LOLJesus

It appears that many people didn't get the LOLKramer reference posted yesterday. I thought about deleting the post, but since there was already a comment on it, I'm leaving it alone. So instead I'll give a brief explanation to those who don't know about LolCats because they spend less than 12 hours a day in front of their computer as I do.

From the Wikipedia Article:

'...Lolcat is a term used to describe an image combining a photograph of an animal, most frequently a cat, with a subjectively humorous and idiosyncratic caption in broken English referred to as Kitty Pidgin, Kitteh, or lolspeak. The idea originated on 4chan imageboards as Caturday. The name "lolcat" is a compound word of "lol" [laughing out loud - ed.] and "cat".The phenomenon is also referred to as cat macros. Lolcats are created for photo sharing imageboards and other internet forums. Lolcats are similar to other anthropomorphic animal-based image macros such as the O RLY? owl, and the term is often used as a catchall for images of the same genre which may or may not feature cats...

...These images usually consist of a photo of a cat with a large caption characteristically formatted in an uppercase sans serif font such as Impact or Arial Black. The image is, on occasion, digitally edited for effect. The caption generally acts as a speech balloon encompassing a comment from the cat, or as a description of the depicted scene. The caption is intentionally written with deviations from standard English spelling and syntax, featuring "strangely-conjugated verbs, but [a tendency] to converge to a new set of rules in spelling and grammar." These altered rules of English have been referred to as a type of pidgin or baby talk. The text parodies the grammar-poor patois stereotypically attributed to Internet slang. Frequently, lolcat captions take the form of snowclones in which nouns and verbs are replaced in a phrase. Some phrases have a known source while others seem to be specific to the lolcat form...'

The famous site for Lolcats is icanhascheezburger.com. But the truly bizarre site under development is the Wiki project that is translating the entire Bible into Lolcat. The above phrase I superimposed onto Jesus in accordance with the graphic rules of Lolcat is Matthew 5:17-20.

Clearly this is all about people having too much time on their hands, and not enough imagination to spend volunteering it somewhere. But it is fascinating to me from the one respect of watching the development of a cohesive language grammar. The rules for Lolcat were developed in a very short period of time in the same way that all languages were - organically through a community. A community of computer geeks, true, but a community nonetheless, and its development is progressing in the exact same way that other pidgins have developed: ground-up; from the Hawaiian Creole English (a mash of native languages, English, Tagalog, Japanese and other languages resulting from a surge in immigration at the turn of the last century) to even Klingon (originally invented in outline by a linguist for the first Star Trek movie, but developed and massively expanded by a large coterie of fans.)

Attack of the Wiener Dogs

Super Tuesday is over, and now that the dust has settled it looks like Clinton and Obama pretty much split things; Romney won his home states and little more; my favorite crazy man, Huckabee, cleaned up in the former Confederacy, once again proving to me that I never want to live there; and John McCain pretty much sewed up the Republican nomination.

Now there are plenty of those on the far right that are none too happy about this. Right wing blowhard pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt are all aghast that Senator McCain is the presumptive nominee, and the Religious right is apoplectic. In short the hard conservatives that backed Bush are seeing their own personal end of days.

Focus on the Family's James Dobson is a case in point. Yesterday he released a statement saying that if McCain's the nominee, he's going to take his ball and go home:

'...I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has at times sounded more like a member of the other party. McCain actually considered leaving the GOP in 2001, and approached John Kerry about being Kerry's running mate in 2004. McCain also said publicly that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience...'

Rush Limbaugh and the long list of other assholes have pretty much said the same thing. Of course, now these folks have found themselves in an interesting predicament, namely that they are stuck with McCain as the nominee. So what will they do? Flip flop, or stick with what they have said?

Their only real play is to stick with what they said. Republicans have long odds to take the White House come November, and if the blowhards flip flop and support McCain, their influence as the far right media circus or the far right religious circus will be hurt. If, on the other hand, they sit the election out, and McCain still loses, then they can spin that McCain lost because they didn't back him, and you all damn well better listen to us king makers next time.

This all speaks of an understandable collapse in influence of those who supported President Bush most strongly. And the religious right is especially afraid. Dobson's desperate. And when he doesn't get his way, he takes it out on wiener dogs:

'...Please don't misunderstand me. Siggie is a member of our family and we love him dearly. And despite his anarchistic nature, I have finally taught him to obey a few simple commands. However, we had some classic battles before he reluctantly yielded to my authority.

The greatest confrontation occurred a few years ago when I had been in Miami for a three-day conference. I returned to observe that Siggie had become boss of the house while I was gone. But I didn't realize until later that evening just how strongly he felt about his new position as Captain.

At eleven o'clock that night, I told Siggie to go get into his bed, which is a permanent enclosure in the family room. For six years I had given him that order at the end of each day, and for six years Siggie had obeyed.

On this occasion, however, he refused to budge. You see, he was in the bathroom, seated comfortably on the furry lid of the toilet seat. That is his favorite spot in the house, because it allows him to bask in the warmth of a nearby electric heater...When I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me. He deliberately braced himself by placing one paw on the edge of the furry lid, then hunched his shoulders, raised his lips to reveal the molars on both sides, and uttered his most threatening growl. That was Siggie's way of saying. "Get lost!"

I had seen this defiant mood before, and knew there was only one way to deal with it. The ONLY way to make Siggie obey is to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else works. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me "reason" with Mr. Freud.

What developed next is impossible to describe. That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling and swinging the belt. I am embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed. As a final desperate maneuver, Siggie backed into the corner for one last snarling stand. I eventually got him to bed, only because I outweighed him 200 to 12!...'

That strange and demented tale of beating up a dachshund with a belt is and autobiographic quip from James Dobson's book, "The Strong Willed Child, a parenting handbook he wrote. This helps one understand the reaction of the religious right when they aren't obeyed. And it also explains the continued emnity between Wiener Dogs and the religious community:




So now Jesus has been kidnapped. The stakes are certainly getting higher.

Super Tuesday

One thing that does suck about living in New York City is that your vote rarely counts at the national level. New York is a Democratic powerhouse, so your vote pretty much gets lost no matter your political party. To top it off, usually at primary time the winner's already been decided, so all you're doing is wasting time by voting.

But this year is different, thanks to the accelerated primary season and the intense competition for delegates that is still going on. On the Democratic side, I was favoring Edwards, though I am predicting Clinton will take it. Now that Edwards is out, I voted for Obama, because no one who voted for the Iraq war is ever going to get my nod for anything. On the Republican side, it looks like my prediction of Romney taking it is not coming to pass, which is pretty much par for the course for my political predictions.

It's more fun in Arizona, though, thanks to some of the easiest ballot requirements of any state in the Union. There are over 20 people running for President on each side. Janni has the rundown of the Democratic side of lunacy, and she links to this site which covers all of the 'dark horse' candidates that are running for president. But by far the best is the Republican candidate for President, Bob Forthan.

Here is his platform, in it's entirety:

'Hello, I’m a two thousand eight republican candidate of the United States of America, and this is what I would do of I was elected, I’m not a lawyer, but my choice for Vice President is a lawyer, and if something happen to me he would stay the course, and he is a demo crate from Mass chutes.

Now I want to start America on a three hundred year odyssey to save the world by building Dome Homes, first in America, then around the world . Now the goal is to have a minimum standard of living around the world. Next I would used Americas military services build the dome homes.

However I can’t pay the current soldiers salary, and their will be no insurances of any type available, because Americas broke, I also wouldn’t be able to pay federal employees, except in critical areas, and they would be replaced with cheaper labor. Next I would tell the nation Americas broke and the nation well be a cash only transaction country, then I would explain what is a cash only transaction country, their well be no use of credit, debts cards, no personnel checks cash transactions, except bank cashers checks, and employers checks over two thousand dollars and taxed at the current rate, and the people making less than two thousand dollars and paid in cash no taxes and no social security numbers to work in America, and their will be a federal sales tax for all American, and tax refund for people making more than two thousand dollars a month.

Next I would tell the nation there is no insurances to fall back on, the invention of insurances have cause a national security crises because everything is inflated due to insurances, also insurances inflate the cost of goods causing people to work long therefore causing pollution.

Furthermore, I would tell the world Americas broke and we can’t pay our debts but America will pay twenty-five percent of what owed to them or nothing because of Americas financial problems, and Americas new goals to greenhouse gases, no gun control, which is one of the most important, would you travel out at night if their was no gun control, and no insurances would you buy a one, two, or a three hundred thousand dollar house if their was no insurance, or a fifty thousand dollar Hummer, the building of Dome Homes structures that house less than five thousand people, cash only transactions, no credit, debt used no personal checks cashed, and a minimum standard of living for all.

Next I would tell all the retirees Americas broke, and Federal employees will have a one time offer of receiving fifty percent of all the money paid into their retirement systems or nothing I can only hope the states, and private retirement systems will follow, and for the same reasons, I told the world, Americas broke.

America will file bankruptcy, because we are broke, and the courts will repay all if their any left, this action will help save the environment.

Last I will need a new army with a new mission,” OPERATION GLOBLE L WARMING”, which is building Dome Homes and taming the nations deserts, and then the worlds deserts, also I would withdraw up to ninety-five percent of all troops around the world.'

On the plus side, he isn't that much less articulate than the current Republican president, and his platform makes about as much sense. And it's less vile than Huckabee's wanting to sodomize everyone with a flagpole.

R.I.P. Petey

Last week we lost our sixteen year old cat, Petey.

Petey (needless to say, not named by me) started off life as a kitten adopted by one of my roommates when I was in Graduate school. My roommate soon tired of the pet, and it became the job of the rest of us to take care of him. He began by being a third wheel for Agamemnon and Menlaus who were happy enough without this new young upstart who always bothered them. But they grudgingly accepted him, and I adopted him myself after his poking and prodding of Agamemnon kept him alive through a major near-death trial that he had years ago.

Of course that didn’t prevent Petey from pushing Agamemnon out of a third story window a few years later.

When Agamemnon and Menelaus died a few years ago, Petey was absolutely bereft. His pals were gone and he went into what can only be described as a cat depression, if there is such a thing. His health went south and it didn’t look good for him at all until we adopted the new kittens, Electra and Orestes. At first, Petey wasn’t amused, but the kittens quickly grew on him and Petey recovered his health and spirit for another two years.

He had been fighting cancer for a little over a month, doing pretty well all things considered, but early last week he quickly took a turn for the worse. The end came quickly, fortunately, and we buried him in the back yard next to Agamemnon and Menelaus. At least they got a few years reprieve.

He will be sorely missed.

Shorter Cloverfield

Yuppies are pretty stupid, since they throw boring parties and spend a fortune on Manhattan condos that look trashed out even before the monsters show up. But they work well as hors d'ourves.

Huckabee

Separated at birth: On the left, the actor Gregory Itzen playing corrupt President Charles Logan from the TV series 24; on the (far) right Arkansas Governor and presidential aspirant Michael Huckabee.

There's a lot I'd like to write on this guy, but Salon's done a favor by writing two excellent articles on the Dominionist Christians backing him for his presidential run. Truly frightening stuff. The winner is George Grant, a former executive director of Coral Ridge Ministries, who cowrote the book with Michael Huckabee, "Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence," and who also wrote another book, "The Changing of the Guard: The Vital Role Christians Play in America's Cultural Drama," which includes this famous passage:

'...Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less...
Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ...'

What's been interesting over the past few months is watching the different aspects of contemporary American Christian theology play out in Governor Huckabee's campaign. On one had is the dominionist aspect, basically a Christian vision of the Taliban and Sharia law; on the other is recognition that Christian theology is more than just a collection of 'thou shall nots,' but also 'thou shalls.' So in addition to favoring rewriting the Constitution to be more in line with (his vision of) God's word, he also has a history of raising taxes in his home state to fund anti-poverty initiatives. Watching this battle in his campaign between the different factions of politically involved right wing Christians is more interesting to me than watching the similar battle going on in the Republican party itself, between Governor Romney (the money wing, and the one I predict will win), Senator McCain (the neo-con wing), and Governor Huckabee (the social conservative wing).

And to top it off there are recipes!:

Indulging

Via Open Left I read that the Republican House Minority Leader, John Boehner, has issues with food that he can’t pronounce:

'...The presidential race is not the only place where change is an issue. Members of Congress returning to the Capitol this week are being confronted by transformational happenings that have shaken the building to its foundations: Democrats have hired a new company to run cafeteria services. Naturally, this has caused an outbreak of partisan skirmishing. "I like real food," proclaimed Republican leader John Boehner when asked about the new menu by a producer for another cable news outfit. [It was CNN] "Food that I can pronounce the name of."...'

While I certainly don’t find it surprising that a high-ranking Republican politician has major issues with things he is unfamiliar with or he can’t understand, and wants to go as far as complaining about it on National television with the aim of shutting the whole thing down, what struck me about the brief article was the following comment that he made:

'...The company that Nancy Pelosi and her people have hired has a mandate to "Go Green," complete with a mission statement posted outside the cafeteria on an eco-friendly LCD screen and a requirement to buy carbon offsets. Boehner doesn't think much of that either. "It reminds me of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, when we had indulgences," says Boehner of the offsets...'

Mr. Boehner is a Catholic, but one who apparently doesn’t understand his own faith. He refers to indulgences in the Catholic Church in the past tense, when in fact they are alive and quite well. What he may be talking about is the famous tradition of tying indulgences to financial transactions, which was officially outlawed by Pope Pius V in 1567 - Martin Luther and his hammering complaints on a door had something to do with that. But indulgences remain to this day.

What’s fun about indulgences is that they do still remain an inherently financial transaction, despite the official removal of money from the equation. The currency of indulgences is merits: through acts of prayer and penance one builds up a store of merits which can remiss certain types of punishment for sin; excess merits one has can actually be transferred to someone in need. The Catholic Church is allowed to give indulgences as well, though it doesn’t ‘earn’ them in the same way; instead the Church has what is referred to as the ‘Treasure House of Merit.’ This is a collection of merits (rather large, considering the Church’s history of handing them out) that the Church ‘inherited’ upon the deaths of the early church saints, who apparently had quite an excess of them.

And like money, and the carbon offsets that Mr. Boehner lambastes, this is a currency that ultimately has as its aim the modification of social behavior. Sin, as it were, has a price, which must be paid. What would be real fun would be to take merits and indulgences to the next level, develop a trading market for them, and derivatives based on futures as well. Perhaps Mr. Boehner could work on setting that up since he frowns on the same process for carbon offsets.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Via Matthew Yglesias, I now see that there is a new way to play with kid's minds: Armor of God PJs.

'...Although we are a new company, our desire is to grow into a well-known Christian Organization whose main goal is to reach as many children as possible by providing the Word of God, offering top quality products and excellent customer service along with offering parents the means and support to help their children grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ...'

According to the website, the inspiration is Ephesians 6:10-18:

¹¹¹²'...Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, In all circumstances take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God....'

And yet another biblical quote unwittingly used. Technically the PJs should help aid in the struggle against 'the authorities.' Of course, ask any kid who they think the authorities are, and their parents may be surprised by the answer.

Pituitary Retards

From the latest TV Week:

"...NBC’s revamp of the campy competition classic “American Gladiators” scored the highest new series premiere rating of the season...“Gladiators” earned a 5.9 preliminary rating among adults 18 to 49 and was seen by 12 million viewers. The demo rating gives "Gladiators" the best score for an NBC debut since “Heroes." ...The two-hour premiere came in second during the 9 p.m. hour behind an original episode of “Desperate Housewives” (7.2), but it handily won the 10 p.m. hour. What’s more, “Gladiators’” final half-hour was its highest-rated, with a 6.1, which bodes well for the true test of the show’s strength when the show airs tonight in its regular time period...'

Bill Hicks is laughing at all of us now.

Happy 2008

And another New Year greets us. I've always appreciated the New Year for allowing the possibility of reflection and a clean slate to begin again. But before one ponders what is to come, it's always best to review where one has been.

And, so, 2007. As I posted a year ago, major events were foretold to happen by one of my favorite pompous gasbags, the Reverend Pat Robertson. His forecasts for 2007 (an annual tradition for him) included massive terrorist and nuclear attacks on multiple US cities with a corresponding death toll in the millions. Clearly that did not come to pass. Also not coming to pass - the return of Jesus Christ, which 1 out of every 4 Americans believed would happen in 2007, according to a poll taken back then. I have searched thus far in vain for a similar poll for 2008, as it would be interesting to see what people have learned from their poor prognosticating abilities.

Other things that Americans believed were to happen in 2007, based on a poll taken at the beginning of the year:

Gas Prices will go up: 93% believed it very likely
The US Congress will raise the minimum wage: 81%
Global Warming will get worse: 74%
The U.S. will be hit with a major natural disaster: 70%
Terrorists will attack somewhere in the world with biological or nuclear weapons: 64%
The U.S. will be hit with a terrorist attack: 61%
A U.S. state will legalize gay marriage: 57%
Bird Flu will arrive in the U.S.: 50%
The U.S. will go to war with Iran: 40%
A cure for cancer will be found: 35%
The military draft will be reintroduced: 35%
The U.S. will withdraw its troops from Iraq: 29%
The U.S. will go to war with North Korea: 26%
Jesus Christ will return to Earth: 25%
Scientists will find evidence of extraterrestrial life: 19%

So aside from being lousy at prediction, Americans are also horribly pessimistic. If I run into any prediction polls for 2008, I'll pass them along.

But what of 2008? Pat Robertson is not deterred, but has learned a lesson and is scaling back his thoughts. Or, rather, as I mentioned last year, God is, for Pat Robertson is merely the vessel to receive the prognostications of God, according to the Reverend. So if it didn't happen, it's not Reverend Robertson's fault, but God's. (Though what he doesn't mention is the chance that God didn't get anything wrong, it's just that Pat Robertson can't hear him so well and misunderstood what was said).

This year, oil will reach $150 a barrel, The stock market will crash (though maybe not this year, but by 2010), and "the Lord was saying there's going to be violence and chaos in the world." So God's not exactly going out on a limb here. Though perhaps God needs to take a break from his schizophrenic self:

Robertson said he received no divine information about the war in Iraq. In past years, he said, "the Lord told me it would be a disaster; well, it has been a disaster."

This doesn't bode well since our President apparently talks with God about Iraq. And God seems to be telling him different things than the Reverend Robertson.

A schizophrenic God could explain a lot of things.

The Pope's Message of Peace

Above: My Response back to him

The Pope has published his annual remarks for World Peace Day, to be officially spoken on January 1st. This year's theme is family:

'At the beginning of a New Year, I wish to send my fervent good wishes for peace, together with a heartfelt message of hope to men and women throughout the world. I do so by offering for our common reflection the theme which I have placed at the beginning of this message. It is one which I consider particularly important: the human family, a community of peace...'

Pope Benedict XVI focuses on two families, the 'stable union' of the singular family and the metaphor of the larger community of mankind, and uses those two families to guide his remarks. First the human family:

'...in a healthy family life we experience some of the fundamental elements of peace: justice and love between brothers and sisters, the role of authority expressed by parents, loving concern for the members who are weaker because of youth, sickness or old age, mutual help in the necessities of life, readiness to accept others and, if necessary, to forgive them. For this reason, the family is the first and indispensable teacher of peace. It is no wonder, therefore, that violence, if perpetrated in the family, is seen as particularly intolerable. Consequently, when it is said that the family is “the primary living cell of society” something essential is being stated. The family is the foundation of society for this reason too: because it enables its members in decisive ways to experience peace. It follows that the human community cannot do without the service provided by the family. Where can young people gradually learn to savor the genuine “taste” of peace better than in the original “nest” which nature prepares for them? The language of the family is a language of peace; we must always draw from it, lest we lose the “vocabulary” of peace. In the inflation of its speech, society cannot cease to refer to that “grammar” which all children learn from the looks and the actions of their mothers and fathers, even before they learn from their words...'

These are wonderfully lovely and articulate sentiments. Unfortunately they are preceded by this:

'...The natural family, as an intimate communion of life and love, based on marriage between a man and a woman, constitutes “the primary place of ‘humanization' for the person and society”, and a “cradle of life and love”...' [boldface mine]

Sigh. Here we go again. For purposes of clarity, I eliminated the footnotes in the quotes above, but the footnote to the statement of marriage being defined as between a man and a woman refers to the Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 48. It's important to remember that Catholic teachings and beliefs are based on scripture indirectly, through 2,000 years of written biblical interpretation. Sort of like how our laws are based on court interpretations of the Constitution. This is why Catholic doctrine usually refers to documents such as these, rather than chapter and verse from the Bible.

I wont quote at length from part 48 of the Pastoral Constitution, but it's fair to say that the only justification that it gives for limiting marriage to between a man and a woman is the old procreation chestnut:

'...By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown...'

The rest of part 48 discusses issues such as the role of the family to nurture children - and it doesn't even talk about how one needs both a man and a woman to do that. Actually it spends more time talking about nurturing than procreation. But since Kathy and I can't have kids through procreation, I guess we're a hindrance to world peace.

Though it seems like shooting fish in a barrel to argue about the idiocy of the procreation argument, I can't help but point out the utter lack of compassion and squandering of opportunities that are the hallmarks of such an approach to families. The Pope is arguing that Kathy and I, despite being a man and a woman, are incapable of educating kids in a solid nurturing way simply because we can't pop them out ourselves, not to mention arguing that queer couples we know are apparently more likely to lock their kids in a hot car than Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Mary Crackhead.

To be fair, this is not the only issue that the Pope's message covers. Sections on the environment (Prompting the Daily Mail to post an article entitled 'The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom.' - a rather unfair characterization of what he actually says), the importance of moral law (one could quibble, but he's Catholic after all, so it would be churlish to do so) and the last section: Overcoming conflicts and disarmament:

'...At a time when the process of nuclear non-proliferation is at a stand-still, I feel bound to entreat those in authority to resume with greater determination negotiations for a progressive and mutually agreed dismantling of existing nuclear weapons. In renewing this appeal, I know that I am echoing the desire of all those concerned for the future of humanity...'

While I applaud such sentiments, it is a rather rich statement to come from someone who has yet to address the issue of his immediate predecessor giving a peace medal to Samuel Cohen, because of his invention: the Neutron Bomb. In fact most of the talk in the Vatican about Pope John Paul II is about his impending sainthood.

Pope Benedict XVI is famous for having a profound intellect, which I don't doubt. He is amazingly articulate and a formidable scholar. But unless those qualities are subject to a strong compassion and introspection they are going to be more of a harm to world peace than the 'costs of environmental protection.' If he wants to exercise true leadership in arguing for change for the cause of World Peace, then the best place for him to begin is to enact change at home.

Keeping up the Beat

I'm back from a long and lovely trip to Hawaii, but now am pretty busy, so it's been a while since I posted. But I'm working on one about how the Pope's an idiot. To tide you over, here's some early 80's English Beat music videos: