
This particular myth was also used by the Tories to denounce the Continental Congress and the rebels in the army during the Revolution.

It was shouted from pulpits across the Colonies by pastors, who, like Ted Haggard and Benny Hinn and Franklin Graham and Dobson… had sold their priesthood and their souls to a tyrant.

Here’s a quick formula to remember Shock and Awe = the use of fear as a weapon = Terrorism.

The proponents of Shock and Awe, like George and his supporters, are therefore Terrorists.

You don’t like that, try beating it out of me, and all the while try to forget that that too, is Terrorism.

The pastor who moved from California to Denver

OK, everybody is tired of picking on Ted Haggard now. Even the ludicrous announcement that he has been cured of his habit of sucking on male penises after three weeks of counseling hasn’t lit up the slightest interest.

As long as President Bush doesn’t have Ted doing it for him in the Oval Office no one seems to care. Especially not the ‘Moral Majority’. It’s as passe` as talking about J. Edgar Hoover’s wardrobe for them. However, what about this guy, Pastor Randall? Why did he move to Denver instead of Colorado Springs, we’ll never know?

Oaxaca to Greeley with Will Brad in between

I’ve been posting about Oaxaca for some time now, and in the beginning I believe that those who saw these posts were thinking… What’s Oaxaca have to do with us and our lives in Colorado Springs?

In fact, I had gone earlier to the local weekly, CS Indy, and they had shown zero interest in allowing me to write about Mexican events for them, or for anything on the issue to really be published there. Apparently they needed the space for more important things, like their puff piece this last issue on the newly elected Republican Congressman, Doug Lamborn, titled laughingly, ‘Rarin’ to go’.

Oh, yeah! This must be some sort of reach out to lost members of Ted Haggard’s flock, I guess? That’s the only explanation I can come up with for the publisher and editor of that paper to be running such crap. I doubt that they can outdo The Gazette though in this sappy style of …uh… ‘reporting’. I’m worried about these liberal souls over there at the Indy. I’m even scared that they may become born again evangelical pastors or some such?

But back to the world of reality. Many in Colorado began to pay more attention to Oaxaca when Gringo photographer Brad Will was shot down there like a dog. He was busy filming events for the rest of the world to be able to see, and that is just too dangerous to allow to happen freely. Some folk began to take notice of events in far off Oaxaca, though most thought of Brad as being way braver than they could ever be as Americans. And they thought more foolhardy, too.

Cut to events in Greeley and across the nation this week, as Bush sent in the INS troops to take people’s minds off his failures as US Commander in Chief in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 1200 human beings rounded up and shackled for doing America’s nastiest work, working in slaughter houses. Families are being split asunder, children may have to permanently relocate to countries they have never known, and all of us get to ponder how more threatened we are becoming from the horde of American uniformed brownshirts, blueshirts, and khakishirts everywhere around us. Merry Christmas from Uncle Damn and Scrooge Dubya.

Even though so many folk in Greeley apparently supported rounding up their neighbors (this can be seen from the Greeley papers website where these racists post their tripe), now they are getting a quick lesson of what Oaxaca is all about. Oaxaca is about American forced trade policies (NAFTA) that have destroyed people’s livelihoods across much of Mexico, and how many of those people had to leave their homeland because of the American government’s actions just to get the same shaft here!

And in Greeley, Colorado, it’s how one’s personal racism and hatred can lead to destroying the lives of others. Not a pretty scene, as many Anglo kids go back to school and see their schoolmates being disappeared in front of their eyes. What a lesson in American citizenship for them, without doubt.

They then return home to see many of their supposedly Christian parents cheerleading for INS. Some of these parents will then be lining up for the jobs of the people victimized by this witchhunt, just like so many Germans profited from the stolen property of their Jewish neighbors once. We are a nation of immigrants, but some just go bad after a generation or two living here.

Check out the video Documentary of Oaxaca at the web site of the friendsofbradwill.com. You’ll have to punch into ‘videos’ once you reach this site. Its a lengthy documentary (28 min) , but it gives about as good and authentic of an explanation of the connections between Colorado’s world and the world of Oaxaca that might be found online right now. Well worth the time. And if you are still interested about Brad Will, scroll down to the other video called ‘I like the cops’, where Brad can be seen singing (he’s no Dylan, and I mean that in the best sense, too) and strumming the guitar while showing his love for the Men in Blue. Three minutes, and he got it all down about right.

Malachi (the man in Chicago who set himself on fire to protest the US slaughter in Iraq) and Brad, two examples of American sacrifice that inspire us. True American heroes, both in their own ways. Both trying to bring our country back to some sense of reality. Compare them to Doug Lamborn and Ted Haggard, perhaps? Oh, and compare Brad to the Men in Blue.

The Number of the Beast

Now that Ted Haggard is losing his following, people need theological direction more than ever. This is classical ABB religion that can give you the Number of the Beast. Go for the liturgurgical music if nothing else. Plus, many liberals surf the internet while playing the music here. You can too, if you only believe!

SOA Coverage

The annual protest against the School of Americas, US military counterinsurgency school of how-to in the arts and ways of torture, is winding down today. It is a sure thing that the instruction there is being used right at this moment in Oaxaca, Mexico. The obtuse refusal of most Americans to confront his issue of what the US government does abroad clandestinely, is part and parcel of what led to 9/11, and the subsequent idiocy that is the current occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why just a few days ago, I was pedantically told by a Colorado Springs city councilman that Mexico was a sovereign country and that our government didn’t control what happens down there. He also went on to tell me that there was no torture used inside US prisons, too! And to inform me that what he called getting tough with US military held captives was different than actually torturing them. I think it save to say that our local Colorado Springs political leadership is on an even par with the spiritual leadership of Ted Haggard and brethen.

To see some coverage in the US press of the SOA protests, go to the multimedia coverage by Columbus, Georgia’s newspaper

Responsibility- Personal and Political

Here is the Great Helmsman of Conservative America abroad in SE Asia. Yes, the Great Helmsman of the perople who are all talk about ‘personal responsibility’, AND all the time. Bush is the Great Helmsman for that religious crowd, even more so than say James Dobson or Ted Haggard. Character! It’s the key, is it not? So what type of character is George Dubya Bush in Vietnam?

I would respond that Ted Haggard has nothing on Bush here in level of hypocrisy exhibited. A country, too, has responsibilities to behave in manners that are not harmful or destructive to other people in other countries, just like you or I personally as citizens do within our own neighborhoods. What would the neighbors think of us, if Friday afternoon we went out raising money for victims of drunk driving, and at 5:30 AM Saturday morning we were still throwing a bash where people were passed out in the yard, trash was all over the place along with spots of throwup, windows were broken, and the police had been called repeatedly for the loud and ugly music keeping people awake for blocks? Well isn’t that the kind of world neighbor that Bush is the political equivalent of, as he obscenely struts into Vietnem of all places?

Bush is like a drunk, loud and obnoxious, who has run his car over the lawn crashing into someone’s house, then stumbles out in the middle of the night to beat the neighbor’s door down demanding that the neighbor behave better in the future. America has a personal responsibility to repatriate the monetary damages done Vietnam and other SE Asian countries. Trillions of dollars of destruction was done these societies by US foreign policy. Yet instead of that, Bush continues driving aroound drunk into places like Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan to do a yet greater amount of destruction and genocide than done to Vietnam. Then he shows up smiling in Ho Chi Minh City as if the US had never done a thing! Positively obscene.

The United States needs to have its 300,000,000 or so citizens take personal responsibility, and start paying for the care of its victims from Agent Orange that now haunt the orphanages, clinics, and hospitals of Vietnam. Instead of helping these innocent children out, it is off laying cluster bombs around in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It is out strewing Depleted Uranium around to cause yet more birth defects for eons to come. It is off destroying the civilian infrastructure that children need to survive in.

Doctor James Dobson pediatrician, you are all about taking personal responsibility and teaching children that from a Christian perspsective? Then open your damn mouth about George W. Bush, drunk driver, and stop ‘weeping’ about that prick Ted Haggard, too. Instead, help the children of the world out a little and stop being a hypocrite like exPastor Ted. It is all about character, is it not? If you had had better character along with your evangelical buddies, then perhaps we would not continue to be in the Middle East harming the children there as if it was of no concern to us in this country. Have some shame.

Everything Has Changed, Nothing Has Changed

The Corporate Party of Damage Control has won a stunning victory over the Corporate Party of Total Corruption! Liberals are dancing and shouting, ‘Down With Fascism!’, all the while ignoring all the cooperation that is being talked about by these two groups of friends. The Republicans are becoming more ‘conciliatory’, while the Democrats are expected to become more ‘stern’. Rumsfield has been cast temporarily aside, and Bush has just told the nation on TV that he plans to be less abusive to his wife, Representative Pelosi. Yes, everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed. Hope rises up eternal, even as reality suggests little and crashes its oppressive weight down upon us still.

Watching Bush’s press conference this afternoon, was like watching Ted Haggard in his last week of pastorhood, or Enron’s management team in their last weeks before the topple. Yes, but the Fundamentalist churches haven’t evaporated out of existance, and the corporate criminals are still there bigtime running the US economy down to the bone with the profits flowing into their pockets, and our corrupt corporate pretend-democracy still holds supreme power in America. Liberals, your votes count for nothing when you vote where democracy doesn’t really exist. Deluded first that fascism was implanted solidly, now deluded that their votes have turned the tide.

The anitwar movement needs to be on its toes now. The Bush team is into national unity mode once again, and want to work better with the Democrats. What better way than attacking ‘the terrorists’ once again? That’s the Christian-Judeo way, is it not? We can expect bombings to begin on Iran and probably Syria within weeks. And the Democrats will join along with Bush on this one for sure. Let’s hope all those Democratic Party liberal voters can bring themselves into the streets instead of just a weeping into their tea? Let’s pray that they can do better than just ‘vote’. Let’s hope that they began to reject ALL the wars, and not just the more expensive of them.

Let Ted wed Mike- looking at gay marriage

Everybody has been following the hypocrisy of Ted Haggard and his wretched followers, but few have actually been putting this scandal in any sort of real perspective. Let us ask ourselves, would Ted Haggard have married a woman and had children if he had been allowed the prospect of being a respected part of the community as a person in a same sex marriage? Would Mike have turned Ted in as being a married homosexual then? There is a huge community of closeted gay men in marriages to straight women out there now, and religous hypocrisy is a great part of the reason for that. The fundamentalists say they oppose homosexuality, but actually, they just drive it underground. Who really suffers most? It is the children of these often, sordid, deceitful, and superficial matches.

We need to stop bashing openly gay men and women. They deserve the same rights and privileges that heterosexual men and women receive. Respect them for having the courage to confront a hostile world with openess and honesty. But what about those of the homosexual community that try to play it both ways? They often resort to deceit and hurt those who become intimate and close to them. They are encouraged by the heterosexual others in their liives, to be deceitful to both themselves and to their significant others in relationships. Usually the motivation is their own conservative religious beliefs, and also because of the negative encouragement and pressures of their shamed, heterosexual, religious relatives who often try to hide reality away.

I have known and been friends with several gay married men in my lifetime. And I have seen the destructiveness to themselves and others, as they have tried to play it straight. Gay men want family, even as they desire sex with the same sex. Allowing legal same sex marriage is one way for mainstream society to say to homosexuals that it is possible for all to have families that love them, and that they should be accepted by their biological families as well. It might help put an end to shunning some of our society who have been made most vulnerable to abuse.

Strikingly, nobody has much mentioned the family of Ted Haggard. How much did the wife know of his sexuality? And how much did the children know? The paper had pictures of the fundamentalist congregation carting into their church box after box of tissue papers to cry with. How preposterous and superficial these crippled people are. It is the children that need these tissues, if there is something much to cry about? The congregation should simply go to Hell, and start to put a stop all their self-absorbed shame. The real shame they have is actually to have their religous hypocrisy now so exposed to view. But they seem determined to continue on as before and we should have little compassion for such.

Those who need the most counselling are the children of Ted Haggard. In a way, they have been emotionally abused by his pretense and dishonesty. Here is a great site to help them, and other children of gay homosexuals, examine and understand some of what has happened to them through the actions of their mothers and dads. Though it is written primarily for married homosexuals and their spouses, certainly this is also a much better resource for the children involved in these matrimonies than all the Dr. Dobsons and like clones will be providing.

Haggard not guilty of sexual immorality

Scolding Richard DawkinsIn light of the revelations that Ted Haggard is a homosexual who has been paying for sex and drugs, the gay community is offering words of sympathy and support for their erstwhile Evangelical opponent and his family. For his part, Haggard demonstrates he can keep gay-bashing while he’s going down. “I’m guilty of sexual immorality” Haggard wrote to his flock, “of degrading, unspeakable acts,” etc.

The local news toed the line. HAGGARD GUILTY OF SEXUAL IMMORALITY. Well that’s not the objective take, is it? Haggard says he’s guilty of sexual immorality, that’s the story. Haggard is guilty of sexual pandering and using banned controlled substances. Haggard is guilty of lying and being a hypocrite. Haggard is contrite but shouldn’t get to slime homosexuality with the ick factor of his fall.

Ted Haggard had an opportunity to come clean, in the therapeutic sense, embrace what he is, and move his flock out of the stone-throwing age. Why should being gay keep him from being an inspirational preacher and natural leader?

Instead Haggard chose to be a martyr to Satan’s call. Haggard’s congregation heard his apologies and instantly empathized and forgave him. He’s now his own poster boy for the lure of evil.

There’s something inherent irreligious about Evangelical Christians. Forgiving oneself is practical, forgiving one another is neighborly, but expecting forgiveness while advocating the condemnation of others, is too short of divine. And carrying on with transgressions is by definition unkind. Most religions teach do good. Evangelic belief says believe in Jesus, that’s good enough.

It will be interesting to see if Ted Haggard can resurrect his band of pitchfork and torch bearing bigots. He may. In their eyes Haggard has proven he is as flawed as the worst of them. And maybe having to keep tabs on their homosexuality-inclined leader will open their hearts to acceptance of homosexuals who are not in the incarnation of their leader.

My bet is that New Life Church will fold. It’s big, it’s a machine, I know. But it’s a cult of personality with morons for adherents. I don’t care that Haggard has been a terrific delegator of responsibility. The snake has been beheaded, and all the kings horses have never yet performed a successful head transplant.

Evangelicals behind the green curtain

Small sheet metal world
When Toto pulled aside the curtain to reveal The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her friends discovered that The Wizard was in fact a little man. Amplified voice, impressive title, diminutive man. But Oz was an uncomplicated world. Unmasking the wizard did not call into question who built Emerald City. It may well have been the Oompa-Loompas or the Weebles, but under whose leadership?
 
I’ve been getting a behind-the-green-curtain feeling these days. Let me tell you it began with another paid male escort, Jeff Gannon Guckert.

What a cheesy scenario. Fake journalist Jeff Gannon makes lots of overnight visits to the White House. Whose boyfriend was he? Wouldn’t a high ranking administration official rate a better class of hooker? Really how sordid. Who in the White House was attracted or bemused by this slow-witted bald man?

Of the same feather, evangelist Ted Haggard has been commuting to trysts with a Denver sex worker who knew him as “Art.” Ted even solicited Mike Jones for drugs when he couldn’t bring his own. We have been told that Ted Haggard was one of the most powerful religious leaders in the world. I’m having trouble seeing any kind of powerful man having to drive to Denver for blow jobs and methamphetamine.

I don’t doubt that Haggard pulls down a large salary, and that he commands the attention of tons of congregants, but his power is looking to me to have been a fabrication. America may be full of backward, bigoted hicks, but who was suggesting that Ted Haggard had a rein on them? Behind the green curtain and booming voice of apparent prestige and influence, we’ve found a little man who can’t even score Meth.

Behind the same curtain that holds Haggard up as leader of an army of God-fearers, I’m thinking is the bigger illusion, the looming Silent Majority of believers themselves. Bullshit. Haggard is a prostitute’s john, and Haggard’s flock are individual lonely tales of waylaid sheep. Adding up to nothing.

Media pollsters can convince us that Dubya won an election with the help of a Fundamentalist Right Wing. Even the motive to take war to the Holy Land, however insane, would get begrudging partial credit for being religiously motivated. It’s more palatable than the reality, that maintaining imperial imbalance of global resources is driven by pure greed. Immoral, inhuman, elitist greed. There’s not a spiritual drop of blood in any of the Neocon veins. Any pseudo religious platform is smoke and mirrors.

Ted Haggard crucified

If today’s bombshell doesn’t prove the existence of God, nothing will. Perhaps Pastor Ted should have listened to God’s inerrant words a tad more closely. Maybe he should’ve spent some time memorizing the verse clearly stating that “pride goeth before a fall.” Biblically, pride is considered arrogance. And I’d say there is something inherently arrogant about a man who claims to speak for God on a daily basis, to millions of people. Yet this same man can very conveniently ignore many of Jesus’ words, you know those that are written in red, like “blessed are the peacemakers…”

Now we find that there may be a whole slew of God’s inerrant words that Pastor Ted conveniently ignored. For shame.
 
I expect to see all of you heathens in church on Sunday.

Ted Haggard New Life Church

This is FABULOUS! We find out tomorrow when his accuser takes a polygraph test live on a Denver radio talk show, but the preliminary report is that Ted Haggard, fundamentalist scourge of lesser sinners, will be borrowing a page that wasn’t even in Brother Swaggart’s play book.
 
It’s not that Ted Haggard is gay. Who isn’t? Or, who says it’s wrong to be gay?
 
It’s not that Ted Haggard paid for sex. For some that’s the only sex they want. Who says it’s wrong to pay someone to have sex with you?
 
It’s not that Ted Haggard did/does methamphetamine. Who hasn’t or wouldn’t if they were stupid enough?
 
It IS that Ted Haggard has been condemning gays and standing in the way of their equal partnership rights, all the while being gay. For me there is absolutely not much worse than a gay bastard!

That may sound a little strong, but it’s a curiously universal prejudice, isn’t it? Evil enhanced by being gay evil?

To celebrate, I’m going to have a second look at a documentary that came out earlier this year called Conviction, about three Dominican Sisters who were convicted and sentenced for the Plowshares action they took against a Colorado nuclear missile silo.

In particular, the documentary features a splendid interview of Ted Haggard, critical of the sisters’ actions, gloating about the prospects of them serving time in federal prison. He brags about the hand-in-glove relationship of church and military in Colorado Springs, frothing at the mouth to condemn the sisters. “This is just inappropriate, it’s bad bible interpretation, it’s bad Christianity…”

Colorado Springs IQ ranking

This weekend’s Gazette reported that Colorado Springs ranked 16th among America’s brainiest cities.
 
Although that may not be saying much in light of the US intelligence quotient these days, I still find the story hard to believe.

Other indicators: driving aptitude
According to local traffic systems professionals, the traffic lights at Colorado Springs intersections are adjusted by CDOT to a very slow rate. This setting provides for longer yellow lights in general as well as a longer gap between stop and go. They do not call this a remedial measure, but it is the lapse from when one direction is given red to when the perpendicular direction is given green, basically the space of time during which both directions sit simultaneously before a red light. Engineers set the timing according to local driving proficiency. Perhaps it’s just me linking that factor to IQ.

Colorado Springs level of idiocy is reflected in other local regulatory agencies. Although the area receives considerable revenue from Pikes Peak or Bust tourism, residents oversee everyday the ongoing destruction of their mountain view, their single natural resource.

Visual reflex impairment
The Snake Canyon Quarry continues to deepen and widen, within everyone’s focal range of their famous single peak. The Springs even has an older depleted mine, a similarly shaved mountain a couple foothills north which is tersely called “the scar.” It’s supposed to be a reminder of what we don’t want to do again. But Snake Canyon continues to dust our furniture and pit our windshields yet we refuse to seek our simple aggregate elsewhere. Other cities don’t have mountains to appropriate to sand their streets in the winter. They have to dig discrete pits at the outskirts of town instead. Apparently we don’t mind looking at our open pits. It’s more expensive to dig than it is to shave.

Likewise, El Paso is the only county in Colorado which permits building on mountain ridgetops. Ridgetop homes create erosion problems for everyone beneath, from the silting of the creeks to landslides to flash floods to lost vegetation. And it spoils the Pikes Peak viewshed. Within plain sight.

Foresight
Colorado Springs residents have also accepted recent cuts to their parks services. Park toilet facilities have been boarded or demolished and replaced with Port-a-let plastic outhouses because they’re cheaper to maintain. So are latrine trenches, but would we abide them? Well, maybe.

City officials have also decided they cannot afford to maintain the boulevard medians. They are selling the opportunity to local businesses in exchange for a posting “maintained by” advertisement. This at the same time the city utility overpays its executives and installs televisions in their elevators.

Impaired empathy
Colorado Springs has demonstrated its simplemindedness to the nation at large. We’re famous for our idiocy, though your judgement might depend on your politics. Our city was the epicenter of the Amendment Two debacle. This was where religious extremists attempted to deprive homosexuals of their right to minority protection. The measure was overturned in state court, but it got its healthy start here.

We are home to Dobson’s child spanking doctrine, Ted Haggard’s military-theocracy incubator, and multiple christian fundamentalist publishing houses. Anyone can open these books or tune into the TV broadcasts to sample our inanity. Again I’m equating inanity to IQ.

Cuckoldry
Colorado Springs is also staunchly Republican. We excuse this to mean Conservative, but Bush’s run of things in DC has put the lie to that claim. Colorado Springs’ Republican representatives have supported the most cockeye, transparently thieving policies that our corporate lobbyists have concocted. Colorado Springs voters are dumb, perhaps the percent that vote are not the percent winning accolades for being brainy.

To be accurate, I should admit that by “brainiest,” the Gazette meant the most educated. They were citing a CNN Money Magazine study based on census records which ranked cities of over 250,000 by the percentage of their populations which held Bachelors Degrees. Maybe this doesn’t indict Colorado Springs exactly. Maybe this says something more about the accreditation of our colleges, I’d guess the Colorado party schools. Go in dumb, come out dumb too. Of that, Colorado Springs is proof.