October 2006 blogposts

"It's not my fault! the priest made me do it/I was drunk/I'm gay!"

I am so angry, and I have so much to say about the Mark Foley scandal down in the U.S., that I hardly know where to begin.

Lawyers acting for Mark Foley, the Republican congressman who resigned after it was revealed he had sent sexually charged emails to teenage boys, said yesterday that the politician had been abused by a member of the clergy as a teenager.

No details of the alleged abuse were given, other than that Mr Foley, who is a Roman Catholic, was between 13 and 15 years old at the time of the abuse. One lawyer, David Roth, acknowledged for the first time that the congressman, 52, is gay. "Mark Foley wants you to know he is a gay man," Mr Roth told a news conference in Florida, adding that the admission was part of a "recovery" programme. He also insisted that Mr Foley was "absolutely, positively not a paedophile". Mr Foley said in a statement on Monday that he was an alcoholic and that he was entering a recovery programme to treat his condition. (Glaister, Dan. "Republican who sent indecent emails was abused ", The Guardian, October   4, 2006)

Oh, so now he finally decides to come out of the closet, several years after he was already outed by The Advocate newsmagazine for hypocritcally voting in favour of the "Defence of Marriage" act. 

And of course, now he checks himself into rehab, whimpering: "I did because I was drunk.";  "I did it because of that priest." 

Entering a "recovery" program?  Recovery from what?  Being gay?  Being drunk?  Getting caught??

I find it beyond pathetic that Foley finally plays the gay card, only when he thinks it will help him.  How can it help him, you ask?  By not-so-subtly using the "I'm gay so I molest children" charge which the Religious Right likes to keep throwing at us God-damned sodomites.  That way, perhaps he can cast his sexual orientation as more of a "sin" that needs "recovery".   This man is a disgrace to honest queer people everywhere, and I comfort myself with the thought that he's gonna be one helluva popular bitch at whatever prison he lands up in.

Oh, and he says he's not a paedophile?!?  Well, I guess that depends on the law, but really.  As more word leaks out about the content of those IM messages between him and one or more teenagers, one has to ask just how Mark Foel defines the term.  

Apparently he is now saying (via his lawyer) that since no physical (i.e. face-to-face) acts took place, he is not a paedophile.  This defence falls intro the category of "I never has sex with that woman!"   Clinton learned a blow job is sex.  Foley is going to soon learn that cybersex is sex.

And to make matters even worse, until his resignation he was a co-chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, and a backer of new legislation, the 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which he may well now be charged under.  HE WAS IN A POSITION OF TRUST.  (I wonder what Joe Walsh, Adam's father and host of America's Most Wanted, is thinking now.)

I got news for Mr. Foley: Being gay does NOT excuse what you did.  Being a drunk does NOT excuse what you did.  Being a victim of child sex abuse does NOT excuse what you did.  Being ANY COMBINATION OF a diddled-with, drunken faggot does NOT excuse what you did, in any way, shape or form.  That you even TRY to use these as excuses or defenses makes you even viler, if that is possible.

I hope Foley gets the book thrown at him.  His grasping, gawping response by checking into rehab and blaming booze/sexual abuse/being gay is absolutely, utterly, completely vile and reprehensible. Thankfully, most people can already see through that "rehab" act pretty easily; it's getting old. 

And ANYBODY in the U.S. federal or state govenments who is found to have kept his secrets hidden deserves to be tossed out on his ass and go down in flames along with Foley. 
  

UPDATE: Now Newt Gingrich has said that one reason why the Republicans in power didn't act on Mark Foley sooner was that they were afraid of being accused of "gaybashing".  What the...?!  As John Stewart said in response on The Today Show, assuming that all homosexuals are child sex offenders IS gaybashing.

Full Text of Mark Foley's Instant Message Exchange with Underage Page

(WARNING: Very Explicit Language Under the "read more" Link, Definitely Not Safe For Work. ABC News was not kidding when they said they couldn't put most of this IM exchange on the air. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. )

For those of you want to see exactly what the fuss is all about.  Now that I've actually read the full text of the entire instant message exchange, as released by ABC News and posted to the Internet by citizensforethics.org, I can see why so many people are so whipped up about this. 

The language itself, while shocking to quite a few ears, is frankly nothing that you wouldn't hear on any sexually-explicit chat room like gay.com.   What's so vile and disturbing about this exchange is that it's not a conversation between two consenting adults; IT'S BETWEEN A 52 YEAR OLD CLOSETED GAY MAN IN A POSITON OF POWER AND A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD. Mark Foley is quite clearly a sexual predator, "grooming" and flattering his target.  And don't hand me that line of bullshit about 16 being "old enough" for this abuse.  You may have been a worldier 16-year-old yourself, but when I think about how naive and people-pleasing and trusting I was at 16, it just makes me want to vomit when I read this exchange.

How can anybody actually let something like this slide by?!?  Anybody--anybody, from House Speaker Dennis Hastert on down--in the American government who knew about this and did nothing until the shit hit the fan four days ago deserves to be drop-kicked out of office.

*whew* sorry, I'm having another Nancy Grace moment.  

Yeah, well, good luck with that one.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he told President George W. Bush yesterday the United States needs to come clean and acknowledge its inappropriate handling of the Maher Arar security case.

Mr. Harper said he telephoned Mr. Bush to tell him Canada is upset about the findings of an independent commission of inquiry that "American officials had not been candid and truthful in their dealings with Canadian officials in the case."

Canada will lodge an official protest through formal diplomatic channels and expects a response, Mr. Harper said. Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay will write to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"What I would like to see, obviously, is the United States government to come clean with its version of events, to acknowledge, I would hope to acknowledge, the deficiencies and the inappropriate conduct that occurred, particularly vis-à-vis its relationship with the Canadian government," Mr. Harper said at a news conference in Calgary. (Sallot, Jeff.  "Canada unhappy about U.S. handling of Arar", The Globe and Mail, October 7, 2006)

Maher Arar was the Canadian citizen who was wrongly targeted as a terrorist on a connecting flight through the U.S., and was shipped off to Syria and tortured in prison, without the Canadian government's knowledge or consent.  This was and is a very high profile case in Canada, where Arar recently received a public apology from to the head of the RCMP (whom many thought was going to lose his job over this scandal).  It's hard to summarize this complex case in a single paragraph, but one thing is clear: both Canada and the U.S. failed Maher Arar, badly.  God knows Canada's not a perfect country, but the arrogance of the Bush administration's foreign policy, in their zeal to pursue the "war on terror", is breathtaking.  I for one will be very surprised if Maher Arar ever gets the apology he clearly deserves from the American government.

Share the Kern Hill Love

Someone named "RetroWinnipeg" is posting classic videoclips on YouTube, taken from old commercials which aired on Winnipeg TV in the mid-eighties.  Remember those ads for Kern Hill Furniture Co-op?  You can see the full list of ads and other TV tidbits here.

"This will be the single-most incredible event in the history of the home furnishings industry!"

"Come oooooon down!"  God I miss those commercials, Nick Hill was always a character. 

And anybody remember those "Wicked!" Park Pontiac commercials?

I wonder whatever happened to the "Wicked!" woman?  Did she move on to a career with more adjectives?  Or is she lying in some gutter somewhere with a cheap bottle of wine in a paper bag, remembering her glory days?

Now if ONLY someone could resurrect those infamous Pollock & Pollock shows on the cable access channel.  (image below: Natalie Pollock in foreground on the left, Ron Pollock on the far right)

Everyone knows what "cable access", or "public access" is by now; Do-it-yourself TV on a channel that your cable company is obligated to provide by the broadcast regulator, the CRTC in Canada or the FCC in the United States. In Canada, the regulations are much stricter as to what goes on and what doesn't. In the U.S., you just pay your money and you can do whatever you want. In Canada, there is no money exchange allowed and your program must be one that benefits the community. Considering that, it's a wonder The Pollock and Pollock Show slipped through the cracks.

The Pollock and Pollock Show consisted of a middle-aged brother and sister team with the last name of Pollock who did everything from silly, crazy dancing around and outrageous antics to political commentary, all while dressed in outrageous outfits. Apparently the show didn't start out that way but "evolved" into that. (quote by Beau Hajavitch)

We could use a little Ron & Natalie trippy goodness in these troubled times :-) although I understand that Ron is, once again, running for mayor of Winnipeg.  Oh wait, it was Natalie who kept running for mayor.   More on the Pollock & Pollock Show and Winnipeg's cable TV golden age from CBC.

There Goes The Neighbourhood: North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon

It has now been confirmed, by both the South Koreans and the U.S. Geological Service, that North Korea has tested a nuclear device in an underground explosion.   The USGS says the test created a quake of magnitude 4.2.   Here is the location of the seismic event in North Korea, via Google Maps.

Well, this is gonna push the Foley scandal off the front pages of the newspapers tomorrow morning.  The most whacked-out nation on earth, a nation starving its own citizenry and relying on external food aid, now has nuclear capability.  Oh joy.  Would somebody please explain to me how this came about?

I can bet you that the U.S. is going to have to start rethinking its military priorities, starting TONIGHT.  With its own Taepodong-2 long-range missiles, North Korea is now thought to be capable of sending nuclear missiles as far afield as Indonesia, India, the European part of Russia, even Alaska.

So North Korea has nuclear capabilites, and Iran is well on its way to having nuclear capabilities.  It's ironic, isn't it, that of the three nations labeled "the axis of Evil" (North Korea, Iraq, Iran), the Americans invaded the single nation which was the furthest from having weapons of mass destruction--Iraq? 

"President IL"?

Just catching the latest news on CTV NewsNet, Jane Taber is interviewing Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay.  And during the interview, he refers to Kim Jong-Il as President IL. 

Uhhh... Peter, you'd best be studying that briefing book a little more regularly.  Korean names are last-name first, so it's not President IL, it's President KIM.

Not a stellar moment for the (Regressive) Conservatives on the world stage.

"It's not my fault! I was having a nervous breakdown/I was on drugs/you're bothering me and I'm old!"

(This post was titled deliberately so as to link it with this earlier post .)

It sems that the buck-passing on the Mark Foley page scandal never stops.  The following quotes are from an interview with Father Anthony Mercieca, the man whom Foley has accused of sexual abuse when he was a teenage altar boy:

“I have to confess, I was going through a nervous breakdown,” he said. “I was taking pills — tranquilizers. I used to take them all the time. They affected my mind a little bit.”...

...“Why does he want to destroy me in my old age?” Father Mercieca asked.

(Doig, Matthew et al.  "Catholic priest claims relationship with Foley", The New York Times, October 19, 2006.)

Mark Foley isn't destroying you...he's TELLING THE TRUTH (a little late, but nevertheless...).  As a Catholic priest in a position of trust, you did something wrong with an altar boy and you should admit the truth, instead of digging around for more excuses for your behaviour.  Blaming what you did on tranquilizers, and then playing the frail-old-man card when confronted with the truth, is shameful behaviour.   

 

Run and get the scissors....

I confess: I am addicted to bitchy fashion commentary (which is deeply ironic, because I desperately need Queer Eye For The Queer Guy).  That's why Go Fug Yourself is my new guilty pleasure, and it never fails to leave me laughing.  Exhibit A is Chrystee Pharris:

Does she have it rigged to rise and fall like a window shade? Is she a string fetishist? Is she selling three different price-levels of ad space? Is she in costume as Pokeahotass: Street-Walking Princess Of The Night? Or has playing the daughter of a rageaholic former tennis pro -- whose life was ruined when he got hit by a car that ended his tennis career and caused his father to die of heartbreak, and who as a result has kept the aforementioned Car of Doom locked in a shed to foster his obsession with the man he thought hit him, leading to him snapping at his daughters, "I thought I told you NEVER TO ASK ME ABOUT THE SHEEEEEED!! I don't TALK about the SHED" -- actually, really, truly tuned her a tad deranged?

I'm practically speechless here. I feel so cold, suddenly. Lost. Confused. Somebody please hold me. And get that girl some scissors. I think there might be some in the shed. (quote and picture from Go Fug Yourself, Oct. 26, 2006)