I Have No Words (Except for the bunch I Just Wrote)

And so we come to the almost end of a family tree here in the heart of the San Joaquin valley. my parents have left the building, vacated the premises, hied themselves to better climes, pulled the maul from the stump, took the change from the counter, tipped the croupier, cashed their tokens, received the to-go box, and flown the coop.
I am the last of 40 years of Dyers in California.
We moved here from the mid-West in 195...lived in Fresno for...years and finally moved to Sanger very shortly before I was born (in 19...), which makes me 29 or so. Sanger is my birth town and the house is where my parents have lived for the past 40, I mean 29 years. Sanger used to be about 1/2 hour by car from Fresno. Now, it's about 8 minutes.
I evicted myself from Sanger, Fresno and Cali for the entirety of the 90's in order to live life to its fullest in Seattle. And never come back, because Cali and the San Joaquin valley were on a downward trend. Jobs, housing, air quality, basic culture were on a serious slide. So, Seattle or bust.
10 years later I was back. Why? Haven't figured that out yet. Other than my son and my family and a lack of serious friends.
Now, I'm the last of the breed. And if it weren't for a very few friends and the Rogue Festival I might be gone, too.
So, there you have it. I am Dyer and mad as hell and I won't take it anymore. Wait. I am Dyer and you can't handle the truth. No. I am Dyer and you had me at "we don't care if you're an endangered species. a table won't be available for another 45 minutes".
Yeah, that's it.

Anyhoo, let's get on to today's political and/or social diatribe, shall we? Today, the Catholic church gets it. More specifically, it's the Vatican and the Vatican's inquisitional stance towards anyone who might question its purity, transparency and holy doctrine. As AIDS continues its march through the third world countries at a pace that is intimidating at best, as women in those countries are still being forced into sex slavery, as children continue to die of malnutrition and a basic lack of ANYTHING to eat every day, as pedophiles continue to sweep the halls of churches and monastaries with the robes of their kissable hems in almost every country around the globe, as the church stays hellbent on denying that they cloister pedophiles in new parishes where the priests' names are not yet known, and as this church insists on pointing its finger at everyone who might show its dirty linen and denounce them as heretics or godless or misguided or the liberal press, it's interesting to note that the Church (the Vatican) seems to be not helping with any financial settlements or court ordered payments to the victims of its clergy. How long would you stay affiliated with any group that doesn't admit financial culpability for the actions of the officers it put in place and then tried to move around in order to minimize the damage? How long as your diocese sells off its assets (including the building and the property)? Wait, never mind. Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and Uzbhekistan suddenly came to mind. Our government is doing the exact same thing. Let the menial be punished, save the institution. God (administration)must be preserved in whatever manner, no matter the fallout on the innocent.
I think I agree with my brother now. It wuold be better for the parishoners to lose their holy ground and be forced to start over than to be "covered" by the Vatican and hope this sin passes by with as little damage as possible.

"In the church, priests also are sinners. But I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offenses among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower," said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — in 2002 when he was the head man of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19108