The Daily Dose/May 11, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
We do not like sex abuse any more than you do, but this week’s announcement by Pope Francis this week announcing that all church personnel are not required to report sex abuse and/or its cover-up to their superiors almost made us laugh.
Good gravy, after decades of public disclosure of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, mainly of boys 11-14, though also of some girls, a thousand years after a monk first wrote about a book railing against sexual abuse and depravity by the clergy, and perhaps two thousand years after it first started happening, the church is now requiring people report child molestation?
It was Francis’s first definitive action on the matter in his seven-year pontificate and comes at a time that has seen cardinals in the United States and Australia being disgraced as abusers and several US states opening investigations into the church, with some American bishops releasing lists of priests that have been accused of sexual abuse. It is interesting to note the pope’s decree does not require anyone in the church to report anything at all to any civil authority.
While reading this the same thought we’ve had about the Republican Party came to mind: why are these people still around? The GOP hasn’t produced a decent elected president since Eisenhower and the Catholic Church allows and tolerates its clergy to sexually abuse boys.
But Catholics are staying with their church. Membership, while declining in some countries, is still over one billion baptized, Catholic adherents, regularly supporting an institution that has its leaders regularly molesting children. It’s human nature. Religion was our earliest attempt to explain our existence: its up and downs, eclipses and floods, good harvests and bad harvests, successes and failures. And us humans still need that guidance, not to mention freedom from the fear of death. And the Catholic Church, for better or worse, is still there to dispense those things to its adherents.
There are other churches out there, though, and we can personally vouch for one of them: we had 13 years of Lutheran schooling, a religion where clergy are allowed to marry and enjoy more or less normal sex lives, and these things never happened.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow has some leftovers from Thursday, and he updates his VSO website. Today’s Diary.
The lawn didn’t get done…Regular readers of this crap know Thursdays is prime lawn mowing time, but we got home from town late and I was beat anyways, however I would’ve done it anyway, but the excuse of some scattered sprinkles presented itself and I was pleased to put it off until next time.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
The drivel simply does not stop: please click on the button to read The Diary of a Nobody. $5.99 includes all entries, past, present, and future.
Criminals, Courtesans, and Constables: Friends, my latest novel is now available, for $3.99 until later this week when the price goes up a couple of bucks. Criminals, Courtesans, and Constables is about a nice guy who runs high-class call girls in and out of 5-star suites and throne rooms, collects ransoms and runs from the constables. Hilarity ensues. Seriously.
Click here to read excerpts and a sample chapter.
On This Date
In 1960 – Nazi Adolf Eichmann is captured by agents of the Israeli government in Buenos Aires, snatched after getting off a bus on his way home from work. He was kept at a safe house for nine days while his identity was confirmed and agents searched, unsuccessfully, for another Nazi, and was later drugged, dressed as flight attendant and smuggled out of the country. Eichmann was tried, convicted and executed in June, 1962. Earlier this century declassified documents showed both the US and West Germany knew Eichmann was in Argentina, but decided it was in their interest to do nothing.
In 1977 – Ted Turner, owner of the Atlanta Braves, begins and ends his managerial career, at the helm of the Braves’ 2-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team’s 17th consecutive loss. After the game, Turner is told by the National League to step down because a manager cannot have a financial interest in a team and the Braves would win the following night under coach Vern Benson, and previously fired manager Dave Bristol would return to manage the remainder of the season.
In 1974 – Grand Funk Railroad is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the second of two consecutive weeks with The Loco-Motion. It was the second #1 for Grand Funk Railroad after 1973’s We’re an American Band and their second of four Top 10 hits. The song also went to #1 in Canada and was Billboard’s sixth biggest song of 1974. It was a remake of Little Eva’s 1962 hit, which also went to #1, making it the second song to go to #1 by two different artists. The first was Go Away Little Girl by Steve Lawrence and then Donny Osmond, and the feat has been repeated on seven other occasions.
Quotebook
Let everyone mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.
Henry David Thoreau
Walden
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The other songs besides Hound Dog to go to #1 on Billboard’s pop, soul and country charts were Don’t Be Cruel, (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear and Jailhouse Rock by Elvis and Wake Up Little Susie and All I Have To Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers.
Today’s Stumper
Who was the other Nazi Israeli agents were looking for when they captured Adolf Eichmann? – Answer next time!
