Black Smoke, White Smoke

Posted on | March 11, 2013 |

With the retirement of Pope Benedict, following the example of the Emperor Diocletian and going off to tend a vegetable garden, the Catholic Church is at a crossroads again–namely, how to look like they’re dealing with the problem of priestly and episcopal pederasty while selecting in the conclave of the College of Cardinals a colleague who tacitly condoned the problem by doing nothing about it. One thing for certain–he will be from the conservative wing of the Church in order to complete the return of Catholicism to the 19th century after Vatican II dragged it, protesting and screaming, into the 20th century. Ahhh, decisions, decisions. God forbid we have another Pope like John XXIII who’d actually done things like save Jews in the Holocaust, visit a prison on the 2nd day of his Papacy, and had a predilection for sneaking out of the Vatican to talk to people and find out what they thought.

Father Roncalli (John’s real name) was no saint–and won’t be if the Church has anything to say about it. But he was probably the closest pope to one in the last few centuries. His stance to pederasty was pretty clear–and at the same time muddled. On the one hand, he expressly taught that those seminarians who showed a tendency to homosexuality and pederasty were to be barred from ordination. That was back in 1961 and the world’s attitude about homosexuality has been thoroughly revised. Given the misunderstanding of the time, the connection between the two is understandable since the greater bulk of priestly crimes of this type have been with boys rather than girls.

On the other hand, there is a document from 1962 issued under Pope John’s seal that instructs that the investigation of cases involving “‘worst crime’, described as an obscene act perpetrated by a cleric with ‘youths of either sex or with brute animals (bestiality)'” to be dealt with in absolute secrecy. While the penalties for priests involve suspension from celebration of the sacraments through defrocking, (which are not mentioned in the news article but can be found in the linked pdf) nonetheless, there you have the paradox in a nutshell. The horrible nature of the crime is admitted, yet the door is opened to the cover-ups that have exploded in the last 20 years.

My bet is that if John XXIII knew how his instructions would be used to justify the cover-ups, he would have made sure that the cover-up of crimes was dealt with with equal severity. At least, one hopes.

PS: I hate Daylight Saving Time.

Sorry, Fred C. Dobbs–The Supreme Court gets to put one over on EVERYone

Posted on | March 4, 2013 |

The latest battle in dismantling the 20th century is about to be lost in the Supreme Court. Maybe. We’ll soon find out. The Voting Rights Act–the law that forbids discrimination against voters based on race or color–not just black people, mind you, Asians, Hispanics, native Americans, Alaskans–is in danger of being overturned. There’s very little anyone can do about it. Justice Roberts makes snide and objectively false statements about there being more discrimination in Massachusetts than anywhere else. Nino Scalia calls protecting voting rights, a “racial entitlement.” OMG the E-word! Entitlements are bad–except when they benefit rich old white men. Hey Nino–Italians were a discriminated against minority as recently as the 1930s–and Sicilians were barely considered white men by substantial numbers of people in the US. Perhaps the “original intent” would mean that you only have to ensure the voting rights of 3/5 of the non-white population?

Among the other conservative four, Alito has been wisely keeping his mouth shut, but we know which way his tail blows in the wind. This leaves Clarence Thomas. OK Clarence. Is protecting the voting rights a racial entitlement? Just remember–if it is, you may never have made it to those robes. In fact, you may never have voted Republican. Or Democratic. We really want to see how you’re going to come down on this one.

Still, it could be a 5-4 one way or the other depending on which side of the bed Kennedy, the usual swing voter, got up this morning. But let’s hope that Roberts gets one of his “Do I really want my court to come off as the worst court since the Dred Scott Decision” moments. And maybe one or two others will be so disgusted at Scalia’s blatant bigotry.

And remember–race is the first step. Property ownership is the next.

“Hey, mister, can you stake a right to vote to a fellow American what’s down on his luck?”

And This Year’s Award for Biggest Jerks in Congress … The Envelope Please

Posted on | February 25, 2013 |

Well, the Academy Awards were last night and, just in case the fright-wing had any doubts about the liberalness of Hollywood, Michele Obama was on hand to deliver the Best Picture Award to ARGO. I’m sure Rush et al will be making hay out of that for the next week.

Actually, the reason the FLOTUS was there was to present an award to a movie that celebrated one of the few times when the CIA got one right. With liberal dollops of help from Canada, eh? Hey, Ben Affleck! Canada says you didn’t give it enough credit–how aboot a big “I’m sore-ry.” Teehee–couldn’t resist twitting my Canadian relatives.

The BIG SERIOUS news tho is the dreaded SEQUESTER that is aboot–err, about–to descend upon the American people. Yes, that’s right, once again the American economy is about to be wrecked by the Tea Partiers who love America–unless a last-minute rescue worthy of THE PERILS OF PAULINE gets performed. Said last-minute rescue will naturally screw everyone in the United States except the 1% of the 1%–but that’s OK because the sequester will screw EVERYBODY and push us back into the Great Recession. Might as well save SOME people! Too bad it’s the ones who already have life rafts.

At this point, I almost wish the SEQUESTER gets performed. It will be the first time the Pentagon actually loses money and MAYBE, those damn tax-hating nincompoops will see what havoc their ideology shall wreak. But I don’t have any confidence in that. The one thing that invariably happens when you prove a true believer wrong to his face is that he will retrench and believe all the harder. Sort of like saying “I do believe in fairies” to save Tinkerbell, only screaming it.

In any case, yours truly had a great weekend at Katsucon last week. I didn’t get to see too many friends because the weekend was so good for sales, I did not dare leave the table for more than a few minutes at a time. I premiered a new work based on the HELL GIRL anime which my friend Charles Dunbar showcased in his “Dead Like Us/Remixed” presentation at the con. Thanks to Kevin and Peter of A Kawaii Boutique for their company and for taking care of my table when I needed a break. And thanks to all the cosplayers and artists who dropped by to say hi and especially the ones who bought something!

Drone Wars Theme Song–The Road to Dystopia!

Posted on | February 11, 2013 |

Okay, guys, time to prove just HOW OLD I AM again:

THE ROAD TO DYSTOPIA
To the tune of “The Road to Morocco”. Dystopia is pronounced Dis-TOPE-ya for the purposes of the song.
For those of you who are too young to have ever heard it, watch this Youtube video to get the tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_w3UG6C_Mo

We’re off on the Road to Dystopia!
Pushbuttons do not hurt our spines!
Where they’re goin’, where we’re goin’, how can we be sure?
Just keep on believing that our motives aren’t impure!

We’re off on the Road to Dystopia!
Watch out! There’s no end to the line!
I hear our target’s where they do the dance of the seven veils,
They won’t be doing it too long with rockets on their tails!

We certainly do get around!
Like endless wars in Orwell,
We’re Dystopia Bound!

We’re off on the Road to Dystopia!
Look out! Well, clear the way, ‘cuz HERE WE COME!
As long as they’re shot over there, we haven’t any cares!
We hope our next-door neighbors don’t say five-fold daily prayers!

We’re off on the Road to Dystopia!
Thinking just makes us go numb!
They told us they would never shoot them off on US soil.
Our government would never sell us second-rate SNAKE OIL!

We certainly do get around!
Like a Jimmy Cameron movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, we’re Dystopia Bound.
Or a comic book by Alan Moore that’s made into a superbudget movie that gets everybody wearing Guy Fawkes masks,
WE’RE DYSTOPIA BOUND!

No cartoon next Monday because *drumroll* this coming weekend I will be in Artist Alley at Katsucon 19, at the Gaylord in National Harbor, MD, so if you’re there, stop by and say hi–and perhaps buy a signed print or two. For those of you who CAN’T make it, go over to my Facebook fanpage and click on the LIKE button to get updates on this blog and on my other art that’s available at the conventions.

See you then. Intravenous Caffeine will be back in two weeks.

YESYESYES–I admit it–I was lipsyncing!!!

And Now Everyone Can Get Back To Work

Posted on | February 4, 2013 |

Superbowl XLVII is now over and everyone can go back to work. It was amazing–so little seemed to be happening this week–except for the NRA deepthroating the feet that they were busy cramming into their mouths. Everything else seemed to be Superbowl related–a possible shortage of chicken wings (when DID they become America’s snack of choice?) and speculation as to whether Beyoncé would try to lip-sync her performance. Well, there was no shortage of wings–a shortage of beer would have been a worse occurrence–and Beyoncé proved that even if she DID lipsync the Star-Spangled Banner at the Inauguration, she sure as hell didn’t HAVE to. Not the most exciting game for the first half, but after the lights came back on in the 3rd quarter, it suddenly looked like a football game. We will ignore the conspiracy theorists who speculated that the blackout was planned to break the Ravens momentum, expecially since the 49ers didn’t quite catch up (if it was ANY conspiracy, it was perpetrated by the network, hehehe). Congratulations to the Ravens but a great performance by the Niners (if you don’t count the first two quarters).

You know, when I was growing up, BASEBALL was the “National Pastime”. Football started to get on the map in 1958 with the Colts-Giants championship battle, dubbed the “Greatest” game in history–which I missed due to the NY blackout for a “local game”–like TV could cause spectators from NOT attending a championship game. There never seemed to be as much excitement for a World Series as for the Superbowl in my lifetime. Possibly because it’s easier to get excited for ONE game rather than seven. Possibly because the glory days of baseball were in the golden age from the 20s to 50s.

But the intensity of excitement for the Superbowl is incredible! A paean to American excess. Even the COMMERCIALS are considered the greatest commercials in history. You know, if I wanted to commit any sort of crime, from highway robbery to murder, I’d commit it during the Superbowl–guaranteed that even IF someone noticed during the three-hour-plus gladiatorial combat, nobody would DO anything about it until the final whistle! I guess we’re lucky in one respect–even the criminals are too busy watching the game to do anything truly nasty!

In the meantime, Yours Truly will be appearing in the DC area at Katsucon 19, the weekend of February 15-17 at the Gaylord at National Harbor, MD. I’ll be in Artists Alley so stop by and say hi–and perhaps buy a signed print or two. For those of you who CAN’T make it, go over to my Facebook fanpage and click on the LIKE button to get updates on this blog and on my other art that’s available at the conventions.

See you then!

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ABOUT MEH

Cartoons and text by Greg Uchrin (aka Gregorius alexandrinus), with the able assistance of Fred and Bert Squirrel, with special appearances by George Dymme. Published once a week on Mondays.

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GregoriusU @ Deviant Art

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