Outside The Asylum

I'm not even sure I have the CD anymore- just a few MP3s of my favorite songs from their CD on my phone. Don't know how to spell their names either- I think it was Sammuson & Tomassi, weird spellings from a weird city at a weird time. It was 1996. I was a single guy back then, very liberal at the time. Spent a lot of my time at The Beanery coffee house in Salem, OR. A lonely geek, three years before I'd figure out women enough to meet my wife and get married, four years before I'd actually find out what was wrong with me with my Asperger's diagnosis. Fourteen years ago. One night, a singing duo came into the coffee house. Good 'gonie folk rock, they sung about the values I grew up with as in a Tom McCall Republican household- conservation, living off the land, lots of respect for Native Americans. Some new age thrown in, but I didn't mind that as I hadn't discovered what an Old Age religious guy I was yet. Wonderful music. At that time in my ...

Pepperland! And Blue Meanies! Yes, it's the Yellow Submarine!

This is written in response to this Call for papers on the subject of autism. 1. Don't Panic. Ok, I know it sounds like the slogan of a certain comedy science fiction book, TV Show, Radio Show, and Movie that a lot of geeks like, but it's true in this case too. That's the first thing you shouldn't do. There are a lot of "charities" and "doctors" out there right now in the internet and in society that are hoping that you'll panic at your child being diagnosed with autism, and accept their cure. Not all of their advice is bad, but not all fits all autistic children or people. And some of their more expensive recommendations are downright awful. So don't panic, do your research, and NEVER accept a single opinion on what is right for your child. ALWAYS ask to see the data. 2. Heavy metal poisoning is the #1 crackpot theory out there today, and there's good reason for it- it's co-morbid with up to 75% of autism cases, depending ...

So, is the Roman Catholic Church too judgemental? Or too merciful? Or is it just that some people who want it to be merciful for *THEIR* favorite sins, don't like it when the Church is merciful for *OTHER PEOPLE'S* favorite sins? We're Catholic. We're supposed to believe in *forgiveness* more than sin. But being merciful to a child abuser, apparently, is the unforgivable sin among some Catholics.

The Vatican is claiming that they're being attacked by a Witch Hunt from the New York Times. Well, after reading a few rad-trad Catholic sites and doing my own reading of the NYT's so-called document trail, I think it might go deeper than that, at least if you're schizophrenic, paranoid, and off your meds: In 1963, the Masonic Pope John XIII convened Vatican II to get the Roman Catholic Church to change it's teaching about God in a very fundamental way. God was no longer the wrathful judge and strict father figure we had grown to love, no, suddenly he's smokin' ganga and handing out mercy to any sinner who asks. Fast forward 10 years, and a priest in Wisconsin by the Name of Fr. Murphy has been hiding in the confessional, molesting deaf boys during the infamous American Hippie Summer of Love (well, he ended in the Summer of Love, he'd really been doing it for a lot longer before that, but he's clearly a dirty hippie and a member of the vast Masonic Cons...

Opposition to providing every human being with health care *of some sort* is Cain and Abel all over again. I *am* my brother's keeper. Matthew 25 says I will be judged by how I treat him. By what stretch of the imagination can we be greedy and say "I don't care what happens to him"? And the wages for this sin aren't far behind. In today's world where oppressed people commit acts of terrorism, the lack of health care is a HUGE defensive hole that fails to be filled. If I were al Qaida, I'd be concentrating on highly contagious diseases. Far better than a suicide bomber with a vest of dynamite, is one guy with a cough and a bunch of frequent flyer miles in a country with inadequate health care.

Or at least, some people I'm close to are getting strange. Christopher's godparents are getting a divorce- and she's cracking up, been diagnosed with a whole host of mental illness problems. Our pastor at St. Clare's has decided at 57 that he no longer wants to be alone the rest of his life- at least he's doing the right thing by resigning from the priesthood instead of causing a scandal by breaking his vow of celibacy. I admire his integrity in this choice, but what timing! He'll be lucky to have a job again in less than six months- right now the average unemployment period in Oregon for *anybody* is more like a year or two. Six applicants for every job. OTOH, for his direct problem of loneliness attached to his vow of celibacy- he's the man, he's the man, he's the man- who doesn't exist. Moral, upright, never been divorced because he's never been married, and over 50, an age where single women outnumber single men 2:1. I suspect he...