Holy shit father

Thanks to We Goats for the image

Fascinating.  A comment on a Metafilter thread about the latest reports of paedophilia in the Catholic Church (as is often the case) really really made me think:
 
“I'm in agreement with those who see the Catholic orders as a refuge for homosexuals in cultures that were hostile to them. In fact, I suspect that "the calling" was, for the most part, a metaphor for homosexuality. Priests would take confession from boys who admitted to homosexual desires and recruit them into the secret brotherhood. This was a structure that worked well at perpetuating itself up until homosexuality became socially acceptable.

" One of the side effects of adult priests recruiting teen-aged boys into the fold was that it also provided a safe place for paedophiles to operate. I suspect that they formed a deeper secret cabal within or parallel to the homosexual secret society that was the backbone of the priesthood. With the reduction of the stigma against homosexuality, paedophiles became the major source of "the called," and the evidence of how the church's hierarchy has not just protected paedophiles but facilitated them leads to the conclusion that there is a strong, perhaps even dominant, paedophilic presence within that hierarchy. Benedict's homophobic pronouncements are natural from the leader of an organization that depended on homophobia in order to perpetuate itself. He is fighting the tide, but I doubt that he can see any other path. The only population that is really suited to the overt life of a priest are asexuals, and they are not common, nor are they likely to reveal themselves in confession. Neither are they likely to be racked with the guilt that is such a central component of Catholic life, and so they are entirely unsuitable.

" It strikes me that the whole structure built on concealed sexuality and secret corruption is no longer tenable in the modern world. The only possible way to rebuild the Catholic Church would be for it to honestly become what it has portrayed itself as, a spiritual cloister in a sinful world. But that is the kind of thing that will take generations to achieve, and the church probably does not have generations left to it.”

The gist of the comment, as you can see, is that the Catholic Church – historically – was at least partly a haven for homosexuals.  The celibacy provided adequate cover for the frowned-upon (to say the least!) behaviours of gay love and enabled (through the Confessional) the recruitment of younger men into its ranks.  As homosexuality has gradually become less stigmatised (though not necessarily in Oswestry) the new secret society is all about paedophilia, with the same secret structures being used to cover up this new perversion.  Now, I am a little uncomfortable with the homophobic undertones of some of the argument – especially when the Church itself has used the defence that paedos are in some ways analogous to homos – and would like to distance myself from that.

I am however, intrigued by the Derridean (no such word, I’m sure, but I like the cut of its jib) element that the evil (of the sexual abuse of children) is somehow contained within the good (of the belief in Christ) and that the one is entirely dependent on the other.  See my bold highlight of ‘Jimmy Havok’s’ comment above for clarification.

Happy Blog day!

It is one year since I started this whole blogging thing. Originally, my main focus was on football, Man City and Sven-Göran Eriksson, and it's been quite a year for him as well as for me, though I have drifted away slightly from the beautiful game in my musings, and he has ended up (again) several million pounds richer and living in Mexico. Somewhat different paths, but there you go.

In every close season I start feeling a bit fed up with football, and this year it's worse than ever because it really does seem as if what little heart and soul left in the game has evaporated. Every other story seems to be about who's buying out which club, which massively overpaid 'star' is moving to or from Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, whatever, and what the players' female companions (I refuse to use the term'WAG' on principle) are wearing, buying, selling...

As for City, I'm not, and - ahem - have never been, happy about Shinawatra being in charge of the team, and in common with Simon Hattenstone, am pondering a divorce from the club. It's very hard to tear oneself away even so, and I know that I will still be watching the results at a quarter to five on a Saturday afternoon. That's if any games are going to actually kick off at 3.00 on a Saturday in future. Despite protests from some critics I will probably post more about footy. So there!

I have been asked 'How do you find the time?' To which I can only shrug and say that I make the time. Sometimes a subject burns with me, so that I feel compelled to write about it, others I write when I'm in the mood, building up a post over time and scheduling publication for later.

But perhaps more interestingly, I have been asked 'Why do you do it?'

And why do I do it indeed? When I started, I had been reading some forums for a while, mostly Metafilter and Comment Is Free, and was really taken by the way that a discussion could develop with the participation of the readers, becoming something quite different to what it had originally been. I think -dredging up stuff from my college days - that it's called intertextuality. Most tellingly in this vein has been the development of Seth Freedman's views on the Israel/Palestine conflict. It is worth spending some time (if you have any) reading about this, I think. So, where MeFi often made me laugh, CiF often made me angry, and I joined both in order to be able to express my opinions. It seemed a logical step after that to set up a forum of my own. Of course, Blogger being a free service, and a couple of clicks away, certainly helped.

I have always wanted to be a writer (though I'm under no illusions as to my abilities) and a year or so ago, on the back of a redundancy and an uncertain personal future, vaguely thought that I might be able to make a living out of internet publishing someday. Now, a year on, I'm under no illusions on that score either. It doesn't look like I'll be pulling a Kottke-esque blog wage anytime soon. But it doesn't matter. Blogging has given me the opportunity to tell a small but loyal audience how I'm feeling, what's been going on in my life, and I hope raise the occasional smile or provoke the occasional thought. The best thing about it has been the (admittedly rare) occasions when two friends who don't know each other have started a discussion in the comments section, and I have become a bystander in my own blog. That there is one commenter who is able to hold a (usually surreal) conversation with himself is neither here nor there, but it certainly brings a smile to my face when I read his comments.

Just a few stats to finish. I have posted 146 times in this past year, with November 07 the month with the most posts (22).

The most commented on post was entitled Easter My Worries from the 21st of March this year with 27 comments made. After 'football' (50 tags) and 'city' (45 tags) the highest tag is 'politics' with 25. My favourite post is entitled Faith Hope & Charity, published in November 07. The biggest disappointment is always when I put in a deal of effort to build a detailed post and am confronted with tumbleweed blowing across a dusty plain, or worse, people don't bother to click on the hyperlinks. When that happens, I try to think about how often I actually read 'non professional' blogs myself and then carry on.

I hope you've enjoyed it, at least some of the time, as much as I have. I aim to carry on for a while. When I (finally) reach 5,000 hits I know that I'll be thinking about hitting 10,000.

Irritations

Update - 2/10/07. Google have responded to my phish report. The account was a spoof Gmail account in addition to being a phish. I hope they track 'em down and cut their balls off. That will make things better for people.

This week, I will write of passwords.

Like a lot of folks round here, I divide my UGC activities between home and (ahem) work. As I am a Mac user at home, and a Windows sufferer in the office, this means I am also cross-platform, though this is increasingly less of an issue.

One example is my Gmail account, which is probably the one I access most often. At home on the Mac, the little box next to 'Remember Me On This Computer' (BTW, I haven't checked the box on that last link. It may not be wise, but if you do so, please tell me what happened) is checked, but I recently changed all of my passwords and the Mac remembers the old one, so if I am not watchful, I have the (admittedly small) inconvenience of going to the password verification page once the first attempt fails. I have tried removing the check, thinking to enter the new password the next time and then to re-check the box, but still, the old password keeps auto-filling.

At work, auto-fill is not an option on almost all website logins (cookies and security or something - I do know that this can be a problem, especially in a shared workstation environment) BUT my Gmail login page remembers the new password anyway.

On the subject of Gmail, spam seems to be on the increase. Not a problem for a long while, but I've had 2 spasms recently, and 1 rather lame attempt at phishing (the email purported to be from The Bank Of America and, as a valued customer - snort - they were seeking to verify my account details. It came from another Gmail account - not even bankofamerica@gmail.com, but some cruddy name and number combination - and the copyright symbol at the bottom was actually a @)

Now, on to Twitter. On the Mac, Twitter autofills my user name and password as soon as I enter the first letter of the former - 3 keystrokes and I'm in. Lovely. At work, I have to tap away manually.

Metafilter - at home, I appear to have (missus) an automatic login - as soon as I hit Login hard enough, I'm straight in, which doesn't seem right as anyone could get in there far too easily. Know what I mean? MeFi doesn't even have a 'Remember Me On This Computer' option. Go figure. At work, manual entry is again required. On a daily basis.

Flickr is OK despite what some people I know have said about entering a lost password hell of Kafkaesque proportions. I log into 2 accounts, and at home, it simply remembers the last name I logged in under, with an option to change user name if necessary. At work, manual completion again. It's all very odd - no doubt due to IP addresses, firewall verifications, etc. etc.

Happy New Year Abeshas!

Today I posted a link on Metafilter about Ethiopian New Year.

Of course, I forgot all about Eritrea.

What a bozo!

Anyway, Happy New Year and all that to all Abesha people. May your next millennium be blessed.

Bad day

Today has not been good. The old adage that you pay for your happiness seems to have manifested itself well and truly.

Woke up this morning to find my new bike had been stolen. It ain't the first time, of course - these things are par for the course when you live in London (or virtually anywhere else for that matter) - but it doesn't make it any easier. There's an awful feeling of emptiness when you see the space where your bike used to be, and that hasn't changed since the first theft I suffered over 10 years ago.



The galling thing about it is that it happened inside my (communal) hallway and even more galling is that it is the THIRD time I have been hit there (the sixth time in total) Not naturally prone to paranoia (well, mostly, but certainly not in a Daily Mail fear of rife criminality sort of way) I have begun to worry about my house. The main door is kept closed, with a good closer mechanism. There have been no signs of forced entry, and there are only a few ways someone could enter:

1. They are let in
2. They have a key
3. They wait for someone to leave, hold the door and walk in
4. They have some means of opening the door without a key

Any of the methods above causes great concern. So does losing a new bike worth three and a half hundred fucking quid!

Secondly, I posted a question to MetaTalk as my first foray into the scary world of Metafilter. Needless to say, I omitted to do a few basic things (like searching tags) and was - more or less kindly - hung out to dry for it. I felt really PUBLICLY foolish.

We live and learn. We live and learn.

bikes