I think it’s time for another Homeless News You Can’t Use Roundup!
In this Eastertide season we have lots of Homeless News relating to Jesus and friends, and I must mention some of them.
In Albuquerque, Rev. Trey Hammond gave a couple of homeless men a camera to photograph scenes from their own lives that reminded them of stories from the last week of Christ’s life, because, you know, Jesus was homeless, too. I had to mention that because every time anyone says, “Jesus was homeless, too,” a kitten is born, and you all know we need more kittens all the time.
On Good Friday in Honolulu, a group of legislators marched barefoot dodging pebbles and broken glass along a 5-mile route as "a small way of acknowledging the suffering" of the poor on a day memorializing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. They made 14 stops along the way, corresponding to the Stations of the Cross, to pray for and talk to homeless people, and made various donations.
Some of the marchers put duct tape on their feet. When it was suggested that this was cheating, because Jesus and his Apostles had no duct tape, State Rep. Michael Kahikina said, "But Jesus gave us wisdom!"
So in two thousand years Jesus gave us the wisdom to invent duct tape so we can march for the poor and homeless in an approximately barefoot state. There is no limit to what Jesus may give us the wisdom to do in another two thousand years. I want a levitator I can have surgically embedded under my corns, so I can walk on water in an approximately barefoot state. For the poor and homeless. That would be wise.
In a press release circulated for pay on Press Release Network by 55-year old Terry Coleman of Denver, CO, we learn that 55-year old Terry Coleman of Denver, CO, has sung hymns for 40 hours 17 minutes FOR THE HOMELESS, in order to “get into either the Guinness Book of World Records or The Book of Alternative Records.”
Depending on how you read the press release by 55-year old Terry Coleman of Denver, CO, the event of his singing of the hymns was held at Tabitha’s Restaurant either on Feb. 12 or next July. In any case Terry was 54 at the time, and he hoped to raise a lot of money for the homeless, including his homeless brother, but he didn’t. Also, the Guiness Book of World Records doesn’t choose to have an entry for longest hymn singing.
I am just thrilled to learn that I can inundate the world’s news outlets with my own press release for only a couple hundred dollars or so in the hopes of raising funds for the poor and the homeless. I’m thinking of announcing my learning of this fact. My press release will say: Dr. Wes Browning of Seattle, WA, has learned how to flood the world with press releases at a cost of only a couple hundred dollars or so FOR THE HOMELESS. Please make your checks out to Dr. Wes Browning, and put “FOR THE HOMELESS” on the comment line, so he knows how to spend your generous donation of any amount large or small.
Finally, in the non-religious Homeless News You Can’t Use category a 2-1 vote of a 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down Los Angeles’ no-sitting ordinance because it violates the 8th Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
You can’t use that news because the court explicitly cited Seattle’s No-Sitting ordinance as one of many such laws around the country that they consider acceptable because the Seattle law is limited to certain hours of the day, and only applies in restricted zones.
Still, it’s nice to know that 2 out of 3 Ninth Circuit justices think homeless people should be able to sleep somewhere, sometime, without being arrested for it.
Maybe they were really thinking of the kittens.
Showing posts with label kitten. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kitten. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Thursday, August 7, 2003
Whites Priced At Five Dollars Each
Let's talk about religion!
No, let's not talk about religion! I don't want the headaches! Let's talk about religious authorities instead. Don't religious authorities do the darndest things? I guess it's because they're authorities.
Take your imams, for example. With all the war and misery going on in highly Islamic quarters of the world these days, I would be very surprised if the world's imams weren't making pronouncements right and left. But the other day when I went looking on Islam.com for a pronouncement or two to get the flavor of them, I didn't expect to see a fatwa on the importance of men tucking their shirts in. (Just so you know, the imam issuing the fatwa basically says tucking the shirt in isn't necessarily evil, although he personally would never do it.)
With that kind of focus on gender-specific grooming tips vis a vis fiery hell, you can all imagine for yourselves how the fatwa on homosexuality read on the very same page. Likewise re the archived fatwa on the same site concerning surgical hymen restoration. Hint from me on that one: "If you break it -- you pay for it." OK, that hint sucked. Let's try this one: "Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten. Now go publicly bury this bucket of kittens in your front yard, you harlot."
Speaking of homosexuality, I want to take time out to say that, although I am not myself a homosexual so far as I am aware of, I am deeply grateful that the Supreme court has now recognized my right to practice sodomy in the privacy of my own bedroom with consenting adults, because I've been doing it anyway.
Of course Islamic imams do not hold the monopoly on fatwas. The Vatican just issued one of their own on gay marriages. Having once been a card-carrying member of the Catholic Church (in my impetuous youth I favored the classics) I find its decrees delightful and fascinating. In much the same way that I find forced live oyster eating riveting. This particular decree compares especially well with the shirt tucking decree in its decreeness, or decree-osity.
Will someone please explain to me how exactly does allowing at least civil homosexual marriages undermine heterosexual marriages? What exactly do people think is going to happen? Do they think all the straight guys are going to wake up one morning and think, "Hey, I could have married one of my buds!" and immediately divorce the wife and ditch the kids and elope with Steve in accounting?
The Vatican decree whinges on and on about the blessed sanctity of procreation, as if allowing gay marriage is going to make one iota of difference to the frequency of condom failures during straight sex.
But enough of that nonsense. What I really want to talk about here isn't a fatwa or decree, but it's still coming from a religious authority. I want to talk about Bishop Fred Caldwell's decision to pay white people to come and diversify his overwhelmingly Black-attended church in Shreveport, Louisiana. Five dollars for Sunday masses, fifteen for Thursdays.
Whoa! Can you say "spiritual ho's?" My first reaction was to recall that when an impoverished homeless guy I was often bribed with food to attend meals. I thought: this just cuts through the BS. They pay the money; I can spend it the way I want. Maybe I don't want turkey tetrazinni. Maybe I'm in the mood for chicken diablo. It's my choice.
But then I thought, wait a minute, what's all this saying? I mean, first of all, how white do you have to be to collect your fee? Does a Quarter-white get $1.25 on Sundays? Does Michael Jackson get anything; does effort count? How about comportment?
You know, if it were me, in Louisiana, I'd pay more for an Asian than a white person, out of supply considerations.
When someone suggested that Bishop Fred might give the money to the poor instead, he said that that was the sort of thing Judas Iscariot would have proposed. I'm wondering: if Judas Iscariot were to tell Bishop Fred not to jump off a bridge, would he do it?
No, let's not talk about religion! I don't want the headaches! Let's talk about religious authorities instead. Don't religious authorities do the darndest things? I guess it's because they're authorities.
Take your imams, for example. With all the war and misery going on in highly Islamic quarters of the world these days, I would be very surprised if the world's imams weren't making pronouncements right and left. But the other day when I went looking on Islam.com for a pronouncement or two to get the flavor of them, I didn't expect to see a fatwa on the importance of men tucking their shirts in. (Just so you know, the imam issuing the fatwa basically says tucking the shirt in isn't necessarily evil, although he personally would never do it.)
With that kind of focus on gender-specific grooming tips vis a vis fiery hell, you can all imagine for yourselves how the fatwa on homosexuality read on the very same page. Likewise re the archived fatwa on the same site concerning surgical hymen restoration. Hint from me on that one: "If you break it -- you pay for it." OK, that hint sucked. Let's try this one: "Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten. Now go publicly bury this bucket of kittens in your front yard, you harlot."
Speaking of homosexuality, I want to take time out to say that, although I am not myself a homosexual so far as I am aware of, I am deeply grateful that the Supreme court has now recognized my right to practice sodomy in the privacy of my own bedroom with consenting adults, because I've been doing it anyway.
Of course Islamic imams do not hold the monopoly on fatwas. The Vatican just issued one of their own on gay marriages. Having once been a card-carrying member of the Catholic Church (in my impetuous youth I favored the classics) I find its decrees delightful and fascinating. In much the same way that I find forced live oyster eating riveting. This particular decree compares especially well with the shirt tucking decree in its decreeness, or decree-osity.
Will someone please explain to me how exactly does allowing at least civil homosexual marriages undermine heterosexual marriages? What exactly do people think is going to happen? Do they think all the straight guys are going to wake up one morning and think, "Hey, I could have married one of my buds!" and immediately divorce the wife and ditch the kids and elope with Steve in accounting?
The Vatican decree whinges on and on about the blessed sanctity of procreation, as if allowing gay marriage is going to make one iota of difference to the frequency of condom failures during straight sex.
But enough of that nonsense. What I really want to talk about here isn't a fatwa or decree, but it's still coming from a religious authority. I want to talk about Bishop Fred Caldwell's decision to pay white people to come and diversify his overwhelmingly Black-attended church in Shreveport, Louisiana. Five dollars for Sunday masses, fifteen for Thursdays.
Whoa! Can you say "spiritual ho's?" My first reaction was to recall that when an impoverished homeless guy I was often bribed with food to attend meals. I thought: this just cuts through the BS. They pay the money; I can spend it the way I want. Maybe I don't want turkey tetrazinni. Maybe I'm in the mood for chicken diablo. It's my choice.
But then I thought, wait a minute, what's all this saying? I mean, first of all, how white do you have to be to collect your fee? Does a Quarter-white get $1.25 on Sundays? Does Michael Jackson get anything; does effort count? How about comportment?
You know, if it were me, in Louisiana, I'd pay more for an Asian than a white person, out of supply considerations.
When someone suggested that Bishop Fred might give the money to the poor instead, he said that that was the sort of thing Judas Iscariot would have proposed. I'm wondering: if Judas Iscariot were to tell Bishop Fred not to jump off a bridge, would he do it?
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