>More Evidence of The Cover-Up

>

Yes, that is his signature up there; on a letter he wrote resisting….resisting…pleas to defrock a California priest who had a record of child molestation. That man, the future Pope Benedict, instead, cited his concern for ”the good of the universal church,” rather than his concern for children.

This letter, written in 1985 and obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican’s insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church’s doctrinal watchdog office.

The Vatican did confirmed that it was Ratzinger’s signature, but also said “[t]The press office doesn’t believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations.”

Taken out of context? The letter blatantly asks that, rather than defrocking a pries with a history of child molestation, it was in the interests of the church to study the issue.

In 1981, the year Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests, the diocese recommended removing the Reverend Stephen Kiesle. from the priesthood, but his case sat idle for four years before Ratzinger finally replied to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. And it was another two more years before Kiesle was removed.

Six years, that Kiesle continued to do volunteer work with children through the church.

Ratzinger, in that 1985, letter, said the arguments for removing Kiesle are of ”grave significance” but believed that such actions required careful review and more time. He urged the bishop to provide Kiesle with ”as much paternal care as possible” while awaiting the decision. The future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the ”good of the universal church” and the ”detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ’s faithful, particularly considering the young age [of the priest].”

Kiesle was 38 at the time. Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years’ probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory.

Yet the future pope wanted to wait and see.

>It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

>Up the driveway….

….down the street….

….up the hill….

….marveling at springtime….

….as Smallville blooms….

….down the road….

….and home again….

Ya gotta love Spring!

>John McCain Speaking To You Live From 1965

>

I’ve always thought of him as a grumpy old man. You know, the old man who sits on his front porch and screams at people to get off his lawn. But now, John McCain has gone further than grumpy, and settled nicely into delusional old man stuck in a decade a long long time ago

You see, Grampa was asked if he thought the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, was a civil rights issues and, well, let’s listen in:

McCain: No. No, I don’t. As Colin Powell said when don’t ask, don’t tell was first inaugurated, there’s a difference between sexual preference and the color of one’s skin. That was General Powell’s statement.

First up, asshat. It is not a preference. I’d prefer you to shut your illiterate yap, but my sexual orientation is homosexual. See how that works? I’ll try again, I’m a gay man and I’d prefer it if your family put you in a home.

Of course, when reminded that Colin Powell being in favor DADT was years ago, Gramps seems to think he knows what Colin Powell really meant.

McCain: He was in favor of it, and now he’s come out … for the repeal. Yeah. I think what he said then still holds true today, that it is a different issue. I think Colin Powell wants to repeal don’t ask, don’t tell. I don’t think he views it now as a civil rights issue, though.

Colin Powell says DADT is wrong. There is no subtext, no hidden message. Stop spinning what other people are saying Gramps, and go to a corner somewhere and count the buttons on your favorite shirt.

Then, when McCain was asked if he sought out gay and lesbian service members in order to form his determination that the policy was working, he says more stupid stuff.

McCain: I make that determination by retention and recruitment is at an all-time high, the highest in the history of the all-volunteer force. I get that opinion because I visit with the troops all the time. I go to Iraq, I go to Afghanistan, I run into them everywhere. And of course I don’t seek out someone who is gay. Why should I? These are all men and women who are serving. Why should I, that would be nuts. I go up to men and women and I say thanks for serving. I say thank you for serving, you are great Americans, God bless you…

Um, Grampa, you illiterate schmuck? The reason recruitment is so high is that it historically goes up during times of economic hardship. Check your facts. I mean, sheesh, surely you must remember the rise in recruitment during the Civil War….because you were there.

And, John, gay and lesbian service personnel wouldn’t speak to you about DADT because they know that as soon as they spoke to you, you’d have them discharged. So, why should they talk to a homophobic-backwards-looking-discriminatory asshat such as yourself.

Seriously, McCain, it’s time for you to be put out to pasture. The world has changed, and is changing, and you refuse to budge.

Get off my lawn.

>The Real Gay Agenda

>

From Joe.My.God.

>They Knew, And Did Next To Nothing

>

It all could have been avoided, if only someone had paid attention, and someone had done something about it.

It seems that Phoebe Price, the Massachusetts high school student, who took her own life after being relentlessly bullied by a group of “Mean Girls,” apparently spoke to a school administrator about the abuse she suffered just a week before she killed herself.

New documents have been filed in connection with other charges facing the six South Hadley High School students who literally bullied and tortured Phoebe Price to death. The new documents show just how much school officials knew about the bullying, and reveal just what happened in the last few hours of Phoebe Price’s all-too-short life.

It was on January 14th that Phoebe Price hanged herself in family home, a week to the day since she had gone to a school administrator after learning that one of the defendants, Flannery Mullins, had told fellow students that she was going to “beat Phoebe up” and that she “needed to watch out at break after second block. There is no indication to whom Phoebe spoke, but it is clear that she was begging for help.

Help never came.

Phoebe told the school official that she was “scared and wanted to go home,” but, instead, she was sent back to class, telling a friend that it seemed as though “she was still going to get beat up.”

School superintendent Gus Sayer said school administrators were not aware of the bullying until January 7, when two teachers reported separate bullying incidents to the principal. In one incident, a student walked into Price’s classroom and yelled at her; in the other, a teacher overheard several students making remarks about Price “that appeared to be threatening.”

A week before she killed herself school officials knew these things.

The principal says he took immediate “disciplinary action against both students,” though, citing school privacy rules, he won’t say what action was taken. But it couldn’t have meant much to those that were torturing Phoebe Price, because the bullying intensified over the course of the next seven days, until, no longer able to stand it, feeling that everyone was out to hurt her, seeing that officials wouldn’t offer any help, Phoebe Price gave up.

On her last day, Phoebe Price told a friend that that school “has been close to intolerable lately.” She was in the school library at the same time as three of the charged teens–Sean Mulveyhill, Kayla Narey and Ashley Longe–and witnesses reported that that Prince was subjected to crude sexual taunts from Longe, including, “Irish whore.” As she left school that day, she endured a barrage of name-calling, and, while walking home, a car drove past, and a beverage can was thrown at her. By this time, Phoebe Price was in tears. At home, she exchanged several text messages with a friend for about two hours, talking about the verbal abuse she had received that day and the ongoing taunts.

Later, Phoebe Price’s body was found hanging in a rear stairwell of her family’s apartment.

So, where were the school officials? Why, when one teacher overhears a conversation in which a group of students threatens another, is nothing done? For a full week, they knew that Phoebe Price had been targeted by a band of thugs, and they waited. For what?

Kids can be mean. There are names called, and shoves in the hallways; cruel tricks. But this went too far; this was a daily struggle for Phoebe Price, and when she went to the very people she thought could help her, they let her down.

>Rest In Peace, Dixie

>

No one…NO ONE….could cut a person down to size like Miss Julia Sugarbaker.

Thanks for the joy, Dixie.

>Sunday Funnies

>

>I Ain’t One To Gossip, But……

>

I know a lot of you are heartbroken about this one, so I’ll try to be brief and let you get back to your mourning.

Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy have split up. After.Five.Years.

Naturally, they made their announcement on Twitter, where they claimed the split was ::::yawn:::: amicable, and that they would remain friends.

But then they stopped following each other on Twitter.

So, they are seriously over.

There was even speculation about Facebook de-friending.

It’s serious.

It’s over.

From the Goddess No! file:
Apparently those geniuses…..genii?….in Hollywood have decided to come up with another remake, or reboot, or reshoot, or recrap, I forget which word is in this week.

Yes, this time, they’re messing with a classic.

Look Who’s Talking.

I know!

Gone With The Wind I can see. Casablanca? Why not.
But Look Who’s Talking? Now they’ve pissed a gay off.

Oh…..no……not me! I was taking about Travolta because they probably won’t ask him to be in it. I thought LWT was crap, both the first time, and the second time they made it.

Over on ABC they have ordered a new reality show called Downfall, which I thought was about Lindsay Lohan. I was wrong. That show would have been called Fall Down.

But I digress.
Downfall is a gameshow that takes place on top of a skyscraper. The contestants will answer trivia questions on the roof hoping to win a MILLION DOLLARS IN CASH AND PRIZES. But, if they lose, they will actually see their winnings plummet to the ground below.

I have a call into ABC for my new gameshow called Standing On The Sidewalk Scooping Up Cash And Prizes That Fall From The Heavens.

I know it’s a little wordy, but ::::fingers crossed:::: I’m hoping they bite.

More Kate Gosselin news, which is just how she likes it.

Poor dear has been the brunt of hate mail ever since that first episode of Jon & Kate + Eight. And, of course, the H8 K8 train is chugging full steam ahead now that she’s, well, they call it dancing, though I call it clodhopping, on Dancing With The Stars.

I don’t watch the show, but I have seen her storm the dance floor like she’s landed on the beach at Normandy and her partner is German. Scary stuff.

But K8 isn’t letting the H8 bother her.

She says: “I don’t really worry about what other people say because I know it’s me who has to feed my kids and take care of them, so that’s where my focus is all the time.”
Your focus is on your kids all the time.

That may explain your dancing.

Note to K8, Stop dancing! As a dancer, you’ve just got to be a better parent.

I loves me some Real Housewives Of New York because I’m shallow like that.

But social climbing housewife Alex McCord has got me wondering what the hell is wrong with them….or just her.

She has two children named, oh, I don’t remember, something French.

Croissant and Escargot!

Yes! Well, she decided to write a book on parenting, which she is calling ” Little Kids Big City: Tales From a Real House in New York City”. In it, Alex writes about how she was quite the drinker of the bubbly while pregnant with her boys. According to her won words, she even imbibed in a little champagne moments before popping out little Escargot, saying, “Throughout my pregnancy, I gave into every craving I felt. When I wanted to have a drink, I did.”

Of course, her love of the alcoholic beverage didn’t stop while pregnant. She even tells the story of taking two-day-old son Croissant to a bar because she and her “I’m Not Gay” husband wanted a drink.

Sounds like McCord’s womb is a Host Bar, open 24/7, and that her breast milk was 80 proof.

Yeah, that’s a good tale for a parenting book.

Looks like The Boss has been stepping out.

He was, after all, Born To Run.

He was, after all, searching for his Glory Days.

He was, after all, Bored In The USA.

He was, after all, Nebraska.

Okay, they don’t all work.

Still, Bruce Springsteen and fellow New Jersey-er Ann Kelly have, ALLEGEDLY, been having an affair and it’s led to the end of her marriage.
They met at the gym four years back, and all was innocent to start: small talk, chitchat, lunches, motel stays, banging each other on the cheap sheets; you know, harmless fun.

Her friends, of course, stand by her, telling anyone and everyone that “[i]t made her feel good that Bruce Springsteen was very interested in her.”

Her husband, on the other hand, was not amused. According to him, his wife’s “relationship with Bruce Springsteen was the main subject we discussed with the therapist as a major problem in our marriage.”
And it didn’t help that, ALLEGEDLY, because of her Springsteen love, she began spending tons of money on The Botox, and The Anti-Aging Lasers, and New Boobies. In fact, so enamored of The Boss was Misssus Kelly, she even skipped out on attending her husband’s open heart surgery so she could have dinner with Springsteen.

Dinner? Heart surgery? It’s a no-brainer.

Ouch! Scientology.

My Name Is Earl star Jason Lee’s ex-wife Carmen Llywellyn is going all-tell-all on her experience with leaving Tom Cruise’s Church.

Carmen became a practicing Scientologist after marrying Jason in 1995, and she now says the Church “ruined” her life and career after the couple divorced in 2002.

She says: “Scientologists followed me down the street. They took pictures of my kids. They’d stake out my house, wait until we came out and follow us. They came looking for me to scare me. I was nearly suicidal. I have never spoken about Scientology before, but I still have nightmares about these people. I ended up addicted to painkillers, and it took three rehabs to get me straight.”
Odd, most people join Scientology to get off an addiction.

Carmen says even Jenna Elfman, TV hacktress, stalked her on a shopping spree, spouting “statements like a robot,”

Robots? I thought they were aliens?

In the Her Head Is As Big As Her Ass Department, comes news of Jennifer Lopez:
Apparently, during the course of a recent interview, JLo was asked if she considers Lady GaGa, Rihanna, and Taylor Swift, as her competition.

JLo says there is no competition because, and this is where her head expands exponentially, “[i]t’s great to be seen as somebody who was at the forefront of that little girl movement.”

The only forefront you’re in dear, is to the second-hand bin at a used record store. In the Direct-T-DVD file. In the I’m-Stuck-Married-To-Skeletor department.

The forefront of a movement.

JLo!

Who knew she was so funny.

>PR7EP12:Circus Geeks

>We’ve hit the final turn at PR, and last night was the last challenge before The Tents. We would finally learn who would show at Bryant Park. Well, we know they all showed–except Sarah Palin, I mean Maya….I confuse half-termers–but this would determine who would show on TV at Bryant Park.
It’s, of course, the Last Challenge Field Trip, and I’m thinking botanical…..flower marts….car parts….The Big Top?
And by “Big Top” I don’t mean they had to design a blouse for Oprah.
It’s the Circus. The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Greatest Show On EarthEarthEarthEarth!
The designers are treated to a show, with clowns, and highwire acts, and tumblers. JayNicholas was verkelmpt at the tumbling mens with no shirts; he was sweating more than Whitney Houston at airport security.
SeathAaron was instantly creating something fab in his head.
Anthony wanted to get into a tiny car and drive off.
Mila was thinking of colorblocking the entire show.
Emilio was thinking he’d already won.
The task: create a runway look inspired by the circus. There were some lovely things, and some, well, WTF things.
Let’s rip:

For some reason, Anthony’s circus-inspired number was blue, with waves rising from the shoulder, so I think he went to a Weather Circus and created Hurricane Katrina Gown. It’s pretty; it’s simple. It’s prettysimple. Michael Kors asked what the fabric was and Anthony couldn’t answer. Crepe de chine? asked Kors, who rose from his seat like Queen Elizabeth planning to bitchslap Diana, and felt the fabric. He threw up a little in his mouth as he uttered words that have never crossed his lips: Polyester crepe de chine.
Then he called the dress a big blue condom.
Not a good sign for Anthony, who was Auf’d……again.

JayNicholas spent most of the day fanning himself and remembering the shirtless tumbler, and then drew an amazing design based on the Ringleader’s coat. The drawing was fantastic, and after seeing what he made, I kinda wished the model had just carried the drawing down the runway. But then, this isn’t a contest to find the best drawing, I guess.
Still, his coat, in cartoon form, had more presence. Here it looks almost one-dimensional, like a T-shirt with a ringleader coat painted on it. He’d hoped to mimic the over-sized clown pants, but missed that mark, too, though the judges loved his pants.
It all seemed a little to safe, a little too Michael Jackson circa Bubbles The Chimp.
Jay gets to have a Runway Off with Mila for the Third spot.

Mila, my funny little colorblocking Mila. She’s done a lot of black-and-white this year, and so, in the final challenge, she challenged herself and went all black-and-white, with pink :::gag::: and yellow :::gulp::::. Everything was shiny, and there seemed to be traffic arrows both on the front of the coat and the back. It was too much; texture, sheen, neon.
And then, after a closer look, I got Vampira Goes To The Circus with that collar. Throw in all those directional arrows, and it becomes Vampira Goes To The Circus To Direct Traffic In The Parking Lot.
The judges said it was good, not great, and didn’t look to much like a costume.
Really, Nina? Is this non-costume something you’d wear to anything other than the Marie Claire Office Halloween Party? I.Didn’t.Think.So.
Kors, however, would wear it to pick up one of his prescription creams from Duane Reade after a night out with the boys.
Mila will fight to the death, or at least the hem, with Jay for that final slot at The Tents.

SethAaron. Talk about flash. This is what Mila should have done with reds, yellows, blacks and whites. Note to Mila: No pink.
This coat is fantastic. The collar and cuffs, with the yellow wrapped inside is amazing. The Pants [Yes, Kors, I agree] suffer from Odd Crotch–again Kors and Creams. But this outfit, out of all them, seems circus inspired. And, maybe, that makes it a little costume-y, but it works. And, really, most runway clothes are designed a little costume-y and then, unless they are haute couture, are watered down for the average person. And I could see this coat restrained a little and then sold in stores.
I’m beginning to like SethAaron out of them all. Everything he does is finished, fabulous,, and fun.
He’s at The Tents.

Emilio had a team of horses haul his big fat head from the circus to Mood, and then load him into the freight elevator at Parsons. Emilio, yes, he’s good. He’s very good. But he’s the one who knows it most. There is a hairline between confidence and arrogance, and he missed it by a mile; he is the Mayor Of Arrogance.
Best line of the night: Anthony to Mila: Emilio just had a viewing party for his dress.
And his dress is amazing. Kors creamed himself–seriously, the man needs help–when he saw it, declaring this the Best Thing On The Runway all SeasonSeasonSeason.
And, yes, it’s good, though it looks less circus and more saloon girl to me. But Emilio does know how to use fabrics and patterns and create beautiful tings. I just wish there’d be a little more humble pie and a little less fist pumping and shouting YesYesYes!
You’d think instead of designing he was having a date night with Kors.
Emilo is at The Tents.

So, there’s our Final Three….Plus One: Emilio, SethAaron, and either Mila or Jay. I cannot wait to see what SethAaron creates; I cannot wait to see Emilio’s head travel down Broadway with a team of dwarfs dragging it with ropes. I cannot wait to see Mila ColorBlock, or Jay drool at men.

But I’ll miss Anthony, most of all; he’s like my Wizard Of Oz Scarecrow. He came out, and got on the show, and then he was out, and then he was in, and now, well, he’s out.

On to The Tents!

>I Didn’t Say It

>Bishop Bernando Alvarez, blaming child molestation on the victims, because after blaming The Gays, then Satan then The New York Times who else is left….Tiger Woods?:

“There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what’s more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you.”

Steve Carell, on the unbelievably daunting task of having to stare at Mark Wahlberg’s chest while filming Date Night:
“Looking at Mark Wahlberg’s chest is like looking at the sun. If you stare too long, you go blind.”

Colin Farrell, in a statement of support to an Irish LGBT youth support group:

“I can’t remember much about the years of physical and emotional abuse my brother Eamon suffered. I was very small. The thing I do remember though, quite literally, is blood on his school shirt when he came home in the afternoon. The beatings and taunting were very frequent for my him and a constant part of his school years. I didn’t understand at that time the concept of ‘difference’. Back then, as now, he was just my big brother. If I did understand what difference was I understood it in the most pure and unaffected childlike way. To me then, as a child, difference meant being left out. Joy and laughter came with being included, being embraced , and BELONGING to.

People are often afraid of difference. They feel that anything that causes fear, should be turned away from. My brother represented fear for so many people, but caused joy in my life. From a very young age he made me laugh with his intelligence and wit, made me aspire to his strength and goodness. He was to be embraced. To many of the students of his school however he was to be feared. He was to be turned away from. I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t know. As a race we humans are united and divided by emotions. The mother and father of all emotions, the queen and king are love and fear. Love unites, it brings us closer to an understanding of the possibility of beauty amidst all the confusion and pain that life can bring. Hate is a disease. It is fear’s messenger and it makes us do terrible things in a shadow of our better selves, of what we could be.”

Jane Fonda, on her last round of plastic surgery:

“I caved. If I was really brave, I would have not. I vowed I wouldn’t — I did, and I don’t feel proud of it. I didn’t want to look kind of tired and jowly any more…I didn’t do a lot, right? Your lighting is so good, you probably can’t see my crow’s feet and everything like that. I don’t look weird — do I look weird? I like my crow’s feet and I like my little laugh lines. It was just the little jowls away, that’s all. I didn’t want to lie about it. I’m writing a book about getting older, so I had to admit it. I feel so good. I’m so happy.”

Rufus Wainwright, on his change of heart about marriage equality:

“I have been with Jorn [Weisbrod] for five years and he’s the light of my life. He’s my inspiration, support and he’s good in the sack, too! But I am very aware of living in the U.S., of the conundrum that you can’t marry your gay partner and give him citizenship. He has to apply for a green card and he may or may not get accepted, which is annoying when you’re in a committed relationship. If we were straight, we could get married and he’d get his American passport and it would make a lot of sense.

I wasn’t a huge gay marriage supporter before I met Jorn because I love the whole old-school promiscuous Oscar Wilde freak show of what ‘being gay’ once was. But since meeting Jorn that all changed.”

Dan Savage, on pedophile priests and shark attacks:

“Three shark in attacks in Florida, million of sharks in the ocean, and no one will go in the water. Hundreds and thousands of children raped in churches and people still send their kids to church. It’s crazy. You should be sending your kids to gay bars. There they will be be safe.”

Family Research Council head, Tony Perkins, calling the religious right to stop giving money to the GOP because of their recent lesbian bondage bar scandal:
“I’ve hinted at this before, but now I am saying it — don’t give money to the RNC. If you want to put money into the political process, and I encourage you to do so, give directly to candidates who you know reflect your values. Better yet, become a member of FRC Action and learn about the benefits it offers, including participating in the FRC Action PAC which can support candidates who will advance faith, family and freedom.”

Dancing With The Stars judge Bruno Tonioli on Kate Gosselin:
“Kate is pretty dreadful. She’s crap. She’s entertaining, [how] people like disaster movies — I’ll tell you, we have our own disaster movie. 2012 is nothing compared to the catastrophe she produces.”