Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Rare Photos From the Early Days of Blondie

Now I feel really old…

Rare Photos From the Early Days of Blondie:

"This year marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of Blondie, and to celebrate, the band’s co-founder, guitarist, and songwriter, Chris Stein, has released a new photography book remembering its glory days."

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Youth pastor Stephen Gray arrested

Texas youth pastor accused of molesting 11-year-old boy who wanted to ‘earn’ cowboy hat:

"According to My Fox Dallas-Ft. Worth, former youth pastor Stephen Gray is accused of repeatedly molesting a boy from his congregation at Gray’s trailer in a mobile home park in south Dallas.
The boy, now 16, told his mother and family friend John Hall about the molestation, which took place over the course of a summer."

(Via. Rawstory)

Monday, September 15, 2014

The enemy within is often a goofy student

Least we forget that Islam has an agenda...

Muslim Student Challenges Jewish Professor, He Shuts Her Up On The Spot

A Muslim Jew-hater and supporter of genocide is flushed out by David Horowitz at a speech during "Israel Apartheid Week at the University of California San Diego. Horowitz was hosted by Young Americans for Freedom. Visit the Horowitz Freedom Center Website at www.frontpagemag.com.

Is it really okay for a member of the MSA to call for another genocide against all Jews? No reasonable person would agree. I say hell no. So should our universities. Defund,.Disband. Expel. Some ideas are just bad.

(Via Qpolitical.com)

Hudson Pastors Continue to Doctor Story About Sex Abuse in the Philippines

This is an update on the Pastor Tom Randal child sexual abuse case in the Philippines involving the alleged institutional abuse of children by his godson Perfecto "Toto” Luchavez and Perfecto’s son Mark “Jake” Luchavez. In this story we find that all is not as it seems. 

Hudson Pastors Continue to Doctor Story About Sex Abuse in the Philippines:

"The lead Pastor at Hudson's non-denominational mega church Christ Community Chapel tweeted late last week that sex abuse charges against two workers at an orphanage in the Philippines affiliated with a local pastor have been dropped."

But later we find…

But it turns out charges haven't been dropped at all.
Joe Mauk, a missionary in the Philippines who initially blew the whistle when sexually abused minors smuggled letters to his daughter, has been attending the trials. Here's an excerpt from his latest Facebook note:
Still incredible to see what is trying to be manipulated behind the scenes. As you may remember Aug. 8 there was a hearing where none of the witnesses received notices. The presence "by chance" of one of our fellow rescuers caused the judge to re-schedule the hearing for three weeks later, Aug. 29. We arrived for that hearing last Friday with 4 victims ready to give testimony and 11 others attending in support of them, including the former principal of the Cugley (Sankey) School and her husband (Alice and John Shepherd), also the teacher (Shirley, who received the first written reports smuggled out by two girls and passed them on to my daughter), my daughter and her husband, Trevor and Kathy Hill and others.

(Via the Cleveland Scene.)

Thanks to Laura for her tip and to Sam Allard for his fine reporting/

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Former Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger found guilty of rape

This priest raped dozens of children and a god. What the hell?

Catholic Priest Guilty Of Raping Inuit Children And A Sled Dog:

"Belgian-born Eric Dejaeger, a defrocked Catholic priest, has been found guilty of raping dozens of children as well as a sled dog while employed by the Roman Catholic Church."
Dejaeger worked as a missionary in the Canadian Arctic for decades. In 1990, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for sexually assaulting eight children in Baker Lake, a hamlet in Nunavut on mainland Canada. When released from prison, Dejaeger faced new allegations from victims in the Inuit hamlet of Igloolik in Northern Canada. He served there from 1978 to 1982. To avoid prosecution, Dejaeger fled Canada for Belgium, his country of birth. In 2011, he was arrested and returned to Canada to face additional charges.

(Via. Addicting Info)

Islam is inconsistent with bacon

Don't tell me what I can't eat.

Pastor Glenn VanZandt arrested

I have not made a post on Clergy Sexual Abuse in a long time. A few people have offered to pay me via Patreon, which got me thinking about jumping back into at least tracking new cases. I do not have the energy or time to do more at this time.  

Pastor of Homewood church arrested for rape, sodomy:

"Glenn VanZandt, who is the pastor of Palisades Church of Christ on Palisades Boulevard, was arrested and faces charges of second-degree rape and sodomy.
Pleasant Grove Police Department spokesman Detective Sgt. Daniel Reid says it involves a female under the age of 16 and that VanZandt was involved in an ongoing relationship with the female."

A pastor and a young girl, what could go wrong? 

Incremental change in the Catholic church

I am an incrementalist. Moving toward a more inclusive marriage policy is small step on a long journey. I applaud any change for the good. 

Pope marries couples 'living in sin' in Vatican ceremony:

"Pope Francis married 20 couples on Sunday, some of whom had already lived together and had children, in the latest sign that the Argentine pontiff wants the Catholic church to be more inclusive. In the first wedding he has performed in his 18-month-old papacy, the Pope took each couple through their vows in turn – including Gabriella and Guido, who already had children and thought such a marriage would be impossible, official broadcasting service Radio Vaticana said."

(Via Telegraph.co.uk)

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Driving in September in Los Angeles

Traffic

Every September in Los Angeles the daily rush hours go from bad to worse, it all happens over one weekend When sumer vacations end and the kids start school. Traffic grinds to a halt. It's enough to drive you insane.

My summer drive time is 20 to 30 minutes for a 17 mile commute in the morning and 30 to 40 minutes in the afternoon. My route is the 91 to the 710 to the 405. (Translated: Riverside, Long Beach, San Diego)

Stats from my week:

  • Monday: Morning drive was 1 hour 10 minutes, the afternoon was 1 hour 22 minutes. 
  • Tuesday: Morning 1 hour (all side streets), the afternoon was 1 hour 34 minutes. 
  • Wednesday: Morning 1 hour 15 minutes (all side streets), the afternoon was 1 hour 40 minutes. 
  • Thursday: Morning 1 hour (all sides streets), the afternoon was a mind-numbing 1 hour 55 minutes. 
  • Friday: Morning 22 minutes (all freeways), the afternoon was an hour (mix of side streets and the 405)

It’s the same every year. This pattern will last into December and ease off for the holidays. It will pick up again in late January and will last until June. We tend to forget our problems because of the good times in summer, but this just sucks and after 25 years of it, I’ve had enough. 

You whore and other Christian insults

Brother Dean Samuel deserves your scorn. All of your scorn. Heap it on. Use a shovel if necessary.

Wearing yoga pants does not cause rape. No woman deserves to be raped. Men rape. Women are raped. Why is that hard to understand?

(Via. Counter Current News)

Me llamo Mr. Kim

I've waved at a man in my neighborhood every time I've seen him. If I had to put a number on how many times I've waved, it would be north of 100. I'm a big friendly guy. He’s a dour old man. He never waves back, nor does he even smile in my direction. I pretty sure he is Korean as his van has Korean church stickers plastered all over it. Not that it matters, except that I’ve noticed that middle-aged Korean women do not approve of me. I get the evil eye every time I run into the local women’s church group at breakfast. I’m beginning to suspect that they know I’m the neighborhood atheist. 

Today while walking my dog, I saw him pull his beat-up old van out of his driveway and then wave toward his wife, so I know he can wave. I wave at him as he turns my way, only I am holding a bright blue bag of dog poo. He smiles and laughs and then sticks his head out of his window and says, "Me llamo Mr. Kim."

I’m a little stunned, but I recover and say, “Je m’appelle Joseph”.

He laughs like i’ve told a knee-slapper and pulls away.

As I pass his wife she says in perfect English, “He must have thought you were Spanish.”

There must be a better tool

I really do not like MarsEdit. Is there a better Mac-based tool for blogging? This is tool drives me crazy and the image handling is clunky. I spend way too much time on formatting. It is buggy. The list goes on.

It helps to have a title

2014 has been a hard year. A combination of heath issues has prevented any sustained effort at shooting photos. I'm finally back at it.

I saw this woman while sitting in the drive thru of Fantastic Burger in Long Beach. She smiled at me as she walked by. We connected briefly. I look the combination of her skin tone and odd dress. Later, while I was pulling away to head into work, I saw her again and noticed the tattoo. I shot a quick photo. A friend though she was a hooker. I don’t think so. Instead, I though of her a nice lady with an odd fashion sense. 

Owner of a lonely heart

How dumb is Rick Santorum?

Pretty friggen dumb...

People for the American Way have posted a recent radio interview with former U.S. Senator and all-star culture warrior Rick Santorum. 
During the discussion, Santorum said that Christians have allowed their faith to be removed from the public square and need to start fighting back, arguing that removing the Bible from public school classrooms is not neutrality but rather the promotion of the secular worldview. He suggested that conservative Christians should respond by “calling secularism a religion because if we did, then we could ban that too.”

Yes Rick, lets call the opposite of religion a religion. This is why you don’t hold public office. Your ideas suck and so does your thinking.