Suspicions

Chief among my suspicions regarding who was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center September 11, 2001 . .

1. Osama bin Laden never took credit for them. Wouldn't he have beat his chest? Why did the major news networks pin it on him immediately without his taking blame?
   
2. Would he really have attacked the same building again? I don't think so. Too cute, and not smart. But those who would want to implicate him in the crime might.
   
3. The identified hijackers were all from Saudi Arabia. We have military bases there. Not to mention huge business interests and relationships that tie to the Bush family.
   
4. These teams of five Arab men got onto four airplanes without any challenge whatsoever, even though in several cases the security system implemented by the F.A.A. to stop likely hijackers from boarding alerted airport personnel.
   
5. Four airplanes went off their official flight plans and flew around in random patterns for 30-40 minutes without any warning being sounded, without any planes being scrambled to stop them.
   
6. The skill required to fly a massive jet airplane (done twice) straight between the floors of a skyscraper is enormous. I know this as I was watching the news that day with a USAir pilot who exclaimed "These guys are heroes!".
   
7. The F.B.I. was informed at least twice that Arab men wanted to take flight lessons to learn to fly large jet airplanes, but they didn't want to learn how to land them. The F.B.I. did nothing.
   
8. Bush was briefed about the expectation of these attacks occurring two weeks before they did. He did nothing.
   
9. The attackers spent the night before getting drunk; committing a mortal sin in the eyes of their Moslem faith. Islamic suicide bombers might be expected instead to spend the night before an attack fasting and praying.
   
10. The high degree of precision and coordination this attack required is not typical of Arab terrorist attacks.
    
11. A Pennsylvania Congressman from the Pittsburgh area said he knew something was about to happen because he noticed increased military maneuvers around the Pittsburgh airport two weeks prior.
    
12. Just arranging all those visas would seem to require collusion.

Most damning is what came afterwards, what the attack was used an excuse for. This resonates with a long American military history of the false provocation.

Her Choice

She had her choice earlier, when she chose to have sex.  She could have chosen abstinence.

She had her choice earlier, when she could have chosen a form of contraceptive, the options are plentiful.

She had choice earlier, when it came to protecting herself from unwanted sex.

But now, now that the baby has been conceived, now that a life has begun, only God the Father and Mother Nature may choose.

Am I Considered Christian?

"You basically have the Christians, the Catholics, and the Jews."

That's my friend Warren, answering a recent question regarding religious observance in the United States. He'd said something along these lines a time or two before, so I piped up, being born and raised Catholic myself.

"Catholicism was the first Christian church," I protested. 

Warren stuck by his division and was not going to talk about it. He didn't "know what the f--k" we Catholics were.

Henry VIII established the Church of England¹ essentially so he could remarry after divorcing — he did not invent Christianity by so doing. Neither did Martin Luther when he nailed his 95 Theses² to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church, thereby kicking off the Reformation and Protestantism.

I would not allow us Catholics to be eradicated by the "protest-ants", the "schismatics", the "break-offs".³

When it's stated that 75% of Americans consider themselves to be "Christian", that number certainly includes Catholics. We make up 25% or so of the American population, after all. But many Christians in the U.S. do not believe Catholics should be counted with them.⁴

This may be a definitional thing. What means "Christian" in their minds? It could be the result of ignorance. Or was it historical?

Mayflower

In Europe, everyone knows the Roman Catholic church first spread Christianity, at least in the Western sphere. Martin Luther and Henry VIII came along later. But in the U.S., the English Protestants⁵ came first, at least in the Northeast. Catholic Spaniards stayed far to the south. 

The big Catholic waves came later — 1840s for the Irish, 1880s for the Italians. 

Warren, being from Massachusetts, home of the original landing of Puritans at the legendary Plymouth Rock, might very well see us Catholics as the bedraggled stowaways on ships manned by Protestants — as invaders not founders, upstarts not originals.

---

1. which, apart from breaking off from Rome and the matter of remarrying, did not substantially alter Catholic doctrine.
2. issues which have all been resolved since, save one.
3. I have also called them "splinter groups".
4. something I've observed most particularly in the South.
5. technically not "Protestant"?

Press

Just discovered recently that my poem "Had I But" was published in the April 2005 issue of Real Eight View. The editor told me he would get it in by then, I just hadn't checked for April. Thanks John Buckard!

"The Man Who Gave All the Dreamers In Baseball Land Bigger Dreams to Dream" was published in the Baseball Almanac a while back.  I received word from a Texas school teacher that one of her students wanted to read it at a competition.  Good choice, lad!

In other publication news, an apocalyptic Christian site--Apocalyptic Hope--originally discovered one of my sonnets ("Though I May Rue the Day I Told the Truth") on their own and went ahead and published it (with my permission). When I updated the URL address with the webmaster, he discovered one of my pro-life sonnets, "Mother, I'm Speaking to You from Your Womb" and published that at his site also. Very recently he has agreed to post another pro-life sonnet, "Do They Tell You About the Suffering". My thanks go out to him many times over.

With a recent spate of submissions--in the neighborhood of 30 or 40--other publishing successes have occurred, with more on tap (we hope).

A Foreign Watch

Three people sit in a prison camp comparing reasons for being sent there.

• The first one says: 'I was late for work, so I was arrested for sabotage.'
• The second one says: 'I was early, so I was arrested for spying.'
• The third one says: 'I was on time . . I was arrested for buying a foreign watch on the black market.'

See More Russian jokes.

Hell With a Difference

A political activist named Dave was just arriving in Hell, and was told he had a choice to make. He could go to Capitalist Hell or to Communist Hell.

Naturally, Dave wanted to compare the two, so he wandered over to Capitalist Hell. There outside the door was Rockefeller, looking bored. "What's it like in there?" asked Dave. "Well," he replied, "In Capitalist Hell, they flay you alive, boil you in oil, chain you to a rock and let a vulture tear your liver out, and cut you up into small pieces with sharp knives."

"That's terrible!!" gasped Dave. "I'm going to check out Communist Hell!" He went over to Communist Hell, where he discovered a huge line of people waiting to get in; the line circled around the lobby seven times before receding off into the horizon. Dave pushed his way through to the head of the line, where he found Karl Marx busily signing people in. Dave asked Karl what Communist Hell was like.

"In Communist Hell," said Marx impatiently, "they flay you alive, boil you in oil, chain you to a rock and let vultures tear out your liver, and cut you up into small pieces with sharp knives."

"But . . but that's the same as Capitalist Hell!" protested Dave.

"True," sighed Marx, "but sometimes we don't have oil, sometimes we don`t have knives . ."

More Russian jokes.

Wood to Be Chopped

A phone rings at KGB headquarters.

--"KGB. What do you want?"
--"I'm calling to report my neighbor Yankel Rabinovich as an enemy of the State. He is hiding undeclared diamonds in his firewood."
--"This will be noted."

The next day, the KGB goons visit Rabinovich`s house. They search the shed where the fire wood is kept, break every piece of wood there, but find no diamonds. They swear at Yankel Rabinovich and leave. Then the phone rings at Rabinovich's house.

 --"Hello, Yankel! Did the KGB come?"
 --"Yes."
 --"Did they chop up your firewood?"
 --"Yes, they did."
 --"Okay, now it`s your turn to call. I need my vegetable patch plowed."

 More.