SPAM! SPAM! SPAM!

It's Sunday, and I'm waiting for another season of Downton Abbey to premier tonight.  Yes, I know, it's a soap opera with British accents, but will Lady Mary ever find happiness now that Matthew is dead and buried?  And what about Edith?

So as I'm doing some clean-up chores on my computer and checking my email, I decided to look at my spam folder, since a legitimate email now and then gets thrown in there by mistake.

My spam folder may very well be more entertaining than a third season of Downton Abbey.

Someone named "Jennifer" asked me in no less than 10 emails "Why won't you respond to my message?"  I felt a twinge of guilt, but then was immediately distracted by "Ashley Madison's"  subject line "Life is Short, Have an Affair."    At my age, I'm afraid that would make life seem too long and way too complicated.

"Abigail" writes "Hello Mighty Man, How Are You?"  I guess it's impossible to tell what sex I am from my email identity, and possibly it doesn't matter to these spammers, so I'm not upset with "Abigail."   "Bree Olson's Nitroxin" promises me a "STRONGER, THICKER, HARDER PENIS -- FREE TRIAL 100% GUARANTEED!"  Well?

"Master Seducer" entices with "Weird video gets you laid? Watch this."  I'll pass, but thanks, M. Seducer, for the invite.  "Christian Mingle" promises that I'll find "That Special Someone."  But there's no 100% GUARANTEE, like I'm promised on that "STRONGER, THICKER..." well, you know. Some things even God won't back up, I suppose.  Finally, "Ava" says "Congrats on Your Free Fuckbook Account!"   I don't even.

Mixed in with all this sexual ministrone are coupons for "mozzarella sticks and buffalo wings" from "Applebee's," "a free oil change coupon," a credit card deal with "0% APR,"  "Rock Star Loans," "Rolex Replicas," and a "LIMITED TIME FREE ACCESS TO LOCAL SLUTS," offered by "slut finder."  The mind reels.

What a big wide world it is out there, and how confounded I am by it all.

Mistakenly thrown in among all these irresistible spam ads and enticements was one email from a friend of mine who works with people to find them low-income housing.  The email profiled "The Home Buyer of the Month," a husband and wife who were finally able to find affordable housing for themselves and their two children in time for Christmas by working with my friend, Jim, and the state agency he heads.  Nice.

So I guess plowing through Wal-Mart ads, Penis Enhancement ads, something from "knobsplus" that handles "Trash Cans and MORE!" an "ALERT' about a "sexual predator" in my neighborhood, a plea from "Eliza Berrier" asking me to "PLEASE TAKE A LOOK!" and "Layla" whose inscrutable subject line was "Friends With Benefits Is What I Actually Meant hahaha ;)," and "Stella" telling me to "Just Don't Let the Days Past[sic] You By Without Enjoying Them to the Fullest," --after all that mish-mash of a jumble of sexual enticements and straight-out, good old American commercialism, I found a happy end-of-the-year story.

It was worth going through all that junk.  And I'm sorry, "Jennifer," but I still won't be responding to your message, even if I can guess what it is.

Happy 2014

All I have to do is dream

Phil Everly  1939 - 2014

Summer of  '58 - the Everly Brothers, a friend's back porch, his older sister's little 45RPM machine.  13 years old and I know about those dreams, the world on the horizon, just out of reach almost too much to hope for and just aching not to be just a boy any more.  Tail fins and chrome bumpers like big breasts on two tone cars and Little Suzie in the back seat. Drive in movies and hot dogs and big Schwinn bicycles with springer forks and how I wished it was an Indian.

Year before I had rigged mom's Motorola 5 tube, battery radio to take earphones. WJJD in Chicago and when she took it back, those batteries were expensive, I built a germanium diode radio with a one transistor PNP audio amp and a wire out the window and Rock & Roll under the blankets late at night like a new 283 cubic inch, fuel injected V8 world coming to replace the old one.  Fuelie Chevy, Duntov cam - three speed trans. Everly Brothers on a Summer night.  All I have to do is dream.

Good night Phil, good night
We gotta go home.

Pot calling the kettle

I only talk about it once in a while, but my wife suffers from chronic pain issues. She's been seeing a number of doctors for a number of years, some better than others, trying to keep her going. As the years have gone on and the pain has gotten worse, she's ended up on gradually stronger and heavier doses of narcotics. And she hates it.

She's always been intelligent. She used to catch on immediately to the most subtle nuance. And then, as the cloud of narcotics around her head got thicker and heavier, she found it harder and harder to concentrate. She couldn't easily focus her attention on anything.

The tradeoff between being less intelligent and not being in pain was difficult for her. It was a different kind of pain, but there it is.

But New Mexico, unlike many more "civilized" states, has medical marijuana laws. And after our daughter suggested medical marijuana, she started doing her research. (OK, technically, our daughter suggested Marinol - she didn't think there was a chance in hell that her mother would smoke.)

New Mexico issues licenses to its known users, and the process for getting a license, while not particularly complicated, is rigid, structured, and annoying as hell.

We gathered all the documents that they wanted: the completed five-page application, a copy of her driver's license, her medical records, and certification from two different practitioners (her primary care guy, and her Pain Management guy).

(Weirdly, we also got a call from the Department of Health asking permission to contact a third doctor - she had an x-ray in her records, and they wanted to contact the radiologist who read it: possibly as evidence that she had cysts where he said she did - we've never really been certain.)

We had different problems getting the two medical authorizations. The first one, and easily the strangest one, was from our primary care guy. We've been seeing this short, elderly guy, and he wanted us to make an appointment with him. He'd apparently reviewed her records, and he sat down with her, looked her in the eyes, and asked her if she was aware of the possibility of the drug causing severe schizophrenia?

Yes, that's right. A medical doctor, concerned about Reefer Madness. (That was actually the incident that caused us to reevaluate our primary care provider.)

The second problem was came up later. It seems that the Pain Management doctor's paperwork didn't meet their requirements, and we'd been back-burnered for three weeks before we found out.

After a long and angry phone call with the Department of Health, I got them to finally explain what the problem was: the doctor's Physician's Assistant (PA) had filled out the paperwork for him - that, after all, is what PA's do. But she wasn't a Board Certified Pain Medicine specialist - the doctor was.

The next day, I overnighted updated paperwork from the doctor to them, and my wife now has a bright, shiny green card from the New Mexico Department of Health. It has a fascinating statement on the back: "card holders are legally permitted to use and possess up to six (6)ounces (170 grams) of usable marijuana." As opposed to all that unusable marijuana that people are caught with every day?

She also has a list of all the non-profit pot stores certified by the State of New Mexico (I think they should call them "dealerships"), along with an admonition not to disclose their locations. My wife is now a state-sponsored stoner.

So there's the trick: the government has a program, but they don't have a lot of inclination to help you themselves. You have to push them into doing their job, and you have to keep resubmitting anything they have a problem with - all it takes is one comma out of place, and everything comes to a halt.

She has a vaporizer (smoking irritates her throat, so we avoid that), and the store has some fairly high-quality pot, with names like "Wow" and "Shiska-berry", along with information on which of the various cannabinoids each brand contains.

And while she spends most days mildly buzzed, she no longer feels like her head is wrapped in cotton. She can concentrate on things for an extended period; she can read books again, and not have to go back over the same page three or four times.

There are conflicting theories regarding the use of marijuana; I just know this. It helps my wife, and that's what matters to me.

Hey you! Shut up!

Yes, you.  It's the time of year at which I start to bitch and moan more than usual about what you have been doing to my language in that pathetically  passionate and Sisyphean pursuit of  being like the cool kids, the hip, with-it, urban, hang around the mall texting, thug pretending Clearasil crowd you wish you were like instead of the afraid-to-grow-up nerd with the 6000 word vocabulary you are.   Don't take comfort in the idea that I'm the only one.  I have allies.

Lake Superior State University may be seeking status by publishing their annual list of banned words.  I admit I would never have heard of them otherwise, but standing up for human dignity, taking a risk or even sticking their necks out (which is a cliche on my own banned list ) is easier for the little guy than for the English Department at Yale or Princeton or Harvard who have so much jargon laden linguistic naughtiness of their own to hide. I mean listen to those people some time.

It's to be noted that the Oxford dictionary folks have given us "selfie" as the word of the year, as though the nickname, the childish contraction, the conveyor of infantile cuteness makes the useless word preferable to 'self portrait' or simply 'picture' and as though we've made a statement  as important, as piquant, as precious as wearing your hat backwards some 40 years after the cuteness and uniqueness turned rancid.  Like most of this pretentious pre-teen babble, it says, "I'm not a stodgy grown up, I'm a kid, a street urchin, a rebel."   The hell you are.

No wonder then that  LSSU puts 'selfie' at the top of the annual banned list and suggests that we all teach by example and not use it no matter how much the idiot press tries to gain favor from the never-grow-ups.  It doesn't make you younger and  more charming than covering your encroaching baldness by wearing a hat in a restaurant or running shoes with a business suit.

Sure, many or maybe most people will giggle at the list and perhaps snicker about the rural pretentiousness  of  some college housed in some igloo somewhere on the frigid shores of Lake Superior and offers majors in  Fisheries and Wildlife Management, but they're heroes to me. Back when I was riding about alone with a lance and tin pot helmet like trying to like get people to like not say like so much it was encouraging to have them out there with me, not that anything ever retards the advance of  acid dripping aliens or drooling Americans yearning to be hip.  But you do what you have to do. You make a point of  ignoring the latest media infatuation, the latest gleeful descent into ever more nearly transcendental  vulgarity like  that culture destroying practice of  waving one's genitals in the public face like a blue-assed baboon in heat or a moose in rut: twerking. It's on their list and mine, targeted for destruction.


It's equally as encouraging to have LSSU riding at my side when approaching that  overripe, fly-blown and stinking cliche that has has anything larger than common as "on steroids."   Perhaps we should start the rumor that saying "on steroids" does the same thing to your genitals as actually being on steroids.  Maybe untrue, but anything for the cause. 

But there's a gorilla in the room, to pick another beaten to death trope, and although this year's list doesn't mention it, it may be the most vile, most overused, most needful of a quick and merciful death and it's "awesome."   There must be some psychological principle involved but most of us don't notice that you can't get through a dozen words without one of them being Awesome.  You can't say it without a certain smile, inflection, gesture or bit of micro-theater -- everything from relieving your bladder to the contemplation of the cosmos is just Awesome!  Didja hear that smile in my voice? Ain't I childlike and cute?  I just hope the next time something seems just 'Ahhhhsome' that you choke on it and don't expect no stinking Heimlich from me or my buddy on the donkey here: LSSU the fighting Lakers.

And then there's "urban."  That accursed term which no longer has much to do with metropolitan life. We have definitions and we have "urban" definitions. We have an "urban" dictionary which serves to give some ersatz dignity to any ignorant patois and attempts to explain those great linguistic questions of the difference between big and big ass and all the strange agglutinative properties of  affixes like ass.   Indeed "urban" stands for a subculture and the language it uses.  I have only one thing to say about it: don't.  By the time it gets into the Urban Dictionary it's too damn late and probably inaccurate at that.  That makes you a follower, a  loser a poseur. 

So look, if you really speak English, if you enjoy novel and creative usage and know something about the history of the words you're building something out of, go ahead.  It's how language progresses, it's where poetry and literature begin, but if you use it to cover up ignorance or even to promote it, if everything is awesome only because it's all you know. you're on the list bud. You're got me and the LSSU Lakers on your trail and they're not just bad-ass, they're awesome and might just do something impactful, if you know what  I mean.

I Understand...

that a certain 8-armed denizen of The Swash Zone has a very important friend, and he's been keeping this information from us.

But, finally, the truth is out!

(O)CT(O)PUS giving POTUS a "high forty."




A healthy and happy 2014  to everyone!  

Christmas Eve in Florida

We can forget the Norse
Gods here -- their trees and fires.
The Winter nights aren't all that cold
or long
and we don't need their help.

The inns don't have room
in tourist season
if you don't have reservations,
and there aren't many of them.

But if you have to sleep outdoors
in the balmy night
behind the dumpster at the Winn-Dixie
or even on the beach
it's not so bad.

Not hard to find an old cooler
to put the baby in.
Hey, I know an abandoned car
if it rains.

No shepherds in Florida.
Thank God.
But watch for the cops
and no worries,

any wise men from the east
won't get past the Coasties.

Will the armadillos come to marvel?
The hoot owls hoot Hosanna in the night?

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

Growing up in a southern Italian family, I participated each Christmas Eve (La Vigilia di Natale) in the tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes.  I've never been able to find definitively where the tradition started or why seven fishes.  Here are some suggestions:



The Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church -- baptism, penance, Holy Eucharist, confirmation, marriage, holy orders and the sacrament of Extreme Unction.



The seven sins of the world -- pride, envy, anger, gluttony, sloth, lust and greed.


The seven days it took Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem.


Some say it's the seven hills of Rome, some say it's the seven winds of Italy, or the Seven Wonders of the World.

Another theory is that seven is a number representing perfection: the traditional Biblical number for divinity is three, and for Earth is four, and the combination of these numbers, seven, represents God on Earth, or Jesus Christ.

I have no idea why seven fishes were used, but it doesn't matter, since the idea of the feast was to carry on a tradition that was started somewhere in the obscure past and to celebrate a holiday in a manner that Italians know best--with lots of incredibly delicious food. 


My childhood memories are of my mother, grandmother (nonna) and aunts all working in the kitchen while the men smoked cigars, talked politics, drank wine, and played cards in the parlor. [Beh!] 

One aunt made her famous ricotta filled ravioli.  Nonna made the dolci:  biscotti di regina, struffoli, pizzelle, pizza dolce, casatelli.   My mother, aunts and older cousins cracked steamed lobsters, picked the succulent meat from the knuckles, claws, 
and tails and put it into a marinara sauce that was ladled over piping hot bowls of linguini or fettucini. [We kids got to suck the little juicy bits of lobster meat from the legs, which were discarded because there wasn't enough meat in them to bother with.] I remember sweet, tender razor clams, stuffed with anchovy, parsley, and garlic flavored bread crumbs;  baccala--salted cod--made into a heavenly dish with hard-boiled eggs, floating in a savory sauce along with little salty green capers and bright red pimentoes.  The table was loaded with platters of lightly fried smelts, delicate sweet slender fish dredged in flour, sauted in olive oil, and served with cold lemon wedges; spicy, plump mussels in marinara sauce; scungilli salad; and my favorite, delicately battered and fried calamari.  One Christmas Eve, my mother prepared eel, which was surprisingly delicious--it tasted like chicken.

After everyone's bellies were filled, the uncles took out their musical instruments--violins, guitars, the older sisters and cousins played the piano, and we sang traditional Italian Christmas songs. [One of my childhood favorites was "Tu scendi dalle stelle." I just called it "Bambino."]  Finally, it was time for midnight Mass.  We all left the house and walked to church.  When we returned, we opened our gifts, played more music, ate more dolci and fell into bed by 2 am, exhausted, full, and happy.  Christmas day we all gathered again for our Christmas dinner--lasagna (in those days lasagna was made only for special occasions), followed by a meat course--roast beef or turkey, verdure (vegetables), salad, fruit, nuts, roasted chestnuts.  And later in the day, dolci--cannoli, pizza dolce, baba rum, and for the adults, caffe correcto (espresso coffee with a shot of sambuca in it).

I continued the tradition of cooking the seven fishes on December 24 when my children were at home, but now that they're living all over the country, it isn't as easy to do so with all of them so far away and on their own schedules.  But here is a feast of seven fishes meal I've made since then and am happy to share with everyone:


Feast of the Seven Fishes



Mussels with orzo (serves two)


2 lbs. mussels, cleaned and scrubbed
4 Tablespoons good fruity olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium stalk of celery, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
4 plum tomatoes, diced with skin and seeds
1 cup good burgundy wine
2 Tablespoons of minced fresh herbs (basil, mint, oregano, thyme, parsley, tarragon)
12 pitted black olives, sliced in half
1 tspn. anise seeds, crushed
salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste
3 Tablespoons minced parsley
1/4 pound of orzo


Boil water for orzo. Put orzo in water and cook until just tender (al dente).


Wash and scrub mussels and set aside. In a large, deep saute pan, saute the next 4 ingredients in olive oil until golden and tender, add plum tomatoes, and simmer for 1-2 minutes. Add wine and simmer until alcohol evaporates. Place mussels in pan, turn up heat and cook just till the shells open. Remove from heat. Stir in herbs, olives, anise seeds, salt and pepper. Add orzo to pan and stir so that the little rice-shaped pasta gets into the opened mussel shells. Place in deep pasta bowls and sprinkle with minced parsley. Serve immediately






Smelts with lemon (serves 2)


1/2 dozen smelts
3/4 cup flour
salt, pepper
4 Tablespoons olive oil
lemon wedges
1 Tablespoon minced parsley


Go to your local fishmonger and select the freshest smelts. Their eyes must glisten like the newly fallen snow. No cloudiness in the eyes. Ever.


Take the smelts home. Take a pair of scissors and snip off their heads, then run the scissors down the front of the fish and degut them. Very easy.


Wash and dry the smelts. Put the flour on a platter and generously season with salt and pepper. Roll the smelts into the seasoned flour and set aside. Place olive oil in saute pan and heat. Saute the smelts over gentle heat until they take on a golden color. Do not overcook. Place on a platter and squeeze some lemon on them. Serve with more lemon wedges and garnish with minced parsley.






Lobster meat with fresh tomatoes and linguini (serves 2)


1/2 lb. lobster meat (buy shelled at fishmonger or cook your own)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 medium onion, minced
1/2 cup torn basil leaves
1 Tablespoon minced fresh thyme leaves
3 plum tomatoes, diced, with skin and seeds.
salt and pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon minced parsley


In a medium saute pan, saute the onion and garlic until soft and golden in the combination butter and olive oil. Add the diced plum tomatoes. Simmer for 2/3 minutes. Stir in basil and thyme leaves, salt and pepper to taste. Stir in lobster meat and heat through. Serve over linguini. Sprinkle with minced parsley.






Shrimp Scampi (serves 2)


3/4 lb. shrimp, shelled and deveined
3 Tablespoons olive oil
5 oz. of shitake mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 medium onion, minced
1/2 dozen cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 oz. good quality feta or goat cheese
2 teaspoons lemon zest
2 Tablespoons combination minced fresh herbs (basil, thyme, mint, tarragon, parsley)


In a medium saute pan, saute the garlic and onion in olive oil until tender, add the mushrooms and simmer for 1-2 minutes, add the white wine and simmer until alcohol burns off. Add the tomatoes, lemon juice and lemon zest. Add shrimp and saute just until they turn pink, do not over cook. Remove from heat. Serve in shallow bowls. Sprinkle cheese and parsley just before serving.






Crabmeat and scallop stuffed filet of sole (serves 2)

2 good sized filets of sole pieces (approx. 1/2 lb. in total weight
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 cup crab meat
3 large scallops, cut in pieces
1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
salt and pepper, red pepper flakes to taste
1 teaspoon crushed cumin seeds
2 Tablespoons minced fresh herb combination (basil, thyme, parsley, tarragon, cilantro)
1 Tablespoon toasted pignole nuts
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Lemon wedges


Place the olive oil and butter in saute pan. Add the scallops and cook to tender, add crab meat and heat through. Remove from heat. Stir in breadcrumbs, salt and pepper, cumin seeds, pignole nuts and herbs. Take the two sole filets and spoon mixture evenly on each filet. Carefully roll up the filets and place in glass baking pan. Dot with butter and squeeze lemon on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Sprinkle with minced herbs and serve with lemon wedges.


Pass the Alka-Seltzer and have a Happy Holiday, however you celebrate!

What goes around, comes around

So here's me looking at this guy in the hardware store selecting Christmas lights. He's got a little kid with him - shorts and tank top and skin covered top to bottom with graffiti like a subway car from the 60's. Looked like Bible quotes.  

"What the fuck you looking at?  You like my legs, huh?"  It's one of those "shoulda said" in retrospect moments, but  I didn't say "if you didn't want anyone to read it you should have tattooed it on your ass," discretion being very much the better part of valor particularly for someone who's left his Colt .380 at home since the Zimmerman incident.

So again, a bit later,  I'm about to pull into a parking space at the post office, sunny day, top down, feeling merry -- but there's a guy there - old dude about my age about to step in front on his way to the other side.  I stop and wave for him to go ahead because I'm polite to other geezers and good looking women. 

"What the fuck does that mean, asshole? What the fuck you wavin' at you cocksucker? I'm tryina walk, dooya fuckin'  mind?"  

"Merry fucking Christmas to you too, you crazy bastard" I said with a grin and getting out of the car. Not worried about this one.  The postal employee emptying the outside box pretended he saw and heard nothing, going postal being a metaphor for good reason.  Ran inside, grabbed the flat rate box I came for and saw Mr. Nice guy rummaging in his late model Mustang convertible for something in the console.

Now here's that better part of valor again. I didn't wait --  and once  again, didn't have weaponry in the car like so many other Floridians. If I had,  it would have been a felony just to have it there much less to take it out and show it, whether standing my ground or not, concealed weapon permit or not. 

Sometimes it's nice to have 400+ horsepower. So here's the old man in white beard, red sled with presents in the trunk pulling out on to Old Dixie Highway with Christmas spirit and lotsa tire smoke -- and he looks over his shoulder as he steps on the gas:   

Merry Christmas to all and y'all kiss my ass!

Faith Drivers

Faith Driven Consumer is an "on-line community" (business) that steers the Faith Driven toward businesses that seem compatible with their beliefs.  There's nothing unique about it really, no different than the dating service for farmers,  or directories of gay-owned companies or of environmentally friendly enterprises. Hey, it's a free country - unless of course you ask the people who despise censorship, but still want to dictate to retail stores what language their signage can use (English, of course) or can't use (Spanish or course - it's still OK to call snails Escargot or Dolphin fish Mahi-Mahi.) It's OK When We Do It is as much the foundation for American politics and popular sentiment as it ever was.

I can't say that I reject the idea of putting pressure on private business concerns with regard to all kinds of things per se, but it's as close to being censorship to do so as is the firing of Phil Robertson because of some offensive comments.

I've had it emphatically pointed out to me that with certain exceptions, a business may hire or fire whom they please for any reason they please and this is certainly a right that's staunchly defended by conservatives.  Tell a business it has to hire minorities and we'll certainly hear about freedom to hire and fire as we please. Tell a business it has to send a paycheck to someone who damages the marketability of the product and hear the conservatives quack like ducks - and rightly so.

The FDC folks have put up a website where you're asked to sign a petition demanding that A&E reinstate Robertson, red neck and all.  It's a free country, what can I say?   If they have a right to petition the government they should have the right to petition a company even if  supporting one person's right to self expression while denying it to another would tickle a dead duck with the irony.

As I've said previously, I have certain misgivings about someone being punished for statements made outside of business premises and outside of business hours. I'm irritated, I'm worried when Wal-Mart fires someone for privately discussing a Union.  It worries me that someone has a right to fire me for calling George Bush a dangerous and dishonest delusional.  The whole concept of corporations holding us hostage in that way is irritating, if legal, but  free country means free country and I'm sure conservatives would agree and perhaps that's why the frenzy.  You have to draft them into your mission before they stop to think,


So lets talk, yet once again, about the Framing effect. Frame it in terms of  a man's right to free speech and do it before we remember that the protection is against the government, not against Wal-Mart. Make it about religion and do it before anyone suggests that a man's right to stop sending a paycheck to someone whose actions damage the marketability of his product, because if you frame it as a right to profit, to do business free of regulation?  Do I have to continue?

Such a contradiction might prompt cynicism in certain people. Some might even find it funny to see how an attempt to avoid one boycott has fostered another, that people who "stand with Phil" will start to watch a show they didn't watch before making the show more profitable for the network they're boycotting, that standing up for the right to do dumb things doesn't make sense when you're attacking someone else's right to do dumb things.  I say certain people because, although it may sound arrogant, most people react and are prompted to react the the frame long before they look at the picture and think -- and even then, they don't think all that well.  It's like the people who called me anti-American for criticizing W, yet call themselves "Patriots" for criticizing Obama.

So before we drive this vehicle, let's look under the hood and wouldn't you know - Faith Drivers really is driven by faith and not by truth or logic or even a consistent argument.  It's not a defense of freedom for all, at all but a defense of special rights for special believers.

 

A Business Doing Pleasure in Canada

This time next year, winter vacationers will have a harder time choosing where to go … Florida (warm and semi-tropical) or Canada (hot). No, I am not talking climate change. On Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the nation’s anti-prostitution laws (source).

The high court deemed all laws prohibiting brothels, soliciting clients in public, and living off the profits of prostitution to be unconstitutional and overly broad [no pun intended].

The 9-0 Supreme Court ruling is a victory for sex workers seeking safer working conditions. The court held that current laws violated the guarantee to life, liberty and security of the person. However, the ruling will not take effect immediately because it gives Parliament up to a year to respond with new legislation.

Prostitution is legal in Canada, but many activities associated with prostitution are classified as criminal offenses.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing on behalf of the court, said Canada's social landscape has changed since 1990, when the Supreme Court upheld a ban on street solicitation.

"These appeals and the cross-appeal are not about whether prostitution should be legal or not," she wrote. "They are about whether the laws Parliament has enacted on how prostitution may be carried out pass constitutional muster. I conclude that they do not."

Meanwhile …

A woman went to her priest with a problem. "Father, I have two female parrots, and they only know how to say:  “Hi, we're prostitutes. Wanna have some fun?”

"That's dreadful!" exclaimed the priest. "But I think I can help. Bring your female parrots over to my house, and I will put them in a cage with my two male parrots, whom I have taught to praise the Lord. My parrots will teach your parrots the righteous path.”

The next day, the woman brought her female parrots to the priest's house. His two male parrots were holding rosary beads and quietly praying in their cage. The priest put her female parrots in the cage with his male parrots. Sure enough, the birds said: "Hi, we're prostitutes. Wanna have some fun?”

One male parrot exclaimed to the other, "Ditch the rosary beads!  Our prayers have been answered!"

WARNING:  X-Rated content under the fold: