Wednesday, April 14, 2010

A Tea Party BIG Gripe! The Vatican Says, "Call the Cops!" Wasn't Osama bin Laden The Reason We Went To Afghanistan? New Arizona Law Rocks!!!

The last couple of weeks, my main commentaries have been about the pedophile priest scandals, scandals that have, for the most part, (and there's no nice way to say this) "been covered up" by higher ups in the Catholic church.

I've stated my views. Instead of sending guilty pedophile priests somewhere to pray away their crimes, I want to see them locked up in jails. Same deal with Bishops, Cardinals and even the Pope if "accessory" crimes can be proven.

As readers of this blog know, I seldom print emails that you send me, but I respond to every email that is sent to me at scottstjames@sbcglobal.net and more often than not, there is a lot of "back and forth" that takes place after that.

There are other subjects that will be covered later in this blog, but right now, I'm going to set the stage for two emails about the pedophile priest business that were sent to me. I will print these emails word for word as they were sent to me and I will print word for word the reply I wrote to one of the emails. The other email was written by someone I've known for a long time and my response doesn't need to be printed because all I said to him was, "I love this note. Is it okay if I print it?" His answer was, "Help yourself." and it will be the second email that I will print.

Again...Both of these emails are responses to my commentaries about the pedophile priest scandals. The first email you'll read will be in response to my first commentary, March 31-April 1. The second email will be in response to my second commentary, April 7-8.

Mike Anderson is the Editor/Publisher of St. Louis Media.Net (STLMedia.net) and he's been in his current position for many years. Mike has developed quite a following in St. Louis. He's a former radio broadcaster who is now a local critic of radio stations in the St. Louis area. He's also a man who served his country during the Vietnam mess and he has strong opinions about the national political landscape and he thinks the coverage of the pedophile priests....Well, I'm not going to put words in his mouth. The email he wrote speaks for itself. One more thing about Mike Anderson; He has taken the time to read this blog on an occasional basis, but I won't refer to him as a "fan" of this blog. In two other instances, Mike has written responses that consisted of two words. And those two words were, "All crap!" Like I said, I don't think he's a "fan".

Here comes the word for word response to my first commentary about the Catholic pedophile priest scandal that Mike Anderson wrote just before 6 in the morning on April 1.

Scott: I hope that you spend as much time, energy and emotion writing about the sexual perversions and molestations committed by:

Public school teachers
College instructors
Police
Welfare agency workers
Doctors
Counselors
Psychiatrists
Rabbis
Ministers of faiths other than Catholic
Most Muslim men (yes, man-boy love is in the Koran, and it's not forbidden)...and, of course, show biz perverts like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen.

But these transgressions will receive pale light in the LA Times, the most anti-Catholic newspaper in the U.S.

By the way, the NY Daily News, never a fan of the Church, has an interesting editorial today factually and historically refuting the false crap published yesterday by Maureen Dowd and the NY Times. You should read it.

Did the accused priests do these terrible things? Yes, most of them probably did (there are always false accusations, as we have seen). Should priests be held to a higher standard of behavior because of the positions they hold in their parish and surrounding communities? Most definitely. Is the Catholic Church the only agency infected with these sick types? Certainly not. But as noted by all relevant authorities, Catholic priests are responsible for less than 2% of these crimes. Someone, somewhere else, is responsible for the other 98.5%.

Maybe if the net was cast a little more widely we could end this blight.

Mike Anderson, Editor/Publisher, STLMedia.net

That was Mike Anderson's word for word response to my first commentary about this subject. What you'll now read is my word for word reply to Mike Anderson.

Hi Mike,

Mike, your (obviously) well thought out observations represent what is proven to me week after week after week. I get deep thinkers who constantly say (in essence), "You want responses, big boy? Chew on THESE!"

And chew I do.

Mike, I have no quarrel with examples of people who have other occupations other than Catholic priests and THEIR leaders/bosses, etc.

And when I'm presented with enough proven instances over the length of time that these outrages have occurred, I will jump on my horse and ride in that direction as well.

Until the last few days, I've been a guy (like most) who shook his head a little when a new "abuse" story was told. Shook my head, moved on and depending on what time of year it was, said something like, "How 'BOUT dem Cowboys!?!"

But NOW, as I stated in my headline, my reaction is, "ENOUGH!!!"

And I have written the first commentary I've EVER written on this subject.

Thanks to YOUR response-commentary, you can be assured I'll be looking in other directions as well. And hoping there is nothing like what has been allowed to "slide" for as many years and in as many countries as this has.

Brother veteran, thanks for caring enough to share (as the late Paul Harvey used to say) "The REST of the story!"

Okay. You've seen Mike Anderson's email to me and you've seen my reply to Mike Anderson.

Here's a little background on the second email I'm about to print.

It's in response to what I think should happen to child abusing priests.

The email was sent to me by Claude Hall, a man who with his lovely wife Barbara, lives in Las Vegas. At one time, Claude Hall was a college professor who taught writing and he has given me a great deal of encouragement ever since I began writing this blog.

As I've told you in previous blogs and as you can see on the short bio that is to the right of this blog, I spent a lot of years as a radio broadcaster. I've been a music man, a general information talk man and a sports man. I've also been a program director and a music director. I mention this because when I got into the broadcast business, there was one guy that every broadcaster read religiously. Claude Hall. When (for many years) he was writing a column called "Vox Jox" in Billboard Magazine. I mean, the amount of readers this guy had was off the charts. Among other great radio names, Claude Hall was the first to write about Don Imus when Imus was in Stockton or Sacramento, California. Claude Hall really believed in Imus, but he also really believed in people like Joey Reynolds, Robert W. Morgan and so many other broadcasters who eventually became to be known as "Legendary Broadcasters".

And I'm proud to call Claude Hall a friend of mine.

Yeah, he's still writing. A new column is posted every Sunday morning on RDN (Radio Daily News) and it's easy to find by googling it.

So...Because we're friends, his word for word email begins the way any other friend's email would begin, because in it's own way, it's a continuation of a previous conversation.

Again...This is Claude Hall's word for word response to my thoughts about appropriate punishment for child abusing priests.

Scott,

I'm not that far removed from the Old West and the Old West methodologies for solving problems. Although he didn't talk about it, my grand father Smith was on more than one vigilante committee; the sheriff was too far away and had other problems. And my great grand father was a territorial marshal evidently working out of Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and shot villains for a living.

But this note is about a college professor of mine. Quite famous. Robert Montgomery. He once mentioned in class that as a kid they used to hang strangers passing through the county. He said, "If they got away, they went on out to California and, well, that explains California."

Montgomery was a great college economics professor and a great wit, but a little rash when it comes to punishment, I think.

Child abusers should be castrated. Simple as that. Not as punishment, but as a deterrent...and if convicted, of course. Known child abusers who escape the law should be quietly tarred and feathered and castrated. I think my grand father, a Bible-toting man as they say, would have volunteered for the committee.

Claude Hall

Okay. There's Claude Hall's response. As I stated earlier, the only reply I wrote to him was to ask his permission to print this note he sent me.

Oh...Early in his note, he mentioned his old college professor, Robert Montgomery and referred to Montgomery as being quite famous.

Doctor Robert Montgomery helped pinpoint the two atomic bomb drops on Japan.

TWO MORE CATHOLIC CHURCH ITEMS...

In response to the world wide questioning about the Vatican's seeming desire to avoid bad publicity by "covering up" child abusing priests, the Vatican has issued new guidelines that say in essence, crimes MUST now be reported to the POLICE!

Better late than never, huh?

Here's the other item. I have received a lot of emails from people who describe themselves as Catholics and every one of them has said they believe the "Celibacy Requirement" for priests should be eliminated.

I agree with that. But what do the rest of you think? Yea or Nay on eliminating the celibacy requirement for Catholic priests? Tell me by writing to, scottstjames@sbcglobal.net

ARIZONA'S NEW ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT LAW!!!

Did you hear about this? Arizona lawmakers approved a law that in essence directs local police to determine whether people are in the country legally. Gang, this is HUGE!!! Especially if we can get other states to start doing this as well.

Some of you are probably saying something like, "Aren't police already doing that?" and the answer is, "NO!", because in most places, it's illegal for our police to "bother" people who are here illegally unless they've committed some other crime. In other words, if you're here legally, do something illegal and you get arrested. But if you're here illegally, you're allowed (in essence) automatic amnesty for that crime. Sound confusing?

A BIG TEA PARTY "GRIPE"!!!

A new NY Times/CBS News poll shows that Tea Party people think the Obama Administration is more interested in favoring the "poor" while offering virtually nothing to those who are "middle class" or "rich". Favoritism that results in "A welfare class that lives for having children and receiving payment from the government for having those children".

Short Commentary: At the risk of sounding like I'm stepping on the downtrodden, can we talk about this for a minute?

If someone is too poor to care for themselves, should they be allowed to have CHILDREN?!? Children that we the taxpayers will have to pay for? In addition to already paying for the parents?

I think we should have a way to STOP that from happening. Because I think what we're allowing to happen is WRONG! So, yes. I'm agreeing with the Tea Party people about this. But what can we legally DO about it?

Any ideas? Please, please write to me at scottstjames@sbcglobal.net

THE ECONOMY!!!

The economy getting any better where you are? I can tell you two types of businesses that are whacha call "booming". The other day, I stopped by to visit with a bankruptcy lawyer I know. He has a huge suite and it was difficult to find a place to sit. The other "booming" business is the "Bill Collector" business.

Everything else? Not so good.

And we keep hearing about lobbyists throwing millions of dollars at Washington lawmakers so that these lawmakers won't see to it that financial reforms that we desperately need are instituted and enforced.

OUR TWO STUPID AND EXPENSIVE WARS!!!

Iraq? We went there because of a terrible lie told by people we're supposed to trust and what have we accomplished besides a lot of dead and seriously wounded American soldiers and increasing this big "deficit" that everyone seems to be worried about?

And then there's Afghanistan. Didn't we go there to capture or kill Osama bin Laden? Like eight years or so ago? How's that working out? Besides having more dead and seriously wounded American soldiers while the current president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is threatening to join the Taliban. Meanwhile, what are we really doing there besides protecting their poppy fields while our DEFICIT goes up some more!

After all this HEAVY stuff, let's.....

What you're about to read is an "oldie but a goody". And my sincere thanks to reader Dave who sent me what I'm about to print. This joke was sent to me several years ago, but when Dave sent it to me a couple of days ago and I laughed AGAIN, I thought you readers might laugh (again) if you haven't seen it for a while.

Here goes...

A farmer decided he wanted to go to town and see a movie. The ticket agent asked, "Sir, what's that on your shoulder?"

The old farmer said, "That's my pet rooster Chuck. Wherever I go, Chuck goes."

"I'm sorry sir," said the ticket agent. "We can't allow animals in the theater."

The old farmer went around the corner and stuffed Chuck down his overalls. Then he returned to the booth, bought a ticket, and entered the theater.

He sat down next to two old widows named Mildred and Marge.

The movie started and the rooster began to squirm. The farmer unbuttoned his fly so Chuck could stick his head out and watch the movie.

"Marge," whispered Mildred.

"What?" said Marge.

"I think that guy next to me is a pervert."

"What makes you think so?" asked Marge.

"He undid his pants and he has his thing out", whispered Mildred.

"Well, don't worry about it", said Marge. "At our age, we've seen 'em all."

"I thought so too", said Mildred. "But this one's eatin' my popcorn!"

ENTERTAINMENT STUFF...

This is already an extra long blog, so I'll keep this brief.

A couple of days ago, I saw a film on one of the HBO channels that I hadn't seen since it was released in 1995. "The American President". This was written by Aaron Sorkin, the guy who created and wrote most of the episodes of "The West Wing". Martin Sheen is in this film along with a number of other actors who appeared on "The West Wing", but the two main characters are played by Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. I thought the chemistry between those two fine actors was off the charts adorable and I ended up loving this film! AGAIN!!!

This week's "American Idol". The music the contestants had to choose from this week was "Elvis Presley" music and this week's music mentor was a perfect choice. Adam Lambert. He finished 2nd in last year's "American Idol" but there isn't a person alive who cares about that show who doesn't think Lambert deserved to WIN, including the guy who DID win.

Anyway, I thought Lambert was a terrific "mentor", I loved the Elvis medley the nine contestants sang tonight (results night) and I loved Lambert's new single which he sang during tonight's show.

Two contestants were eliminated. The remaining contestants are five guys and two women. The view here is that none of the five guys are as good as either of the two women. The singer I look forward the most to hearing and watching is, Siobhan Magnus who has been described by some as being a female Adam Lambert.

THOUGHTS AND OR COMMENTS? Please write to me at scottstjames@sbcglobal.net. I will respond to you immediately. If you write to the blog, there's no way for me to know your email address so I will be unable to respond to you. Again... scottstjames@sbcglobal.net and I will respond to you immediately. All "Anonymous" emails are ignored.

THE NEXT BLOG? Unless something unforseen comes up, late next Wednesday night, April 21 and maybe then I'll finally do the piece on "death" that I've been saying I will write about.

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