Dear catholic church,

Why do you make it so bloody easy to hate you? Considering the sins of your most faithful, most fervent follows, it’s a damn good thing that your particular god only needs an “Oops! Sorry about that!”" for the slate to be wiped clean. It’s okay to rape and pillage and murder- then cover it all up- as long as you apologize.

Oh, and then after you sexually abuse untold numbers of small children under the guise of your religious superiority, you can actually ask your parishioners to help foot the bill for the resulting lawsuit. How clever of you!

Count your lucky stars that the catholic church thinks this is all okay because if you were a member of The Religion of Dog, we’d rip your fucking throat out.

Sincerely,

Kim

Seriously people, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried. The church is asking it’s members to chip in to help raise the 10 million Euro settlement against it after dozens of it’s priests were found guilty of child sexual abuse going as far back as 1962

“If Christ was here, he would be burning down the Vatican, and I for one would be helping him.”

I couldn’t agree with you more Sinead. I mean, if I believed in him in the first place.

For some rather baffling reason this blog seems to be getting hit up on the keywords

“Dalai Lama + illuminati” an awful lot lately.

Is this a sign of some kind? We’re about to be taken over by kind benevolent men in robes who live double lives as members of a secret society?

I personally wouldn’t be surprised if something like that happened- not that I think his Holiness would condone such action- but seriously, is ANYTHING really shocking these days? I could open my front door one day and be surrounded by a band of brightly painted pygmies with swords and I’d still be all

“Meh, whatever, little dudes. Get the fuck off my lawn!”

We’re no longer shocked by war, or billions in over spending for the olympics, or genocide, or abuse. Pictures of dead civilians in Afghanistan could be switched out with stills from the last Freddy or Jason horror movie and most people wouldn’t even notice or care, and those commercials to remind us about the starving children around the world all covered in flies, crying and holding their swollen bellies get switched off almost as fast as you would when channel surfing and accidentally landing on Nancy Grace.

Is it just me, or are we some jaded motherfuckers!??

Empathy, that sweet and dotting grandmother of emotions seems to be withering away. She has a lung tumor or gangrene, or some other terrifying ailment that has eaten off so many chunks of her that she is barely recognizable. There is still enough left for those “BIG EVENTS” like the tsunami in 2004 or Haiti, but that everyday stuff- the stuff that never seems to get enough attention to be fixed- seems to hardly be a blip on the radar.

I have always assumed that as we get progressively more advanced, have more access to information, and are more globally connected that these things would matter more, not less. However, I stupidly forgot one major element in that train of thought.

Humans are at the wheel.

Last night as I was making the greatest homemade clam chowder in the history of man, I was semi blinded by the sight of the Olympic torch passing by one block over and clearly visible from my kitchen widow. There were a lot of lights, some guy screeching into a loud speaker, and several parade like floats in front of and behind the runner. Let me just tell you how much the whole fucking spectacle pissed me off.

A lot.

Let’s just put it into context, shall we? The Olympics will cost us approximately 6 BILLION DOLLARS. Not millions, I said BILLIONS. Using the common short scale as we do in North America 1 billion dollars equates to a thousand millions. Do the math people- this little event is going to cost the Province of BC over 6 THOUSAND STACKS OF A MILLION DOLLARS.

Don’t get me wrong, I have great respect for (most) athletes and have no problem with global events to highlight them and their abilities. The Olympics as they are however are no longer financially viable. A new system needs to be created and it needs to be one that is financially responsible. Can you imagine if the money pissed away spent on the last decade of Olympic games were used instead to fight global hunger and homelessness? Hell, we could even chuck a couple of billion at disease research for things like AIDS, cancer, addiction, etc because we’d sure as shit have the funds.

Throwing a 2 week carnival style party every couple of years is a higher priority than making sure every person on this planet has food, water, and shelter. I’m not talking about using that money to buy us all fucking Hummers and flashy gold watches, I’m talking about FOOD, WATER, AND A FUCKING ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD. We are saying as a species that the Olympics are more important than that. More important than homeless children, more important that bellies swollen from hunger, and more important than the man wasting away from cancer as his family watches. The argument of “it’s too expensive to fix the problems of our poor” is simply not fucking valid when you look at that 6 billion dollars we’re willing and eager to spend on a sporting event.

We humans are one sick and twisted fucking people.

The only word that I can think to describe Haiti right now is………

Actually, I can’t think of one. It’s a nightmare being played on every channel in vivid colour and images that break your heart. There are people and planes and boats from around the world trying to flood the area and creating a logjam of aid banging at the door to get in and help.

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be the sour chick here that dwells only on the past but the US response to Haiti immediately slams my conscious mind straight back to Katrina and the scene in New Orleans after the levees broke.

Jan 12th the quake hit and today- Jan 14- three (of the eleven scheduled) US airplanes have already arrived.

“You will not be forsaken. You will not be forgotten.”

-President Obama to the people of Haiti.

Katrina made first US landfall on August 25th and we all remember these horrific images of the people stranded without food or water and begging desperately for help at the Superdome or the Convention center until the were finally rescued on September 4.

What is my point? I don’t really know. Maybe when stuff like this happens it reminds me how much I fucking hate Bush? Wait a sec- don’t some of the scenes that we see everyday on the news from his un-winable war bare some striking similarities to what we’re seeing from Haiti? Oh, I mean except that one was a natural disaster and one is a man-made sideshow of death.

We’ll run to help the poor and innocent here, we’ll drop bombs and “accidentally” kill countless poor and innocent there, enny meeny, miny moe. It can make a person dizzy.

Haiti is a country already crippled by political turmoil, poverty and a lack of fundamental necessities like access to food, water, shelter and even basic medical care and mother nature just kicked them in the teeth. I hope that whatever god or thing or thought gives those people strength and hope is there for them now.

I’m sitting here on a chaise lounge with a laptop while drinking a steaming coffee and relaxing after having put my lovely godson Gray to bed, and watching these images of Haiti make me feel like a spoiled selfish bitch.

This has got to be one of the most iconic images that still stands today. Or at least it did until this morning when a couple of jackasses fucking stole it!

Seriously? What the fuck were you thinking? What do you intend to do with it? It isn’t some flashing amber street sign that teenagers use to favor stealing for their bedrooms. This is a rather enormous iron sign standing at the gates of a death camp! I can tell you from personal experience that standing under that sign is a feeling like no other that I’ve ever had before. It’s as though the very ground under that sign weeps.

And someone fucking took it. I just can’t fathom the reason why anyone would do that. It’s like spitting on the grave of millions.

It’s no secret that I follow Matt Good’s blog or that I adore his music and take weird stalkerish pictures of him in his front yard. I read this post on his site about an hour ago and am still shaking my head at the fuckery of it.

Back when I lived in Vancouver and later when I lived in Toronto for a few years I was a bit of a concert junkie and have seen literally hundreds of terrific live acts in all shapes and sizes. I am not a particularly star struck person or groupie type but have often, whether through friends or work, had the opportunity to meet or chat or sit down for a beer with many different singers/bands/performers. It’s just kind of one of those things… Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. I for paid my ticket and I saw the concert, anything over and above that is just a happy chance.

I have seen Matt Good perform live about a half a dozen times and have always thoroughly enjoyed myself. The fact that he sits on his tour bus after nearly every show and shakes hands, signs merch and poses for photos has always amazed me as he has a rather unlucky knack for catching every bug or flu that happens to be currently making the rounds. Given the fact that my ticket price didn’t include a “meet & greet” I sure as shit don’t feel as though I have the right as a fan to demand one. It’s not just the situation of fans being pissed at Matt for not signing stuff after the show because it’s everywhere. It’s the chick ahead of you at a buffet that just piled 12lbs of prawns onto her plate because godforfuckingbid she not “get her share.“  and it’s the guy that demands a million free extras added to his service because he is after all a “Goddamn paying customer!” Where the fuck does this over inflated sense of entitlement come from?

If a bartender promos you a round of drinks just for the hell of it are you the type of person who is pleasantly surprised and says thank you? Or are you the type that if he doesn’t slide you a freebie you somehow feel ripped off??? I’m confused as to when this whole thought process of it being your right to demand more than you paid for became so socially acceptable. I honestly just don’t fucking get it. How much is enough? And honestly, how fucking exhausting must it be to be one of those people that spend their day making sure they get what they (haven’t) paid for?

While walking my lovely rovers yesterday I came upon this house a few blocks from my own. I know it isn’t the greatest picture in the world but take a good long look at it.

It isn’t the fact that it’s November 17th and the Halloween shit is still all over the windows, door and front lawn. No, it isn’t that. That bugs me a little, but nothing really photo worthy. It IS however the fact that it is November 17th and the Halloween shit is still all over the windows, door and front lawn AND their rather large and fully decorated Christmas tree is in the front fucking window peeking out from behind the creepy drapes.

Seriously.

Yes- I know it would have been a better shot had they put the tree lights on. No such luck, and really, I could only stalk the front yard for so long until someone called the cops the dogs got bored.

Oddly enough, right down from that little mind numbing decorating sense was this. I love the way the Christmas lights twinkle off the plastic Halloween ghosts in the tree.

What the fuck and how…..??? You know what?, forget it. I don’t even know what to say. There’s a pain behind my left eye right now.

Do you ever feel like you’re smashing your head against one of these?