MEMORIAL DAY AND A CATCH-UP

I was watching all the soldiers and sailors on TV on Memorial Day and the parades and the National Concert and thinking about a line from Andy Rooney’s book on his war. They didn’t give their lives, he says, they were taken. Every last man and woman who went (goes) into a war fully hopes to do their bit and return home. Sometimes they don’t because somebody took their lives and their hopes. No matter what my personal politics may be, I have respect for every single man and woman in the service. They go and do what they have sworn to do. If they go to a war the price is usually pretty damn high and nobody comes home from that unchanged.

I think especially of Dad, my favorite person and hero in the whole world, and I see him as The Sailor as well as Dad. He was a Medic in two wars and two continents and he got to feel it all. I know something of what he went through because he told me some of it before he died. World’s finest Dad too!

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IRELAND PART 2: It is eight days since the Ryan Report on clerical abuse of children came out. In spite of the 2004 deal, the leaders of most of the religious orders involved have contacted the government to affirm their willingness to further contribute financial and human service to the victims. They know that all the cats are out of the bag. They have slime on their collective faces and their final chance at public redemption will be to further assist the victims in generous fashion.

The Government and the victims are setting up a loud hue and cry for the Orders to release the names of their members who abused the kids so that the legal arms of the country can begin some consequences for those still living. The 2004 deal was a tit-for-tat – we pay and you don’t release the names. The names will eventually be released, I’m certain. When your back is against the wall, especially if you are the Catholic Church in Ireland, redemption means biting the bullet. The alternative is loss of credibility forever. In Ireland. The shame! The Vatican remains silent, which it does with the appliqué of a fine art. The Pope will be forced to speak sooner or later too. The Irish Catholic priests and nuns who for centuries were listened to, trusted, and yes, feared are just not part of the equation anymore except as whipping posts. Karma! Like author Ken Bruen says , “Their day is so, like, over!”

These posts on Ireland are rants because I know what it’s like to be afraid to stick my head into the kitchen in case a belting or switching was getting ready to happen. It worked better on bare legs. Our pants were worn out at the waist from being pulled down for whippings. You were never sure what Mom’s mood was like from hour to hour and Dad was at work, miles too far for safety. When we kids went to school the nuns would see the inch-wide swollen purple welts on our legs and say “Oh you were a bad boy last night, I see.”

The priests and nuns never beat us. Their character formation was worse. We were never good enough, sin festered in our youthful gene pools and hopped on us when we least expected it. Of course we were born flawed – Original Sin – and we had to get baptized so we were legitimate and whole. There was something wrong with sex in any form and the sex road, even thinking about it, was a rocket straight to hell, to mention nothing of having the occasional free wank in the night. Of course, a good confession, if you made it in the nick of time before you died, made you all wonderful again and heaven was right next door. It would be hilarious if we hadn’t believed it, the Word of God from the religious people we little kids trusted with our eternal salvation.

So, the rant. I guess when I multiply that with 900 priests and nuns taking it out on 30,000 kids over the years it beings out something pretty vengeful in me. I’m peaceful with my personal past. It took me years of work to learn that I was whole and good and had a lot of innate stature and that my abusive parent, for all their faults, was only doing the best they knew how at the time. But there are still some feelings in me that pop out from time to time.

Nextwise, I almost promise, I will write something so funny and profane that it will have you laughing out loud into the sunset. Ta!

DREGS IN THE ECCLESIASTICAL CHALICE

May God be with you and bless you,
May you see your children’s children,
May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

----------Irish Blessing

High Court Justice Sean Ryan of Ireland last Wednesday released a report that was 10 years in the making that stated that from the late 1930’s to the mid 90’s, priests and nuns terrorized thousands of children for decades while government inspectors failed to stop the beatings and rapes. Prominently mentioned as prime offenders were the men’s Congregation of Christian Brothers and the women’s order of the Sisters of Mercy and the rehabilitation institutions they staffed. (The Sisters of Mercy ran the various and infamous Magdalene Laundries throughout Ireland.) Some institutions run by other smaller orders were also named. At least 30,000 children were subjected to a conscious culture of systematic abuse by at least 800 Catholic priests and nuns who ran rehabilitation institutions.

Child inmates were subjected to a continuous and conscious regime of institutionalized torture including molestation and rape, beatings with objects designed to cause pain and injury, being flogged, kicked and otherwise physically assaulted, scalded, burned and forcibly held under water - and a course of psychological abuse designed to make them subservient to the idea that they were immoral sinners, worth nothing in the eyes of God, and that hard work and punishment were the only path to their salvation and eventual release. The inmates were mostly children convicted of petty crimes, truancy, poor kids whose families couldn’t feed them and youths from ‘dysfunctional homes’ which often included girls who became pregnant before marriage.

The priests and nuns who were transferred from institution to institution and often to Australia and the United States when their activities became too well known, to start anew without benefit of being shackled by a criminal record or adverse personnel evaluation.

The Irish Times of May 21 says, in the editorial “The Savage Reality of our Darkest Days” that

“Mr. Justice Ryan’s report does not suggest that this abuse was as bad as most of us suspected. It shows that it was worse. It may indeed have been even worse than the report actually finds – there are indications that the level of sexual abuse (especially) in boys’ institutions was much higher than was revealed by the records or could be discovered by this investigation.”

In 2004 during the time the report was being compiled, the Order of Christian Brothers, forseeing what was to come, approached the then Minister of Education Michael Woods. An arbitrary agreement was enacted whereby the Christian Brothers would pay up to a cap of Euro 127 million in damages in return for the promise that those religious persons complained about would not be named in the report “…since many of them are now dead and unable to defend themselves.” The bill was quickly and quietly passed, perfectly legally, without consultation with the Attorney General’s office, on a day when members of the Dail (parliament) were itching to finish business so they could get home early and watch an Ireland/Germany soccer competition.

If you want to read up more on this, you can find multitudinous information at www.irishtimes.com and a copy of the report in its entirety, or a summary can be found at www.childabusecommission.ie . Reporter Mary Raftery helped edit a Made for TV documentary in the 90’s (and a book of the same name) called Suffer the Little Children as well as writing a series of articles about the scandal. And author Ken Brunen has written a mystery called The Magdalen Martyrs which provides some historical background.

What is happening right now? Ireland, once revered as possibly the holiest Catholic country in the world is in shock and fragmentation. Most members of all government parties are screaming for a review of the Christian Brothers settlement if it can be legally done, with a view to increasing the Catholic Churchs’ financial responsibility, and to criminally prosecuting those torturers who are still alive. There will be much more coming out of this in Ireland, probably exacerbated by yet another similar report to be issued in June about abuse by religious in workhouses in certain Irish cities. There are several hundred victims of the nuns and priests still alive in Ireland today, many being cared for by mental health professionals or homes at government expense. The Vatican, as usual, is silent and may be for awhile, searching for the ‘right’ statement that will sound morally correct and not diminish it’s reputation as the ‘infallible’ leader of millions of churchgoers around the world. The Association of Religious in Ireland, representing all Catholic religious orders in the country maintains that they do not wish to discuss any further financial responsibility as a perfectly legal agreement has been made in good faith.

It occurs to me that rosaries that were sold in Catholic religious stores around the country here in the 60’s and 70’s and 80’s may have been something like the Blood Diamonds of Africa since most were made by abused girls in the institutions run by the Good Sisters. For those who believe in relics and grace, those rosaries must be especially blessed through the forced labor of the child martyrs who today undoubtedly are having birthday parties and eating cake and ice cream in a congenial place in the Universe, to make up for the dearth of kindness and love they never encountered in this life.

One Irish journalist says that the young adults of today have the right, and are going to ask the question of their parents and relatives “Where were you when the religious were torturing the children?”

May God be with you and bless you,
May you see your children’s children,
May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

----------Irish Blessing

This true story is too sad for a Ta!

*** next day correction: The 2004 damages deal mentioned in the story was between all religious orders who were to be named in the report, not just the Christian Brothers. Collectively all of them would pay no more than 127 million Euros.

REMEMBRANCE

Some of you know the bare facts that I drank alcoholically at one time, was able to get into a treatment program, started going to those meetings where people go, and have been sober for a long time. And much more fun to be with. Today it's been 26 years since the last time I took a drink. I am eternally grateful that I don't have to drink today. What went on inside my head was infinitely more terrible than any outside manifestation of my stunted personality. Today I wake up remembering where I have been the night before and go to sleep peacefully and with a clear conscience. I probably started being dependent on it in about 1965 and that lasted through college, and a little more college, and a couple jobs, and my first really good job with the Police department here. Somewhere in there I was a pharmacy aide at one of the local hospitals and I never had a bad day on that job. Phenergan with codeine came in a little quarter pint bottle that fit snugly in any pocket. I had many pockets including some that could hold handfuls of pills too. I eventually became withdrawn and uncommunicative, started the process of alienating my immediate family and my only friend was a fine cat named Muffin who didn't give a shite (They say that in England) what condition I was in as long as she could sit on my lap and purr. On May the 17th, the day before I went into a treatment program I was told by the hospital people to try not to drink or use any pills until I got admitted in the morning. That's like saying "drink lots of water and don't piss." My last drink was a handful of sinus congestion pills because there was nothing in the house to drink and I was a crazy person and scared shiteless. All it did was dry me up so much that my nose bled. 10 every four hours. La!

Since I quit, I worked on a great anger that drove the remaining wedge between myself and family members; started going to those meeetings where, fortunately, they told me that I only had to believe in a God of my understanding, not some particular one. Which was good because my particular one was an asshole. I decided that sweet revenge would be to have a drink in front of everybody and shock them speechless. I never did that but it was fun thinking about it. And even with all that I don't remember much about my first year sober except that I went to a lot of those meetings and picked up a sponsor, a Big Brother, who was a lot happier than I was. I got out of a lot of useful work around the house by going to those meetings. And I got divorced some time after that. Just about 20 years ago. I have four kids who deserted me as a father and human being. With cause. And two who are now good friends, and a couple who don't want to talk to me yet. And other people's kids who think I am a Nice Guy and the cat's whiskers.

I laugh at all this stuff except when I remember it. It's my biggest reason for not taking the next drink. Life is good today, even sometimes when it isn't good. I've learned that life is going to happen no matter what I would like it to do and that the problem is in my head - my reaction - and not life, cruising merrily, sometimes shakily by. I do things today that most normal peopple do. I have good table manners except when I'm alone and make sandwiches on the bare table. I date (too many) women. But not at present. My drugs of choice are chocolate milk and pasta with marinara sauce - and tobacco - and caffeine. I take baths and don't have to crawl up stairways. I see one center line clearly when I drive.

And I'm a Big Brother myself today. A Sponsor. I have three little brothers, one of whom is older than I am, and a little sister. I don't call them that but, for you Earth people, that will describe it. I just share with them what worked for me in staying away from my alcohol and drugs. I've watched a lot of friends die from this disease by overdosing or wrapping their cars around trees, sometimes deliberately. I know about the terrible stuff in their head, I've been there. I was planning to kill my own self the day I got accepted into the hospital. Wrapping a truck around a tree seemed a lot more peaceful.

I have a disease that makes me allergic to chemicals that make me feel better, and the allergy engenders a craving that makes me think constantly about whether I have enough of anything potent to last me another day. On this May 18th, at 26 years sober, it's a sleeping dragon. It'll stay asleep as long as I do the next right thing. Long may we wave!

A RUSSIAN FIREMAN

When the bells go down in Izhevsk, Russia, Leading Fireman Sergey Pilin and his "troop"are one of the units to answer the alarm. Izhevsk, a city of 700,000 people located 600 miles southeast of Moscow has fifteen fire stations. Sergey's station is one that protects oilfields near the city.



The Russian Fire Service is a national fire service, (formerly part of the Army,) and fire trucks all over Russia have similar colors and markings because of this. Although some large cities buy some apparatus manufactured outside Russia, companies within the country produce excellent fire trucks. Many are rugged heavy-duty vehicles built on military truck chassis. The young kid next to the fire truck is Stas (Stanislaus), Sergey's son.



An interesting language sidelight -- In the United States, firemen and women are usually known as 'firefighters.' In Russia, the word 'firefighter' (поджигатель -- pod zhy' ga tel) refers to a criminal who sets fires or destroys property for money or false insurance claims.



Sergey is married to Marina, a Standardization Engineer, and has a married daughter Irina who lives in Austria. His oldest son Dimitry works at the Kalashnikov gun manufacturing plant and is married to Eugenia. Stanislaus ("Stas"), 17, lives at home and attends technical school for Insurance studies. Vasya, the Siberian cat and Layma the poodle fill out the household.



Sergey and his family are Orthodox Christians and there's a pic of his church somewhere in here.



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I wrote this story over a year ago. In the meantime, Sergey got promoted to a command position in Fire headquarters - later resigned from that job for another - and the new job became unavailable somehow. He gets Russian 'Unemployment Compensation'. Marina still works. He complains that the world money crisis makes it hard to find jobs, especially at his age (early 50's). That's all I know until I write him again, and I will share that with you. Ta!

My Kingdom for a ......

We have had the Kentucky Derby. A trailer trash horse worth a mere nine thousand dollars, named Bird of Mine (or Mine of Bird?) won by six lengths and made the six-figure thoroughbreds pee the track in embarrassment. The actual race lasted something over a minute. The celebrations for the race lasted from the evening before with wine, bourbon, various sloshes, strange hats and dress suits and went through the race to the various sloshes and dinners in Louisville afterward. It was more fun to watch on TV, have lasagna for supper. We will hope to attend next year. If our wealth permits.

If any of you have a little dab of Scotch, or maybe a good splash of Old Night Train I have two Chinese pipes which probably are unsmokeable. But I would like to try the alcohol treatment to be sure. They appear to be made out of oak(?) or Oriental Badwood. Which is fine for whiskey barrels. I figured the price of $6 each was worth the risk, seeing as how they were made in a refrigerator factory on a bad Monday. I didn't know what they were fashioned from until I sanded the half inch of black lacquer off the outside surfaces. We will see.



There was an alien spaceship watching my friend’s house the other night. You could see it glowing and reading our thoughts when the moonlight succeeded in punching through the clouds. A day later it had blown away and was no longer a threat. Ta!