Death, etc.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about death.  Not so much my own inevitable end, but death in general is on my mind quite a bit these days.  I’m starting to reach that point in life (turning 45 today, in fact) where one begins to lose more and more people as time goes on, and it’s brought on some interesting new ponderings.  One of the things I’m starting to experience is how social media has changed the way we find out about and deal with someone’s passing.  Along with that, we get to see how our online presence tends to outlive us.  Like electronic ghosts…

In the past 20+ years the internet has been woven into just about every aspect of our lives, especially social media, and we’re sharing more and more of what used to be relegated to physical (and more private) media.  Remember writing in diaries…on paper?  And ordering prints for photos when then go into a scrapbook?  Sometimes I miss it….but I also love technology and using the gadgets we now have, and like a lot of other people I tend to just dump everything into the Cloud.

So…  In November 2014 I got on Facebook and there are all these messages posted to a friend’s profile saying things like: “Steve, why??” “What happened?”  “i miss you my best friend.”  I thought “WTF?”, with a sinking feeling.  Many more messages followed, referring to him in the past tense, and finally it hit me that he had taken his own life.  For weeks afterward, people posted messages on there as more and more people found out about it.

Coming to terms with his death and that horrible sense of loss was one thing — but this business of someone’s Facebook profile staying active after their death, and people posting messages to it (and each other), was something new for me.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.  Is it morbid?  Is it helpful to those he left behind?  I eventually came to realize that it’s actually kind of comforting to be able to say something “to” him this way, as a form of closure.  Or maybe not closure in the traditional sense, because people still occasionally post to it.  “Steve, I found this picture of us I never shared with you.”  “Happy 40th!  Missing you every day!”  It’s kinda sweet, and I know his family appreciates it.

A couple of months ago another friend of mine, John, died…and everything happened the same exact way.  I checked Facebook before work, began reading all these strange messages to him, and realized he’d died the previous evening.  Renal failure from a lifetime of diabetes.  It hit me really hard because we were pretty close despite living far apart — so I took the day off because I was completely useless with anything else.  I posted a bunch of photos of him/us to his Facebook page and said goodbye in my own way, and all day I read all the other stuff posted by his other grieving friends.  It was about all I could do since I wasn’t able to actually visit in person, and being able to do it was surprisingly cathartic.

I know this kind of thing is hardly new, though.  For years Facebook has made it possible for family to “memorialize” their loved one’s account, allowing people to keep visiting and posting to it indefinitely.  I’m sure other companies do it too…  The first time I’d heard of something like it was many years ago when a story came out about The WELL online community which allowed someone’s account to remain active after his death.  At the time that sounded a little morbid, but these days it seems like the obvious thing to do, and now I get it.

This stuff leads me to ask a few questions, the obvious one being:  what are people going to read/say when I’m gone?  My internet presence, in one form or another, goes all the way back to 1994 (and BBS systems going back to the mid-80s).  If anyone cared enough they could dig through it all and probably get a pretty good picture of who I am and what I was like, and how my beliefs and attitudes evolved over the years.  I’ve never really thought about what happens to all of that when I’m no longer here, so…am I happy with the “story” I’ve unwittingly left behind?  Or does it really matter since, you know, I’ll be dead?

I’ve thought a lot about this while going back and reading a bunch of my older stuff, and I think I’m OK with it.  There are posts I totally forgot about that crack me up when I find them, and there are things that make me cringe a bit.  Especially on Facebook when I went through my Asshole Atheist period a few years ago (I’m pretty sure I’ve mellowed since then, anyway).  But it was all honestly written at any particular time, so I can at least say I was being authentic…even if I was sometimes being an authentic twat.😀  Not nearly as bad as some of the unbelievably vile and hateful crap I see on Twitter and YouTube comments, though.  Now there’s some stuff I wouldn’t want my name permanently attached to, alive or not!

So considering how much of our lives we tend to put online, it strikes me as a sort of “passive immortality.”  After all, most of these big companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Instagram, etc. aren’t going anywhere any time soon.  The big players in the social media game are seemingly here to stay, and all this stuff we’re sharing with the world will be available for anyone to look at for many years to come (assuming you or your family don’t delete it!).  It’s something right out of sci-fi stories — people transferring their minds and “souls” onto data cubes or whatever — and I’m starting to feel like it’s becoming a kinda-sorta reality…in a sort of clunky, disorganized way.  And speaking of sci-fi stories, if you want to see an extreme take on this subject, check out the Black Mirror episode called “Be Right Back.”  It’s suuuuuper creepy, but maybe something that could actually happen someday.

There’s a strange wrinkle to this, though.  A few days after John was gone, a message from him appeared on Facebook.  Apparently his mom had taken control of his account and was letting people know about memorial services, etc.  I figured that was probably a good idea, since she wasn’t normally on Facebook and people could give their condolences that way.  But soon it began to feel a little weird, because she continued to post and “like” stuff, even sent me a couple of private messages about this or that.  I eventually had to mute him (her) because it was just too painful having his name and photo keep popping up as if he were still around.  I know she meant well, but…I just can’t.

I also think people should be able to easily opt out of being part of this future “existence”, though that’s nearly impossible at this point.  The Right to be Forgotten movement attempts to give people some choice in the matter, but apparently the process of making Google remove you from certain search results (the data stays, it’s just not linked to your name) involves an ungodly amount of hoops to jump through.  Maybe they’re hoping people will get frustrated and give up…

Anyway, I’ve come to find some amusement in the possibility of someone in the year 2116 somehow running across that massive compilation of blonde jokes I put online ages ago and thinking “What the…?”  Or maybe that shitty photo you took with your Motorola Razr phone and uploaded to Friendster in 2004 will someday pop up in an online collection of “primitive social intercommunication technologies.”  Who knows, maybe in the future everyone’s past online life will be like a virtual museum exhibit.

Hmmm, I’m actually not sure how I feel about that one.  Kinda sounds like another Black Mirror episode…

Dear Pokémon Go player: don’t be an asshole

God, I love The Oatmeal.

As if we don’t have enough people walking around with their faces buried in their phones, oblivious to everything around them, now we’ve got people tossing all common sense out the window and being insensitive dicks about it as they try to “catch” imaginary creatures in an app that collects mountains of data on who and where you are at all times.  Yay, technology!  I know that “sheeple” is a tired, eyeroll-worthy term favored by conspiracy theorists and other nutjobs, but sometimes it’s actually appropriate.  Case in point:

Holocaust Museum would like for ‘Pokémon Go’ trainers to back off

The Museum has found itself transformed into a series of three Poké Stops for each part of the facility, like several other inappropriate locales across the world, with visitors flocking to them, phones held high. Poké Stops are like caches of items for players who happen upon them, spawning items like Poké Balls, Potions and more.

…The museum is looking into seeing if it can be removed as a home for Poké Stops going forward, as it seems “disrespectful” for visitors to be engaged in these displays in areas of the museum meant for reflection and solemnity, such as the museum’s Hall of Remembrance.

Oh, and then there’s this.  Lucky guy, but not too smart.

This Is What Can Happen When You Play Pokémon Go While Driving

His mother wrote on Facebook cited by The Smoking Gun that although her son won’t answer a phone call or text behind the wheel, when he saw a “‘special’ Pokémon on his app… He looked down for a minute and woke up in an ambulance.” She adds that he’s thankful no one was in the now crumpled passenger seat.

But wait!  It looks like the developers have already come up with a way to ruin the game.  Soon you’ll be pummeled with ads for special creatures available only at certain shitty mall stores and fast food chains.  Corporate cash grab GO!

‘Pokémon Go’ sponsored locations will let brands in on the fun

While you’re trying to catch ’em all with Pokémon Go, the developers are figuring out how to make (more) money from the white hot augmented reality (AR) game. Along with the existing in-app purchases from “PokéCoins,” developer Niantic says it will use sponsored locations as another way to cash in, according to the Financial Times. “There is a second component to our business model at Niantic, which is this concept of sponsored locations,” Chief Executive John Hanke told the FT.

I honestly haven’t played this game, which is surprising because it’s such a cool use of technology that appeals to my geek streak, and normally I’d jump at the chance.  But I began reading about it on the gadget blogs and elsewhere, and after seeing the ridiculous frenzy it’s caused and what kind of personal info it collects, I really want no part of it.  (Jesus, I really must be getting old!)  I’m content to watch until it peaks and people lose interest, by which time there will be a new and exciting fad to start the frenzy all over again.  It’s a Circle of Life thing.

So much for “protecting the family”…

Here’s a story that’s been making the rounds lately.  This woman bragged on Facebook about all the guns she owns, because Obama was gonna take ’em from her and blah blah blah, same shit we always hear from firearm fetishists.  But then…

Texas gun advocate shoots and kills her two daughters

In March, Christy Sheats, 42, wrote on Facebook: “It would be horribly tragic if my ability to protect myself or my family were to be taken away, but that’s exactly what Democrats are determined to do by banning semiautomatic weapons.” On Friday she got into an argument with her two daughters and shot them both dead. Sheats herself was shot and killed by a police officer.

Holy shit.  I’m totally not surprised this happened in Texas, either.  But wait…just when you didn’t think it could get any worse:

Gun nut mom went back for more bullets before executing daughter

Police say that Christy Sheats, the gun nut mom who shot dead her two daughters during a family confrontation that spilled into a Texas street, returned inside to reload before executing her child in view of horrified neighbors. She was still shooting when cops arrived, which is why they killed her.

Sure, she may have murdered her own children in cold blood, but at least she was fully supported by her God-given Second Amendment rights to bear arms against whoever, right?  That’ll show ’em!

And no, I’m not blaming the guns themselves for this — but clearly, this woman made full use of her ample supply to destroy her family.  She clearly had a few loose wires and should probably have been in therapy if she wasn’t already.

Oh, and then there’s this nitwit, though I have a feeling she’s trollin’ us.  Hard to tell nowadays, isn’t it?

Race mixing is not only an ungodly thing, it causes such confusion and humiliation.  Not only for the children born of this sin, but for the grandparents who would have to carry this burden. Mrs. Sheats was the picture of elegance and I know she would not want to have to explain to her friends why she was carrying around a yellow mixed baby that her promiscuous daughters had created.

Rather than be forced into this life of depravity and sin, she chose to go down grasping her weapon in the name of God.  As far as I am concerned, she is a martyr for Christ.

In a follow-up post she whines, “Why am I the bad person for expressing what a majority of the world believes?”  That’s exactly your problem:  you think the whole world shares your evil and racist opinions.

You’re not a martyr, dear.  You’re just an asshole.

Running list of Donald Trump epithets

Update 7/17/16:  added one by me and another by @midnight (the ski movie one).

Time to lighten the mood!  Since I can’t seem to ignore the bastard, I’ve started a running list of epithets for Donald Trump taken from various places around the interwebs.  They’re not all zingers but some are truly fantastic.

I’ve only come up with two myself, though.  While posting on Facebook recently I referred to him as “this orange-tinged bag of jingoist raccoon farts.”  Not a bad start, I suppose.  The other day the phrase “Third-rate Hitler cosplay enthusiast” popped into my head, so there you go.  Feel free to comment with your own!

From @midnight (one of the few shows I watch almost religiously — the linked video is great):

• Xenophobic sweet potato
• Wispy human queef
• Dissonant bagpipe powered by farts
• Living Donald Trump caricature of Donald Trump
• Douchebag-infested hairpiece
• Bigoted orangutan and casino mismanager
• Presidential candidate and cranky planetoid
• The Orange One
• The Magnificent Orange One
• Orange condom filled with rancid stew
• Jersey Shore ventriloquist dummy
• Corn-husk doll cursed by a witch
• Luminous marmoset
• Tangelo Fruit Roll-Up stretched over cat litter
• The larval stage of a yam
• Conistipated Cheeto
• Tangerine covered in cobwebs
• Feral shouting meatball
• Fancy deli meat sculpture
• The angriest pumpkin
• Shrieking buffalo wing that feel into a urinal
• Jingoistic bullfrog
• Narcissistic human airhorn
• Orange yelling machine
• Hotel magnate and bloated Jack-o-Lantern in a suit
• Spray-tanned ski movie bad guy

From the “Throwing Shade” podcast (I know I’m missing some — these were all from a single episode!):

• Self-contained Human Centipede
• The dumpy garbage-troll from “Weird Science” zipped up in the skin of a gin-soaked 19th-century bodysnatcher
• Living, breathing, walking, talking pile of elephant diarrhea
• God’s ultimate mistake

From Gawker:

• Exhaustive child
• $4 billion puddle of tinted moisturizer
• Wonka Factory escapee
• Open-Faced Quesadilla
• Idiot billionaire and face of YouTube’s popular “Annoying Orange”
• Noted Asshole
• Asshole-American
• Shrunken apple head
• Permanently open mouth
• Verbal Billionaire
• Deflated basketball
• Cartoon plutocrat
• Sentient overripe pear
• Melted creamsicle
• Rotting pumpkin time-lapse
• Fluffy bouffant
• Gaping mouth with a hairpiece
• Oozy lather of absurd hyperbole
• Dick-nosed baldy
• Perpetual asshole
• Serially bankrupt business mogul
• Television clown
• Bloated spawn of a Penn Station ashtray and Nickelodeon slime
• Legitimate hairstyle choice
• Anthropomorphic caterpillar
• Toupee’d buffoon
• Bloviating billionaire
• Idiotic rich man
• Vibrating Bologna loaf
• Deflated football
• Human embodiment of hotdog filling
• Toupee-wearing Orangina Fuckhole
• Sentient bottle of self tanner
• Short-fingered vulgarian
• Rejected Richie Rich Villain
• Corndog that escaped from the state fair
• GOP Presidential candidate and Bone-in Ham
• Walking sun dried tomato
• Presidential candidate and human Kewpie doll
• Adult male baby with the combover and personality of a 30 pound toddler
• Melting pig carcass
• Human cystic acne pus
• Millionaire and disgraced racist
• What would happen if a caps lock key was granted one wish and that wish was to come to life
• Fabulist cheddar critter
• NOT a Fetal-Mafia Truther (i.e. Ted Cruz)
• Unreptant Bigot
• Ralph Steadman illustration come to life
• Noted Donald Trump enthusiast
• Grimacing Cheeto Fart
• Everyone’s Favorite Screaming Steamed Carrot
• Cursed Halloween Mask
• Presidential candidate and bag of flour
• Enraged animated creamsicle
• Woody Allen impersonator and Incessant Tweeter
• Time-displaced Sopranos extra
• Melted candle impersonator
• Bloviating caricature of a businessman
• Disgraced Pope impersonator
• Cable News Fever Dream
• Shoehorn with teeth
• Lint-crusted dried apricot
• Billionaire Siberian Tiger Hairball
• Miss Cleo cosplay enthusiast
• Petulant slice of stinking, festive shit-pie
• Noted Racist Donald Trump
• KKK Scion

From Jezebel:

• An ambitious corn dog that escaped from the concession stand at a rural Alabama fairground, stole an unattended wig, hopped a freight train to Atlantic City and never looked back
• Orange asshat
• Four-time bankruptcy filer and seething hernia mass
• Bone-in ham
• Sun-dried tomato
• A shithead
• Adult blobfish
• Deflated football
• Fart-infused lump of raw meat
• Melting pig carcass
• Disgraced racist
• Talking comb-over
• Human equivalent of cargo pants that zip away into shorts
• Cheeto-dusted bloviator
• Fuzzy meat wad
• Bag of flour
• Human turd
• Not in any way sexist, you bimbos
• A man who cherishes women
• Future leader of the free world
• Decomposing ear of corn
• His own best parody
• A rich idiot … willing to allow garbage to fall out of his mouth without batting a single golden lash
• Pond scum
• Noted troll
• The class clown that everyone wishes would be quiet and let the class learn
• Melting businessman
• The person still inexplicably leading the Republican presidential primary
• Wax museum figure on a very hot day
• Soggy burlap sack
• Bag of toxic sludge
• Your next president and ruler for life
• A brightly burning trash fire
• Impoverished urchin
• Aggressively stupid
• Great judgment-haver
• Man-sized sebaceous cyst
• Enlarged pee-splattered Sno Cone
• Empty popcorn bag rotting in the sun
• Man-shaped asbestos insulation board
• Hair plug swollen with rancid egg whites
• Inside-out lower intestine
• Dusty barrel of fermented peepee
• Usually reasonable burlap sack full of rancid Peeps
• Degloved zoo penis
• Presidential candidate and bargain bin full of yellowing Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
• Hairpiece come to life
• Normal-looking human man and entirely credible choice as future leader of the free world
• Decomposing pumpkin pie inhabited by vicious albino squirrels
• A dishrag that on closer inspection is alive with maggots
• Lead paint factory explosion
• Candied yam riddled with moldy spider carcasses
• Enraged Gak spill
• The shriveled pinto bean you had to pluck out of your Chipotle burrito basket
• Human-sized infectious microbe
• Poorly-trained circus orangutan
• Chester Cheetah impersonator
• Lumbering human-like tardigrade
• A tiny piece of dried cat poop that you found in your rug

It’s time for some gun-addiction rehab

Let’s face it:  America’s addiction to guns is literally killing us.  These addicts buy, sell, collect, and fetishize firearms with intense passion.  This passion is fueled by misinterpretations of the Second Amendment, absurd fantasies of valiantly defending their homeland against government tyranny, and racist/xenophobic feelings towards certain groups of people.  Oh, and many of them just have a seriously fucked-up desire to feel powerful and kill stuff.

And here we go again:  dozens of lives (this time in Orlando) snuffed out by a guy with a gun he never should have been able to get his hands on.  The arguments on social media defending his right to own that particular weapon are especially galling.  But how else should we expect addicts to respond?  If you’ve had experience with someone battling an addiction to alcohol, meth, etc. you know exactly what’s happening here.  The addiction will do whatever is necessary to protect itself.  It will make excuses, it will lie, it will say literally anything to ensure that the pleasure from the substance never ceases.

This is why you have rambling gun-apologetics articles like this one, where you can practically hear the excitement in his voice as he breathlessly describes in absurd detail why the AR-15 makes the perfect weapon for mass killing and how awesome that is…though of course murder is bad and stuff.  That’s pure addiction talking there:  well-worded and logically presented, but still absolutely and selfishly clinging to the thing that brings him so much pleasure.  It’s a sickness, folks.

Look, in my 20-ish years online I’ve wasted countless hours wading through diatribes from gun zealots defending their right to own military-grade weapons.  They’ll even split hairs about what “assault weapon” means, or what “militia” means, desperately trying to distance their worship of these dick-replacements from the latest massacre of innocents.  And you know you’ve run into a gun addict when their first reaction to any comment supporting gun control is what I call the WALL OF TEXT:  five or six dense paragraphs of run-on sentences detailing why they should be able to own any weapon they choose and how dare you repress my God-given right to own a AR-15 and the Founding Fathers totally said we should have ’em and by the way fuck Obama he wants my guns and he can’t have ’em praise Jesus vote Trump.  Seriously, this is what they do.  I see it every time we have another massacre…which is now weekly.

And honestly, I’ve had enough of their bullshit so I no longer engage them in debates.  No amount of linguistic gymnastics can justify the ownership of these weapons.  No amount of microscopic examination and reinterpretation of the Second Amendment makes it morally acceptable to allow anyone to purchase one, especially someone on the FBI’s terror watchlist (like the Orlando shooter was).  Not when we’ve got massacres happening weekly in this country, some involving children…something even the rifle-strokers have to admit wasn’t envisioned by our Founding Fathers.  These particular guns are made specifically to kill as many people as possible in a very short time, and nothing more.  It’s all over their marketing materials, even.

Yes, we should still fix the laws that allow dangerous people to get these weapons, but making them harder or impossible to get ahold of will definitely help as well.  Of course, when presented with actual data from around the globe showing that gun control works, they glaze over and claim it’s just the leftist commie agenda trying to take their precious people-killers.  That’s the addiction talking again.  Have you ever tried reasoning with an alcoholic who doesn’t actually want to change?  I have.  It’s pretty much a waste of time.

Can’t we build some rehab facilities for these people?  Maybe lock them up for a few weeks and make them watch newsreels of gun violence aftermath and the families ripped apart by it.  Make them go to group meetings where people talk about their irrational attraction to these steel instruments of killing.  I mean, there’s gotta be something we can do to treat this sickness.

It’s just a fantasy of mine, of course.  The problem is far too widespread and the worship of firearms is too deeply embedded in our culture for any significant changes to the gun laws to happen, but a man can dream.  (That’s me, always looking on the bright side!)

Reap this.

Whoops.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick deletes “reap what you sow” tweet after mass shooting at LGBT club

A “reap what you sow” tweet from Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick that went out hours after approximately 50 people were killed at a Florida LGBT nightclub has been deleted amid backlash.  At precisely 7 a.m. Sunday Dan Patrick tweeted a photo with the words of Galatians 6:7. The verse reads, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”

I’m not surprised in the least that this came out of Texas…but it seems to me that what America is really reaping is mountains of dead bodies bought and paid for by NRA lobbyists and Republicans who refuse to do anything about it except offer “thoughts and prayers.” But I digress…

Patrick’s adviser Allen Blakemore issued a statement explaining that the tweet was an unfortunate coincidence.  …A Bible verse is tweeted from Patrick’s account every Sunday at 7 a.m.

Riiiiight.  Great bit of P.R. there.  All you have to do is read the kind of shit he tweets regularly (anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-poor, pro-white, pro-Christian, pro-discrimination, etc.) and it’s not much of a leap to conclude that he’d post this intentionally.  The only upside to all this is the vast sea of backlash he’s swimming in at the moment.  You wanted attention, Mr. Not-Even-A-Governor, and now you have it.

(Side note:  even if it was just a crazy coincidence that this tweet was unintentional, do you really need to be auto-tweeting Bible verses?  What’s the point, to gather Likes?  Matthew 6:6: “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”  Oh but if you do that, nobody will see what a stellar Christian you are!  Can’t have that, now can we?)

Such an imagination we have…

Now, this is the way to scare the shit out of people and make them do what you say.  Some of these would look right at home in John Carpenter’s “The Thing.”

Donald Trump before the makeover.  Or maybe after, it’s hard to to tell.

THE DEVIL AND HIS SERVANTS: DEMONIC ILLUSTRATIONS FROM 18TH CENTURY OCCULT BOOK

With the warning “NOLI ME TANGERE” (“Do Not Touch”) on its cover, the compendium can be seen as a last attempt by those of faith to instil fear among the superstitious. After all, the Compendium Artis Magicae was produced during the decade of revolutions (American and French) and in the Age of Enlightenment—when reason, science and the power of the individual dominated, and the first stirrings of industry were about to change Europe and the world. The horrendous witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries were long banished and the last execution in England for witchcraft took place in 1716 (1727 in Scotland, 1750 in Austria, 1782 in Switzerland), while the practise of witchcraft ceased to be a criminal offense across Europe during the century (England 1735)—all of which makes this Compendium Artis Magicae all the more bizarre.

I’ll bet many people today can look at such things and feel a stab of fear, because they’ve been programmed to think there’s an evil creature lurking in the shadows trying to lure them into its sinful clutches.  (Side note:  what’s with the gargantuan wangs on some of these demons…?)

Going downhill fast…

Well, so much for my efforts to ignore Trump…  Actually this is more about his supporters.

So this is what we’ve come to now:

Photographs Show Trump Supporters Pepper Spraying Protesters in The Face (UPDATED)

Last week, photographer Jimi Giannatti attended a Trump rally in San Diego, where protestors converged to denounce in particular the candidate’s deeply racist anti-Mexican stance. Trump’s supporters were ready for them, and armed with pepper spray.

The anti-Trump protesters were forced by the police to stand across the street from the rest of the crowd, so they weren’t even near the supporters.  These Trump assholes actually went across the street themselves and attacked the protesters with pepper spray.  Is anyone going to jail for this?  Trump would bail ’em out if they did.

Oh, there’s video in that article, too.  Those fuckers were enjoying themselves inflicting horrific pain.  At least they also hit some of their own with those streams.  Thanks, God!

It’s only a matter of time before some racist fucktard wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat pulls out a semi-automatic and sprays a group of protesters with bullets.  It’s the American way, after all.

Head, meet bat.

This Jesusdouche was parading around outside a high school in Arizona holding a sign saying “You dserve to be raped.”  You won’t believe what happens next!

Anti-Gay Preacher Assaulted With Baseball Bat Outside Arizona High School: VIDEO

An anti-gay Arizona street preacher required hospital treatment after he was hit over the head with a baseball bat by an offended student.  Dean Saxton was hollering homophobic abuse outside Apollo High School when Tabitha Brubaker (19) attacked the Glendale preacher.

No, he probably didn’t deserve to be physically attacked…because when that kind of thing happens, the attackee will use it to say “See how violent the homos are?  See how intolerant they are to innocent Christians who just want to worship??”  As if his shithead behavior should be tolerated in any way.  If this were somewhere other than Arizona I’d say to call the cops and have him tossed in jail (and maybe get a taste of that rape he’s so fond of recommending) but we all know that wouldn’t happen there.

And, as expected, he plays the repressed-speech victim card on Twitter, milking it to death by posting the photo of him with some blood on his head over and over and over.  What an attention slut.  Oh poor, poor you, inciting violence and complaining when you get some.  Your actions will have consequences, asshole. *bonk*

 

Prepare thyself for the Holy Handjob™

Stories like this bring me such a torrent of schadenfreude I almost can’t stand it.  Oh, it’s definitely horrible (and unsurprising) that it was reported to the Archbishop and completely ignored…I mean, it’s what we’ve come to expect from the Church.  But the antics of this predatory, closeted scumbag are now out in the open, and watching the Church squirm and scramble to handle yet another P.R. mess is damn fine entertainment in my book.

Priest Who Wrote Vatican’s Anti-Gay Guidelines Accused of Sex With Male Seminarians

A French priest who has written disparagingly about gay people and acted as a counselor to student and novice priests struggling with their sexuality has been accused of having sex with male clients.  Monsignor Tony Anatrella – who earlier this year told new Bishops they are not obligated to report a suspected abuser to authorities – is still regularly consulted on matters of sexuality by the Vatican.

One of his accusers said that Anatrella engaged in various sex acts with him in the Monsignor’s Paris office, with the activity allegedly occurring up until a few years ago. Daniel Lamarca claims Anatrella said he could rid him of his “pseudo-homosexuality” by performing sex acts.

So he’s using the “like cures like” method to basically wank the gay out of someone.  Damn, those priests are really getting creative!