The Hunchback of Penn State

I recently saw a production of Phantom of the Opera and am currently reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Since I read about Jerry Sandusky over the weekend I keep seeing similarities. The men in Phantom and Hunchback are physically deformed and ugly. The Phantom says he was never kissed, never loved, even by his mother. Both men are heartbreaking.

I see Jerry Sandusky as another sort of human deformity only his ugliness is inside. I feel enormous sadness for him, along with revulsion. And for his victims, whose lives have been horribly altered--children raped and betrayed--I am angry on their behalf and sickened by their innocence laid waste.

But the real corruption is with the men who knew about this and chose Penn State over innocent children and by their choice, allowed this depravity to continue, destroying more lives of children who were tossed aside so the football games could continue.

The coach and all the Catholic priests who prey on children are sick, hideously sick. But the Penn State officials and all the bishops, cardinals and even the present pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church are so beyond contempt I cannot summon the words to describe them. And they are the ones who should be prosecuted and prosecuted and prosecuted. They aren't sick, they are corrupt and corrupted, they are complicit in the rape and destruction of children.

I can't hate the sick clergy or Sandusky. They should be locked up, forever, never to be able to touch another child. But the bishops, cardinals and popes should be jailed and perhaps even have brands burned into their foreheads, setting an example for all who consider allowing pedophiles to continue their predations in order to preserve the outward appearance of respectability for churches and football teams.

So I said in a rash moment that I read all of Victor Hugo. Au contraire. After an extensive search on wikipedia and amazon.com I've come to the conclusion that it was a combination of Balzac, Hugo and Dickens I read, but not all of any.

I see a set of about 10 volumes and I'm thinking it must have been Balzac. I was 16 when we moved to Stockton, in June, right after school got out for the summer. I knew no one and my mother and I spent many hours and sometimes days in used bookstores and at my aunt Mildred's house which was close to downtown. I suspect my aunt had sets of Balzac and Dickens (people had them back in those days--this would have been in 1956) and I read them. I definitely remember reading Les Mis and The Hunchback of Notre Dame but sure as hell don't remember any of the rest. However, I do remember many Balzac and Dickens titles.

What's interesting to me is that I read so many books between ages 14 and 25 that I cannot force myself to read now and it's mainly being too impatient to spend the time wading through the dense description. Of Cabbages and Kings by O. Henry is one I remember fondly from about age 14. I just ordered it to see if it holds up at all. East of Eden held up and Hemingway's work, so far.

When I go to Bisbee I invariably end up reading something from my youth and somehow there, I can do it. In 2008 I reread Frances Parkinson Keyes. Marvelous novels and the descriptions go on for pages. Somehow, on vacation it's possible. I would say it's Hemingway who ruined me for Balzac and Dickens but I was reading him alongside B & D.

Had to laugh. Just saw a blurb for a Maher segment where he wonders what would happen if Jesus ran for president on the Republican ticket.

I've been saying for years that if Jesus showed up in NYC at 9 a.m., he would have been murdered by conservative Christians by noon for his socialist teachings. You know, the way they murder doctors who perform abortions because God (or someone disguised as God) told them to.

And I apologize. I stole that disguised as God bit from John Lennon from an interview of the Beatles about 30 years ago. Jeez, where was that? I think it was Playboy Magazine.

Am I crazy? A monster?

Already the headlines are about the lawsuits blossoming over the air race crash. Does no one accept that sometimes bad things happen? That we don't have to assign blame and make money off that blame? Yes, it's tough losing relatives and friends. And sometimes we are quite innocently in the wrong place at the wrong time. Does that mean we have to sue someone? Are all societies as litigious as the US public?

Those folks chose to be at the air races, in harm's way. Yes, someone should pay the medical bills and someone should help out the families who may have lost a breadwinner (not that there is much bread to be won these days) but does it have to be through ugly lawsuits that will go on for years, enriching mostly the attorneys?

We lost a contractor in Carson Valley who leaves behind a wife and children. A fund has been set up in the community for donations. Social Security, which the sociopaths in Congress are attempting to eliminate, will help out a bit and one hopes that he had life insurance. And perhaps the wife can find a job or already has one. Unfortunately, it will be hard for the kids to get work to help out since the jobs formerly held by kids are now held by men and women in their fifties, sixties and seventies who need to eat and feed their families.

What if we didn't have Republicans fighting to destroy Social Security? What if Republicans weren't fighting to eliminate the fledgling health care plan? What if Republicans weren't working against an economy that could support all of us?

Dream on, old lady Democrat.

What about my congress critters?

So, I have Representative Mark Amodei and Senator Dean Heller, two of the sheepiest of the sheep contingent in Congress. They have both signed Grover fucking Norquist's pledge to never vote for a raise in taxes, they are against everything moral, anything that might help the economy and they are brainwashed by being on the winning side in Nevada (this is a very depressing state) to think that what they've been taught to believe is upstanding Americanism at its finest. They are on the side of death-by-lack-of-insurance, joblessness, shoddy education, decaying infrastructure, and libertarianism light.

In my opinion, they should be tried for treason and when found guilty, executed. I don't believe in the death penalty so I shan't cheer when they are leaned against the wall and shot, but neither will I lament their passing. And they will lean, if they don't just outright fall to their knees shaking in terror, because they are disgusting cowards who think they are brave because they are with all the other sheep and the sheer numbers exhilarate them. Were they in the minority and expected to defend their positions in any sort of intelligent manner, they would mumble, choke and whine. And quite possibly, come to their senses and remember they were elected to govern, not obstruct.

“Do you believe seniors living in gutters is the future of ‘social security’?”

Rather than letting the Right frame the argument over Social Security by forcing the Left into a battle over semantics, the Left needs to refocus the issue to its core by asking the question, “Do you believe seniors living in gutters is the future of ‘social security’?”

I didn't say those things written above. Nicholas Wilbur on Muddy Politics wrote them and Angry Black Lady put them on Balloon Juice, my favorite blog.

His point is that we don't need to let the insane Republican presidential candidates frame this argument with their stupid Ponzi scheme bullshit.

"Social Security is a good program. It's not a retirement account, it's an anti-poverty program that provides some dignity to seniors."

Wilbur said that, too.

In other Republican insanity, Eric Cantor (gawd how I loathe him) tweeted: "While an all or nothing approach might make sense to some communicators, I hope the President realizes it would be better to work together."

As ABL wrote, you can't make this shit up. This, from the guy that runs the "No, by gawd, we won't" caucus?

I've already had to turn off my car radio. What's next? A nunnery?

Good stuff I'm recently in love with

Watched "Last Orders" recently and it is a lovely, lovely movie with Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, Bob Hoskins, Tom Courtenay and two more British actors I didn't know. I recommend it.

Watched the entire season four of Mad Men in six evenings and now have to wait a year for season five. Sigh.

Am watching BBCs Hamish Macbeth series. A tad disappointing. Out of loyalty to the books I'll keep watching and the Scottish highlands are beautiful and make it worthwhile.

Am watching season three of "Burn Notice" and love, love, love it. Yes, it is violent. It is also a series where really evil guys have pretty awful things happen to them and I love it. I like to imagine similar endings for the truly awful and treasonous Republican members of Congress.
You know, folks like Inhofe and Coburn who are working (and praying together) to overthrow our government and replace it with a christianist theocracy. Doesn't that qualify as treason?

And finally, I have discovered Balloon Juice, a splendid blog written by several amazingly coherent and articulate people. John Cole owns the blog and he lives with two small dogs and a very large cat named Tunch. Tunch is shaped a lot like the Muffin and is all white. My readers all know that The Muffin is an obese white cat with one calico ear and a calico tail who has been on a diet for nearly three years. She has lost nine pounds and I've lost years off my life from listening to her scream for food twice a day.

Balloon Juice is marked by humor, intelligence, political savvy, and a bunch of other good stuff but it's late and I'm too tired to enumerate all its good qualities. Just read it and enjoy. Most of the commentors are worth reading. A few are tiresome or annoying, most are fun.