I HATE GUNS

Once again we're watching people's lives changed forever because of the plethora of guns in this country. Whether it's the photo of John John Kennedy saluting his father's casket, or the parent's of the kids who died in Ohio, or the policeman's little boy who shot himself with his dad's gun, or the distraught mothers that we see every night on the local news trying to make sense of the senseless killing of their teenage son or daughter, the pain continues.

I hate guns. I hate everything about guns. I hate the NRA, and I hate hunting.

While the right wing in this country is always ready to amend the Constitution to prevent someone like me from marrying my partner of 30 years, In MY idea of a perfect world they'd be trying to get rid of the second amendment...the right to bear arms. Anyone who wants a gun just for sport..either target practice or for hunting, would just have to find another "sport". Period. John Lennon was a "dreamer" with his beautiful song " Imagine", but ended up in a pool of blood as countless others do every day...everywhere in this country.

In the history of this world, there have been some magnificent voices of peace. From Ghandi, to Jesus, to Mother Theresa and Dr Martin Luther King, we were taught about non-violence, but the lesson never remained in our hearts, and we continued to bury our loved ones.

It's ironic that being a pacifist is such a joke in our lifetime. I read the other day about the priest who was called in to bless the atomic bombs that were to be dropped on Japan. Whatever your concept is of "God"...it's hard to imagine blessing a bomb....or a semi-automatic. Banning guns altogether is part of my own naive pacifist nature that still imagines a better world. It's not a  joke.

A LETTER TO RICK SANTORUM FROM GOD

Dear Ricky

I've been more than a little concerned about some of the things that you've been saying lately and I've decided that you might just need a little guidance and clarification. First of all sweetie, I didn't actually choose you to run for president as your wife has suggested. I rarely do things like that after I got burned on the Sarah Palin thing....after that I decided not to play favorites.

Honey, lots of people really like to have sex, and they don't always want to have a baby. Now you've tried it seven times so far, and produced quite a brood...but not everybody wants to do that, you have to be a little more tolerant and not so afraid of sex. You kinda scared me when you talked about my gay creations too....I love them ! Just because they make fun of your little sweater vest, and didn't invite you to the last Cher concert, you're all wrong about them. Love is love, please think about that.

When they do want to be more like you and get married, that's a real compliment...you know the imitation and flattery quote. You've got to lighten up about that babe.

Why would you want to throw up when you read about separating the church and the state? I want NOTHING to do with your politics Richard...NOTHING! Please I beg you leave me out of that mess!

Honey, now about Iran. You're not reading the Bible again. You Catholics just never seem to do that much. There are families just like yours who would be hurt and even killed if you start a war...I hate the words "collateral damage"..and you need to think about that buster.

Basically Ricky, honey, you aren't going to be Mr President...you're just not the right guy. You need to do some work on yourself...maybe get some therapy...and revisit some of your....I hate to say ..."whacky ideas". Frankly you embarrass me. I want you to go home, pay your fair taxes in Penn Hills (need I say more?) and take one of those little yellow pills and rest. All the crazy thoughts will eventually go away, and maybe one day you'll be a normal person. Good night sweetie.

GOD

TULIPS

When I was a kid the Joseph Horne Company in downtown Pittsburgh had a big Spring event every year around the twenty-first of March. The whole first floor would be filled with flowering trees and thousands of Spring flowers and shrubs. They also had live birds in white cages in the displays, and perfume sprayers as you entered through the revolving doors with lilac and lily of the valley scents. In one area they had huge glass vases filled with hundreds of tulips in every shade and shape. You could pick out the ones you liked and order the bulbs right there, and they'd then be delivered to you in the Fall, just in time to plant them for the following Spring.

I remember planting "Red Emperor" tulips with my Mom on a cold Thanksgiving weekend when I was about nine or ten. Those particular tulips are still available, and one of the first to bloom. Now they come in yellow and orange,but I still prefer the red ones with their black centers and broad petal spread. Our first Woof also had her eye on our tulips, which we discovered a little too late one year.

When my cousin and I moved into a big old house together I came across a wholesale catalog for Spring bulbs and we ordered hundreds of them. When they were delivered we were astounded by how many crates there were. We had friends over for a planting party, and got to work on the thousands of bulbs, and planted all day. About a week later I received a call from the company saying that they had over-shipped the order by four times..and that I should return the extra bulbs....which of course was impossible. They finally relented when I explained that I'd never ordered wholesale before and consequently had no idea of what to expect. That Spring felt like an earthquake in the garden and all around the house. We had tulips aplenty.

Over the years I've discovered that most tulips only last one season...unlike the ones I knew as a kid. However, the "Darwin Hybrid" tulips are really perennial..and very reliable.

They're tall and strong...like a "French Tulip"...and they last for years and years. I buy them from Van Bourgondien Wholesale (www.kvbwholesale.com.) ( anybody can buy from them.)

I always tell people that you have to be a true optimist to plant tulips...because it's about the last thing you feel like doing on a cold Autumn day when the garden is already starting to go to sleep....but come early April, you'll be really really glad you did.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Wow...we gay folks are getting a break for awhile...the GOP is picking on women this go round. Between what one woman called the "cranky old celibate bishops" and Rick Santorum as the standard bearers, and the wacky governors with their ultrasounds and probes swelling the ranks, you women out there had better start taking to the streets. It seems like a century ago that Hillary was talking about breaking through that glass dome for women's equality. Now we have all male panels discussing women's health, while Rick Santorum wants to take females back to the middle ages.

To add insult to injury, just take a glance at the Limbaugh attacks. Don Imus was sent packing for a nasty comment about Rutgers' girls basketball team, Issah Washington gets the boot for a three letter word, but that nasty and hateful walrus attacks Sandra Fluke for three days and he's still spouting his venom because there are too many Republicans who either agree with him or are too afraid to say that they don't. Remember when the gay soldier was booed at one of the GOP debates and none of the candidates said a word?

These are "Stonewall" times for women....time to raise your voices and say NO! Allowing people like Rush Limbaugh to bully one young woman from Georgetown also allows him to attack every woman in this country. Letting these whack job politicians and holier than thou men of the cloth invade and control your bodies is preposterous. Silence implies complicity, and activism begins with anger. Of course I don't speak for the whole gay community, but a vast majority of us would gladly join you in your battle. It's time.

BLACKIE

Blackie ruined my summer when I was ten years old. He seemed to appear out of nowhere one hot morning while the whole neighborhood was bouncing around on our Pogo Sticks. ( I think about ten of us got them for Christmas that year, and we all discovered that they were fun for about eight minutes.) Even when you got pretty good at it, jumping up and down and maybe moving about ten feet just didn't cut it for very long. Every once in awhile we'd all get them out and hop around for a few minutes just so our parents wouldn't think we were ungrateful. Barbara Sellers was a year or two older than most of us and she was tall with big black hair that stuck out from under her little red  cap. She was really good on her Pogo Stick, and would still be hopping around when the rest of us were all sitting on the curb chewing pieces of long grass.

Out of the blue Blackie appeared....a really big black crow who watched Barbara for awhile from a nearby tree and then flew down and landed on her foot....which caused her of course to dismount...and made us all laugh. He sort of stuck around that whole day....making his crow noise...and just hanging out with us, either in a tree or walking around like a pet or something. I didn't pay too much attention to him at first...but after a while he became sort of a nuisance, and we'd try to shoo him away when we were trying to play hop scotch or a board game under Mrs Winters big shade tree. Blackie's mood quickly turned ugly, and he got louder and more persistent...trying to horn in on everything we did.

After a couple of days Blackie's mood further deteriorated as we became less and less intrigued by his antics, and he suddenly began to swoop down on our heads from out of nowhere. Susan and her sister Mimi who were what might be described as "fragile" started the real chaos (now as I think back) because they were the ones who started screaming "BLACKIE ! " when they'd spot him in the trees while we were busy building an Indian campfire or something. Now Blackie must have gotten a big kick out of the screaming and consequent scattering of the group, because he began to dive bomb and screech even louder as he attacked the tallest person in our little gang. Fortunately  for the rest of us that was usually Barbara, with her red hat and wild black hair being his primary target.

In a matter of weeks I no longer participated in any of our regular summer activities unless I was confident that Barbara was there, and I could count on Blackie to attack her....and not me. Blackie was an unusually clever crow, with his own twisted sense of humor. Sometimes he'd be nowhere to be seen, and we'd almost forget about him while we played follow the leader on our bikes, only to get just far away from our front yards for Blackie to come tearing out of the trees...screeching like a banshee...and we'd ALL start to scream while poor Barbara would try to steer with one hand and protect her head with the other as we raced to safety. ( We'd already discovered that if we ran into someone's open garage he'd fly right in with us and continue to flap around and try to land on our heads.)

Many a sultry summer night I'd lie awake thinking (worrying) about Blackie. It got to the point that if Barbara wasn't already outside with the kids when I'd look out my bedroom window, I'd stay in. I'd taken particular notice over the preceding weeks of all of my friends' heights...and determined...much to my dismay...that I was the next tallest kid. Without Barbara as my ace in the hole, I'd surely be attacked. One day when I was actually brave enough to venture into the woods to check out our newly constructed shack while Barbara was in Ocean City for a week...my theory proved to be correct. Susan and Mimi started screaming their warning....everybody ran.....and I froze. So did Blackie. I figured that the standoff couldn't last forever....but it almost did. For what felt like eight or ten hours but was probably about two...( it really did start to get dark) I stood motionless while Blackie sat motionless on a big tree branch. I promised God that I'd become a priest or something if He'd resolve the situation, and also considered whether or not I could survive an attack if I made a break for it...and decided to wait him out. After a really long time he actually made some strange sound that probably meant something like "oh for God's sake" in crow, and he flew away...disgusted.

That whole summer was a write-off. I lived in terror of that crow, didn't mind rainy days, and went back to school as white as a ghost. To this day when I sit on my back porch with Woof and I hear a crow...I think of Blackie. who just flew away one day and never came back. Woof seems to notice crows too...and I swear she feels a sense of relief because she knows I'm a lot taller than she is.

MY LETTER TO FR. MARCEL GUARNIZO

Dear Father

Thank you for standing up for our Church by refusing to give the Body of our Savior to a sinful woman. If Barbara Johnson wants to participate in our faith perhaps this will be a first step. I hope you will follow through with the example you gave at her mother's funeral and likewise be a little more careful about just who receives Communion in the future. I personally know quite a few other homosexuals who regularly attend Mass, and I hope to reveal their names to you in the very near future. Perhaps together we can make an example of them as well. I know your decision with that lesbian woman made some national headlines, and my hope is that a cleaner Church will be the result.

It stands to reason that Priests like you are on the forefront of a whole movement. There is no one better than you to judge just who really "belongs" in our church and who doesn't. I have a very good friend who works in our hospital and is privy to information about women who have obtained information about abortions. I'm sure you would agree that they too should be denied the Sacraments, as well as those people who continue to fight for the so called "women's rights". Weeding out the sinful elements has to begin somewhere, and it obvious at least tome that you are God's messenger.

With the whole country talking about birth control, I've been noticing how some young couples are not procreating...where are the families with nine or ten children? People who practice birth control are certainly not in the state of grace...please keep that in mind.

People like you, and Rick Santorum, and even Rush Limbaugh are on the right track. Holy Communion is not for everyone, and it certainly isn't for homosexuals, divorced people, adulterers, or those who refuse to accept children as God's gifts. I hope to see fewer people receiving the hosts..especially in our church.

Keep up the good work...here's to a thorough cleansing of the flock.

A Grateful follower.

REPLACING YOUR DOCTOR WITH YOUR BOSS

I find it astounding that our congress is actually debating a bill that basically says that a boss's religious convictions can determine the health benefits that he (most bosses seem to be men) will provide for the employees. That means that if you are a woman who works for Macy's and become pregnant at age 35 and your doctor recommends you have an amniocentisis, but like Rick Santorum your boss thinks that those tests lead to too many abortions, you're out of luck. For several strange reasons, the Republican party seems to be more and more controlled by people with very extreme positions.

With the Santorums of the country trying desperately to marry the government with their churches, it seems that women are the primary targets for loosing their rights, (Usually it's the gay community). How can it be a good idea for the boss to make decisions that women and their doctors ought to be making? A Catholic woman who works for Mercy Hospital doesn't have to use birth control just because the hospital provides it for women who do. If Terry Lundgren who is the CEO of Macy's doesn't believe in contraception, should all his women employees have 16 kids?

The scariest part of this bill ( Blunt-Rubio ) is that it would actually allow an employer who didn't believe in radiation for cancer opt out of giving his employees coverage. Really. There was a letter in our local paper yesterday from a woman who's had it with "cranky old celibate men" (the bishops) and the ultra right wing of the Republican party trying to tell people how to manage their reproductive lives. Calling a bill like this "Religious Freedom" is really nonsense. "The campaign to stop Birth Control" would be closer to the truth.