Appalachian Trail - 8/11/08 Update

Mount Katahdin (pictured below) with an elevation of 5,267 feet lies at the north terminus of the Appalachian Trail and is my son's ultimate destination. No direct word from him since four days ago, but by all reports the weather continues most foul and some thru hikers are quiting short of finishing the quest. Obviously, as a parent I worry, but know that he's an accomplished hiker and woodsman. From perusing the Trail Journals, it has been interesting to find references to my son in the journals of others and even in some photos that other thru hikers have uploaded. For example, in the journal of Shiloh, I found these references dated July 22, 2008:

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The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) operates a series of "Huts" along the AT up in the mountains. The huts are really very comfortable rustic solar and wind powered guest Lodges. The different huts sleep 30 to 90 guests each night and are staffed by four or more college kids who cook meals and educate guests about the ecology of the White Mts. The Huts serve full home cooked dinners and breakfasts "family style" every day and usually have soup and snacks at lunch. They have water but no showers and guests pack out their own trash.

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There was a heavy rain around 3:00 Sunday afternoon as I came to the AMC Galehead Hut. My plan was to hike another 2.8 miles to the Guyot Campsites. The Galehead crew said they had a cancellation and that I could pay to stay for $89. A hot home cooked dinner and breakfast plus a dry warm bunk won out over setting up a wet tent on a damp rainy night. I had a great evening at Galehead meeting and chatting with the other guests.

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Grasshopper and Breakman, Cricket, Bad Idea, and HighLife came in later that afternoon and the hut crew let them stay and sleep in the dinning room on a "work for stay". Stay for free in exchange for a few hours work cleaning up in the morning.

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The morning weather report called for rain again yesterday. The crew radioed ahead and I was able to get a reservation at the next hut at Zeeland Falls. Again it started out sunny but it quickly turned into a seven mile hike in the rain. HighLife, Bad Idea, Cricket, and Old Man Sky came in later and did work for stay.

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I am truly proud of my son's accomplishment to date. Naturally, I hope he's safe - and dry and warm too. I love him very much.

More Monday Male Beauty

Incorrigible Angel - Part 4

I spoke twice today with my incorrigible angel, something that always brightens my day and touches my heart. He continues to worry about others rather than himself notwithstanding the terribly arduous trials that he is undergoing at present. His selflessness and love for me is amazing and so touchingly inspiring. It is also maddening to me because I want to be able to give to him my love, support and strength which are but meager reflections of the faith, support and love that I have received so generously from him. He has consistently seen worth and merit in me and impishly laughs as he tells me that I'm his Peter Pan - yes, I will concede that I never want to grow up (my birthday is tomorrow as if I needed yet another reminder that time marches on).

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In short, I want to do anything and everything that I can to be as supportive to this loving soul and friend as possible in these times of trials. Despite his trials, he expresses concerns that he doesn't want to bother me or make me feel bad. That perhaps he should talk to me less since I am so busy. That he wishes he could do more to make my birthday special. What does one do with someone so gentle and loving and selfless who wants nothing in return? Why can't he see the wonder he has given me and brought into my life? How does one touch an angel? Would that I could do so much more and make this all pass and leave him at peace and touched with joy and happiness. Incorrigible angel, my constant love, thoughts and prayers are with you and always will be. Just knowing that you'll be thinking of me will make my birthday very, very special.

Monday Male Beauty

Dedicated to Deb.

Reneging on a Right

I am not sure how I missed it, but the other day the Los Angeles Times had a main editorial addressing the upcoming vote on Proposition 8 in November and urging readers to vote no. The column represents a good summary of why Proposition 8 needs to be defeated and also the dangers of mob majority rule which puts the rights of all minorities at risk. Today the targets of hate and discrimination are LGBT citizens. Who will it be tomorrow if Proposition 8 passes and sets the precedent that the majority can strip minorities based on whims and bigotry? That is NOT what the founding fathers intended. Here are some highlights from the column:

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It's the same sentence as in 2000: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Yet the issue that will be put before voters Nov. 4 is radically different. This time, the wording would be used to rescind an existing constitutional right to marry. We fervently hope that voters, whatever their personal or religious convictions, will shudder at such a step and vote no on Proposition 8.

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The state of same-sex marriage shifted in May, when the California Supreme Court overturned Proposition 22, the ban on gay marriage that voters approved eight years ago, and ruled that marriage was a fundamental right under the state Constitution. As such, it could not be denied to a protected group -- in this case, gay and lesbian couples.

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What voters must consider about Proposition 8 is that, unlike Proposition 22, this is no longer about refining existing California law. In the wake of the court's ruling, the only way to deny marriage to gay and lesbian couples is by revising constitutional rights themselves. Proposition 8 seeks to embed wording in the Constitution that would eliminate the fundamental right to same-sex marriage. It's a rare and drastic step, invoking the constitutional-amendment process to strip people of rights. Yet in California, it can be done with a simple majority vote. All the more reason for voters to weigh carefully what would be wrought by this measure.

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In a meeting with The Times' editorial board, supporters argued at length that children are best off when raised by their own biological, married mothers and fathers. Even if that were true -- and there is much room for dispute -- this measure in no way moves society closer to such a traditional picture. Gay and lesbian couples already are raising their own children and will continue to do so, as will single parents and adoptive and blended families. Using the supporters'own reasoning, it would be better for same-sex parents to marry.

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In other words, the very act of denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry -- traditionally the highest legal and societal recognition of a loving commitment -- by definition relegates them and their relationships to second-class status, separate and not all that equal.

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Civil rights are commonly hard-won, and not the result of widespread consensus. Whites in the South vehemently rejected the 1954 Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools. For that matter, Californians have accused the state Supreme Court of obstructing the people's will on marriage before -- in 1948, when it struck down a ban on interracial marriages.Fundamental rights are exactly that. They should neither wait for popular acceptance, nor be revoked because it is lacking.

More Sunday Male Beauty

Beijing Curbs Religious Rights

In order to showcase its falsely harmonious society, the government in China - as most dictatorships do - has rounded up anyone who might express anything less that an air of sweetness and light favored by the ruling Communist Party. Among those targeted are various religious factions, many of which just merely seek to be left alone and allowed to practice their faith with little involvement with the government. Yes, it is true that I rail against religious organizations and denominations frequently,. But that's not because I don't favor freedom of religion - or freedom from religion if that is what one wants - for all. My issue is when the theocrats want to start injecting their beliefs into the political system and/or want secular civil legal rights doled out based upon compliance with wingnut theocratic religious beliefs, the Christianist jihad against gays being a prime example. I continue to believe that it was a very bad idea to hold the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing since all that is accomplished is lending legitimacy to the dictatorial Communist Party. Here are highlights from a Washington Post story:

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But religious freedom does not extend beyond the heavily secured perimeter fence of the Olympic Green. In this Olympic year, government officials have sharply tightened restrictions on religion, arresting leaders of unregistered "house churches," stepping up harassment of congregations, denying visas to foreign missionaries and shutting down places of worship, church members and religious activists said.

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The crackdown is part of a security campaign that has targeted human rights advocates, domestic dissidents and petitioners -- anyone who might interfere with the ruling Communist Party's efforts to showcase China as a harmonious society in which the government maintains a firm grip on power.

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"How can this be called a harmonious society? If it's harmonious, we'd have a right to stay in Beijing and attend the Olympics," said Zhang Mingxuan, a house church pastor and activist who was kicked out of the capital by police recently, temporarily detained Sunday and then arrested again by public security police in Henan province Thursday. . . . "To open religious services and make some literature available to a limited number of people during the Olympics is a welcome thing, but it means nothing in terms of religious freedom in China,"

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"An important reason for the crackdown is the Olympics. This year, Chinese leaders face more pressure from outside groups, house churches and even ordinary individual citizens," said Fan Yafeng, a law professor at the Institute of Law at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a leader of the 80-member Sina house church. "The Public Security Bureau always misuses its power. . . . They have lost their humanity."

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"In the Olympic Village, you can find religious freedom. Maybe some foreigners can worship," Fan said. "But I tell you, the real crisis in China now is that there are no reformers left. The power struggle among the leadership is for power, not reform. To have real political reform, they would lose their power."

Sunday Male Beauty

High Profile NYC Priest Accused of Abuse

There is always the chance that false accusations of sexual abuse may be made against Catholic priests. However, the whole way the system is set up almost guarantees that some priests - who no doubt are very screwed up and tortured individuals perhaps in significant part due to the Roman Catholic Church's obsession with matters sexual and depiction of women as evil temptresses - will cross the line with students or altar boys. Then again, with over $2Billion paid out in settlements in the USA alone, there may be some looking to cash in on what they perceive to be something similar to winning the lottery. A third possibility is that since Harris has at times bucked the system, Cardinal Egan - who strikes me as a complete pompous bastard - or others in the Church could have engineered the abuse allegations (I truly put NOTHING past the hierarchy). Thus, I'm reserving judgment on Monsignor Harris for now until more facts are reported. Here are some highlights from the New York Times:

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Tall and charismatic, Msgr. Wallace A. Harris has earned a reputation over a 36-year career for cool-handed crisis management and for forging connections. . . . At the height of the national uproar over sexual abuse in 2002, he testified before a blue-ribbon church panel studying the problem, saying that while some priests were guilty, many others were being falsely accused.

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Now, Monsignor Harris himself is snared in allegations of abuse, and the shock has been felt not just among the members of his Harlem parish, but also among the members of the other flock he tended: fellow priests.

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Last Sunday, the archdiocese announced that it had removed Monsignor Harris from all his priestly duties — as pastor of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, as chairman of the priests’ council, and as vicar overseeing the half-dozen churches in central Harlem — after two men made sworn statements that he sexually abused them about 20 years ago, when he taught at a Manhattan high school for students planning to become priests.

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The archdiocese has released few details about the accusations against Monsignor Harris, but people in the district attorney’s office familiar with the complaints said both were made by men who had been 13- or 14-year-old students at Cathedral Preparatory High School and College, now closed, where Monsignor Harris taught from 1983 to 1989, and where he had graduated before entering the seminary in the late 1960s.

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Daniel Donohue, a student there in the 1980s who later accused Monsignor Kavanagh, the school rector, of sexually abusing him, said in an interview last week that he remembered Father Harris as one of the most popular teachers, but someone not to be crossed. . . . In the culture of the school at the time, Mr. Donohue said, “intense relationships between faculty and students were permitted to exist, both for priests and lay teachers.” He said for many priests — “guys who didn’t have anybody to go home to” — those relationships became all-consuming and, in his experience, abusive.

Log Cabin Republicans Launch 'No on Prop 8' Campaign

In general, I view the Log Cabin Republicans somewhat akin to Jews voluntarily working for the Nazi Party and perhaps the SS in particular. Why would one do that given what the GOP has become? One would have to be either a self-hating masochist or utterly delusional. I just do not get it. I quit the party a number of years ago even before power and control of the GOP had become centered with the knuckle draggers of the Christian Right. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised to read that the Log Cabin Crowd are actually going to do something to oppose Proposition 8 and thereby incur further slings and arrows from their Christianist masters who control the Party. Here are some highlights from LAist:

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The Log Cabin Republicans rolled out a new website last Friday called Republicans Against 8. roposition 8, which will appear on this November's ballot, seeks to eliminate same sex marriages in California, which have been legal since June. A statement from the group said their "message to California Republican voters is simple: 'Opposing Proposition 8 is the conservative thing to do.'"

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But how is this the conservative thing to do? "Marriage is a personal decision. It's not up to the long arm of the government of when, where and whom you should get married to," explained Scott Schmidt of Republicans Against 8 campaign in a phone interview with LAist (you may recognize his name from the blog, Boi From Troy). The fundamental Republican beliefs, he explained, are personal responsibility, limited government and individual liberty.

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I agree that GOP beliefs once upon a time were as described by Mr. Schmidt, but not any more. The Christianists want to control every aspect of one's life sexually and to force everyone to live per the extreme Christianist religious beliefs/delusions.