Chronicle of the Damned, part 1

It's no surprise that Seattle is home to the nation's only Planned Parenthood affiliate with a full-time chaplain on staff.

The story in question is from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/21/06.

Vincent Lachina, a Baptist minister, "believes women should be able to do what they want with their bodies and that they are, little by little, losing that right through the courts." Pardon the courts for doing what this "minister" is supposed to be doing: defending innocent human life.

"Even staff who fully support a woman's right to make reproductive choices say abortion days take a toll, especially when they see repeat customers," the article states. 'Repeat customers'?!? Nothing like a little sanitized language to help the medicine go down. Who says humanity hasn't progressed beyond a murderous past? We've taken the wholesale slaughter of human life and made it retail.

But it's all ok, because Lachina is there to help Planned Parenthood's staff and 'customers' battle with that pesky little thing called conscience.

To what end, you ask? Well don't take my word for it...the words of one staff member speak for themselves: "The very first time I was involved," remarked Mona Hinojos, "I thought, 'How am I going to deal with this?'" "I was raised Catholic, so it's hard. Women's rights are very important, just as much as my religion. I believe in what we do here." She overcame her initial reluctance with the help of Lachina, the article reports. "Lachina's counseling further cemented Hinojos' already strong sense of purpose." He's truly a man at work in the Lord's vineyard.

How does the minister feel about this work? "It's been much easier than I thought it would be," said Lachina.

Sliding to Hell usually is.

Quandry

Bush pushes for democracy (that great saviour) in the Middle East. Palestinians democratically elect Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Bush refuses to negotiate. Democracy disappoints. Time to take your ball and go home?

Hell, I don't want a democracy here. Why would I want it in the Middle East.

Iran's blustery bravado

from today's Jerusalem Post:

Were Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran would respond so strongly that it would put the Jewish state into "an eternal coma" like Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's, the Iranian defense minister said Wednesday.

"Zionists should know that if they do anything evil against Iran, the response of Iran's armed forces will be so firm that it will send them into eternal coma, like Sharon," Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said.

Najjar said the United States and Israel have been trying to frighten Iran, but neither country would dare attack to Iran.


-- I suggest that recent U.S. military actions and previous Israeli responses indicate that neither country lacks the cahones to attack other nations, and certainly Iran is no exception. The only lack is a reason, a hurdle Iran is determined to remove.

Abbey

HONESTY IN A DISHONEST AGE

The following is one of the last entries in Ed Abbey's diary,
written shortly before his death on March 2, 1989, in Tucson, Arizona.

"Why book reviewers hate my books:
"Because the books are really no good? Perhaps. But I think I've got a better explanation. Almost all reviewers, these days, are members of and adherents to some anxious particular sect or faction. I.e., they are lesbians and New Agers or fem-libbers or (even worse) male fem-libbers or technophiles or self-hating white liberals or right wing conservatives or Growth maniacs or Negroes or female Negroes or Third-World lesbian militant Negro poetesses or closet Marxists (Marxoids) or futurologists or academical specialists or Chicano idealogues or ballerinas or Kowboy Kultists or Kerouac Kultists or Henry James Minimalist Perfectionists or one-tenth Chippewa "Native American" Indians or at very least and all-inclusive Official Chickenshit Correct-Thinking Liberals etc. etc.

"As such, any member of any one of those majority minorities is going to find for certain a few remarks in any of my books that will offend/enrage "s/he" to the marrow, leading inevitably in turn, on the part of such sectarian book reviewers, to a denunciation not merely of the offending passage, but of the entire book, and not merely of the book, but of the author too."

Where have all the typewriters gone? A lament.

"I sat at the typewriter for the first time and fell in love with the words that emerged like drops, one by one, and remained on the white sheet of paper ... every drop became something that if spoken would have flown away, but on the sheets as words, became solidified, whether they were good or bad."
Oriana Fallaci

Psalm 91

Psalm 91

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Thou shalt tread upon the lions and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.