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anti-press ezine 2004 02 27
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< ANTI-PRESS EZINE #44 >
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"We're Positive About The Negative"
This E-dition filed 2/27/04 from NENYland, the northeastern corner of New
York State (i.e., the hinterlands). Our Precision Reality Center, located
in Plattsburgh The Dull, now features our Droppler Radar Network, Bull
Tracker 9000. More details at the end of this e-dition.
(C) Copyright 2004 Anti-Press
* Come Hell Again *
By Stan Spire
The Catholic Church has to be really hurting if it's trying to get me back.
There's a poster hanging on a supermarket bulletin board, pleading to
ex-Catholics to "Come Home Again." The Church is sponsoring informal
meetings, an opportunity for the wayward to express their concerns, to
explain why they left. Of course, this is an opportunity for the Church to
draw these people back into its fold. But one wonders: if the lamb was
sheared during the first round, would it be chopped up for stew the second
time?
No, I wasn't sexually molested by a priest. But there are other ways the
Roman Cultic Church can screw up a child: mental molestation, if you will.
Remember when you were young, trying to be good, and you would believe any
crap an adult would tell you? Your impressionable mind was clay ready to be
molded -- or squished.
When I was a nave kid, a nun or priest could easily push my Fear/Guilt
buttons. During a period of international tension -- due in part to an
American president pushing the edge -- there was talk of nuclear war.
TeeVee shows and movies showed the Wrathful God-Power of the Atom. Missiles
might start flying between nations.
So, did a nun reassure the fearful pupils in her class, saying that God
loved them, that He would protect his good children? Nope. Instead she
stated that when World War III erupted, an atomic bomb would explode and
open up a gateway into hell, little Johnny and Jane falling into the flames.
The nun explained the true horror of hellfire. Did you ever accidentally
touch a hot stove, she asked, and burn your finger? Well, that was only a
tiny fraction of the pain of hell. Down in the pit the agony went on and
on, forever... We were told to report all our sins to the priest in the
confessional after catechism.
Remember how your mother told you to wear clean underwear because if an
accident happened, you didn't want the people working at the hospital to see
your dirty shorts? Well, I learned that it was more important to have a
clean soul at all times. One bad accident while walking around with
transgressions not confessed and Bang! -- I'm eternally screaming in a sea
of fire because I was stained by sin.
I was also taught to respect the final resting places of the dead. It was a
sin to walk across a grave. A kid had the impression that the grave would
open up and suck him into hell -- without an atomic explosion, of course.
But what the Church teaches isn't what the Church practices. Somewhere down
a riverbank is the gravestone of my great Uncle Thaddeus, all smashed up,
broken into pieces. No, it wasn't "satanic" teenagers who pushed his stone
down the bank. It was a bulldozer operated under the direction of the
Church. Apparently the Church wasn't raking in enough money to maintain the
cemetery so the monsignor decided to push the problem aside with a big
blade. After all, out of sight, out of mind. Many stones were scraped
away, shoved into oblivion.
This happened back in the 1980s. Local Catholics were angry. They
protested near the graveyard, holding up handmade signs to express their
dismay. One sign declared it was the work of Satan.
But the years pass by and memories get a little fuzzy. A recent newspaper
article said the bulldozer operator "misunderstood" what the monsignor
wanted. He was only to trim the graveyard with his big bulldozer -- you
know, the same way you trim your small front lawn with a handheld
weed-whacker.
Uncle Thaddeus was a devout Catholic (and, by the way, is just as real as
Jesus). He was upset when the Church no longer recognized Saint Christopher
as being a true saint. That didn't stop him from keeping a medal of the
Patron Saint of Travelers in his car. To him it was OK to keep the faith
with his favorite saint.
But the Church vexed Uncle Thaddeus again. He had paid for perpetual care
for his sister's grave at another parish, i.e., gave a one-time fee so that
the site would be properly maintained forever. Then the Church tried to hit
him up for more money for the supposedly Paid-In-Full resting-place.
Obviously perpetual didn't mean perpetual.
Some memories become sharper, not dimmer, over the years.
I can imagine myself attending a "Come Home Again" meeting and talking about
how Uncle Thaddeus's gravesite was trashed to save the Church money. And
the moderator would say the bulldozer operator had "misunderstood" the
directions given to him by the monsignor. And it was only a coincidence
that the monsignor was out of town, on vacation at a retreat, when the blade
plowed all those gravestones and other burial markers into the river.
The moderator would probably add that the Church would never do anything
like destroy a graveyard to save money. The Church performs Charitable
Works; it's not about money.
Really. Well, it isn't getting me to go through the motions again, parked
in a hard pew in one of its vaulted, mostly empty buildings, mouthing
meaningless ritual responses, and then I supposed to put money in the
collection plate to help pay off another lawsuit won against a pedophile
priest the Church had been unjustly protecting.
After all, God helps those who help themselves. You're on your own, Church.
* No More Orange Alerts At City Hall *
Well, the municipal court has moved out to a building at the decommissioned
Air Force base. Now all the prisoners in orange jumpsuits won't be escorted
up the long steps of city hall for arraignment.
Personally we will miss that quaint touch of the accused rubbing elbows with
the public at large. (Let's face it, where you're manacled hand and foot,
all you can rub are your elbows.)
The Peeburgh mayor is concerned about appearances. Orange jumpsuits clash
with the decor of city hall. He wants to promote The City That Don't Werk
as a tourist attraction. In fact, he planned to have a small cannon fired
from the front steps of city hall at noontime every day, tying the present
with the past. After all, a major victory was won during the War of 1812,
the Battle of Peeburgh on Lake Chumplain. Yup, fire that cannon and bring
those glorious battles to life, soldiers and sailors with arms and legs
blown off, the screams, the anguished cries for help, the humanity, the
humanity.
Hey, if the mayor wants to bring history to life, maybe he could bring back
an old favorite: public hangings. In the Good Old Days people would come
from miles around to watch a necktie party.
"Prudence, put away that washboard! Hitch the horses to the buckboard.
There's a hangin' today in Plattsburgh. Round up the kids and make sure you
got all twelve of them. Maybe this guy today will be a kicker like the last
one..."
If that worked back in the 1800s, why not today? Imagine the condemned
hanging from a tree like a deflated, rotting orange balloon, tongue hanging
out, while people enjoy their popcorn, cotton candy and soda.
The city could really clean up on just the concessions alone...
* TeeVee News Distorts Facts For Bragging Rights *
"Our news team is the best! We win all the awards, get all the acclaim!"
Or so says the Channel 5 News Department at Peeburgh's TeeVee station. If
you pay attention to their ads you'll notice how they never hesitate to
goose the facts to make themselves look better. They claim in their ads,
both broadcast and print, that their Doppler (radar) network gives the
viewer the advantage when it comes to "Precision Weather" forecasting. They
act as if they went out and built their own network of radar towers across
NENYland and northern Vermont, just for you.
They didn't. Channel 5 News just hooked up their computers to information
already out there, radar systems built with the help of your tax dollars.
The Doppler units across the region belong to local airports, the National
Weather Service. Channel 5 built shit.
But they did "build" a radar COMPUTER "network." So what. Anyone can do
the same thing at home with a few PCs and the right connections. Channel 5
boasts of its "Stormtracker 5000" system, implying that its own radar
"network" is unique. The only thing unique about it is the stupid name they
dress it up in. Hey, HAL 9000 from the movie "200l" could kick Stormtracker
5000's butt any day of the week. Of course, HAL is just as real as
Stormtracker.
As for Precision Weather -- chaos theory makes a joke of it, especially with
their "precise" five-day forecasts. Five days of sunshine? Don't worry;
it'll rain by day three. The lead forecaster, Smilin' Weathercock,
sometimes can't even get the next day right. "Tomorrow we're going to see a
lot of rain." Yup -- a lot of rain as SNOW, six inches in the city, twelve
in the higher elevations. The Butterfly Effect is alive and well, despite
"Precision Weather."
When they're not bragging about their imprecise weather, the Channel 5 team
likes to say that they're "FIRST" with the news. They are. At 5 PM they
put on a half-hour of semi-news and fluff, saving the real stories for the
traditional program at 6 PM. But being on at 5 PM makes them "first" with
the news. Anyway, years ago a Vermont station, Channel 22, aired its local
evening news an hour earlier than the other stations. So Channel 5 can't
claim that "first" first.
Rated "Number One" for on-the-scene reporting, Channel 5 stated that their
reporter was first on the ground in Iowa to cover the Democratic primary.
Really. He parachuted behind enemy lines, ahead of the U.S. Army, to report
on the conflict? Since when was Iowa occupied territory?
On and on, 24/7, Channel 5 runs ads boasting of being the best. If it can't
get the facts right in its commercials, why should one trust its news
reporting?
Next time pay attention to your local TeeVee news, especially the station
rated number one in the market. Does it provide news or fluff? Does it
spend a good share of the time bragging about itself? Does it eat up news
time with flashy graphics and pretentious theme music blaring away?
Wake up and realize the truth. In this case first is last.
* Mayors, North and South, Are Quotable, Notable *
Leave it to Peeburgh's mayor when it comes to noteworthy statements.
The Burghomeister has announced he is against "the subsidization of
zucchini." That means he no longer wants the city to help out the farmers
market that sets up every summer in the downtown parking lot. (If the mayor
is against vegetables, what about the city subsidizing fruit?) It's not as
if the parking lot is crowded with vehicles, necessitating the teardown of
the market building. Most everyone is up at the mall, outside the city
limits.
But there's a scheme afoot to bring people back downtown to spend money.
Once again the city is proposing to renovate the municipal lot with new
features such an ice skating rink. Yup, when it's -20 degrees Fahrenheit,
nothing attracts people to your outdoor spot than frostbite.
In another interview the Burghomeister promoted the February Winterfest --
which, by the way, turned out to be a lot of slush. The mayor said it was
important to have winter activities. Why? Because of all of those babies
that end up being born in September. He wants people to get out of their
comfy warm homes and engage in some fun -- but not fecundation. A while
back this mayor, so concerned about sexual activity, was against a banner
being sponsored by the city to promote the play, "The Vagina Monologues."
Meanwhile, in Brazil, Elcio Berti, the mayor of Bocaiuva do Sul, has been
offering up his own notable qoutables. This mayor wants to ban homosexuals
from his town. Why? Because his community has a low birth rate and
obviously he wants to promote fecundation. This is the same mayor who
wanted to build an UFO landing pad to greet visitors from Out There. In
fact it is reported he cancelled a planned landing by an alien spaceship
during a Brazil vs. Peru football match due to concerns about abductions.
UFO landing pad? Don't let Peeburgh get wind of that scheme for its parking
lot. There are enough alien creatures wandering around downtown.
Then again, if alien visitors from Out There want to abduct our mayor,
please feel free to grab him and use your sci-fi examination tools. We
would like to know what makes him tick. For example, one time the
Burghomeister made an announcement at city hall while dressed up as a Vulcan
from "Star Trek," complete with pointy rubber ears. Obviously he needs a
good probing.
=============================================================
NOTICE: Unless indicated otherwise, all articles by Anti-Press. Articles
submitted by others do not necessarily express or reflect the opinions or
beliefs of Anti-Press.
WHERE WE'RE AT: Anti-Press Ezine radiates from our Precision Reality Center.
We're presently entrapped in the alleged city of Plattsburgh, northeastern
New York State (NENYland), USA. ("You shouldn't ask such questions, little
Johnny. Like I said, it's a divine mystery in this life. You'll understand
everything when you die and face the Lord. Now put out your hand so Mother
Superior can put some faith into you. As the Good Book says, spare the
ruler, spoil the child...")
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