Doing what Don Wildman Tells Me

The following is an example of the emails that I get as a result of filling out the survey by the American Family Association. I requested that my email address be removed from their list, but I continue to receive messages from them. I meant to block them, but I forgot. I will now. The survey was for the purposes of obtaining email addresses. I won't make the mistake of filling out a survey at a fundie site again.

Please help us get this information into the hands of as many people as possible by forwarding it to your entire e-mail list of family and friends.

Now available! My new book 'Speechless...Silencing The Christians'

February 16, 2009

Dear June,

You’ve seen the TV show and have perhaps purchased DVDs of Speechless: Silencing the Christians, a documentary series co-produced by the Inspiration Networks and the American Family Association. Now you can get my book which has just been released to you, my friends, and to Christian bookstores and secular markets as well.

My purpose in writing the book is to make people aware that Christians are being silenced all across America: in the political debate, the public square, the schools, the workplace, and even in the sanctuary of their own churches. You’ll find accounts by Christians all over the United States that were never (and probably never will be) covered by main stream media.

I have a two-fold purpose in this message as well. First, I’d like for AFA supporters to be able to receive my book for a donation of $24.95. Secondly, I’d like for you to help AFA get the word out about this book. I am including a printable flyer for you to take, not only to your local Christian book store, but to secular book stores as well and asked them to please stock this book. It is my hope and prayer that the information in my book will inspire more and more people to join the fight to keep Christian voices strong in our darkening culture.

Click here to get the book for a suggested donation of $24.95.

Click here to download and print the flyer to distribute to bookstores.

Sincerely,

Don

Donald E. Wildmon,
Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

No link. I'm not that stupid.

Wagner Declines Papal Promotion

From the Herald Tribune:

A conservative pastor who suggested God punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina says he's relieved after passing up a papal promotion that had sparked an outcry from Austrian Catholics.

Pope Benedict XVI promoted Gerhard Maria Wagner to the post of auxiliary bishop in Linz on Jan. 31, causing an uproar from church groups and priests. Late Sunday, Wagner unexpectedly announced his decision to turn down the opportunity.

That's good news. One wonders if Fr. Wagner got a bit of a nudge before announcing his unexpected decision which resulted in such relief for him. Whatever. If he's the best the pope can find amongst conservative priests in his domain to promote to bishop, then he's in trouble.

All Night Long

As some of you already know, my father was an alcoholic. I've sobbed away already about my wretched childhood, but it's not my intention do that here. I present to you a memory of odd, though essentially benign, behavior by my father when he was, as they say, in his cups. He'd be drinking, probably at a bar, and some nights, when he'd made it home, he was moved to play "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" on the old Victrola all night long. That's right, all night long. He didn't play it loud enough to keep us from sleeping, but if we happened to wake up, we'd hear the old song. Mind you, this was the 1940s, and he played the single on an old wind-up Victrola. He had to put the needle back on the beginning of the record each time and keep the record player wound up to keep it going.

Sometimes, it was still going in the morning when we got up, when my mother would put a stop to it. I can't swear it was Al Jolson's version, but of the old versions that I've listened to, it seems the most likely. I know that my father liked Al Jolson. Despite the all-nighters, or perhaps because of them, I'm still fond of the song.

Place - park, scene - dark
Silv'ry moon is shining through the trees
Cast - two, me - you
Summer kisses floating on the breeze
Act one, be done
Dialog - where would ya like to spoon?
My cue, with you
Underneath the silv'ry moon

By the light of the silvery moon
I wanna spoon
To my honey I'll croon love's tune
Honey moon, keep a-shinin' in June
Your silv'ry beams will bring love's dreams
We'll be cuddlin' soon by the silvery moon

Thoughts For The Weekend

Wouldn't it be nice if whenever we messed up our life we could simply press 'Ctr Alt Delete' and start all over?

If raising children was going to be easy, it never would have started with something called labor!

Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.

Ponderisms

I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

Garden Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, 'I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here and drink whatever comes out?'

Who was the first person to say, 'See that chicken there? I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes outta its butt.'

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if he's going to look up there anyway?

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

But Most Of All, Remember!

A Good Friend Is Like A Good Bra. Hard to Find, Supportive, Comfortable, And Always Close To Your Heart!

Do you ever wonder why you gave me your email address?

Doug, I never do. I know where my bread is buttered. What WOULD I do without you?

NO RUBBER CHICKEN DINNER

Grandpère and I went to a no-rubber-chicken dinner the other night. Our neighbors invited us to attend the annual banquet of a local business group, and GP accepted the invitation for both of us, although I had already told him that I didn't want to go to those dinners any longer. The food is usually bad, and the speakers are often boring. However, that night I was pleasantly surprised. The menu did not include rubber chicken, but crab cakes that were quite tasty. The MC moved the business part of the meeting right along, and the ex-president and president spoke only briefly.

Jay Dardenne, the Louisiana Secretary of State, the after-dinner speaker, was quite good. He talked about the uniqueness of the history of Louisiana and listed the 10 books about the state that we should all read, if we have not already read them. Interspersed in the listing of the books, he played snatches of typical Louisiana music, jazz, Cajun music, zydeco, Jimmy Davis, Lead Belly, Hank Williams, Doug Kershaw, etc., which entertained more than a simple listing and description of books. Dardenne does a mean imitation of Huey Long, including the shouting and the wild flailing of the arms which were part his speechmaking.

Here's the list of the nine of the ten that I could remember.

Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

A Lesson Before Dying - Ernest Gaines

The Last Hayride - John Maginnis

Bayou Farewell - Mike Tidwell

Rising Tide - John M. Barry

All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren

Huey Long - T. Harry Williams

The Tin Roof Blowdown - James Lee Burke

The Earl of Louisiana - A. J. Liebling

After I wrote the words above, I thought, "There's no story here, nothing that anyone would be interested in reading," and I quit writing. But it turns out there is a bit of a story.

Now for the digression. Last August, during the clean-up after Hurricane Gustav, one of the tree men backed his truck into the street light in front of our house and knocked it down. The fallen light pole lay in the front yard for three weeks, despite our calls to have it picked up, since the grass needed cutting. Finally a couple of trucks from the city came and removed the pole.

Now we liked our street light in front of the house. On moonless nights, it's quite dark, and our driveway is difficult to see to turn in. We waited a couple of months, but no one came to replace the light, so we called the city public works department, whose employees assured us that our light would be replaced "as soon as possible". Then, after several more calls, with no results, we called the mayor's office. We never got the mayor on the phone, because he was always "at a meeting", "on the phone", or "out of the office". I told Grandpère that we should simply storm his office unannounced, but he did not agree.

One day, when I made one our periodic calls, the person I talked to told me that the city decided that they would try to get FEMA to pay for replacing the lights (ours was not the only one damaged by the storm). I almost screamed into the phone, "FEMA! You do realize that if you wait for FEMA, we will never get our light. It could be never, not in my lifetime, a long time away, any of those, but NOT SOON." The woman chuckled. So there we were.

We made a few more of what we thought were useless calls to the mayor, asking if they had heard back from FEMA and were told , "Not yet". No surprise there. Finally, one day I called the public works department again and was told that the city had decided that they would go ahead and buy the lights. Yay!

Back to the dinner. I saw the elusive mayor sitting at one of the tables, and I determined that I would make a beeline for him when the dinner was over. I told GP, and he said, "Don't do that." I told him, "Are you kidding? We've been trying to talk to him for weeks, no months, and he's right there, and you don't want me to bother him. I don't think so."

As soon as folks started getting up from their tables, I was on my way. I cornered him and asked him nicely when we were going to get our street light back. He came up with a list of reasons why it was taking so long, one being that the company that made the poles had a backlog since Gustav and was filling the orders slowly. That made sense, but I wondered just when the city had got around to placing the orders. I told him that we were thinking of putting up a pole ourselves, a creosoted black telephone pole with a light on it. I said that the neighbors probably wouldn't like it, but that we could not find our driveway in the dark.

The very next afternoon, the city trucks showed up with our light pole. Nothing like a close encounter to bring action. But wait! GP called the following day to thank the mayor for the quick action. His assistant told GP that one, only one, light pole had come in, and yep, we got it. Now we have a shiny new street light, but we don't yet have illumination, because Entergy, our power company, must come to connect the power to the pole. The men who put up the pole told us that the city would contact Entergy about powering up the pole. Our next phone project is to call Entergy to light a fire under them to connect our light to their power source.

In the middle of writing the post, I took a time-out to watch nearly the whole of "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing", a movie from the 1950s with William Holden and Jennifer Jones. William Holden had very cute legs. I fact, he was very cute from top to bottom. I had a major crush on him through my high school years. Jennifer Jones was gorgeous in the movie, with her semi-Chinese clothes and lovely face and figure. They just don't make romantic movies like that any more. Even GP was swept away, and he's not the romantic type. Plus, the beautiful song played throughout the movie, and there was the wonderful scenery in Hong Kong. Truly all around satisfying, a feast for the eyes and ears.


A bit risqué for the 1950s, don't you think?

Celebrating Valentine's Day

 

A woman walks into a post office and notices a middle-aged,
well-dressed man standing at the counter methodically placing
"Love" stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. As he seals
each envelop he sprays it with a puff of perfume.

The woman's curiosity gets the better of her, so she goes up to the
man and asks what he is doing. The man replies, "I'm
sending out 1,000 Valentine cards signed, 'Guess who?'"

"But why?" she asks.

"Because I'm a divorce lawyer," the man replies.

Don't blame me, blame Doug.

Contra Doug's cynicism, Grandpère gave me the flowers in the picture yesterday, enough to fill two vases. Just sayin'.

The two oil paintings are by my grandson. The fleur-de-lis is mine, and the fish is Grandpère's.

Latest News On Roseann

Morning Mimi,

I awakened this morning to a note on my computer from Roseann who says she and hubby are still in the cloud of unknowing. The tumor that was found was in the upper GI, and another endoscopy will be done early in the week along with a ultra sound. The nausea is worse that the pain and she hasn't slept or eaten since Wednesday.

She did say she can't blog or read comments from the hospital (which is wireless) due to some security level. She thinks her fine Roman hospital has blocked any sort of connection to the Mad Priest. (I'm happy to see her wonderful sense of humor is still intact.)

She says her e-mail address is located on her blog, and welcomes notes. The words of encouragement mean a great deal to her.
....

She's standing in the need of prayer folks, let's not let her down.

Thanks to you Mimi,

Sue

Let's not let Roseann down. The details on Roseann's other medical problems are here.

Pray, pray, pray. And go to her blog for her email address and send her encouraging words.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Gino Says, "Happy Valentine's Day!"

Gino, the Maltese puppy, is the latest addition to my daughter's family. That's not really Gino up there, because I forgot to take a picture of him yesterday when I saw him, but the puppy in the picture looks very like him. Gino is nearly weightless, and feels like a little stuffed toy. He's adorable.

Gino says, "Below is my grandmother, Mimi, in her younger days. She wishes you 'Happy Valentine's Day', too."

R. I. P Alison Des Forges

It is with enormous sadness that Human Rights Watch announces the death of our beloved colleague Dr. Alison Des Forges, who was killed in the crash of Flight 3407 from Newark to Buffalo on February 12, 2009. Des Forges, senior adviser to Human Rights Watch's Africa division for almost two decades, dedicated her life to working on Rwanda and was the world's leading expert on the 1994 Rwanda genocide and its aftermath.

"Alison's loss is a devastating blow not only to Human Rights Watch but also to the people of Rwanda and the Great Lakes region," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "She was truly wonderful, the epitome of the human rights activist - principled, dispassionate, committed to the truth and to using that truth to protect ordinary people. She was among the first to highlight the ethnic tensions that led to the genocide, and when it happened and the world stood by and watched, Alison did everything humanly possible to save people. Then she wrote the definitive account. There was no one who knew more and did more to document the genocide and to help bring the perpetrators to justice."

May Alison and all those who perished on Flight 3407 from Newark to Buffalo rest in peace and rise in glory.

Almighty God, Father of mercies and giver of all comfort: Deal graciously, we pray thee, with all those who mourn, that casting every care on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer, p. 489)

Thanks to Georgianne for the link to the announcement by Human Rights Watch.

The account of the crash from the New York Times.

Rowan Williams In "The Atlantic"

Paul Elie contributed a long article on Rowan Williams to the March issue of The Atlantic It's lengthy, four long pages, but although the author draws different conclusions than I on the puzzling (to me) words and actions of Rowan Williams, the entire piece is worth a read.

I've selected a few quotes from the article, in which Elie seems to think that the ABC, despite the criticism that's leveled at him, may be getting it just right, a conclusion which I cannot share.

It's difficult to be reminded of the ABC's change of mind regarding the appointment of his good friend Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading. To me, it was his first serious misstep, one from which, in my humble opinion, he has never recovered. According to Giles Fraser, the vicar of Saint Mary’s, Putney:

...Jeffrey John is a Welshman and an old friend of Williams’s. He is gay and lives with another priest, Grant Holmes, to whom he was joined in a commitment ceremony, yet he is pledged to celibacy—which, his supporters say, makes him technically no different from a straight and unmarried priest. “At one point, when Rowan was bishop [of Monmouth],” Fraser told me, Williams and John “went to the archbishop of Canterbury about homosexuality, and Rowan apparently said to Carey, ‘Who pays the price for the gay policy? Gay people do.’ And he and Jeffrey lobbied Carey to make a change.”

But Carey made no change, and on top of that, he vetoed the nomination of Williams for the job of bishop of Southwark, near the Tate Modern in newly trendy south London, because of Williams’s obvious commitment to progress on gay issues. When Williams became archbishop of Canterbury, he sought to turn the tables. John was proposed for a post as the bishop of Reading, a half hour by rail from London, and Williams signed off on the appointment.

Then the campaign against the gay bishop began, with traditionalists on four continents forming a patchwork alliance. Fraser says those in America and England cared nothing about the views of the bishops of Africa until they saw the chance for an alliance against the progressives. They took up the ordination of gay bishops as a wedge issue, and made a show of unity; they claimed that a pro-gay agenda was a new form of imperialism against the global South. “They drafted the Church of Nigeria, with its numerical strength, as a way of raising a ruckus over it. They got the white man’s guilt going. The Internet sped it along.” And it worked. “Rowan backpedaled,” Fraser said. “He asked Jeffrey John to resign.”

There's an amusing bit in the article on the meeting of the "neo-traditional" bishops in Wheaton, Illinois:

The founding of a neo-traditional Anglican movement in Wheaton, Illinois, in early December actually confirmed the point. The event made the front page of The New York Times, but the facts belied the claims about its impact. The announcement took place not in Jerusalem, but in a borrowed church in a midwestern suburb, and none of the African bishops was present. Although the breakaway bishops claimed the support of 100,000 people, the 800-seat church was half-empty, and already those bishops faced conflicts among themselves—about the status of women priests, for example. It is the threat of schism, and the dramatic Reformation history that the word calls to mind, that gives the dissident bishops their power. Should they actually secede, they would soon be reduced from headlines to footnotes.

In the final paragraphs of the article, the ABC answers Elie's question about gay bishops in the Church of England:

In the Anglican Communion, I said to him, all the changes that the traditionalists have resisted—married priests, women priests, openly gay priests—have eventually come to pass. Did he think there would be openly gay bishops in the Church of England in 10 years? Was it just a matter of time?

“I highly doubt it,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll have progressed that far in our discernment process.”

It was not a no, just a not yet. Even as he declined to endorse the ordination of gay bishops, with that roundabout phrase about progress he left the possibility open—the possibility that it would come to pass eventually, and that he would think it a good thing, too.

The ABC is probably correct that a gay bishop in the Church of England is not likely within 10 years. I can hear him saying to himself, "Not on my watch!" How long do archbishops of Canterbury usually hold their positions? Will the ABC preside over another Lambeth?