Comments, I Get Comments

So as I was saying yesterday, I love that people are able to post comments on blogs, one of the great things about the medium. Generally I haven't really responded to them, I just usually let them stand on their own. But I've collected a few choice ones over the last several months and figured I'd do a "mailbag" segment, as if this were a real column or something. So lets pull the first letter out of the bag.

This one comes from "Anonymous," in response to my Open Letter To Pastor Rick Warren from last December 7th, though this comment left some 4-1/2 months later:

So are you telling any person that has not had a history of helping with the AIDS epidemic to stay away. If thats the case, dont just tell Rick Warren to stay away from the issue- (it seems as though you may be discriminating against followers of Christ).- tell all of the politicians- conservative and liberal- and while your at it, tell the millions affected by AIDS that you are telling people to stay away from the issue. Is Rick Warren responsible for the statements of Falwell or Robertson? If so than perhaps you are responsible for the statements of Robert Singer, who is involved in the AIDS issue, and/but also a strong supporter of infanticide- OF course you are not responsible. I myself am a follower of Christ and i can say that, it is not for me to decide what is right or wrong for someone else, there is only one Holy Spirit in this world, and i am not it. LOVE-

Well, to answer your opening question, basically, yes. Evangelicals who teach that homosexuality is a sin should not only not be involved in AIDS prevention issues, they should also go fuck off. And you should go back and actually read my letter in full. I didn't tell him he was responsible for Falwell's and Robertson's statements, I pulled out mean nasty statements from those two idiots to refute Warren's wife's claim that evangelicals were somehow "absent" from the discussion in the early days of AIDS. They were very much vocal in those early days, demonizing gay people with all their might. And Warren may dress things up a little nicer and brighter with his Hawaiian shirts and all, but he still teaches a form of intolerance and hate when calling homosexuality a sin. And someone who teaches young people that it is wrong to use a condom is encouraging the spread of AIDS not helping to stop it. All Warren is doing is using AIDS for the self-serving purpose of increasing his number of followers and selling more copies of his stupid book.

And I'm not really sure who Robert Singer is, but I'm betting that what you mean by "strong supporter infanticide" is that he supports a woman's right to make her own decisions about her reproductive system. Calling abortion infanticide kind of refutes your whole "not for me to decide what is right or wrong for someone else" statement, you brain-dead zealot.


On a side note, I never did get a response from Pastor Ricky to my letter.


Here's another Anonymous comment, left on my post about the Foo Fighters' support for an organization run by Christine Maggiore, who claims that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, and AIDS doesn't kill people. I wrote it on June 7th, and this comment was left on September 1st, by someone who was googling for information about Maggiore:

Writing shitty blogs is worse than anything, way to try really hard to be "edgy". When will this blog trend end? Cause it's hack.

Hey, I'm "edgy." Who'd a thunk it?

You would think Dave Grohl would have better things to do than search blogs for things written about him, but I guess not. And Dave, aren't you getting a little old for phrases like "cause it's hack?" And "shitty blogs?" Come on now Dave, I just accused you of making some of the worst music on the planet and being so lacking in morals as to push the ideas of a deadly organization on your web site and tours. You don't have to go and make it personal.


Going back to the religion topic, this little note was left after I wrote the piece about the poor, innocent Canadian who was picked up and sent to Syria to be tortured, per George Bush's orders. It's from someone who calls himself Seven Star Hand (don't feel that you need to read all of this, you can get the gist in about the first two sentences):

Hello Deni,

All three Faiths of Abraham spawn violence and hypocrisy

Christians and Jews are able to smugly lecture and chastise Muslims about violence, because followers of Islam are poorer and more oppressed and are forced to defend themselves in cruder fashion. On the other hand, the rich and powerful nations of the west can train and equip militaries and intelligence services to do their bidding. Likewise, well-funded and smooth-talking politicians expertly equivocate about acceptable collateral damage to the homes, and lives of poor people in other lands. With so many dollars spent, why don't Muslims and others simply shut up and accept being exploited, oppressed, and massacred for such nobly expressed western ideals?

Those in representative democracies tout their governments as extensions of the citizenry. Accordingly, so are the militaries, intelligence services, corporations and other proxies used to expand and maintain the Judeo-Christian Empire. By extension, the citizens of western nations are much more responsible for the actions of criminals, killers, and torturers paid for and authorized by democratic institutions than people who live in less democratic nations who have much less control over the actions of their leaders.

It is undeniable that the Bush administration, its cohorts, and supporters are mostly Christian. Without the blind support of so many Judeo-Christians, the Bush administration would not now be embroiled in the current struggle to retroactively legalize torture, illegal domestic spying, and other crimes. By US law, hiring a proxy to murder or assault someone is still prosecuted as murder and assault. It is undeniable that the militaries and intelligence services of the west that kill and torture at the behest of democratic representatives are hired proxies of Judeo-Christian citizens.

Regardless of attempts to shift blame, history clearly records the widespread crimes of Christianity. Whether we're talking about the abominations of the Inquisition, Crusades, the greed and genocide of colonizers, slavery in the Americas, or the Bush administration's recent deeds and results, Christianity has always spawned great evil.

So, the next time any Christian, Jew, or Muslim, whether president, prime minister, religious leader or follower decides to chastise others for their failings, stop to consider that the logs in your own eyes have blinded you to the full truth about all three faiths of Abraham. Religion has utterly failed to solve humanity's problems because it is a strong delusion that spawns error and evil instead. The sheep's clothing of duplicitous ideals is an obvious deception used to hide the truth. Nonetheless, the veil is readily pierced by discerning the fruits of their deeds.

Here is Wisdom...

That's great dude. Now would you please hit that bong and pass it on? Everyone else is waiting.


This little random tidbit was left a couple of months after I wrote my Love Letter To Lynn From Lowell:

Southie dumbasses!!!, obviously you have not a clue about the history nor the people of this great neighbourhood. These people took me in when I was most in need of it. As an Irishman I hold that in the highest regard..

Well, I know they can't say the words "park" or "idea" right.

One piece of history I know about the people of that "great neighborhood" is how they pelted little black kids with eggs, rocks and rotten vegetables for trying to go to school there. And that was in the 80s.

But hey, they were nice to you, a fellow white Irishman. What fucking humanitarians.


And finally, here are a couple of responses to my bashing on Derek Jeter for his apparent lack of interest in international traveling. First, from mikrokunk:

You know I had the exact same thought when I read that about Jeter. Why hasn't he been traveling the world with all that money? But then I remembered something. Last December I met my husband in San Juan Puerto Rico where he was working an event for ESPN Deportes. Jeter was staying at the same hotel and got booted out of his suite because ESPN had reserved it. Now keep this in mind, the hotel wasn't that nice at all but was by the beach and had a casino. He was there with a bunch of guy friends for the week. I remember asking myself, "why isn't he staying at a nicer place?" But then again maybe he has to pay for all of his buddies to go with him. Can't be cheap. I read that his European trip was with Michael Jordan. I'm guessing he didn't have to pay for MJ's room on that trip... Food for thought!

Unless he was paying for about 500 friends, I don't think Jeter's wallet suffered too much.

And here's a stirring defense of Jeter from someone who calls himself Feynman and Coulter's Love Child (and without irony, if you can believe it). I'll answer this one line by line:

Seeing how for a huge chunk of the year Jeter has a job that keeps him in North America, and that his sport's popularity is in Latin America and north Asia, its not too hard to believe he's never been to Europe.

Yea, that 4 months off from after the World Series (which he hasn't been in since 2003, hee hee) until reporting to spring training is such a short amount of vacation time. And what the hell does where his sport is popular have to do with where he goes on vacation?

Believe it or not, it is possible to be a human being of some sort of value having never toured a castle or museum in some rundown Spanish villa.

No, it's not.

(As for "unlimited resources", the only "European" city on my list is London -- and if Jeter had gone to London the Brits would have told him that he had not been to Europe and kindly stop slurring them.) It's a big planet, and if your biggest slam on Jeter is that he hasn't overpaid for a tiny plate of food in Paris than ol' Derek is doing pretty well.

I'm not even sure what the first part of this sentence even means. But then, there it is. A right-wing nutjob's stereotype of what traveling in Europe is like. Yes, the entire reason to go on a European vacation is so you can buy small, expensive plates of food in France. Boy, you got me. Those damn sneaky French, putting on those interesting things all over Europe just so people will buy some expensive snails.

And how many Europeans have made it to Kalamazoo, MI anyways?

Ooh, great argument. How long did it take you to come up with the lamest place you could think of in America to compare to traveling to Europe. Lots of 16th century castles in Kalamazoo, are there?

See, the thing is, you small-minded little conservative, a lot of those little towns and villas in Europe are actually interesting. If you had actually tried to go anywhere in Europe besides London you would know that. But nice job guessing what it's like.


And that's all the time we've got on this premiere edition of mail time.