children, churches and daddies
the september issue
issn 1068-5154

forums

7/22/97

JASON: We wouldn't like dogs nearly as much if they didn't coincidentally look like they're smiling when their mouths are open.
JANET: Personally, I like the fact that dogs usually have their mouths open and their tongues hanging out. Not in a sexual sense, mind you, I just mean that I like the fact that dogs versus people can stick their tongues out and have it be no problem. I mean, when I see a dog with it's tongue hanging out because it's panting, I just stick my tongue out to the dog, because, you know, that dog is probably the only creature that would let me stick my tongue out without thinking that I was crazy. Does that sound strange?
GREG: Okay, now I'm really uncomfortable, cause I have many issues with dogs, due to being "treed" by a rotweiler as a tot and I'm feeling like you're doing this just cause I'm a cat person, cause I think that people are like cats in that they have issues about parents (i.e. they view as a bit of a parental/pride leader, i.i.e. they are forever in adolesence much like MANY of my exes), and they are often conflicted about showing affection purr purr then runaway (much like MANY of my exes) and you're trying to intimidate me ahahahahahaha!
JASON: I read about how recently, a man got arrested for child pornography. He was caught with a folder full of pictures of naked adult people (from actual pornographic magazines), and he had scotch-taped photos of children's heads over the heads of the adults. He was tried for child pornography, he was found guilty, and he is serving a fourteen-year sentence. It makes me wonder. If I accidentally leave the bathroom unlocked and someone walks in, can I get arrested for flashing? Has our society gotten out of control, or are our bondaries good in our society right now?
JANET: Well, as I've always said, there is too much government intervention, see, that's the beauty of Capitalism, but don't tell Greg that or he'll start bitching and bitching. Okay, it's time for big bother to come in and take care of all the people who can't take care of themselves at the expense of the people that WORK for a living.
JASON: (forcefully taking the laptop and interrupting): Yeah, but what about the subject I brought up? You're obviously much more political about sexual/personal/body/gender issues than I. What do you think of this subject?JANET: The fact that the government is telling this person that they can't think about some subject that is illegal is what I'm talking about. Soon writers who writes about, or think about writing about, mass murders, will be arrested. Do we want to keep our freedom, or lose it, inch by inch?
GREG: Actually it's worse than that. This guy had a roommate who was disgusted by his actual and fake child porn and posed (on his own) as an underage child and then turned the guy in so he was sentenced to JAIL for molesting a non-existant person, which has little to do with any economic system - in fact it has to do with concepts of personal freedom that have everything to do with everything but money save that those with cash makes the rules (the only economic reality I consider valid). I think it's appalling that we now have postmodern sin. More than that non-existant sin, like conceptual sin, conviction of intent, which is almost more dangerous and vile than Salem (which is still our system of societal regulation and dangerous whether the the economics are capitalism or sumpin' else).
JASON: But how do we reconcile our very liberal, very leftist views of the world with the fairly disgusting things we have to hold up to defend these views? We have to support 2 Live Crew to support free speech. We have to defend a guy who wants to fuck eight year old girls in order to protest government regulations. The ACLU has to throw free legal representation to the KKK to uphold their philosophical principles. Sometimes it actually occurs to me to be a little more conservative person than I am right now, just so I don't have to constantly support and defend these things that, although I philosophically have to support because of our society and the right I believe exist for all of us, I personally can't stand -make me sick - make me disgusted that I'm actually supporting them as a valid form of free speech. Janet, you must have some kinds of conflicts in your life. How do you deal with them?
JANET: First of all, the personal conflicts you see in protecting rights can be completely replaced with rights of the business person in the conservative party for protecting rights. The conservarive party was originally concerned with protecting all rights, but it developed that the conservative stance lost the protection of "personal" versus "business" rights, which has developed into our current dysfunctional/incinsistent two party system. Anyway... Yes, I see "personal" conflicts in letting people produce pronography that degrades women. But I'd prefer a system of government that allows me to protest that pornography than a system that allows no thoughts to exist, even if those thoughts were of pornography and protest to pornography. I'd prefer a system that allows me to show the world that I'm worth more than some servant to be used for men's whims, I'd prefer that to banning ideas altogether.
GREG: Moving to a slightly humorous bent...if we are to regulate or rate dangerous speech, how much do we put in warnings before you are giving away the plot. And to make a huge leap, I would personally protest (with my dollars) any movie that has a trailer that gives away every key plot/laugh point in a film. The only thing worse is those damn TV movies that show upcoming scenes at EVERY commercial break (like all Hallmark specials). I think the Entertainment Industry needs to be made aware that we will go see a work of art without fully knowing what it will be. Now, I may be speaking from the disadvantage of someone who remembers every 10 second bit of film I see and piece together the rest. Do you know how many films have been ruined for me by giveaways? I think there should be a restriction to 30 secs of excerpts in previews, by law.
JASON: These are good points. I WOULD rather have the freedom to protest something than just simply banning something I don't like... because the next thing that someone doesn't like might be mine. Can we move to something personal?What is the thing that scares you the most, personally? Not your phobias (haunted houses, spiders, enclosed spaces). What is the thing that scares you the most?
JANET: Losing control.
JASON: The thing that scares me the most. Something just flew across the room and I couldn't tell what it was. Losing my mind. Losing my rational mind. Getting old and getting senile and losing myself and not realizing that I'm realizing it. That's what scares me the most. Why does losing control scare you so much?
JANET: The worst times in my life to date were the times where I had no control over things that were happening. If I have control over things in my life, then I can safely determine what is happening in my life, and I can always state that I did what I felt what I needed to do at any given point in my life. If I choose to give control to someone, well, that would be a choice of mine as well, and I would also be able to choose at any given point to take control back. But having no ability to control what I should be able to control - like going senile, i suppose, for instance, that scares me. Why do you ask?
JASON: I'm not sure. I have never felt before like I'm OUT of control. It's interesting. I make a lot of 'poo-poo' points about sexuality issues, gender issues, but there are certain things that stand out in sharp clarity in my own life ABOUT these things: one of them is right now, that I have never felt out of control of my own life, and I think a big reason is that I was a male growing up and you were a female. Every time I think someone is making up some sort of ungrounded criticism about some sort of issue in this country, some sort of solid example is brought up to remind me that it is NOT a made-up issue.I was raised as a middle-class, middle-america, white straight male nerd. My thoughts, my ideals, my ideas, my philosophy, all reflects this. I don't apologize for it, just like I don't expect anyone from any other type of class, race, gender, or orientation different from mine to apologize for theirs. But I get a lot of shit about it. It's something I work on.
JANET: You're right. Although I'm not one to point out these kinds of things in such a crass way, I wanted to say, "oh, you haven't had to ever relinquish control? Well, you're not a woman." I know that's bad, but on some levels it's true. And on another note, I've never said I was "out of control;" that sounds like I've gone crazy. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about feeling like you were in a position to relinquish your control. That's much worse than being "out of control."And it's okay that you're a man, it's not like you should feel like you should have to treat people differently or people should treat you differently, just because you're a man, just like I shouldn't go through that just because I'm a woman. But I wish there was a way I could show you how it feels, in that "sexist" sense, for instance, to be forced to relinquish control.Actaully, it's worse than going senile, because your mind is doing that to you. What I'm talking about is losing control, not because of your mind, but because of outside forces.
JASON: You can immediately tell in this typing-obsessed society of ours who the people were who were forced to take a typing class in 9th grade and learned the way their hands were supposed to curl around the keys on the keyboard and whose hands stay pretty still (in relationship to their wrists) when they're typing, and which people just sort of picked it up as they got older and realized they were going to have to type more and more, the people whose hands go spinning wildly back and forth, left and right way beyond the keyboard, six inches beyond either direction. I'm not saying that one of these ways is better or worse. All I'm saying is that there was a certain point in American history where this wasn't even an issue. The only people who knew how to type were in the steno pool. Now EVERYONE needs to know how to type, and and a lot less of those people actually get typing training. You DO show me what's it like to be a woman. You DO make me feel like what it must be like. Or do you not realize that that is what your writing does for me?You're right, I don't feel like I need to apologize for the upbringing and genetic material I have. A lot of people in the poetry/literary scene certainly feel like I should apologize, though.One of my most famous pieces, one of the most popular, was inspired by a black poet named Reggie Gibson. I really, really wanted to mirror his motivation, mirror his... ooh, how do I put this? His inner being. I want to do the things in the literary world that my heroes who are not straight white males do, that make me such big fans of them. They write from the gut. They write about their upbringing, they write about their race, they write about their class, they write about their parents, they write about all these things in the LAST thirty years of their life that make them what they are now.And there's something that I don't think a lot of women/black people/gay people realize, which is that there ARE no cultural identities/common experiences/political points that a straight middle-class, suburban white male can make about where he came from. And so, I write about what I know. Which is why I write about hating Windows. And falling in love with art girls. And PacMan and Punky Brewster and all those other things. THIS is my cultural heritage, because I have been raised to be ashamed of every single white man who ever came before me. It's a tough burden to bear. Even though white men still have control over the business industry, even though the straight white male still gets the good jobs and gets the power and money and decision-making power, that is NOT me, yet I still have to bear the brunt of them. It's difficult, you know?
JANET: You know, I can tell you're a NOVELIST. This started off as a one-sentence thing, you know?I am glad my work "works" on some levels. But I wonder how much you really "understand." That's not a slam, just a thought.I think it's difficut to be whomever you are, no matter what category it is. Is it worth it to understand the plight of people who aren't like you?
JASON: To me, it's very much worth understanding the plight of people who aren't like me. A big priority of mine, something that is very important to me, is understanding people and relating to them on an individual basis. That is, liking them or not liking them based on who they are as an individual human being, not as a member of a class or sex or race or gender. The more I understand about class and sex and race and gender, the more generalities I understand, and the more I can consciously not judge someone based on those things, but based strictly on their individual traits. On whether they're a good person or a bad person.

humor

Things Dogs Must Try To Remember...

I will not play tug-of-war with Dad's underwear when he's on the toilet.
The garbage collector is NOT stealing our stuff.
I do not need to suddenly stand straight up when I'm lying under the coffee table.
I will not roll my toys behind the fridge.
I must shake the rainwater out of my fur BEFORE entering the house.
I will not eat the cats' food, before or after they eat it.
I will stop trying to find the few remaining pieces of clean carpet in the house when I am about to throw up.
I will not throw up in the car.
I will not roll on dead seagulls, fish, crabs, etc.
I will not lick my human's face after eating animal poop.
"Kitty box crunchies" are not food.
I will not eat any more socks and then redeposit them in the backyard after processing.
The diaper pail is not a cookie jar.
I will not wake Mommy up by sticking my cold, wet nose up her bottom end.
I will not chew my human's toothbrush and not tell them.
I will not chew crayons or pens, especially not the red ones, or my people will think I am hemorrhaging.
When in the car, I will not insist on having the window rolled down when it's raining outside.
We do not have a doorbell. I will not bark each time I hear one on TV.
I will not steal my Mom's underwear and dance all over the back yard with it.
The sofa is not a face towel. Neither are Mom & Dad's laps.
My head does not belong in the refrigerator.
I will not bite the officer's hand when he reaches in for Mom's driver's license and car registration.
Things Cat's Must Try to Remember...
I must not jump onto the keyboard when my human is on the modem.
I must not pull the phone cord out of the back of the modem.
I will not unroll all of the toilet paper off the roll.
I am not transparent, I cannot sit in front of the television or monitor as if I am.
I must resist the temptation to projectile vomit from the top of the refrigerator.
I will not walk in on a dinner party and commence licking my butt.
I will not lie down with my butt in my human's face.
I must not leap from great heights onto my human's genital region.
Fast as I am, I cannot run through closed doors.
I shall not reset my human's alarm clock by walking on it.
I will not climb on the garbage can with the hinged lid, as I will fall in and trap myself.
I must remember not to jump onto the toilet seat just as my human is sitting down.
I will not jump onto my sleeping human's bladder at 4a.m.
I will accept that the house is not a prison from which to escape at any opportunity.
I shall not trip my humans even if they are walking too slow.
I will not push open the bathroom door when there are guests in my house.

news you can use

A Tale of Two Novels
Poll Results Just Released: Readers Choose Atlas Shrugged Versus
"Experts" Choice Of Ulysses

By Harry Binswanger

Did someone say "culture wars"? A major battle erupted recently on the
literary front. At issue: What is the best English-language novel of the
century? The two opposing camps picked two opposite novels. Here is a
representative passage from each.
Novel A:
"He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each
plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure
prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.
"The visible signs of postsatisfaction?
"A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a
solicitous aversion: a proximate erection."
Novel B:
"She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes
flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were
the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human
act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound,
breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and
the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy
of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that
from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the
discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be.
It was the song of an immense deliverance."
Clearly, one of these novels is a stylistic masterpiece, and the other is
trash. The fighting is over which is which.
Novel A is James Joyce's Ulysses, named best by a panel of "experts" at the
Modern Library division of Random House.
Novel B is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, named best by the "unenlightened
masses" who voted online in an Internet poll also conducted by Modern
Library.
The culture wars, correctly conceived, actually reflects the clash between
the intellectual establishment and the American people.
It has been said that everyone, in terms of his own philosophy, is either a
Platonist or an Aristotelian. In broadest terms, the intellectuals are
Platonists but the American people are Aristotelians.
Plato held that there are two realities-a higher realm of perfect,
timeless abstractions and the degraded, illusory world we think we perceive
by our senses. For Platonists, "higher truths" are revealed to the
intellectual elite and cannot be communicated or explained to the masses,
who stubbornly cling to "common sense"-i.e., reason and logic.
Aristotle, the father of logic, held that there is only one reality, the
world we perceive by our senses. For Aristotelians, all knowledge is derived
from sensory observation by a process of abstraction and conceptualization.
Aristotle rejected Plato's mystical, elitist tendencies and held that by
adherence to logic we can and must make rational sense of everything.
Joyce and his coterie of academic admirers are Platonists, Rand and her fans
are Aristotelians.
Joyce's style alternates between gibbering wordplay ("mellow yellow
smellow") and ponderous, woozy abstractions ("tentative velation"), the
style conforming to Plato's dichotomy between perceptual concretes and
ineffable abstractions. Ulysses' alleged meaning can be "intuited" only by a
special circle of Joycean scholars.
Rand's style, as in the third sentence, takes us by Aristotelian
abstraction from the concrete (notes flowing up) to the more abstract ("the
form of essence of upward motion"), to the still more abstract ("every human
thought and effort that had ascent as its motive"), making the meaning
vividly clear to any rational mind.
Platonists view man as a metaphysical misfit, caught in a conflict between
the spiritual realm and this debased world. Man's earthly concerns, such as
sex, drag him down to a smarmy, animalistic level, making him appear
infantile and ridiculous.
Aristotelians, as the passage from Rand expresses, view man as a noble,
potentially heroic being whose highest moral purpose is to achieve his own
happiness on this earth ("the joy of unobstructed effort").
A poll conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club
asked what book has most affected reader's personal lives. Atlas Shrugged
placed second only to the Bible.
It is not really fair to ask if Ulysses holds similar meaning for the
Platonists, because the book is practically impossible to read-the reason
for its snob appeal. Ulysses recalls the saying, "We muddy the waters to
make them appear deep."
Until a generation of Aristotelian philosophers converts the
pseudo-intellectuals to reason and reality, the deeper culture wars will
rage on.
____________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Binswanger teaches philosophy at
the Ayn Rand Institute's Objectivist Graduate Center.
http://www.aynrand.org

poetry

Sibling Rivalry

Pearl Mary Wilshaw

Barren... she
hovered over
another's progeny,
smothered them
with presence,
force fed them
love, then
basked in
alienated affection
as she
spoiled her
sister's son,
coddled her
sister's grandchildren.
turned heads of all
who would call her "Auntie."

THOSE LITTLE SEEDS

Paul Weinman

When mom caught us
we were back where raspberries
were just getting soft enough
when their red tinted just a bit
toward purple - plump orbs
bulging together into puckered cups.
When you put your thumb, index
and middle finger together
to gently touch, pinch and
pull it away ... bring it to
your lips, tongue extended
into its cavity to press, squish
it so that sweetness flowed
through your mouth. But
almost always ... one little
seed gets caught in your teeth.
Stays there forever.

THURSDAY

Cheryl A. Townsend

My head aching
early beers and
conversation silence
soft Vega songs and
pen but the over light
hurts my eyes spilling
with closed knowing
the phone will ring
innuendoes and excuses
like Einstein how much
longer are we alike

"Rain"

by Mindy Sweeten
Mom2NSRS@aol.com

Another day past;
flowers wilt
giving in to their thirst.
Dutifully the flower lends its beauty
to the Earth;
now it sits patiently,
waiting for its reward.

Inside I relax in silence, listening,
as the water begins to trickle
from the clouds
flowing through nooks in the ground,
forming into shallow rivers and puddles.

The greenery drinks its bounty;
receiving its satisfaction.
Ever so gently, water continues to pour
from the darkness above.

I drift into peaceful slumber
listening to the sky
render its gift
to the beauty below.

fear of america

john sweet

not poetry exactly but anger poured onto paper as churches burn and abortion clinics explode and young men are buried in shallow graves for refusin orders

a fear of america where five thousand children disappear each year

where most turn up dead or not at all

and someone was paid to gather these facts

and someone else to publish the report
and someone else to read it on the radio as i drive april to work on thursday morning

this is
how fucking civilized we are

gesture of violence

john sweet

i find you somewhere between a gesture of affection and a gesture of violence

drunk on
a bleachwhite afternoon

driving west while a man who believes in the flag and his country sets fire to a trailer

waits to see who runs out

shoots them dead then himself

and this casual destruction is what i think about when i tell you i love you

your eyes soft against the grey poetry of pitted asphalt and collapsing buildings

your voice
a splintered bone in your
throat

these words lost in the vacuum we've created between us

Untitled

Eric J. Swanger
jivatma@csrlink.net

poetry is in the mode of
ignorance
and
once this is proven
it will be a good argument
for
all night coffee shops
for millions to again write
and stay awake with works

now it is all degraded
bagel shops opening at 6am
for yuppy business men
with attaches and laptops
to pound
pound
pound
for eternty never long enough
bringing home to work
and work to home
and everything to the
6am bagel shop

for the generation x kids
to mumble and fidget
over poor excuses for poetry
and music merchandised
for the masses
like the alice coopers
of the 90's
starved for revolution
but too lazy to
turn off mtv

for the gothic vampires
to moan and wale
over high-price pastry
about how many times
they've committed suicide
since undertaking this latest
trend
to exchange even poorer
excuses for poetry and bad music
to convince themselves they are
eternal
to be mournful because of the
uncertainty of uneventfulness
and to return promptly home
for their 10pm curfew
to the comfort of normality
and to parental misgivings
and misunderstandings

but at least there is a juice bar
w/ 7 different kinds
of vegetable juice

and for the teenagers of normality
content to grown into the
shoes of their parents
to inherit dogs and minivans and
white fences around in-ground pools
and the lawn mower
never even once dreaming
of freedom from
birth death disease & old age
and forever unhappy for never
dreaming dreaming

it is for the million voices of
bad poetry
to write down
but never truthfully write
a million voices
turning where ever they are
into the tower of babble
to continue on through the
afternoon afterschool
until closing
to return home
for 10 o'clock curfews
and
abusive apathetic wives

but i will not waist my mornings
and afternoons
bleating trumpets
marching seven times around
the walls of
the six am bagel shop
to see if they will fall:
i know they will not
they will stand forever
as a reminder of our
uncultured
culture
cult

they will stand forever
as monuments of
everything we did not want
to lose
but lost because
we were too lazy to keep it

they will stand forever
next to wal-marts
chain bagel shops
from sea to shining sea
run not by poets or punks
but by executives
and ceo's who
hated coffee houses
who
hated poetry
and
hated poets
who traded their bellbottoms
and sandals
for dress slacks and penny loafers
when the money was right

who opened 6am bagel shops
all across this great
land of opportunities
and will close the
promptly when the
trend dictates

6am bagel shop is not for the
poet who craves the fix
of the all night coffee house

it is not for the real dreamers
of the dream of self-revolution

it is not for me
as sometimes i have
more to say after
10pm

is not for me
as the company is
hard to keep
and unappreciative

the 6am bagel shop
is not for me
as it is about nothing
more than bagels
and bagels don't change the world

Kiss More Often

Glenn Shiveler
glennshiv@aol.com

Oh, the people of the world should kiss much more often.
It would increase worldwide civility.
Some folks use kisses so sparingly.
Oh, the people of the world should kiss much more often

So won't you give a kiss, to your spouse begotten,
And to your sweetheart, if you've got one.
Oh, the people of the world should kiss much more often!

It would increase worldwide civility.

Death of Sun

by J. Meredith Sebra

The sun skipped town today
And nobody noticed.
Locked behind our bars,
Our eyes burnt out by fear and horror,
We had turned our backs to him ages before.
We sent the dagger into orbit.
Meant to slice through the strata,
Intent on wreaking havoc in heaven,
And bringing joy to hell.
The clouds begin to bleed,
Raining violence over the desecrated grounds.
This is the new era of terror
Brought to you tonight in part
By your friendly neighborhood government,
Who would like to thank you
For your life-long support
And more-than-generous donations.
In loving gratitude,
It has harvested our faith
Like organs procured
For the black-market.
Only to discard our hollow shells
When it's only true constituents
Descend upon the desert
And push our sandy treasures out to sea.
There they will be buried
With the petrified remains of all the others
That have long been dead,
And forgotten long before memory started.

zippo

Nick Schultz
schul106@pilot.msu.edu

Sliver top,
Tracking white and red
Flaming blue

In your danger
Black stripes emerge
From every corner

Fatally and harmfully,
Light my affliction
With your fire
With your heat
I rely

Rhythm and Mucous

Mather Schneider

The human mouth
is second only to the feline
in terms of bacteria levels
so when I arrived home from a month vacation alone
and my girlfriend bit my dick
during head
I was infected with more than love,
as the homecoming swelled
up
and the cat jumped on the bed
and attacked my hand
and my girl meowed and purred,
and it was so good to be home.

The room smelled of salty bleach
flea powder
and dusty shoes
which added up somehow to make-believe
battle
and we wrestled
and our passion bled
and we rolled on the cat's tail
causing him to run and pout
by the windowsill
lamenting the loss of his balls,

and we were our own doctors
and our own embalmers
and our own anesthetists
and our own psychiatrists
and our own executioners
and we both agreed
to let each other live
to help each other live
for a very long time

FIRST FLIGHT

After that climb
All that's left is to descend,
One way or the other.
Having climbed, I thought
There'd be something more,
Some mild revelation.
To why and how.
Instead, just a gargantuan's view of
The town,
And a map of rocks below,
With the slate sea, a rippling roof cascade;
Beckons as it swirls the rocks,
And sings to the cliffs.
Falling would be fine, a brief flight.
As short as a wet-winged butterfly's will
Be.
It's the landing that would be so...
Final.
A child's dog sniffing shattered remains.
The family's face full of questions.
One so young
Lapped by the so old, sweet singing sea.

terrorists

wou'd think they all wear khaki,
have beards, and look
menacing. Not these. They
sit in suits on Sunday motning

besides wives who smile
and know the words to "drinking
at the Springs of Living Water"
by heart. They pay taxes,

work hard, and raise their kids
to be little xerox xopies
of all theyhhate, which is
considerable. So, when it's

discovered on a Monday
that Jummy Gratano
killed himself,
"I'm just not like the other boys."

they pray for him, tell his parents
how "sad" it is, firing up
another hymn, aiming a prayer,
and walking away scot-free.

by kenneth robo

"trees"

matt robinson
matt@istar.ca

this city's trees:
those back-to-school punks,
with their
multi/technicolour haircuts,
parking/speed piercings,
and
love tattoos.

One Third Done
Nick Posteshev

When everything seems a message,
A small cue of light beneath the door,
Shadows that move too early
When the thing which they are mimicking
Is still. Tonight is my ten-thousandth night
In the middle of my twenty-seventh year.
I am one third done with this.
It happens suddenly like the loss
Of signal lanterns in electric storms.

There is nothing quite exact to fear
And these are the hours of exactness.
As if it would be possible to live
In random increments or know
That no one knows which thing
Will happen next.

Perception is a pursing of the mouth.
The evening can still die loving
The light that she lacks, an ambush
Completing itself in silence: it decides us
Move by move, the supreme instinct
Of never telling us anything that in time
May leave hanging the light of a hope,
Like some things that loved you
But wouldn't say.

This many days into my life,
I have come to this, that those
Of us whose eyes by chance go down
On the ends will be perceived
Without reproach as perpetually sad.

Untitled

Jhonna Porter
KissMySnow@aol.com

Theres a cliff I can think of
That I haven't yet seen
And it exists only in a place
Where no one lives
And that cliff reaches out
And cuts the sky
To where it almost hurts the air
And I need to find it and stand there
And watch the earth slip away
From underneath its height
It eats the earth with me
And I slip away with it

My Sob Story

Jaime Portell
SwtJaime99@aol.com

I want to tell you a story called My Sob Story
It's about my life without any glory.

My parents broke up; my father split
Sometimes I feel like I ain't worth sh*t.

I wished something bad so my brother departed
Leaving me feeling guilty and broken hearted.

Sometimes I cry but I don't know why
Maybe 'cuz I'm depressed and I wanna die.

My mother doesn't love me so I feel rejected
With no one to love me I feel neglected.

I never used to feel this way 'til my life fell apart
I don't even want to make a new start.

I can't tell you why I like to think about death
Or even what I'll say on my very last breath.

I turn to drugs and alcohol to cover up the pain
I think I'm going totally insane.

My little sob story is coming to an end
And my death is right around the bend.

On Two Elm Streets

What if you lived in a small town
with two streets named Elm Street
and a phallic fire hydrant donned
every single corner & every single
dog owner walked two smiley Pekingese
Just before summer you went away
then spring came back twice, twice
wearing its usual dubious grin

What if you lived in a quaint neighborhood
where two quarrelsome judges had to be
restrained by twin pillars of law and order
and some toothsome Officer Friendly
flashed a flashlight on a found pile
of Fois Gras growing behind the garage
And the homeless drove two family cars
while those in single room apartments
had to walk backwards on the way to work

What if you lived in a small town
where all seamstresses were into daydreaming
but made sure hemlines were double stitched
and you never waivered in your belief
that what small town newpapers wrote was true
And war's hell, but soup's better tasting
sipped out of a shoe and the fork stuck
in the road actually seperates two Elms.

Insomnia
Jeanne Newman

2:30 AM
and the fan propped in the
window
buzzed and whirred,
carelessly
catching the curtain
every so
often.
And I lie here,
propped up on
some pillows
and write
about how I can't
fuckin' sleep
and smoke
Camels (the light 100 kind)
and watch the
night sky drip
into
day.

Meet John Doe

The Jokey title says it all. The high pgotographic style sustains the panoply of montage and cutting on action.

by C. Mulrooney

Mornings Give Way

I used to drink coffee
and hold up the cup
to toast your charm.
You used to talk
excitedly about what
we could do that night.

And now... Well now
you have to tell me.
Tell me how two people
sworn to a love can end
like this - a house shocked
to silence by a shattered plate.

by giovanni malito

the Lollygagging

Carrie Ann Makovsky
makovsky@students.wisc.edu

I ruminate the final swig of Bombay Saphire
feel it twisting it's way down my belly
hiss at it scorching my ear
and reach for the boot to pour my boyfriend another.
I think of how my hands touch
every time I let the soda pop tingle me.
Then I torture down at mytoes -
swinging - purring the glass of milk -
and think of how these were the teeth
that should have used you away from the roomie
But didn't. And I keep thinking
why I wrote your hell, wrote your water.
I remember how you wrote your way
through me. Pooh-Bear ruminate me
from the inside out, and I kept thinking back.
I let Kathy wake me, and now you've
driven a hole through Vanesse. I writhed in it.
Now I have to read myself of Sue,
and my color is sitting between the
ceiling in the cigarette nestled in my bum.
But I have to breathe more. The Lollygagging
doesn't last as long as Charie does.

Waiting for Constance

Alexandria Madero
pinkmillay@aol.com

I moved into a new apartment
and I am happy
walking back and forth
stepping over boxes
and peering into bags
that contain my old life
but suddenly look shiny & new
It's like Christmas
and I am happy
having lunch with Bruce
who I am falling in love with
walking home I come upon
my front gate
and gaze up at the facade
finding my second floor windows
the only ones with flower boxes
I think I'll plant tulips in March
The doorbell rings
and my friend Deborah
comes in to give advice
and a new Creole cookbook
and I am happy
that people in the East Village
still just stop by
Now my day full and the sun going down
I'm waiting for Constance
my friend of eleven years
and my new roommate
I am happy

And I Don't Care

November 15, 1998

I'm tired of them asking me
and that condescending high-pitched voice
(which is supposed to mean that they care)
how I'm doing

well, I'm fine
I'm the same I've been
and I know that nothing gets better

they tell me it is my attitude
with amazing regularity
and it doesn't do me any good
and I'm still angry
and I've still lost part of my life

there are a lot of things I don't care about
when the beautiful things have decided
to take a turn for the worse for me

Are things getting better?
Objectively, I can say that I don't know
and I don't care

janet kuypers

And It Was Fun

December 20, 1998

One thing that I thought was kind of cool
was that when my sister and her husband and
son came into town
the son, my nephew, he wanted to go swimming
even though it was night time
and you were not supposed to swim then

and I had not been in the pool
yet, at least not this week,
so I thought swimming at night would be
a good reason to actually go
swimming
so I did

and it was fun

janet kuypers

And It's Wide

December 14, 1998

my sister reminded me
that i could use the garden bath tub
and I never think about bath tubs
because I'm so tall
and I get cold in them
they are always too small, I never fit

but this one bath tub
it's deep and it's wide
for just a few minutes in the day
you close yourself off to the rest of the world

sometimes you just need someone around
to remind you of the good stuff
because sometimes the good stuff
is worth thinking about

janet kuypers

Any Help At All

November 14, 1998

I'm tired of doing things myself
and I'm tired of looking for my own answers
for all the troubles I experience
I'm tired of looking
I want someone help on this one

with my head on my shoulders
they got tired of looking in my direction
to see if I need anything

but I always want
what others don't expect

janet kuypers

Are The Things That I Like

December 22, 1998

What I think I like the most about you
Are all the little details about you
That I can not remember

Maybe we never shared any of those moments together
Maybe I just need to think of moments with you
That we never really shared

I have only seen you remotely
I have never known how to approach you
I have always thought that I did not want to act conspicuous

But I have to admit, what I have seen of you
I have to admit that I like it
There are parts about you that are quirky, but I think that is okay

It is the things about you that no one else likes
And those are the things that I like
I have seen how much you care about your work

And I like how you think about a lot of things
And if your quirks are a part of a large, strange package
Then I will take it

I like your height and your physique and
I like how intelligent you are and I like the fact
That you are partially color blind because you know

I like to think that there are some things about you
That are not perfect
because then you will have an excuse to claim that well, you are human

I would like to think that you are human
I would like to think that you are real because I know
That I am real and this could be a link for me

This could be something that would help me to prove in my own head
that I am not the only one
and that there is someone out there like me too

janet kuypers

As I Recovered

October 16, 1998

I was supposed to be
saving a life by turning the wheels
and avoiding an accident. Well,
I did. I turned the wheels of my car
and that saved the motorcyclist's life.
Since my wheels were turned I was
pushed into oncoming traffic
so another car could hit me,
i think the first car hitting me was
enough, but while we're at it, let's
get someone else to hit my car as well,
since another car could and did hit me
they decided while they hit my car that
they would push me over 100 feet. That's
what I got for saving a life.

In the hospital, after I
got out of the coma, no one
even visited me. Oh, I know my
family was there and it would have been more
depressing if they couldn't have been
there for me, friends rarely came by,
but no on that did this to me
visited me. Not the people
who hit me, not the guy
who's life I saved. None of
those people even attempted to
pay me back. For my car,
or my time, or my coma, or my
feeling that this is natural, that's what
I get for being nice. I have the
physical and emotional scars
from that day. And
no one ever apologized to me
for the pain they caused. No one
even visited me as I recovered.

janet kuypers

waning

Greg Jerrett
biggus@iastate.edu

waning like a psychotic moon
the light blinding my eyes
i want a new emotion and a new head a new heart and no more shit
i want to feel like a I have a purpose and a plan a focus
no hitches a brain on good chemicals
no short cirucuits no faulty wires
and bad hardware and new software
and a life that i can hold in my mind's eye
like the right thing to do the right fucking path
the path of least resistance

Reversing Malnutrition

Richelle Holt

i.
Of course, it's appalling
any and all starvation of the heart,
mind and soul
in an overweight, overwrought country
addicted to diet and binge,
excersing and jogging
the body and rin
not the hub & core of spirit,
never the brain, always the brim
while many count calories
and are over conscious
of caffeine, salt or nicotine;
still, some may be concerned
with the evolution of strengthened
not strenuous regime
that requires dutiful and honest
new-truth regimen
when doesn't mean any cutback
in food stamps
or punishment to hungry outofworkers
who strive just to stay alive
in America.
Everything free in America
For a small fee in America!...
Hundreds of flowers in full blooom-
Hundreds of people in each room!
Automobile in America,
Chromium stell in Amercia-
Very big deal in America!*

ii.
So what's the solution
to a cross-wits puzzle
unless we individually personalize
and practice what we preach,
proclaim or believe
with substance
of the inner ear's chadow?
Maybe it's campaigns and letters,
publicity for screams and shouting
to lament-protest remarkable
billboard change
from the way we are or were
stirring ourselves and others
to never deter
regarding care and concern about people
as well as almost extinct owls
on this polluted, vanishing earth
where only the ignorant
still value and trust
worthless pablum, food or word,
for their flesh and mood,
that do no good ever
for the preservation forever
of self and humankind.

(*from West Side Story,
lyrics by Stephen Sondheim)

the pretending

friss

I leave the final swig of squid ink, feel it swallow it's way down my back, hiss at it scorching my hand and reach for the tree to pour the mayor another. I think of how my legs fly every time I let the rain lose me. Then I feed my shoulders - attempting - receiving the glass of milk - and think of how these were the toes that should have deiven you away from estelle. But didn't. And I keep giving why I climbed your hell, climbed your mountain dew. I remember how you burned your way through me. the mountain ranger lit me from the inside out, and I kept eating back. I let myself cycle me, and now you've assembled a hole through my mother. i gave birth to it. Now I have to surprise myself of the table, and my chimney is sweeping between the gress in the cloud nestled in my knee bone. But I have to operate more. The driving doesn't last as long as my best friend does.

the burning

janet kuypers

I take the final swig of vodka
feel it burn it's way down my throat
hiss at it scorching my tongue
and reach for the bottle to pour myself another.
I think of how my tonsils scream
every time I let the alcohol rape me.
Then I look down at my hands -
shaking - holding the glass of poison -
and think of how these were the hands
that should have pushed you away from me.
But didn't. And I keep wondering
why I took your hell, took your poison.
I remember how you burned your way
through me. You corrupted me
from the inside out, and I kept coming back.
I let you infect me, and now you've
burned a hole through me. I hated it.
Now I have to rid myself of you,
and my escape is flowing between the
ice cubes in the glass nestled in my palm.
But I have to drink more. The burning
doesn't last as long as you do.

Solo

J. Cromwell Finkes
rooster@txcyber.com

I've never been on this trail before,
it is completely new to me,
an unknown place
in time and space as
I set out upon it.

Step by step on stones that lie
in single file upon the ground.
What Ancient put them here for me?
A mind much greater than I've found.

The mystery intrigues -
it calls with quiet voice,
promises of something new,
it's truth, the child of choice.
I've never been on this trail before.
I'll go alone.

AFTER THE RAIN

Michael Arthur Finberg
Mfinberg@hotmail.com
HarvestofGems@hotmail.com

Can you see these
bluejays pecking on
my roof,

Can you see this cooing
stillness though its clinging
is a moss

of fluttering leaves,
which are submerged,
in a clutter,
of silent skins

whose fingers see
the river’s dissonance,
when the wicked,
pass again.

Guys and doll-ars
Heather Dyer

It's a shame
I'm less exciting
than my money.

This fine five
(babysitting money)
accompanied my aunt
to France.
He saw the Eiffel Tower.
He was almost abducted in a mugging.
When I give him to the teller,
she won't even hold him
before he glides up to the curb-hands
of the man behind me.
I should give him a recommendation.
He's a fine five.

a '78 packaerd
green with cigarette-burn rust marks
full of heavy metallers
carried this nickel on its shoulders to me.
The window opened and
the music shot the coin out of the fun.

It's a real shame.

This dollar's
a flirt.
She can be.
She doesn't have to wonder
if he loves her.

Real Love

Holly Day

I used to wish I'd been born earlier
so I could have hung out with P. Shelley
and Byron
but then I realized
Percy would've probably just fucked me and talked too much after
while Lord Byron would've fucked me
and not said anything at all.

i wanted to release

S. Carlsen
carlsens@efn.org

You hid at me to pull over.
You wanted me to find.
I was struggling too fast, you fought,
so I slammed on the junkyard
and turned off the buick.
As I shot outside
I wanted to thump out of the redbird
and warm, warm until I danced at her.
And yet I wanted to rend.
I wanted to trouble to the scatter.
I wanted to scatter the hallucinatory savage rocks
cutting into my breach
and slicing my rebirth.
I wanted the sham to feel false again.
But you sat in the car,
clueless to the rotors racing
through my mind,
to the nausea, to the theism.
So I stood outside my car,
feeling the jam of my redness
roll past my face in the wind.
It was a howling reminder
that I still had to settle.

i wanted pain

Janet Kuypers
jkuypers22@aol.com

You screamed at me to pull over.
You wanted me to stop.
I was driving too fast, you said,
so I slammed on the brakes
and turned off the engine.
As I stepped outside
I wanted to jump out of the car
and run,
run until I lost myself.
And yet I wanted to fall.
I wanted to fall to the ground.
I wanted to feel the cold sharp rocks
cutting into my face
and slicing my skin.
I wanted pain to feel good again.
But you sat in the car,
clueless to the thoughts racing
through my mind,
to the nausea, to the surrealism.
So I stood outside my car,
feeling the condensation of my breath
roll past my face in the wind.
It was a constant, nagging reminder
that I still had to breathe.

< busy busy busy >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

the rock of commerce
spreads its legs for me
as i strip the flesh
from another child

(a simple kitchen knife will do)

< bigger tigers >
(with apologies to Blake, Standish)

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

bigger tigers burning bright
in all our houses every night
remade in fearful symmetry
by the TV industry

< bethlehem >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

the donkey brays
but bethlehem refuses
she's bleeding
it takes her days

< best crystal >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

my love on this great planet
is sick
in the corner
and i try to clean it up
but on rainy days
i still
get a whiff of you
you sit
smiling at me
pinned by the door
waiting for a breeze
to tear you from me
to disappear
decorating my heart
in plaid
on monday
the solid gray of your business suit
tracks me down
leaves me a memo
a voice mail in crystal
your best crystal
rings and rings

< Basic Patents > (dog diaper)

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

-from an url michael sent me:
http://www.dog-diaper.com/

The patents of the dog diaper
are basic patents
because they comprise
structural features
not contained
in prior designs
which only propose pouches
placed under the tail
which produce friction
against the anus
and do not prevent
the leakage of waste
outside the pouch.

This pouch
on the other hand
provides an entrance
encircling
the root of the tail
and the anal region
of the dog
and a top portion
formed either
as a sleeve
or straps
which are effective
in holding the pouch
by overlying the tail
and in association with it
keep the pouch
away from the anus
and allow enough room
to comfortably
discharge the waste
and to avoid
leakage
or friction
beneath the tail.

The issued patents are:
U.S. Patents: 4,537,153
4,779,573 5,146,874
UK Patent: GB2,187,374
Canada Patent: 1,254,456
EPO Patent: 0231171
German Patent: P 35 84 520.1-08
Belgium Patent: 85903909.1
Luxembourg Patent: LU-85 903 909
French Patent: EPO 0231171
Switzerland Patent: EPO 0231171
Australia Patent: 586828

< at the supermarket >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

the large fish
the one in the middle
smiles
as only a fish can
and i try
to smile back
inconspicuously

< at the movies >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

she is sitting in front of me
wearing a straw hat
with a blue cornflower
and a print dress
in rust and tan and navy blue
and she looks to her left
someone
is calling her name
and i watch her light brown hair
as it brushes
across her neck

< at the hospital >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

a pale green room
a beige door
a cream corridor

prose

...from "I've Got To Write a Book!"
by Ira Wiggins

Flying Days

Nargana was another San Blas island with an airstrip. This one started at the reed hut of a native indian family, made a slight dog-leg as it followed the shore and ended at the far shore. The runway consisted of a set of tire tracks through the sand and grass. One day I flew two friends there for some snorkeling and made a hard landing just past the hut with the left wheel in a soft, sandy spot. The plane squatted on its landing gear, sprang back to normal height and sped at 50 m.p.h. to a suddenly changed heading which angled toward the shoreline a few feet away. No amount of right brake or right rudder would change our course. Forward progress ceased as the left wheel came to rest in about six inches of water near the shore. The right wheel remained dry, I was perspiring. This particular airstrip has since been closed and another built on a neighboring island.
*****
The country of Panama is only 40 miles wide in the area crossed by the Panama canal. It was always a thrill to be able to climb to three or four thousand feet altitude and to see the Atlantic ocean out of one window and the Pacific out the other.
*****
Nov. 29, 1969 - Cessna 170-B. Flight to Porvenir. Remarks: "Took Patricia Graham." Her younger blonde, tanned husband (Robin) was the teenage sailor who, under the auspices of the National Geographic, was making a solo sailing voyage around the world. He met Patty while he was on the voyage and they married but she could not accompany him if the voyage were to continue as a solo trip. Therefore she contrived to meet him at most of his stopping points. His next predicted landfall had been "Porvenir, Panama - Nov. 29." He arrived at this small island in his sailboat, the "Dove", three hours after I left Betty there. Before resuming the voyage he spent several weeks in Panama, for there was no special time limit on his endeavor. We visited with them in our home in Coco Solo in the Canal Zone and found him to be shy and reluctant to talk of his adventures. They spent some time visiting the indians of the San Blas island group and took us for a sail in those same islands in his amazingly well-organized "Dove" with self-furling jib and automatic steering device. He was to later author stories in three different issues of National Geographic and a book, "The Dove", about his voyage. They also made forays into the jungle on the mainland of Panama. On one occasion, Patty, knowing my propensity for collecting unusual insects, brought to me a small "electric caterpillar" (a type of stinging caterpillar with a green, saddle-like marking on its back) which had stung her on the rear when she squatted in the jungle. It is now encased in plastic, a part of my collection.
As we were eating dinner with them one evening I interrupted the conversation with, "By the way, Patty, you owe me a dollar."
"Really?" she said, with a knowing look and a smile.
"Yes, really."
She handed me a dollar bill as Robin remained silent.
"What's that all about?" Betty asked.
"Never mind," I replied.
Later I explained to her how Patty had asked me about her recent bouts of mild nausea and I had ventured the opinion to her that she was probably pregnant. She thought otherwise and bet me a dollar she wasn't. I had received the results of the urine test that day.
In the subsequent story in the National Geographic I came as close to getting my name in that famous publication as I ever will. To quote the article: "While in Panama a doctor informed Patty that she was pregnant."
*****
Ted Paine was a close personal friend for the fifteen and a half years we were in Panama. He enjoyed flying with me just for the sake of flying and would return with exaggerated tales of our exploits. As we were approaching for a landing at the small, short airstrip of Nombre de Dios one day I didn't like the way the landing was progressing (too fast, too much turbulence and gusts) so pushed in the throttle and climbed to go around for another and, hopefully, better controlled attempt. As we were climbing I turned to Ted to impart a bit of serious wisdom, "You can always tell a good pilot; he doesn't try to save a bad landing." He thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard and still, to my embarrassment, loves to tell the story to anyone who will listen.
*****
It was Ted who christened the place where we landed in Las Tables, Panama as "Wiggins' Airport". Ted and I were in the front seats and our wives rode in back flying to the tiny village of Las Tablas, where we intended to spend two days celebrating the carnival festivities. We had never been there but had been told the location of the airport by someone who had flown there a year or more previously. From the air we searched for the airport but could not find it. Then we spotted a newly graded strip leading outward from the edge of town. There were no fences, telephone poles, ditches or structures of any kind adjacent to it. We could find no wind sock, but that was not unusual. Apparently they had abandoned the old airport and made a new runway close to town. Noting the direction of blowing smoke, we chose to land in the direction heading away from town. The dirt runway was a bit rough. At the end of the strip we turned around to taxi back to the end closest to town. As we approached the end a crowd of laughing, animated, waving natives came toward us. Our landing seemed to be an unusually festive event. As I shut off the engine and alighted from the airplane the crowd dispersed around us with laughter and gay chattering. Then, as doubt descended on me, the glimmer of truth began to appear. I approached one of the men and, hoping my fears were unfounded, hesitantly asked, "No was aeropuerto?" ("Isn't this an airport?")
He laughed and shook his head, "No, was nueve calle!" ("No, it is a new street!")
"Aye, carambe!" I exclaimed, as I clasped my hand over my face. The assembled group roared with laughter.
Seeing my acute embarrassment and concern, he hastened to reassure me, "Esta bien. Esta bien. No was nada malo." ("It's okay. It's nothing bad.")
A guardia (local police) who had arrived smiled broadly and agreed.
I explained the situation to my passengers. They had already suspected the truth. My suggestion was that, since we were already here and had the blessings of the guardia, we might as well tie the plane down and walk in to town to find a place to stay. Betty, in her usual common-sense way, added her thought.
"If we thought this was an air-strip, think how sure a pilot would be of it if he flew over and saw a plane parked here."
That logic left no room for argument.
All the passengers alighted. While they picked up the luggage I acquired directions to the real airport and hastened into the air. The "airport" looked much less like one than did the place where we had landed. It was a piece of pasture-land mostly clear of trees and with faint markings in the short, dry grass to indicate where planes had landed. No planes were in evidence. The "hangar" was a dilapidated, barn-like structure with many boards missing on the roof and on the sides. Inside was what remained of an old, wrecked aircraft. The wind-sock was represented by a rusty iron ring from which hung a few shreds of sun-bleached fabric of doubtful color.
As I taxied up to the barn (oops! I mean hangar) a small, brown, wrinkled individual appeared and, with a toothless smile, indicated that I might park anywhere I wished. I judged that local air traffic was not exactly overwhelming. After tying the plane down (in Panama we learned to always carry tie-downs) I started walking toward town in the burning sun and was soon given a lift by a passing car. Everyone is even more friendly at carnival time.
... And that was how "Wiggins' Airport" was born.
*****
Carnival was fun, to say the least. During such times of celebration in these tiny villages, new friends are made quickly and strangers are often taken in like long lost relatives. A local family was playing guitars and singing (Spanish) songs on the porch of their adobe house as we walked by. We paused to listen and exchanged smiles. They invited us to join them, informing us that the man of the house had recently killed a deer and insisted that we return in the evening and join them for venison dinner. The parents, Se–or & Se–ora Roberto Gonzales, were simple folk with little education but were sacrificing to see that their children were well educated. They remained our friends throughout our stay in Panama.
On one of our subsequent trips to Las Tablas, their teen-age daughter was scheduled to go to Panama City by bus, an arduous, hot, dirty four-hour trip, to start her schooling as a dietitian there. Since we had two empty back seats in the plane and it would require only a slight deviation from our course we offered to take her there. At her parents' smiling insistence, she agreed. She had never been off the ground higher than she could jump and I little realized the secret terror she held of flying. For the entire 45 minute flight, despite my every precaution to maneuver gently, she gripped the arm rests on either side of the cabin as though her life depended on it. I am sure she was convinced it did. She looked out of the window only at Betty's urging and then immediately returned her gaze to her lap or the floor.
My first need to use the radio was on approach to Paitilla airport in Panama City. I should have explained to her what I was about to do. When I started to talk into the microphone she exclaimed, "Dios! Vamos a estrellarnos!" ("My God! We're going to crash!") She was not convinced by my wife's protestations that everything was fine. Of course the partial language barrier added to the problem.
As she hurried from the plane she murmured, "Nunca mas!" ("Never again!") I echoed under my breath, "Nunca mas!" and vowed that any time I ever took a "first-timer" for a plane ride it would be for a short hop before attempting a longer trip. The last time I saw this otherwise very charming young lady she had graduated as a registered dietitian and had never again been up in an airplane. She subsequently married a young Panamanian physician.
*****
April 7, 1971 - Changuinola, Rep. of Panama. There were two airports on a large banana plantation run by United Fruit Co. One was five miles distance from the other. I was landing at the one with a small control tower and received a "cleared to land". The runway was rougher than I had remembered from a previous visit there. As I taxied toward the tower I was informed that this airport was closed. The runway was being repaired. They assumed I was landing at the other air-strip because "everyone knows this one is under repair." "But it's okay," he hastened to add, "You can stay as long as you want and take off when you're ready." Such an unconcerned, friendly attitude is the rule.
*****
Jan. 5, 1973 - As we rolled down the runway for a daybreak take-off from France Field on the Atlantic end of the Canal Zone the left window popped open and I braked to a stop. Broken latch was repaired on the spot by Betty and me in about 30 minutes. We continued the trip to Guatemala City with one stop at San Jose, Costa Rica, our Cessna 182 being favored the entire trip by a steady tail-wind. We were checking into our hotel in Guatemala City by 3:00 p.m.
We spent five days enjoying the country-side adjacent to Guatemala City, then started for Tikal in northern Guatemala to view the fabulous Mayan ruins there. Our destination was Flores, near Tikal. As we neared Flores a solid layer of clouds forced beneath us and it appeared that we might have to abandon the trip and return to Guatemala City. However, a hole appeared in the clouds and we spiraled down through it to find that we were over dense jungle with no road or habitation in sight. Because of the cloud layer we could not go high enough to see any great distance. Fortunately Flores had a radio station which we could home in on with our ADF (automatic direction finds) and in a long three minutes the town and airstrip came into view.
Our visit to Tikal lived up to all our expectations.
In Flores we were staying a block from the air-strip in one of a series of cottages surrounded by a cement-block wall, with a gate which was kept locked at night as a precaution against thieves and prowlers. The last night we were there, at about 2:00 a.m., a howling thunderstorm struck - lightning, thunder, heavy rain and wind gusts which shook the cottage. I was deeply concerned about the safety of the airplane which I had tied down with ropes secure to stakes driven in the ground. Over Betty's protests ("Do you really think you have to?") I put on the oldest clothes I had, climbed the wall and walked the block to find the airplane rocking in the gusts. After further securing the ropes and stakes I trudged through the downpour and again climbed the wall, realizing what scant protection it really was against prowlers. It also occurred to me to wonder what eight happen if someone saw me breaching the wall in the darkness and mistook me for a prowler. I quickly dismissed the thought as I hurried to remove my dripping clothing, dry off and snuggle close to Betty hearing the wind and rain now with complete contentment instead of concern.
The next day the weather was marginal but reported to be better in Guatemala City where we were headed. On taxiing from the tie-down area I found the left brake was useless. No repair facilities of any kind. We decided to go. As we were rolling for a take-off a young man ran out onto the runway and waved us to a stop. He was an American, a local Peace Corps worker, he hastened to explain and there had been a shooting in town. One man, in a fit of jealous rage, had shot another in the chest and the local doctor had declared that the victim would quickly die unless he was flown at once to a specialist in Guatemala City. I pondered the situation: one good brake; marginal weather which might require flying at altitudes ranging up to 10,000 feet or higher without oxygen or pressurization; no medical or first-aid equipment of any kind; a patient with a chest wound who might very well die en route. I could see myself landing in Guatemala City with a man dead of a bullet wound and a story which I had no way of verifying. With due apologies and explanations to the Peace Corps worker I firmly declined and was met with an outraged outburst. He would report me to the American Medical Assn., the Federal Aviation Administration and anyone else he could think of. I could understand his anger but he, apparently, had no understanding of my position. Taking that type of patient to altitude in an unpressurized aircraft might well cause his death. I have often wondered whether my decision was the proper one but never learned of the patient's fate.
On our return trip to the Canal Zone we were met with fierce headwinds, resulting in a ground speed average of only 100 mph and necessitating an unscheduled stop at Managua, Nicaragua for fuel. Managua was still seriously affected from a devastating earthquake which had occurred one month previously. We had seen the wide-spread damage when we flew over Managua on our way up to Guatemela. After fueling and clearing immigration and customs (just for a gas stop - or so we thought) we went to the airport office to file the required flight plan and to check the weather. We were informed that the strong winds were producing extreme turbulence in the mountainous areas alone our intended route and that we "could not" go on until the next morning. Being in a foreign country it is seldom wise to argue with an official. We asked for his recommendation of a place to stay and were informed that there were no hotel rooms available anywhere in town or the surrounding area due to so many being damaged by the "terremoto". Perhaps, he suggested, they would let us sleep in the small office building of the local flying club. We asked. They would.
Resigned to staying overnight, we left our plane tied down outside the flying club office, hired a taxi and took a brief tour of Managua to view the damage. Most of the streets had been made passable but the devastation was still awe-inspiring. Hotels, office buildings (including the American Embassy) and homes were badly damaged. It was obvious that the adobe homes of the less affluent people were least able to withstand the tremors. Tent cities were still such in evidence, - these to house the multitude of homeless. One large tent city was just outside the main entrance to the airport. The airport terminal building itself was damaged only to the extent of a crack in the ceiling and one wall of the main waiting room.
We returned to the flying club office shortly after sundown to find four workmen playing cards there. They had been expecting us and indicated to us the two folding army cots in the adjacent room where we were to sleep. They seemed friendly enough but most of the Spanish they were speaking forth was unintelligible to us. We uneasily watched the game for a bit, then decided to have a night-cap from the half-full bottle of bourbon in our bag. The men were happy to join us. Finally we left the bottle with the men and told them we would retire. One of the men explained to us that when they left they would turn the lights out and lock the door so that no one could get in and thus we would be completely safe. We partially disrobed and climbed wearily into the cots, wondering if we had been wise in leaving the whiskey with the increasingly boisterous workmen. We did not sleep until after they had left and we heard them lock the front door. All was quiet. The room was lighted dimly by the light from a lamp on a pole outside the building. We slept.
About 2:00 a.m. I came suddenly awake and froze in fright when I saw the silhouette of a man in the room. How had he gotten in? No matter; we were about to be robbed. Hopefully nothing worse.There was no one within shouting distance. I lay quietly, resigned to submitting peaceably. He hesitated only a second then walked to the front door, walked out and locked it behind him. Betty had been awake too; we concluded that he had simply looked in on us to be sure we were all right. All right? We had damn near died of heart failure.
The early morning flight the next morning back to France Field was uneventful.
By this time my log book showed over 1,000 hours as pilot-in-command, with 43 hours of night flight and 19.4 hours of "hood time".

...from "I've Got To Write a Book!"
by Ira Wiggins

Flying Days

At least on one occasion that "hood time" practice proved useful. I was en route alone the short 40 miles from France Field, near the Atlantic end of the canal, to Paitilla (downtown Panama City) airport on the Pacific side. There was a line of clouds in my intended path but, in filing my flight plan, I had been assured that Panama City weather was clear and would remain so. Within 15 miles of my destination I encountered the low, scattered clouds which soon thickened to become broken with interesting cloud "canyons" and passageways to follow at an ever diminishing altitude. When flying in marginal weather it is a good idea to have at least two "outs" or alternate plans. The best one is usually a 180 degree turn - to go back where you came from. This day I had no passengers and was feeling adventuresome, so I continued until the inevitable happened: the clouds had closed in behind me and some were obscuring the tops of hills. I couldn't go lower and by now I was in an oblong area completely surrounded by clouds. Directly below me was a reasonably straight dirt road with no apparent power lines or telephone poles. I flew up and down over the road until the "campesinos" (country folk) walking along it must have wondered what I was up to. I was vainly hoping the clouds might have mercy and part just enough for me to scoot out and head back home. No such luck. I had visions of landing on the road and having the plane confiscated by the local guardia while I languished in jail. The guardia near the Canal Zone are sometimes less tolerant of Gringo shenanigans than the guardia in the more remote areas of Panama. I made a decision, took a deep breath (the last one for the next few minutes) and "inadvertently" climbed into the clouds and kept climbing as I contacted Panama radio to give them my location and predicament, asking for a "DF steer" to Paitilla airport.
"Are you instrument rated?" was their first question.
"Negative," I confessed, "but I don't anticipate any problem." - doing my best to sound confident.
The controller asked me to make an "identifying turn" and immediately made the comforting announcement "radar contact". In less than five minutes (it seemed like 50), by following his directions as to heading and altitude, I suddenly popped like a cork from a bottle into dazzling sunlight and was happy to so inform the controller, who wished me a pleasant journey. Panama Radio, at that time, was being staffed and run by U. S. personnel of the FAA. For the next few weeks I anxiously awaited the inevitable letter from the FAA with its reams of forms to be filled out, asking for an official explanation of how I came to be involved in flying illegally - IFR without an IFR rating. The forms never came. The FAA does have compassion.
*****
March 23, 1976 - Flying a Cessna 170-B, a four-place tail-dragger, we made an early morning take-off from France Field with our two close Canal Zone friends Carl and Bartha Peterson. He was a physician working for the Panama Canal Co. and a long-time friend from Hillsdale, Mich. We were on the start of an adventure which Carl had instigated and planned.
Our first stop was at the tiny, primitive airport of entry-exit on the banana plantation at Changuinola, Panama. There we obtained gas from 50 gallon drums, hand pumped and strained through a well-worm chamois cloth. This latter procedure was to filter out dirt and water. My local guardia was cheerful and friendly as he checked our passports and wished us a pleasant journey. He would see us on our way back.
Our next stop, a short 30 minutes away, was Limon on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica. With a rather cursory examination of our luggage we were quickly cleared through customs at the airport. Immigration was another matter. We were informed that we must hire a taxi and go in to the office in the center of town for this chore. There was no taxi at the airport but they would call one for us. A 15 minute wait, a 15 minute ride into "el centro" and there to wait in a tiny office building marked "immigrecion" until an official showed up. He leafed leisurely through our passports, pronounced, "You don't need anything in your passports. Adios." -and we were on our way. Back at the airport an official heard our story, exclaimed, "The man is an ignoramus!", made a note in our passports with his ball-point and waved us on our way. The stop in Limon had taken two hours.
Our final destination was Barro Coloredo, Costa Rica on the Atlantic coast adjacent to the mouth of the San Juan river which separates Costa Rica from Nicaragua. There our guide met us and showed us to our quarters. It was through him that Carl Peterson had made arrangements for a trip up the San Juan river by motorized dug-out to Lake Nicaragua - bird-watching, antique bottle hunting, perhaps to sight one of Lake Nicaragua's famous "fresh-water sharks", and general sight-seeing. This was to be a "roughing it" trip with no fancy accommodations or equipment.
We spent the next day exploring the local area and hearing how, at one time before the Panama Canal was built, the San Juan river was chosen by the U.S. as the preferred route for a canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific. As the choice was about to be made, Nicaragua thoughtlessly published a new stamp proudly showing an active volcano. This effectively subdued the proponents for the "Nicaragua route" and attention was shifted to Panama. Preliminary work had already begun on the intended deep-water port at San Juan del Norte and we were shown some of the abandoned machinery now rusting in the adjacent swamps.
It was a likely spot for antique bottles. Some of the local boys showed Carl a spot where many had been found, indicating that it had been pretty well pieced over. Within 10 minutes we heard a whoop from Carl. He had located and dug out a nice bottle for his collection - a square bottle with a blob seal. The rest of us came up empty handed.
It was in the bottle-hunting area that Betty, while wearing thongs, stepped on a large thorn which penetrated into her heel. The thorn came out readily but the next day the area was painful and fiery red, obviously infected. None of us had brought any antibiotics, nor were any available in the small town. Finally our guide located 8 throat lozenges, each of which contained a minute amount of tetracycline. The total amount of tetracycline was equivalent to less than half that contained in a single capsule of tetracycline as given orally for infections but it was our only hope. We had betty swallow them all as a single dose. Within 24 hours the infection was remarkably better - whether due to the medication or good luck we will never know.
While in the bottle-hunting area Carl and I, soaked with perspiration in the tropical heat, decided to have a refreshing dip in the near-by shallow stream and stripped down to our undershorts and gratefully (if not gracefully) threw ourselves face-down in the cool, clear stream. We had hardly time to heave a sigh of ecstacy when we started being bitten hard enough to make us exclaim, "What the hell!" and stand upright. Our guide laughed and explained that it was only the "sardinas" showing their territorial rights. Each time we'd relax and lie still they'd nip us - not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to make us wonder if they had. And sometimes on most tender parts of the anatomy. The finny little creatures were audacious minnows only about two inches long.
115 miles upstream from the mouth of the San Juan river lies Lake Nicaragua. That was our destination as we started out shortly after dawn the next day in a large dug-out cayuco with another local guide - by motor, of course. The guide had thoughtfully provided cushions for the long ride on the hard, wooden seats. The weather was beautiful, but the hot tropical sun was relentless. Several times I took off my shirt, dipped it in the river, wrung it out and put it back on. AHHHhhhhhhh!!! The tropical scenery was breath-taking and there were birds of all kinds in profusion. As we passed the boats of fishermen we saw several in the process of catching large tarpon.
Approaching the first set of rapids, our guide steered to a small dock on shore and bargained with a local man, who was familiar with the ever-shifting channel, to take us through.
Oddly enough, the entire river and control of its traffic belong to Nicaragua, due to a trade with Costa Rica some years ago for a piece of land at the river mouth that Costa Rica wanted. Thus we had to stop at three different places along the way to have "zarpes" checked and pay a small fee to a Nicaraguan official. At each stop pleasantries had to be exchanged and social amenities observed, consuming one half to three fourths of an hour each time. It did give us a chance to stretch our cramped legs.
Late in the afternoon we arrived at the tiny village of El Castillo, so named because of the ruins of an old castle there. We were about halfway to Lake Nicaragua and ready for a night's rest. The only hotel in town had vacancies. A double room in the crude wood-slab building was $1.25 per night. It was a tiny room, only slightly larger than the home-made cot which was the only piece of furniture gracing the room. The cot was made from crossed two-by-fours between which canvas was stretched - army-cot style. A thin blanket lay folded in the middle. Spiders and cockroaches kept us company. On the rail of the back porch was a tin washbowl and a pitcher of water for ablutions. Out back was a wooden "two-holer" strategically located over a creek. The creek was dried up. Ah well, we were getting the adventure we had bargained for. We had brought a few sleeping pills for just such occasions and were thankful for them as we drifted off into dreamless sleep. It had been a long day.
The river at El Castillo held the second set of rapids. Our guide again arranged for a local man to steer the boat through the treacherous waters but this time we remained ashore and he picked us up on the upstream side of the rapids. Passing through a third rapids en route we arrived at the town of San Carlos on the shores of Lake Nicaragua by early afternoon. In this somewhat more modern town we managed a fairly decent (by Central American standards) hotel with a shower and good food.
We saw much evidence of shark remains on the beaches and shores of the San Juan river and were occasionally able to get a fleeting glimpse of one swimming by. In San Carlos we met some young American men who were working for the Smithsonian Institute. From them we learned that the famous "freshwater sharks" of Lake Nicaragua are not a different and unique species at all. It had long since been conclusively proven by tagging (the program was still going on) that the lake sharks are simply the common Atlantic bull sharks which migrate up and down the San Juan river. They can live very well in the freshwater lake but can not reproduce there. It is thought that they may spend some time becoming gradually acclimated in the brackish water at the south of the river. All of this had been printed in scientific journals but somehow the word hadn't gotten around very well. Perhaps Nicaragua feels that a unique shark species is some additional drawing card for tourism and thus is not inclined to advertise the truth of the matter. Incidentally this shark in Lake Nicaragua is not as vicious as has been rumored. There has been only one recorded fatal attack and that was in shallow water.
After a few days in the San Carlos area we decided to make the trip back downstream in one day, so arose for a daybreak start.We were fortunate to have with us on this trip a boat captain who had formerly plied this river for a living and he knew the rapids by heart. He was glad to trade his services for a ride back to Barro Colorado. This expedited the trip considerably. We made a stop at El Castillo for gas and the usual three stops for ''zarpes" from Nicaraguan officials. It was downhill all the way but after the first two hours it started to rain intermittently and then steadily. At times we had trouble seeing the shores through the downpour. We had raincoats and plastic seats for protection. I had my billfold and my handkerchief in separate small plastic bags in my pocket. All was cozy and at one point I huddled down comfortably and decided just to be sullen for a while. Shortly I realized that a stream of rain-water had been sneaking silently down the folds of my raincoat and was rapidly making a very soggy 2pin my lap. Not much could be done at that point so I remained silent, motionless and glum. Darkness was settling by the time we arrived at Barro Colorado. The shower (warm eater was neither necessary nor available), warm meal and clean bed were indeed welcome.
The morning of our departure we took off bright and early, hoping to have less trouble than before clearing customs and the "imeigracion" official in Limon. Carl and I took the taxi to town, leaving the women at the airport. Our hopes were shattered. This time the official decided we did need a stamp in our passports but "the man with the stamp is out in a boat."
"When do you expect him back?"
"Perhaps about noon. Come back then."
We were getting the shaft. If he was wanting a bribe we did not catch on. We left without showing our fury and stopped at the hotel next door to ponder the situation while we sipped a refreshing drink. At this time of year afternoon thunderstorms were common in Panama and we wanted to get home before they set in.
I turned to Carl with a suggestion. "Let's see if we can bluff our way out of the country. The weather usually turns bad in the afternoon and if we wait we will have to stay overnight. The worst that can happen is: a. They can refuse to let us take off from this airport, or b. when we land in Changuinola, Panama (30 minutes away) they can refuse us entry and we will have to fly back to Limon for the proper clearance."
"Sounds good to me. Let's go! But better not tell Betty and Martha until we are in the air. They might veto the idea or their faces might give us away."
At the airport the guardia greeted us with a smile and said, "Todo esta bien, Capitan?" ("Everything okay, captain?") no request to see our papers.
'Muy bien, gracias."
The tower gave us permission to take off. Once in the air I immediately changed frequencies. If they were going to try to call me back I didn't want to hear about it.
So far so good. We had cleared the first hurdle.
On landing in Changuinola, Panama we were greeted by the same congenial guardia who had been so friendly on our stop the en route to Limon. He was frustrated and flustered at not being able to find the exit stamp from Costa Rica in our Passports.
"Oh, well, it's there somewhere," he said as he smiled and waved us on our way.
An hour later the man came to sell us gas from a five-gallon drum again and we hastened to get airborne. From there the weather turned a little rainy and it appeared we might have to land and wait for better flying condition, but we were able to contact a pilot in the air who informed us that the weather at France Field was completely clear. With this knowledge we felt safe in continuing and half an hour later we landed at our destination in bright sunshine.
End of "small flying adventure".
*****
Sept. 3, 1977 - Flew the Cessna 170-B to Ailigandi, a small strip on the mainland adjacent to the island of Ailigendi where a mission hospital is located. Took 60 dozen eggs for the hospital. Strived to make the landing as smooth as possible. Joked with Betty about "death by smothering with scrambled eggs."
Sept. 5 - En route back to France Field the ceilings lowered to an unacceptable height and we were forced to land on a primitive strip on the mainland adjacent to the small native village of Nombre de Dios (name of God). Due to our low altitude I was unable to make radio contact to cancel our flight plan. This concerned me as I did not want the U.S. Air Force out looking for us. The small native village had no telephone service. We had become acquainted with a few people there so walked about to look for a likely home in which to spend the night. As we walked in the village I became aware of the sound of a jet aircraft far above the clouds and out of sight but obviously heading north, probably for Miami. Idea! I ran as fast as I could but by the time I arrived breathless at my plane I could no longer hear the jet. On a chance, I tuned to the Panama departure frequency and broadcasts "Commercial jet heading north from the north coast of Panama, this is Cessna N74800. How do you read?"
"Loud and clear, Cessna N74800. Go ahead."
"Cessna N74800 was on flight plan from Ailigandi to France Field, Canal Zone. Forced down by weather. Landed at Nombre de Dios and will spend the night. Unable to contact Panama Radio to cancel flight plan. Please transmit this message to them."
The pilot, professional that he is, repeated my message word for word and confirmed that he had transmitted the message to Panama Radio. We slept well that night in the house of the Jorge Gondola family, a native negro family with whom we had previously become acquainted. We had suspected but did not confirm until morning that they had given up their own bed for us to sleep in.
*****
Sept. 17, 1977 - Flying along the Atlantic coast of Panama in the vicinity of Fort Sherman (a U.S. military post) we observed what appeared to be a huge splash of water in the sea far out from shore. "Fort Sherman must be having artillery practice," I observed to Betty. As we watched, the column of water did not fall back into the sea. It was then that we realized we were witnessing a water-spout - one of three that we had occasion to see during our one year stay in Panama.
*****
April 28, 1978 - one of the incidents of which I am less than proud. We were flying an STOL Maule (N325X) in which I had had little experience - five hours total time. In the back seat were Bob & Evelen Thomas, long-time friends from Jonesville, Mich. - he a minister. We were taking them to visit the Kuna indians of the San Blas islands. In landing on the narrow, short air-strip at Porvenier the direct cross-wind was in excess of my capability with the aircraft, which had a lower tolerance of cross-wind than the aircraft I had usually flown. As a consequence I was unable to maintain directional control. Despite my best efforts, we headed obliquely for the shore, rolled over a small embankment and did not stop until both main wheels were in the surf, the broken tail wheel resting on dry sand. Most embarrassing, but fortunately no injuries.
*****
March 13. 1981 - Betty and I flew a Cessna 172 to the big annual fair at David, Panama. I was part owner of HP865 - Panamanian registration at that time being required of all aircraft based in Panama. Upon preparing to leave, the pre-flight examination showed one wing-tie to be shattered. Questioning the local workmen I found that a huge, four-engine U.S. Hercules C-130 had brought a military orchestra in to the fair and, in taxiing, had produced enough prop-wash to cause the small Cessna to tip sideways and strike one wing-tip on the cement parking ramp. No tie-down rings had ben provided - only chocks. From the tower operator on duty I obtained all pertinent information about the registration number of the Hercules, name of pilot, time of arrival and departure, names of witnesses, etc., for I felt this represented improper and careless taxi procedure - in other words, negligence, for which reimbursement was indicated. I decided to "fight City Hall" and see if I could collect damages from the U.S. government. Secure application of duct tape to the wing tip made it airworthy for the trip back to France Field. I submitted a bill and explanation to the U.S. Air Force in the Canal zone. To be sure, the usual amount of red tape was involved but, in the end, to my pleasant surprise, they paid the bill in full. The U.S. government is not an unapproachable, unassailable Rock of Gibraltar after all.
*****
I retired as a civilian employee of the U.S. Dept. of Defense in the Canal Zone of Panama effective 13 April 1982. We stayed for one month longer to enjoy the tropical pleasures of Panama, our last flight in Panama being to spend a week snorkeling and relaxing at our favorite island, Nlalunega, a stone's throw from Porvenir.
In addition to its tropical climate we were led to retire in Naples, Fla. by the presence of an active airport with omni, flying club, avionics shop, Cessna dealer, aircraft rental and Civil air Patrol. I had accumulated over 1,400 hours of flying time and had no intention of retiring from flying. The C.A.P. proved to be my "cup of tea" with the opportunity not only to fly but to associate with other pilots. One of our duties and joys was the occasional flying on "sundown patrol" along the gulf coast looking for boats in distress. In addition there was the occasional emergency call to fly out to search for a downed aircraft or to locate the ELT (emergence locator transmitter) signal from a supposedly downed aircraft. I say "supposedly" because some 97% of these were false alarms, due to the inadvertent triggering of the ELT, but it was important to find them and get them turned off, for on occasion they might be hiding the weaker signal from an actual downed aircraft.
The two licenses which I have, over the years, cherished the most are my license to practice medicine and my pilot's license. They former will, I expect, soon expire due to disuse. The latter I hope to keep active for many happy years yet.

Seeing Things Differently

janet kuypers

I was sitting at Sbarro's Pizza in the mall taking a break from shopping and eating a slice of deep-dish cheese pizza when I caught parts of a conversation happening two tables next to me. It was two-thirty in the afternoon, so it was kind of empty in the eatery.

"So what's it like to be back?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, to be free again - I mean, to be back to the places you haven't seen for so long?"
"Well, of course I missed it. It's strange being back, actually."
"How so?"
"Well, everything looks different now."
"Well, it has been nearly six years, a lot happens, even to a suburb. There's been a lot of construction around here, and -"
"I don't mean it looks different because it changed. I mean it looks different because I have."
"How have you changed?"
"You mean how did being in prison for half a decade affect me?"
"Well, what do you mean you see things differently? Like colors look wrong? I don't get it."
"No, it's not like my vision is different, at least not literally. It's just that people seem different to me now. The places all look the same, one street looks the same as the next, it looks the same as it did five years ago. But I see things about people now, things I never noticed before."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, exactly. But I read people. It's like I know what they're thinking without having to talk to them, or even know them."

Then they both paused. I guess their timed pattern of one person eating while the other one talked finally got messed up and they were both eating at the same time. Oh, did I mention that they were both women? One had a baby in a stroller sleeping next to her, that one was the one that didn't go to prison. They both looked like they were about twenty-eight years old. Regular suburban women.

"You see, it's like this: when I was in prison, I was all alone. Being in a federal prison means the crimes are big time, so everyone in their had a big chip on their shoulder and wanted to either have you for their girlfriend or beat the shit out of you when you were on laundry duty. And of course everyone knew that I was the cop killer, and everyone also knew that I swore up and down that I didn't do it. So when I went in there they all thought I was some big sissy, and I knew right away that I was going to be in big trouble if I didn't do something fast."
"So what'd you do?"
"Well, I figured they knew that I wasn't a tough bitch or anything, so the only persona I could put on that would make people scared of me would be to act like perfectly calm ninety percent of the time, calm, but tense, like I was about to snap. And periodically I would have a fit, or threaten violence in front of guards, timed perfectly so that I would never actually have to do anything, but enough to make everyone else think that I was a little off the deep end, a bit crazy. Then they'd give me space."
"So... did that work?"
"Yeah, for the most part. But the first thing I had to learn was how to make my face unreadable."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you can see someone walk by and know they're bored, or sad or angry, or happy, right?"
"Well, sometimes..."
"Well, I had to make sure that when people looked at me all they saw was a complete lack of emotion. Absolute nothingness. I needed people to look at me and wonder what the hell was going through my head. Then all I'd have to do is squint my eyes just a little bit and everyone would see so much anger in my face, you know, because usually there was nothing in my face to give me away."
"And when you got angry -"
"- And when I got angry and threw a fit and smashed chairs and screamed at the top of my lungs and contorted my face all over the place, I just looked that much more crazed and in a rage. Like out of control."
"Wow. That's wild."
"And I became completely solitary. I talked to two other people the whole time I was there, at least in friendship."
"Wow, two people?"
"Well, in a screaming fit, or in a fight, then I'd be yelling at people, but yeah, I had to limit the people I talked to. Couldn't let others see what I was like."

So I was sitting here eating my pizza listening to this, and then I remembered, oh yeah, I remember this story from a long time ago, the convicted this women of killing a cop, shooting him at point-blank range, and just in the local paper three weeks ago they found the person who really killed the cop, and they let the women they convicted of the crime five years ago free.
It seems the cop pulled her over and had her license in his car when the murderer camp up in another car, and this woman managed to get away, but the cop died and her license was there on the scene. So I get up and go to the fountain machine and refill my Diet RC Cola and come back to my seat and I just start thinking that that's got to be rough, I mean, going to federal prison for over five years for a crime you didn't commit and then having them come up years later and let you out early and say, "oh, we're sorry, we had the wrong person all along." It's like, oh, silly us, we made a mistake, please do forgive us.
But how do you get those years back, and how do you get rid of those memories?
So I just spaced out on that thought for a minute and the next thing I knew they were talking again.

"And I knew from the start this one woman didn't like me, I could just tell from her face. We never spoke, she was like my unspoken enemy. And so once I was doing laundry work, and there are rows of machines and tables for folding and shoots for dirty clothes to fall onto the floor and pipes running all along the ceilings and steam coming out everywhere. And there were others there with us, and guards, too, but once I looked up and it was totally silent and no one else was around except for her. No other prisoners, no other guards, nothing. And she was just standing there, facing me square on, and she was swaying a bit, like she was getting ready to pounce. And I knew that she planned this, and got some of the other inmates to distract the guards, so that she could kill me."
"Oh my God, so what did you do?"
"Well, I turned so my side was to her, and I grabbed a cigarette from my pocket and put it in my mouth. Than I said, 'Look, I'm not interested in fighting you, so-', and then I reached into my pocket, the one that was away from her, like to get a lighter, and then I took my two hands and clenched them together like this, and then I just swung around like I was swinging a ball-and-chain, and I just hit her real hard with my hands."
"Oh my God."
"Yeah, I was hoping that I could just get in one good blow then get out of there, like teach her not to fuck with me again."
"Oh my God, so what happened?"
"Yeah, so here's the punch line, so when I hit her she fell back and hit her head on a beam that ran from floor to ceiling, and just fell to the floor. So I go through a back hallway and find everyone in the next room and just sort of slip in there, but then I hear a guard asking about Terry, that was the woman I hit. and everyone looks around and they see me, and I have no expression on my face, so they don't even know if Terry saw me or not, and so everyone starts to look for Terry and they find her dead, right where I left her."
"Oh my God, you killed her?"
"Well, she hit her head on the beam, my blow didn't kill her. But no one knew who did it to her, and of course no one bothered with an investigation, so there was no problem. But after that, no one ever bothered me again."
"Holy shit. You killed her. When did you know she was dead?"
"When they found her, probably. Not when they saw what kind of shape she was in, but the instant they saw her I thought, 'she hasn't moved.' And I knew then she was dead. It was kind of unsettling, but I couldn't react."
"Kind of unsettling? I think I'd be screaming."
"But that's the thing, all these women had killed before, at least most of them had. I'd be condemning myself if I reacted."
"Wow."

They sat in silence, the young mother staring at the other while she ate the last of her pizza.

The murderer grabbed her soda and drank in between words.

"Yeah, so prison - and everything after that, really - seemed different. I figured out how to remove all emotion from myself when I had to."
"...That's wild."
"And once I figured that out, how to make my face unreadable, it was easy to be able to read what other inmates were thinking. I could read anyone's face. Someone could twitch once and I'd know whether they were afraid of me or not. Any movement made it obvious to me what they thought of me, themselves, or their life. That's why I look around here and just see what everyone else is feeling."
"Really? What do you see?"
"I see some dopey men and some bitchy women."
"Shut up."
"No, it's true - and they care about little details in their life, but they don't give a damn about the big picture. They scream if someone cuts them off in traffic, they freak out if they have food stuck in their teeth after a meal. But they don't care what they're doing in their lives."

They got up and walked over to the trash can, dumped their paper plates and napkins into the trash.

"I see a lot of people walking around with a blank stare, but it's not an emotionless stare. It's that they're all resigned, it's like they all assume that this is the way their life has to be."
"Oh, come on, it's not that bad."
"Yeah, it is. It's like they all were in prison too."

And they walked out into the mall, and I sat there, staring at my drink.

portions of c ra mcguirt's
blur collar ballet

Lesson 10: The Secret Wrestler's Handshake

"Daddy' didn't show, which was probably just as well, but Wilton arrived at the practice ring soon after I did. He was a large, jolly-looking, skinheaded country boy, who, like Cool Breeze, was from Nolensville. Despite his lack of makeup, Wilton seemed to exude a "clownly aura".
"Here's my idea for the match, Lush," he said. We climbed into the ring, and I proceeded to have the first real fun of my Rasslin' School days. All that sweat, pain,

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and frustration was finally turning into something tangible.
Wilton and I worked out our match, which was basically Punch-and-Judy style slapstick comedy, in about an hour. We had a great time doing it, despite the fact that both of us were blowing like porpoises in shallow water before we were through. My lungs were burning from all the exertion in the cold air as the sun began to go down, but I felt pretty good.
Afterwards, we shook hands, and again, I noticed the oddness of it. "Hey, Willie-let me ask you something, brother. Why do you guys shake hands that way? You know, just sort of touching fingers..."
"That's the rassler's handshake, Lush. You're showin' that you know how to be light. If you go grabbin' another worker's hand real hard, he'll think you're gonna be stiff in the ring, too. It's how we remind each other to go easy."
"I'll be damned. All this time, I thought-well, hell, I don't know what I thought.
That's kind of cool." Privately, I considered it almost poetic. "Thanks for hippin' me to it, brother."
"No problem, Lush. You just gotta learn as you go along." I gave Wilton another handshake-the rassler's version this time-and headed home, where I was inspired to write:

The Secret Rassler's Handshake

It's one of the major mysteries,
but since you ask politely-
we work at not working
each other too hard,
so we greet our brothers
lightly.

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SIX WEEKS AS AN "IWA SUPERSTAR'

Week One: Return To Nolensville

There it was-the same old crackerbox building, with the lighted portable sign out front advertising "Professional Wrestling Tonight". About five weeks ago, I'd shown up here to check out the scene, and had gotten the cold shoulder from Dr. Squash. Now I was back, and this time, I'd have no trouble getting into the dressing room. I was a professional wrestler. Or at least, I hoped to prove that I had the ability to become one.
In between wrestling shows, the Official Rassler's Inner Sanctum was apparent-
ly a general meeting room, with children's drawings and public service announce-
ments taped to the green block walls. Therein sat a squarish circle of large, half-
naked men, pulling on jocks, knee pads, trunks, masks, elbow pads, and wrist bands, taping their fingers either for effect or because of real injuries, rehearsing match strategy with their "opponents", smoking cigarettes, and shooting the general bull. The feeling was very much like being backstage at a play. For the most part, I felt right at home, though in size, I resembled a 5th grader in an 8th grade class-
room. The smallest wrestler there besides me (at 202 lbs) was Ricky Morton, who goes about 228 (at least according to the rasslin' mags.)
I was surprised to see Morton there. Though a local boy from Antioch, TN, a suburb of Nashville, he was internationally known, and had worked in many federations, mostly with Robert Gibson, as half of a high-flying babyface tag team called "The Rock n' Roll Express." Ricky and Robert had made the hearts of a lot

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little girls go pitter-pat during the 70s, and Rick still wore his patented "rock "n roll hearthrob' attire, with long blonde hair and colorful scarves tied in strategic places, but the lines in his face proclaimed that he was no longer a flaming youth.
Morton looked over my Luscious getup, with makeup freshly applied by my ex-wife, who'd come along for my debut, and quipped: "Hey, brother-did you come here to wrestle, or to make love?" (Only he didn't use the words "make love";
he employed a four-letter term more appropriate to a locker room.) That cracked up the whole gang. I felt laughed with, not at, and was much more comfortable there-
after.
Besides me and Ricky Morton, there was "Playboy" Buddy Rose, a well-known journeyman heel who had once been co-holder of the AWA World Tag Title; Len Rossi's son, Joe, tall, blocky, bearded and imposing; swarthy cowboy Robert Scorpio; the aquatically attired Barri Cuda, Cool Breeze Williams (looking mean in his biker rig, but laughing through his gap-toothed grin at my outfit), and Dr. Squash, with his masked tag team, The Interns, AKA I.V. and Scalpel.
(I'd discovered that the Doc's real first name was Mike; Intern I.V. was also named Mike, as was Cool Breeze, and so was Scorpio, and figured that part of the reason we all used our "wrestling names" with each other, even out of hearing of the fans, was that no one could keep up with so many "Mikes" otherwise...)
Willie The Clown was running late, and we were all beginning to bite our finger-
nails over it. Well, I was biting mine, anyway-without a partner, I didn't have a match.
To my considerable relief, Willie came wandering in shortly before the first bout

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began, attired in full clown regalia. A female wrestler named "Lady Stardust" also showed up, and the Doc hastily assigned her to be my Evil Valet. Wilton and I talked over our match one more time, as the Doc drew a mustache on Lady Stardust with a black eyebrow pencil.
"Dig it, Lush-it'll draw heat like crazy! They'll be saying "Looka that! The man looks like a woman, and the woman looks like a man!' The marks'll go nuts!"
("Marks", of course, are what wrestlers-and carnival workers-call the paying customers. It implies that the person or persons in questions are outside "the family", and possessed of an exploitable level of gullibility.)
As the card got underway, and the matches proceeded, I walked around, smoked, talked, and took an occasional peep through the backstage knotholes, but I couldn't really concentrate on what anyone else was doing. I wasn't too nervous; after all, I knew our routine, and I had confidence in my dramatic ability. However, this was still something I had never done before...
My minor anxiety was defused by laughter when Robert Scorpio and Cool Breeze came back after their match, and were talking about an incident that had occurred before the bell.
Scorpio said: "Hey, brother-we better keep down the funny comments. I think some of the ringsiders heard you!" It turned out that, while the referee was doing the obligatory "foreign object' search of both men before the match (which almost never turns up a foreign object, especially if there is one), Cool Breeze had com- plained that there was indeed such an illegal object hidden in Scorpio's trunks.
"Hell, man," the ref had said, "That's just the standard equipment."
"Well," Breeze had replied, "Then his standard equipment is too damn big!"

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My match was fourth on the card. They showed me the bad guy's entranceway
("The Heel's Door"), and my theme song for the evening, Soft Cell's "Sex Dwarf",
began to pound from the PA system's speakers. Lady Stardust stood by me, say-
ing "Give it a minute, then start walking. I'll go first..."
I allowed Luscious Leslie Love to take me over, and after the song had establish-
ed itself, I fixed a sneer on my face, slipped on my mirrored shades, and came strutting down the aisle after the obviously feminine but bizzarely mustached Lady Stardust. The crowd erupted in boos and catcalls-and I hadn't even been intro- duced yet. It looked like The Luscious One was gonna make a pretty good Heel.
I could describe my first match in objectively technical, cut-and-dried terms, but I think it would be more fun to allow Luscious himself to do it-he always was a pretty fair color commentator, with his own unique viewpoint. This is how it would read if Leslie wrote it up for one of the "kayfabe" wrestling magazines:

LOVE ROBBED BY BIASED REFEREE

(Nolensville, TN, 3/10/89) Led to the ring by his faithful valet, the beautiful but deadly Lady Stardust, Luscious Leslie Love made his Nolensville Civic Center debut here against hometown hero Willie The Wrestling Clown, in what turned out to be a match marred by biased officiating. As Love appeared, the ill-washed rural crowd, jealous of his good looks, talent, and wealth, predictably jeered and taunted him. One gentleman at ringside even called Luscious a faggot, and hurled a crumpled paper coke cup at Love. The Luscious One charged over and berated the unruly idiot, who was later revealed to be one Mr. Ross Massey, a former high

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school classmate of Love's alter-ego, Curtis R. McGuirt. This reporter is led to believe that Massey's act was one of pure disgust, and signalled the end of his friendship with Love/McGuirt, despite an unconfirmed report that the two had a civil conversation in the locker room following the match.
As for the contest itself, the insidious clown began cheating even before he entered the ring, employing a large (and undoubtedly illegal) squirtgun to spray The Luscious One's expensive designer tights with what fortunately turned out to be disappearing ink, all the while foully denigrating Love's masculinity (which, as we all know, is beyond question.)
Luscious was rightfully enraged by the time the bell rang, but Willie handed him a red rose as a supposed peace offering. However, it was just another deceptive tactic on the clown's part; as the Luscious One innocently sniffed the rose, expecting a fair, scientific match from his buffoonish opponent, Willie slapped him brutally to the mat-a typical cheap shot by a supposed "good guy".
The grapplers then tied up in center ring, and Leslie hurled the clown into the ropes, going to all fours in an attempt to trip up his foe. But the conniving Willie chose to gratuitously humiliate Love by leaping on his back and riding him around the ring like a horse. Leslie was consumed with righteous anger by this affront to his dignity, but the tobacco-chewing, illiterate fans, in their naive ignorance, cheered Willie's unworthy move.
Again, the wrestlers locked up; again, the Luscious One sent his greasepainted antagonist into the ropes, and waited to catch him with a bearhug. If Leslie had succeeded in clamping on this hold, it surely would have cracked Willie's ribs and caused him to scream for mercy. However, the cowardly clown chose to avoid

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man-to-man confrontation, and scuttled quickly between Love's legs. When Leslie looked back to see what his craven opponent was up to, the sadistic, sneaking Willie illegally and maliciously kicked him in the hindquarters, sending Love sprawling through the ropes and out of the ring.
After a painful landing on the unforgiving hardwood floor, Leslie struggled to his feet, and staggered around the ring in agony, barely beating the referee's unfairly fast ten-count as he courageously crawled back into the squared circle.
Once there, he again tied up with Willie, and whipped his opponent into the ropes on one side of the ring, while throwing himself into the ropes on the other side. It was Leslie's daring plan to use the extra momentum to smash into the clown and render him senseless, which he undoubtedly would have done, if only Willie had cooperated. But somehow, the two grapplers kept bouncing back and forth across the ring, barely missing a collision. By the time Luscious realized that the clown had sneaked out of the ring while he was still bouncing, Love was exhausted. Breathing heavily, he collapsed to the mat for a quick, strategic rest in order to regain his amazing stamina.
At this point, of course, Willie slithered back into the ring like the snake he was,
and tried for a quick, cheap pin on the supine Love. Leslie foiled this attempt with a savage knee to the side, sending the foul harlequin sprawling. On his feet again, The Luscious One began to unmercifully stomp and choke Willie, which was no more than the slimy cheater deserved. Finally, Love was unjustifiably restrained by the obviously crooked referee. This blatantly biased official couldn't protect the clown for long, however; Luscious seized Willie's arm and hurled him through the

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ropes. Sensing imminent victory, Love strutted proudly around the ring, blowing
kisses to the ungrateful and unreceptive crowd of redneck trailer-trash morons, who, for no logical reason, continued to cheer for the obviously inferior clown.
Moving in for more and greater infliction of well-deserved pain, Luscious confi- dently approached Willie as the villainous harlequin slowly and painfully regained the ring apron. Then, tragically, in a desperate move born of the sure knowledge of the terrible beating he would inevitably recieve should he face the Luscious One again, Willie lunged forward through the ropes, catching Leslie low in the gut with an arguably-illegal headbutt. Luscious was flipped backward by the force of the blow, and was still doubled over in pain when he bravely regained his feet.
The conniving clown chose this opportunity to re-enter the ring, and dishonor-
ably apply a rollup pin on the Luscious One. Love, stunned badly by the previous lowdown attack, fell victim to the referee's incredibly fast three-count; obviously,
this corrupt official had been paid off by Willie prior to the bout.
The deluded and prejudiced fans cheered as Willie The Clown's hand was raised in tainted victory, but their cheers soon turned to howls of dismay as The Luscious One dipped in his tights and came up with a handful of white powder-
Leslie's dreaded "Fairy Dust"-which he justifiably threw into the eyes of his cheating, sneaking, referee-bribing opponent.
A few powerful blows, and Willie went down, to be savagely stomped and kicked by the enraged Love, who was joined by his androgynous valet, Lady Stardust, in this worthy enterprise. The duo mercifully let Willie off with only a few minutes of punishment, wisely leaving the ring before any so-called "good guys"

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could rush in and illegally interfere in something that was entirely none of their business.

-Reported by L.L.L.

That's how Luscious remembers it, anyway. As you can tell, he's not the most objective reporter in the world. But I like his colorful, nonconformist attitude, so I'll let this "bad guy's version" of what happened stand.
I had only one moment of real nervousness during the match; standing in the middle of the ring removing my gloves, shades, and other various accoutrements, I noticed that my hands were shaking. But it passed, and by the time Willie made his way through the cheering crowd, shucking and jiving and high-fiving the kids, I was ready for him.
Our rehearsed routine went well, with only minor glitches. When I was supposed to start to lock up, and then turn away to do the "arrogant sissy strut", I forgot to strut. Willie knocked me down (I don't recall how-I only remember taking a good bump), and we started over. It went fairly smoothly from there.
My fall through the ropes after being kicked in the ass seemed impressive to me even as it was happening. Later, my ex-wife Patty, who'd been in the crowd to boo my first appearance, told me she'd thought that I'd really knocked my breath out.
It felt pretty good to fool someone who knew I was faking everything else.
The only other departure from our "script", really, was that when Willie head-
butted me from outside the ropes, I ended up doing a backward flip-roll instead of just doubling over as we had planned. Partly, I did it because it felt right, but mostly

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I did it because Willie's enthusiastic headbutt started me on my way! It didn't really hurt, but the impact was still considerable. The major difference between the match in rehearsal at Gypsy's School, and the real bout in public, was that I performed so hard, and was so flooded with adrenaline, that I hyperventilated and ran out of wind fairly early. More than once, I found myself in a corner between exchanges, panting and gasping, and by the time Willie pinned me with a snappy-looking reverse-roll cradle, I was damn grateful that the match was nearly over. Still, I had enough energy and oxygen to find the plastic-wrapped handful of baby powder I'd secreted in my tights, and use it to "blind" the long-suffering clown prior to his post-match stomping.
As I came backstage, I was huffing and puffing like a beached whale. Barri Cuda laughed. "Got blowed up a little, did you, Lush?" I could only nod, smile, and gasp for precious air. Dr. Squash was exultant. "You established the character just like I wanted it, Luscious! Perfect! A great match!" Cuda agreed that the bout had been pretty good, but warned me against turning my back completely to the ropes when bouncing off them. "You wanna keep one hand on the top rope, and make it just a three-quarters turn, brother. Otherwise, you might fall out on your head. I hope you don't mind me telling you..."
I'd regained enough wind to reply, "Not at all, brother. I'd rather hear it from you, than learn it from experience..." (We didn't do a lot of rope-bouncing practice in the training shed-the ropes were so close to the inside walls that a bounce-off risked collision with them. For the same reason, we hadn't practiced any "over the top rope" bumps-there was only one open side, and the roof was too low. Through
the ropes was workable, though, and fortunately, I'd had a chance to practice that.

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The main thing was to catch a rope and slow your momentum, then take a controll-
ed rolling fall off the ring apron. At the Shed, there was hard dirt and gravel waiting for my fat ass; the wood floor of the Nolensville Civic Center had actually been less painful to sprawl on.)
Back in the dressing room, Willie was slowly getting out of his clown rig. "Hey, Wilton," I said, giving him the Rassler's Shake, "Thanks for carrying me, bro."
"Hell, Lush," he drawled, "I didn't carry you. You did just fine, and we both looked real good."
"That's good to hear, man. But if you got any constructive criticism, I can take it. I want to learn as much as I can..."
Willie frowned. "Welllll....there is one thing, Lush."
I waited with some trepidation to hear that my bumps sucked, or that I hadn't sneered and strutted convincingly enough. Willie continued:
"It's the same thing "Daddy' used to get on me for. Bein' too stiff ain't good..."
"Oh, man, Willie-if I was too hard with you, if I hurt you, I'm really sorry...I was trying to hold back..."
Wilton chuckled. "Oh no, Lush. You didn't hurt me one bit. What I'm sayin' is that bein' too light ain't good either. It makes the marks think we're fakin'. Next time, don't be scared to stomp me a lot harder. So long as it ain't right on my kidneys, I can take it."
I was relieved. "Oh, sure, brother. I can step it up a little." But the truth is that I never became a really stiff stomper. It was definitely a chink in my evil armor...
"Luscious! Luscious Leslie! Is there a queer from San Francisco back here?"

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It was the laconic Southern-accented voice of my friend Ross Massey, who appeared in the outer reaches of the dressing room accompanied by my other old high school buddy, Andrew Griffin. Ross and Andrew were followed closely by two watchful rent-a-cops, who'd come along to make certain they weren't vengeful marks intent on whipping my faggot ass for calling them rednecks and swine.
"These guys said they knew you, and we figured it was cool to let "em back here," said one of the cops, "But we wanted to make sure..."
"Hey, guys," I said with sincerity, "No problem-we really appreciate ya'll watching out for us." So it was "us" already...
I shot the breeze with Ross and Andrew for a while, then waited around with the other workers to get paid. It had been a pretty good house, a couple hundred people or so, and I was gratified to recieve twenty bucks in the plain white envelope handed to me by Dr. Squash. I'm sure that the big federations remunerate their workers by check or automatic deposit, but on the independent wrestling circuit, it's straight cash in an envelope-assuming that the show pulls in enough dough to cover its expenses (advertising, rental of a ring, security, etc.) and still pay the wrestlers; as I came to find out, that doesn't always happen. In any case, I blew my twenty back in Nashville, eating pizza and drinking beer with my friends, feeling I had definitely earned my beer that night.
Larry Pachecho had been hung up with other commitments on the evening of my debut, and hadn't been able to make the show, but he gave me a call the next day.
"So, how'd it go, Luscious?"
"Damn good, considering. Willie says I should stomp a little harder, though."

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"A masochistic clown, huh?" laughed Larry.
"Just a realistic one. Like "Daddy' says, "When you can't fake it, you gotta take it...'"
"'Daddy?'"
"That's what Gypsy Joe's boys all call him. Not to his face, you understand..."
"The strict father figure with the concerned heart of gold, huh?"
"I'm not sure about gold, exactly, brother. They don't call him "the meanest man in professional wrestling' for nothing..."
"Is that just a gimmick, or is he really mean?"
"I'm not sure where the gimmick ends and the real personality begins, but I'm not gonna do anything to find out."
"You wouldn't want "Daddy' to take off his belt, huh?"
When we finished laughing, Larry asked me if wrestling a real match was much different from what I'd done in practice.
"Actually, except for getting blowed up from overexcitement-"
"'Blowed up?'"
"That's the rasslin' slang for losing your breath. Anyway, except for that, it was a helluva lot easier. In practice, I take bump after bump for an hour or more. Last night, I only took five minute's worth. And after that damned hard-ass plywood-
floored practice ring, the one in Nolensville was like a feather bed..."
"Did it give a lot?"
"Oh yeah. It was like this real yielding surface covered with squishy foam or something. Felt like walking on the moon...I could have fallen all night."

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"Do you still have a lot of pain from before? Or any from the match?"
"It's amazing, Lar. My back's a little sore, and there's a spot of mat rash on my arm, but I see what they mean about breaking The Wall Of Pain. After awhile, your body just gets used to the bumps."
"Well, congratulations, Luscious. What do you think "Daddy' will say?"
"I guess I'll find out on Monday..."
Back at the Training Shed a couple afternoons later, Gypsy looked me over as if to check for broken bones or stitches, rolled his eyes, bit his lower lip in what was becoming a familiar gesture to me, and said:
"Well."
It was sort of a cross between a question and a statement, with very mild surprise at the fact I hadn't managed to kill myself.
"We did pretty good, Joe," I said, trying to avoid a defensive tone. "The crowd liked it, Willie said I made him look good, and the Doc was happy."
"Yeah, sure, brother. You got lucky, that's all."
"The other workers knew you'd trained me, and they thought I did okay..."
"Okay for a queer! Haw haw hawww! The Doc told me about your gimmick..."
Oh hell, I thought. Here it comes. "What can I say, Joe? I'm new, and I need the work. If I have to job, at least I've got a gimmick that'll get me some heat."
"You don't care they're gonna call you a faggot?"
"Hell, brother-I know what I am. Why should I care what the marks think?
They don't know anything about me, anyway."
Gypsy grunted, apparently in grudging approval. "So-when are they gonna get

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TV? You know there's no use in doing shows if you ain't got TV to promote "em."
"We're taping tomorrow."
"You're bullshittin' me, Luscious."
Aha, I thought. You called me by my rasslin' name, even though you don't like the gimmick. Gotcha, "Daddy'!
"It's for real, Joe. I talked to the Doc earlier today, and he told me that we're gonna tape some spots at Janie Bacigalupo's place in Old Hickory. You know her boyfriend, Roger Allen-the guy who's gonna do the announcing for us. He's got a miniature TV studio in her garage-they do commercials and stuff..."
"But what's the deal? Who's gonna show the stuff once it gets taped?"
"Dr. Squash says he's working out a deal with Channel 2...maybe in a couple weeks..."
"Squash." Gypsy spat over his shoulder. "He don't know shit about this biz. The IWA is gonna go down the toilet."
"Maybe so. But I gotta start somewhere, brother. You got your chance..."
Gypsy emitted a bitter laugh. "After I trained for nearly a year, they made me suit up and sit in the friggin' dressing room for three months before I even got a chance to job in an opening match. You'd'a never made it back then, Luscious..."
As Gypsy was extremely reticent about revealing any of his personal history, and I hadn't wanted to sound like a mark by asking him constant questions, I was fasc-
inated, and forgot about the semi-argument we were almost having.
"Who trained you, Joe? Where did you work your first match?"
"New York, brother. Lou trained me. And I worked my first match with him."

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"You mean Captain Lou? Lou Albano?"
Captain Lou was one of the real old-timers from the New York scene, who'd wrestled as half of a tag team called The Sicilians, but achieved his true fame as the manager of such brutal championship duos as The Wild Samoans and The Moon- dogs. He came to national pop culture prominence by playing Cindi Lauper's dad in the MTV video "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", and had a renaissance as a semi- babyface manager during the WWF-MTV "rock "n wrestling" explosion of the early 80s. Shaped like a beer barrel, with bulging eyes, an untamed beard, and rubber bands hanging from his face, "Captain Lou" is a cultural icon recognized even by non-fans.
"Of course I mean Lou Albano, brother. How many Lous are there?"
"Was he a good trainer?"
"You're lucky, Luscious. You think that Joe treats you mean, but you don't friggin' know what mean is." Joe steered the conversation back to the topic at hand.
"So who is this Janie broad?"
"Just some woman with a lot of money who wants to invest in the IWA. Doc said her ex-husband was in the Mafia..."
"Oh, that broad. Well, Luscious, what can I tell you? None of you know a god damn thing about wrestling, and if they put the Doc's crap on TV, then neither does Channel 2."
I endured Gypsy's dire predictions calmly. After all, I didn't have anything of real consequence invested, and it wasn't as if I was into wrestling as an actual career possibility. I was a writer, and this was just research, right?
I wasn't so sure any more...

102

Week Two: "Why You Ask Joe?"

"Hi there, you fat, ignorant, tobacco-chewing, redneck Tennessee wrestling fans! I know you've all been wondering what a glamorous and talented athlete like myself is doing here in your pathetic part of the world..."
I found myself standing before a video camera in Roger Allen's mini-TV studio,
as we taped a spot for the upcoming IWA program. Incredibly enough, Dr. Squash had managed to cut a deal with Channel 2 after all, and we were scheduled to go on the air in less than a month.
Taking a deep and exaggerated sniff of the red rose in my hand, I continued:
"Well, it's like this, darlings. The men in San Francisco just aren't rough enough for the Luscious One, so I decided to come here and see if these big old Southern boys can give me a real fight. I just love to fight, but what I really like is making up afterwards! So, if you think you've got what it takes, climb in the ring with Lusc- ious Leslie Love, the only real man in professional wrestling!"
"That's a keeper!" exclaimed Allen.
"Great, Luscious!" gushed the Doc. "That's exactly what we're looking for! Now let's get ready to tape the one they're gonna show in Salt Lake City..."
Squash had been filling my head with visions of the excitement and money to be had on our proposed summer tour of the Western states:
"We're gonna go to Utah, Luscious, and do a bunch of shows...the Osmond Family is gonna sponsor us-I'm from Salt Lake, and I know all those guys...Donny Osmond is gonna be the special referee for your match with Willie..."

philosophy monthly

Rome's Syllabus Of Condemned Op

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Rome's Syllabus Of Condemned Opinions: The Last Blast Of The Catholic Church's Medieval Trumpet
by Joseph McCabe

INTRODUCTION
In recent literature about the Roman Catholic Church one still occasionally meets references to "the Syllabus," or the "Syllabus of Condemned Opinions." A "syllabub" was a delectable medieval drink composed of sugar, cream, brandy, sherry, and lemon - they knew a lot about drinking in the Ages of Faith - but what the heck a Syllabus is few have the faintest idea. The word means "a collection," and the ecclesiastical historians will tell you that it was selected as the title of a number of propositions condemned by Pope Pius IX about 90 years ago.

Amongst these propositions which Catholics were sternly forbidden to entertain was almost every principle of the American Constitution that had any reference to religion. The good Catholic must regard with abhorrence such statements as that Church and State must be separated, that the ecclesiastical authority has no power over the secular, that education is the business of the State, that there must be complete religious freedom, that a man may choose his religion in the light of his reason and conscience, that all sects must be equal in the law, that a Christian is validly married in a registry office, and so on.

But if you ask a Catholic official interpreter of his religion to the American public what it means, he will reply, with the familiar synthetic smile, which is so like that of a Daughter of Joy, that the Popes of 90 years ago did not know what we know today. They did not know, for instance, as slick American priests have discovered, that Thomas Jefferson, who is so largely responsible for the principles of the American Constitution, learned them, especially the great principles of Freedom and Democracy, from the pages of the Roman Jesuits, Suarez and Bellarmine. But if you know that mendacity is one of the primary qualifications of a Catholic apologist, if you remember that the Pope imposed most of these chains upon the Italian people when he made his infamous $90,000,000 deal with Mussolini, you will want sounder information about the Syllabus.

I call it the last blast of the Pope's medieval trumpet, and the reasons why I do so are forgotten historical movements of the last century which make an intriguing and instructive story. But remember the Church's motto: Immutable Rome. Have the Popes merely hung up their brazen trumpet until the glorious day comes when, through a Catholic majority in America, they will again rule the world? And in order that you may be able to form a sound idea on this point I begin with a translation of the complete Latin text of the famous document.

WHAT THE SYLLABUS SAID
The stirring condition of the European world at which the Vatican Jupiter hurled his thunderbolt 90 years ago will be described in the next section, but I must say a few words about it before I give the text of the Syllabus. On November 24, 1848, there occurred in Rome an event which was symbolical of the mightiest revolution that had yet flared up in the history of Europe, yet I doubt if one man in hundreds of thousands in either Europe or America today ever heard of it.

A vast crowd surrounded the Pope's palace, the Quirinal. They did not threaten his life, though a few shots were fired by enthusiasts in the crowd. They demanded only that the Pope should give effect to the concession of Freedom and Democracy which he, as King of Rome and Central Italy, had recently signed and now proposed to recant. The carriage of the Bavarian Minister drove up to the palace. Presently the Minister emerged, the liveried footman ushered him into the coach and mounted the box, and they drove off. That footman was the Vicar of Christ, Pope Pius IX, flying in disguise from his "beloved people" whose new liberty, which he had sworn to respect, he was about to betray, under the shelter of the perjured King of Naples, to the perjured King of France.

In the first half of 1848 the people of Europe had risen in revolt from North Germany to Sicily. seven kings had been shaken from their thrones or (two of them) had been suffered to hold on to their barbaric pomp only on condition that they accepted democracy. But the flight of the Pope was the beginning of the gross perjury by which, with the aid of hireling soldiers, the kings won back their feudal power and drowned democracy in a lake of blood.

By 1860 a quarter of a million democrats - men, women and children - had either died on the scaffold or in fetid jails and penal colonies, or lingered in the jails or in exile. But their leaders, not sleek politicians such as we have today, but men like Mazzini and Garibaldi; Louis Blanc, Karl Marx, and a hundred others carried on the flight from exile. And the millions of Italy and Spain, of Austria-Hungary and Germany, responded so well that by 1860 the ground of Europe was shaking once more. It was Footman-Pius said, all due to these damnable Liberal and Humanist principles that certain writers were spreading, undermining his semi-divine authority, and he set his learned theologians to gather from European literature these utterly poisonous and devil-inspired new ideas and declared them "reprobated, prescribed, and condemned" with all the weight of his "apostolic authority."

Here they are: The Syllabus of Condemned Propositions

1 There is no supreme, omniscient, all foreseeing Deity distinct from the universe. God is the same thing as Nature and therefore subject to change. He becomes God in the world and man; all things are God and have the very substance of God. God is one and the same thing as the world; therefore spirit is the same thing as matter, necessity the same thing as liberty, truth the same as falseness, good the same is evil, justice the same as injustice.

2 That God acts upon man and the world is to be denied.

Human reason is the sole judge of truth and falseness, good and evil. It is a law unto itself and suffices, by its natural resources, to promote the welfare of nations.

3 All truths of religion have their origin in the natural use of human reason. Hence reason is the chief means by which we can and ought to acquire a knowledge of all truth. Divine revelation is imperfect and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, and this corresponds to the advance of human reason.

4 The faith of Christ is opposed to human reason, and divine revelation is not merely useless but injurious to man's interests.

5 The prophesies and miracles that are contained in Holy Writ are poetic fiction, and the mysteries of the Christian faith are the outcome of philosophic inquiries; the contents of both Old and New Testaments are fiction, and Jesus Christ himself is a mythical figure.

6 Since human reason is as valuable as religion, theological matters are to be treated in the same way as philosophy.

7 All the dogmas, without exception, of the Christian religion are the subject of natural science or philosophy.

8 Human reason can in the course of time be so developed that by its natural force and principles it can attain all knowledge, even the more profound, provided that these, dogmas have been submitted to reason as its subject.

9 Since the philosopher is one thing and philosophy another, the former has the, right and the duty to submit to authority which he believes to be sound, but philosophy neither can nor ought to bow to authority.

10 The Church not only must never pass judgment on philosophy but must tolerate its errors and leave it to correct them itself.

11 The decrees of the Apostolic See and the Roman Congregations are an impediment to the free advance of science.

12 The methods and principle which the older Scholastic doctors used in studying theology are not in the least in harmony with the needs of our time and the progress of the sciences.

13 Philosophy must be studied without regard to supernatural revelation.

14 Every man is free to adopt and profess any religion which, under the guidance of reason, he believes to be true.

25 Men can find the way to eternal salvation and attain it in any religion.

16 At least we have good ground to hope for the eternal salvation of men who do not belong to the true Church of Christ.

17 Protestantism is only another form of the one true Christian religion, and God is just as pleased for men to join it as to join the Catholic Church.

18 The Church is not a true, perfect, and entirely free body, and it cannot decide in virtue of the rights conferred upon it by its divine founder what are the limited times within which it can exercise its rights, but must leave this decision to the civil power.

19 Ecclesiastical authority must not use its powers without the permission and consent of the civil government.

20 The Church has no power to lay down dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the one true religion. The obligations which strictly bind Catholic teachers and writers are confined to matters which have been declared by the infallible judgment of the Church to be dogmas of the faith to be believed by everybody.

21 Roman Pontiffs and Ecumenical Councils have exceeded their powers, usurped the rights of princes, and erred even in defining questions of faith and morals.

22 The Church has no power to use force or any temporal power, direct or indirect. Apart from the authority which is inherent in the office of bishop, any secular power is conferred upon him expressly or tacitly by the civil power and may therefore be withdrawn by that power when it pleases.

23 The Church has no native and legitimate right to acquire and hold property. The sacred ministry of the Church and the Roman Pontiff must be entirely excluded from concern about ownership and secular things.

24 Bishops cannot be allowed to publish even the Pope's letters without permission of the government.

25 Privileges conferred by the Roman Pontiff must be regarded as null unless they were asked for through the government.

26 The immunity of the Church and of ecclesiastical persons has its origin in civil law.

27 The ecclesiastical court for hearing secular charges, either civil or criminal, against clerics must be entirely abolished, without consulting or even against the protest of the Apostolic see.

28 The personal immunity from the duty of military service which clerics enjoy may be revoked without any violation of national law and equality, and this revocation is necessary for social progress, especially in countries with a more liberal constitution.

29 It is not the exclusive right of ecclesiastical jurisdiction to regulate the teaching of theological matters.

30 The idea that the Roman Pontiff may be compared to a free prince acting in the universal Church is medieval.

31 There is no reason why the Supreme Pontificate should not be transferred by the decision of a General Council or the action of all nations from the Bishop of the city of Rome to some other bishop and city.

32 The decision of a National Congress is not subject to further discussion, and the civil administration may demand this.

33 It is lawful to establish National Churches that are not subject to the authority of the Roman Pontiff and are, in fact, entirely separated.

34 The arbitrary action of the Roman Pontiffs is in part responsible for the division of the Church into Eastern and Western.

35 A republic, as the origin and power of all rights, has an unlimited power.

36 The teaching of the Catholic Church is opposed to the welfare of human society.

37 The civil power, even if the ruler be an infidel, has an indirect negative right to interfere in sacred things, and it therefore had the right which is called exequatur (permission to carry out an ecclesiastical order) and what is called the right to appeal against abuses.

38 In a conflict of law between the two powers the civil law takes precedence.

39 The lay government has the power to rescind or to declare null and void the solemn agreements usually called Concordats about the use of rights pertaining to ecclesiastical immunity entered upon with the Apostolic See without the consent or even against the protest of Rome.

40 The civil authority may intervene in matters that refer to religion, morals and the spiritual order. Hence it has the right to criticise the instructions which the Church gives to priests for the guidance of consciences and even to lay down rules for the administration of the divine sacraments or the disposition required for receiving them.

41 Public schools in which the youth of a republic are trained with the exception of Episcopal seminaries to some extent, are and ought to be controlled by the civil authority; and to such an extent that no other authority has the right to interfere in the curriculum, the discipline, the awarding of degrees, or in the choice and approval of masters. Even in seminaries for the priesthood the arrangement of the studies is subject to the civil authority.

42 The best interests of society demand that public schools, which are open to all children of every class, and public institutions generally that give higher education and train youths, shall be free from all clerical authority, control, or interference and shall be left entirely to the dictates of the civil political authority as the rulers and the general opinion of the public shall decide.

43 Catholic men may approve of a kind of education that is separated from the Catholic faith and the power of the Church and that looks only, or at least primarily, to the interests of the natural sciences and the social welfare.

44 The civil authority may prevent prelates and the Catholic laity from communicating freely with the Roman Pontiff.

45 The secular authority has the intrinsic right of appointing bishops and it may demand of them that they visit their dioceses before they themselves receive canonical institution and Letters from the Holy See. Moreover the secular government has the right to deprive Bishops of the exercise of their pastoral ministry and is not bound to obey the Roman Pontiff in matters concerning the office of bishops.

46 The government has the right to change the age fixed by the Church for entering the religious orders of both men and women; and to forbid these orders to admit anybody to take the solemn vows without its permission.

47 Laws that protect the status of religious communities and relate to their rights and duties should be abrogated; the secular government may assist all who wish to abandon the religious life and break their solemn vows; it may suppress religious communities as well as collegiate and parish churches and hand over their property and revenue to the administration and disposal of the secular authority.

48 Kings and princes are not only exempt from the jurisdiction of the Church but in deciding questions of jurisdiction they are above the Church.

49 The Church must be separated from the State and the State from the Church.

50 Moral law does not need a divine sanction, it is not at all necessary that human laws should conform to the Law of Nature or derive their binding force from God.

51 Philosophy, the science of ethics, and human laws may or ought to be independent of divine and ecclesiastical authority.

52 No forces are to be recognized which are not inherent in matter, and all moral and decent effort ought to be expended in accumulating wealth and procuring, pleasure in any way.

53 Right consists of a material fact, "duties of man" is an empty phrase, and all man's acts have the force of right. Authority is merely the sum of numbers and material farces.

54 A fortunate outcome of an unjust act does no harm to the sanctity of right.

55 The principle of Non-intervention is to be recommended and observed.

56 It is lawful to refuse to obey and even rebel against legitimate princes.

57 The violation of the most sacred oaths and any criminal and disgraceful action in violation of the eternal law are not to be censured but are entirely lawful and worthy of the highest praise if they are done out of love of one's country.

58 It must by no means be admitted that Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament. The sacrament of matrimony is something added to the contract and Separable from it, and the sacrament consists in a single nuptial blessing. By natural law the bond of matrimony is not indissoluble and on various grounds the civil authority may grant divorce.

59 The Church has no power to create nullifying impediments to marriage; that power belongs to the civil authority, and it must abolish existing impediments. In earlier ages the Church began to create nullifying impediments by the powers entrusted to it by the civil authority, not by any power of its own.

60 The canons of the Council of Trent which impose the censure of anathema on those who dare to deny that the Church has the right to create nullifying impediments are either not dogmatic or are to be understood as deriving force from this delegated authority.

61 The Tridentine formula with its penalties is not binding when the civil authority provides a different form and insists that if this is followed the marriage is valid.

62 Boniface VIII was the first to lay down that the vow of chastity taken at ordination invalidates a marriage.

63 There can be true marriage for Christians on the strength of the civil contract alone; and it is false to say either that between Christians the contract of marriage is always a sacrament, or that the contract is null if there is no sacrament.

64 Matrimonial and espousal cases belong by their very nature to the civil court.

65 Whether the secular power can be reconciled with the spiritual is disputed in Christian and Catholic circles.

66 The destruction of the temporal power that the Apostolic See holds would greatly promote the freedom of the Church.

67 In our age it is no longer expedient to have the Catholic faith as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all others. Hence it is rightly provided by law in certain nominally Catholic countries that men who migrate to them shall be allowed the public practice of the religion of each. For it is false to say that the civil liberty of all cults and the concession of full power to men to discuss in public any sort of opinion and ideas leads to the corruption of the minds and morals of the people and the spread of the pest of indifferentism.

68 The Roman Pontiff can and ought to be reconciled and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.
______________________________________________________

To these theologians add 11 theses which are, they say, condemned in the Bull itself:

1 That the highest public interest and the progress of society emphatically demand that human society be constituted and governed without any regard for religion, as if there were no such thing, or at all events without making any distinction between true and false religions.

2 That the best form of society is that in which the government does not recognize any duty to punish offenders against the Catholic religion except in so far as public order requires this.

3 That freedom of conscience and religion are the right of every man, and it ought to be decreed by law in every properly- constituted society that all citizens have the right to all freedom without the coercion of either civil or ecclesiastical authority, so that they may publicly declare their opinions either vocally or in print or in any other way.

4 That the will of the people, made known either by public opinion or in any other way, is the supreme law apart from any divine or human right, and that in the political order accomplished facts have, by the very fact that they are accomplished, the force of law.

5 That monistic orders have no legitimate reason to exist.

6 That the law which forbids manual labor on certain days in order that people may go to church should be abolished.

7 That domestic society or the family derives the whole reason for its existence from civil law, hence all rights of parents in their children, especially the right of seeing to their education, depend upon civil law.

8 That the clergy, being hostile to true and useful science and the advance of civilization, must be excluded from all share in the training and education of the young.

9 That the laws of the Church are not binding in conscience unless they are issued by the civil power; that the acts and decrees of the Roman Pontiffs concerning religion and the Church need the sanction and approval or at least the consent of the civil power; that the Apostolic Constitutions which condemn secret societies, whether or no they require an oath of secrecy, and punish their members and promoters with anathema have no force in those parts of the world where such societies are allowed by the civil government; that the excommunication passed by the Council of Trent and the Roman Pontiff against those who invade or seize the property of the Church is based upon a confusion of the spiritual and the civic or political order and the protection of worldly goods; that the Church must not pass any decree that may coerce the consciences of the faithful in questions of the use of secular property: that the Church has no right to punish transgressors of its laws with material penalties; that it is in harmony with the principles of sacred theology and public law for the civil authority to take over the ownership of property taken from the Church.

10 That the ecclesiastical authority is not distinct from and independent of the civil authority by divine right, and such distinction and independence could not be maintained without the Church invading and usurping essential right of the civil power.

11 It is lawful to refuse to obey those judgments and decrees of the Apostolic See the object of which is said to be the general good of the Church and its rights and discipline, provided they do not deal with matters of faith and morals, without simony or abandoning the Catholic religion.
______________________________________________________

The American Catholic has no opportunity of reading this extraordinary document for himself. No translation of the Syllabus or the Papal Encyclical that accompanied it is available to him. He has to take the word of his priests and clerical writers, who almost alone knew Latin, and it is doubtful if even one in a thousand of them has ever read even the Syllabus itself. Today, no doubt, the priest refers the inquirer to their precious Catholic Encyclopedia, in which there is a long article by the Rev. Professor Ott, an American priest-teacher in an American Catholic College.

And here is what the gentleman teaches American Catholics about this medieval collection of claims and its muddle-headed author, in the article "Pius IX": "It is astounding how fearlessly he fought against the false liberalism that threatened to destroy the very essence of faith and religion. Though ugly misunderstandings and malice combined in representing the Syllabus as a veritable embodiment of religious narrow-mindedness and cringing servility to papal authority, it has done inestimable service to the Church and to society at large by unmasking the false liberalism that had begun to insinuate its subtle poison into the very marrow of Catholics."

This is one of those calculated misrepresentations of which, numerous as they are in his Encyclopedia, any honest Catholic ought to be ashamed, yet in the midst of his falsifications this American priest complains of "misrepresentation and malice." Turn back to clause 80 of the Syllabus. Some Catholic writer who claims, as a few did in the stormy years, that the Vatican ought to come to terms with "progress, liberalism and modern civilization" is denounced. The Pope knows nothing whatever about a distinction between true and false liberalism. All his life - and Pius IX showered documents upon the world after 1850 - he made no distinction whatever between shades of liberalism. Liberalism pure and simple was a child of the Reformation, which was spawn of the devil.

As to the monstrous claims of this Catholic professor of our time that the opinions which the Pope condemned were a danger to "society at large," what Catholic, not having any chance to see a translation of the Syllabus, would dream after such language that all the liberal principles on the social side which are "reprobated" by the stupid Pope are now incorporated in the life and constitution of every leading civilization, and that those countries which have not yet fully accepted them - Spain, Portugal, Eire, etc. - lag in the rear of advancing "Society at large."

Note that I do not say that all the clauses, but the great majority of them, are now accepted throughout the really civilized part of the world, and in America even the Catholic clergy profess to accept them. Apart from these there are clauses which reject Atheism or Materialism and claims that have meaning only in Catholic countries of the old type and are unintelligible to ordinary mortals, such as the medieval church - claim that Catholic priests must not be put on trial except in clerical courts.

Now, we do not grudge the Pope his belly-rumbling at the growth of Atheism and Materialism. We are not clear whether he found them spreading in his own flock, in which alone he has the right to brandish his shepherd's crook, or whether he imagined that Atheists and Materialists outside his church would grow pale at the sound of his anathemas. As a matter of fact there were still in 1864 comparatively few Atheists and Materialists. Few revolutionary leaders had the courage, as Garibaldi had, to avow himself an Atheist and thumb his nose at what he called "the Sacred Shop."

Still less had the courage and knowledge to insist, as Marx did, that the new civilization must be materialistic to its foundations. One suspects that the Pope dragged these into his list of errors in part to freeze the blood of Catholic women and peasants and excuse the reckless violence with which, in the Encyclical that introduced the Syllabus, he shrieked about "poisonous" opinions that led to general debauchery we shall see presently, that there was at the time as much of these colorful practices in Rome as anywhere in Europe - and the collapse of civilization.

With our customary liberality we Atheists and Materialists do not grudge the Pope his anger against these developments, and the modern apologist can say little about them except to the more ignorant Catholics because the immense growth of these fundamental heresies has coincided with the most rapid progress that civilization ever made, while the Catholic countries that hinder this growth by still torturing heretics remain on the lowest level of modern civilization. We can afford to smile at these contortions and distortions.

Are we expected to take courteous and serious notice where the head of the biggest church represents Freethinkers as saying that "truth is the same thing as falseness," "justice is the same thing as injustice," and "duty is an empty phrase." Even popes must learn that this is not the Dark Age; that now even peasants can read. But the great majority of the condemned opinions have a far more real interest for us and had already been embodied in the American Constitution.

First, however, the reader will find it useful to have the Pope's fit of holy temper set in its actual historical frame.

POPE NERO FIDDLING WHILE ROME BURNS

In one of my earlier works, "The Epic of Universal History," I point out that a good deal of history-writing by American professors in the last 20 years has shared, in less degree, the viciousness which the Encyclopedia Britannica displayed since, in the last edition, it submitted to American Catholic influence. Taking one of (in most respects) the best of these large and finely illustrated histories of the world or of Europe which have appeared in our time, Professor Lucas' "Short History of Civilization" (1943), I find that, immense as the work is, it crushes into a page or two, and by its omissions totally misrepresents, the most momentous century in history, the period from about 1770 to 1870.

From the social angle this century is of supreme importance because, in the first place, it witnessed the colossal struggles which, outside the United States, gave birth to the freedom and democracy about which we talk so much, and, in the second place, it puts in the clearest light the true relation of the Roman Church to these ideals and to the advance of civilization. If American youths and girls are taught modern history as it is expounded by our professors in these sumptuous popular manuals we cannot wonder that Americans can be duped by such blatant and stupid falsehoods as that the fathers of the Revolution learned democracy from Jesuit theologians of the 16th century.

Very rightly, we have in the year 1949 celebrated centenaries of Goethe and Chopin, but I saw only a puzzled expression on the faces of my audience when, lecturing in London, I suggested that there ought also to be some recognition of the memory of the 100,000 men and women, martyrs of democracy, who were tortured, ruined, or executed in the year 1849. In Britain, as in America, if a little less extensively, Roman Catholic influence, which is out of all proportion to the number of the faithful, has led to the prostitution of historical education on most vital points.

I have explained elsewhere that in the course of the 19th century about 400,000 unarmed men, women and children perished, usually in agony, on scaffolds, in fetid jails, in savage penal colonies, or in massacres for maintaining the right to freedom and democracy; that nearly the whole of these were done to death in Catholic countries, where the church not only supported but spurred on the feudal monarchs, some of whom were as vile as the worst Roman emperors; and that the popes, who were until 1870 the Kings of Central Italy, were almost as bad as the Kings of Naples, Spain, and Portugal.

It is against that lurid background, of which no trace is given in these American histories, that we must read the Syllabus if we want to get the full meaning and irony of it. Here I will confine myself mainly to Italy. The armies of the French Revolution had spread over Italy and in great measure reformed its gross medieval condition and inspired the establishment of several republics. When it became necessary to withdraw the troops from southern Italy clerical-royalist reaction had opened in its most brutal form, but Napoleon had clung to Northern and Central Italy and until he was beaten at Waterloo the popes and the reactionary forces were checked. Then, as is generally known, the Pope recovered what he called his "temporal dominion," the Kingdom of Central Italy, and the leading powers - Russia, Prussia, Austria and (for a time) England - formed a Holy Alliance to "stamp out the last sparks of revolution."

It is ironic to reflect today that in 1816 that meant to bludgeon and bleed the peoples of Europe until they surrendered the last hope of this foolish and impious dream, as they called it, of having freedom and democracy. North Italy belonged to Austria; Central Italy to the papacy; Southern Italy to the King of Naples (or of the Two Sicilies). Even Austria in those pious days allowed its fine character to be disgraced by the cruel treatment of rebels, but it was in the Center and South (and in Spain and Portugal) that the most sordid massacres and the foulest jails were found. This lower two-thirds of Italy may be regarded as a unity from the social angle, as it was a continuous territory and the king of Naples were completely docile to the papacy. "The nearer to Rome, the worse the morals," was a common saying in those days.

The Austrian emperors ruled Northern Italy from Vienna and showed a considerable degree of independence of the papacy, and their rule was the least corrupt and oppressive in Italy. The King and court of Naples in the first half of the century were gross in conduct and as foul as the worst monarchs of the Middle Ages in the oppression of the people and the punishment of these who demanded some measure of democracy. A Catholic general in the royal service, Colletta, a writer whose conscientiousness has been fully vindicated by the distinguished Italian scholar, Professor Croce, tells us that under the vile King Ferdinand (1790-1825) "100,000 Neapolitans perished by every kind of death in the cause of political freedom," a large part of these dying a slow and horrible death in dungeons of an incredible character.

His son, Francis I, was just as vile in personal conduct ("A vulgar cruel profligate who left the Government to his favorites and lived with his mistresses," says Prof. Bolton King), and the continuer of Colletta's contemporary history tells us that in the next 30 years (1825-1855) 150,000 were added to the list of democratic martyrs. As the population of the Kingdom was not more than 2,000,000 one can easily understand that this awful drain of the best blood of the country, chiefly the educated Liberals, caused that decay from which Southern Italy has not yet fully recovered.

This ghastly and murderous misgovernment was maintained under the very eyes of the popes for more than 60 years. It was at its worst when Pius IX issued his fatuous warning to the world that Liberal sentiments were corrupting civilization and laid down that in no circumstances were men entitled to rebel against their "legitimate" king. The church was so intimately on the side of the monarch that twice, after risings of the people, the king was surrounded by the bishops at the altar when be swore - even calling upon God to strike him dead if he did not keep his word - to grant freedom and democracy, and they still fully supported the royal perjurer when he disowned his oath and committed his murders and massacres.

So callous was the court that the lazzaroni of Naples, the human vermin of Neapolitan society, roasted and ate, under the palace windows, the bodies of Liberals they had killed, and brigand-chiefs drank their blood from their skulls. And all that the world's moral oracle could find to say was that these damnable Atheists and Liberals threatened the fair flower of Roman and Neapolitan civilization. These things are suppressed by historians today and the public mind is left open to Catholic lies. When, some years ago I wrote a book ("The Price of Democracy") on these real events of the last century no publisher in London would accept it. It might hurt the feelings of our Catholic fellow- citizens.

The condition of the Pope's Kingdom, the Papal States, was just as foul, though the number of the victims was less. The Catholic legend here is that there was a Catholic as well as a Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and in the course of this the gross corruption which "the evil taint of the Renaissance" had brought into the papal court and kingdom was abolished and the people lived happily ever afterwards, as they always do in fairy- tales. It is, as usual, a lie. Napoleon destroyed the papal rule, but at his fall the Holy Alliance restored it. At once it was discovered to be one of the most corrupt little Kingdoms in Europe.

I have in earlier works pointed out that in the standard historical work on 19th century Europe, Volume XI of the Cambridge Modern History - Catholics were so successful in revising the Encyclopedia Britannica that they have even got this too truthful volume withdrawn for "revision" - the Catholic historian Lady Blennerhasset quotes with approval the statement of the distinguished French priest Lamennais that Rome, which he visited in the thirties, was "the foulest sewer ever opened up to the eye of man"; and Lamennais was so able and zealous a priest that the Vatican had thought of making him a cardinal. The British ambassador Lord Clarendon said that it was "the shame of Europe."

In 1831 the powers of the Holy Alliance, Russia, Prussia, Austria, France and England sent a stern letter, which was published, to the Pope, telling him that his Kingdom, with its clerical government and administration, was so foul that it bred revolution. All the authorities - contemporary Italian Catholic historians like Dr. Azeglio, Farini, and Cantu, and modern experts like Lord Acton (the leading Catholic historian in Europe), Bishop Nielsen, King, Okey, Orsi, etc. - tell the same story. Such was the savagery with which the popes repressed liberalism that lord Acton angrily remarks that they were worse than the Old Man of the Mountains, hitherto the worst organizer of murder in history.

This foul administration was conducted, not by Atheists and Liberals who were poisoning civilization, but by sleek and corrupt clerics. The public debt grew year by year, and famine and cholera swept the country. Brigandage was so rife that when a foreign prelate visited Italy 9,000 papal soldiers had to protect his route. The general poverty was appalling, for there was little trade and less industry. There was no system of education, and schools were so few that illiteracy was 85 percent. Vice was as bad as in any country. The administration of justice was corrupt, violence appalling, priests with crucifixes presided at the drawing of prizes for the public lotteries, and so on.

All this is - or was - in the Cambridge Modern History. There was, except under the Turks, not a less civilized state in Europe. And American priest- professors now say that in protecting this system from "false liberalism" the popes rendered inestimable service to society at large, and professors in our universities suppress the whole of the facts in teaching the public history.

What sort of men were these popes who were trying so hard to save civilization? In 1823, when the Pope of Napoleon's days cried, the quarrels and greed of the cardinals and of the Catholic powers led to the election of Leo XII, an old man who preferred shooting birds to attending to ecclesiastical business. He left this to his Secretary of State, Cardinal Consalvi, who refused to be ordained priest so that he could indulge in luxuries with more comfort.

Leo died in six years, to "the indecent joy of Rome," says Baron Bunsen, then Prussian ambassador in the "Holy City," and, as the cardinals still fought, they put in Pius VIII, a wreck of a man, in senile decay, who shuffled about the palace for less than two years slobbering, his head twisted permanently to one side by incipient paralysis. The "princes of the church" (cardinals) who were helping the Pope to save civilization, deliberately chose these wrecks when the voting was equal so that there would be another election as soon as possible. They were, in fact, on the whole a set of doddering old fools with just enough vitality to secure the money that their wines and other luxuries required.

The zealous contemporary French Catholic Chateaubriand, one of the chief literary glories of the French church, was in Rome when Pius VIII ceased his dribbling, and he describes with disgust how the Catholic powers bribed the cardinal electors and intrigued for their own candidates. But the aged Cardinal Albani, who had carried the election of Pius VIII and been rewarded with the post of Secretary of State, used Austrian funds and so blocked the various candidates that they had to elect another old man, Gregory XVI. It was a scandalous choice, for Gregory was notoriously a vulgar glutton, of disputed morals, a heavy wine bibber, fond of erotic novels and of salacious gossip. Bolton King, one of the more moderate writers on the period, says that "he absorbed himself in ignoble pursuits while the country groaned under misrule." Professor Orsi, who testifies to his gluttony and excessive love of wine, says that "the abomination of misrule became blacker than ever."

It was the year 1831, just a year after the Second French Revolution and risings in Spain and Naples. The whole of South or Catholic Europe seethed with revolt. And your Catholic neighbor, duped by his literature and surrendered to the dupers by professors who write the history of Europe for him, imagines that at these elections (three in eight years) the pious cardinals prayed and fasted in their sealed chamber until the light of the Holy Ghost descended and guided them to elect the man best fitted to steer the Church in such turbulent waters.

This clergy will assure him (1) that these three popes of the revolutionary period were holy and vigorous men, and (2) that if it is true that they were completely worthless, this did not matter much as they all left the rule of the church to the Cardinal Secretary of State. This draws our attention to an even more scandalous aspect of the period. Three able cardinals in succession did rule the church in this capacity from the fall of Napoleon to the issue of the Syllabus in 1864: Consalvi, Albani and Antonelli.

Of Consalvi the Catholic Encyclopedia says that he was "one of the purest glories of the Church of Rome" and that "the purity of his life was the more admired because in his position he had to mingle much with a worldly society." No one knows whether his earlier life was ascetic. He was an Italian aristocrat who refused to let his hands (or other organs) be bound up by taking the vows of a priest, and who was a welcome figure in Parisian and Roman society. "I like pleasure as much as any man" he told Tallyrand. Other contemporaries said that he was skeptical and amorous, like the circles in which he moved.

The Catholic Lady Blennerhassett leniently credits him with "an easy-going, somewhat worldly life." But the murderous suppression of liberalism did not begin under Consalvi but under Cardinal Albani. About this gentleman the Encyclopedia prefers to say nothing. He also declined to take the vows of priesthood and he was, in Rome, notoriously skeptical and immoral. He was 80 years old when in 1821 he got Gregory elected, yet he was at the opera every night of the season (to see and hear Malibran) that year.

He did not, however, live long to enjoy his new position, and it was the third of this remarkable trio, Cardinal Antonelli, who presided over the direst butchery of the middle class and the nobles of Italy and introduced the Syllabus to the world in a message of touching piety and zeal for civilization. He was by far the worst of the three. Before the fumigation of it, in the Catholic sanctuary, the Encyclopedia Britannica said that he "displayed consummate duplicity" and spoke of his "unscrupulous, grasping, and sinister personality."

In the last edition - for one more enlightened generation - these words have, of course, been cut out. The French Grande Encyclopedia, written nearer the time of his death and in its day the greatest work of reference in Europe, says that "he left an immense fortune but nothing to the distressed church, and the claims of the Countess Lambertini, his bastard daughter, bore witness to the corruption of his morals." The Catholic Encyclopedia softens the final exposure of him by saying that he was born of rich parents. He was, in fact, the son of a poor peasant and he left a fortune of $20,000,000 to his relatives, the bastard countess claiming her share openly on the ground of paternity. He left little to the Church, whose finances he had left in a chaotic condition and deeply in debt, and "only a trifling souvenir to the Pope.

How many Italian liberals were sacrificed under these disgusting popes and Secretaries of State, in addition to their responsibility for the Neapolitan butcheries, it is not possible to say, but from a book published in London in 1856 by one of their victims, Luigi Orsini, we get a grim idea. He called it "The Austrian Dungeons in Italy," but it includes his experience in Papal dungeons. He knew both well. His autographed photograph hangs on the wall of my study, signed by him just before he left London to try to assassinate Napoleon III for supporting papal corruption.

His first prison was a stifling hole measuring 6 feet by 4 feet and containing only a sack of straw. Taken to Rome he was put in the Pope's "New Prison" with nine youths of 17 to 19, all "looking more like corpses than human beings." They could hardly turn round standing up. Their food was "water-soup" and a little bread; their straw sacks were alive with vermin. From there he was taken with 120 others "chained two, and two" to the fortress of Castellana. This had at one time been a villa in which Pope Alexander VI, of fragrant memory, had spent weekends in the summer with his mistresses and the choicer Roman courtesans; and the Pope's bedroom was piously preserved, says Orsini, and had "the most hideous and obscene pictures" (or frescoes) on the walls. The place, in a heavy malaria swamp, was now "thick with damp and fungus."

The unvarying diet of the prisoners was slices of bread in warm water flavored with tallow. Half the prisoners had already been in prison 15 to 20 years. Orsini and the younger man were sentenced to the galleys, and after a time they were taken in chains to the fortress at Civita Vacchia. Dressed as galley-slaves, crowded 50 or 60 in one dungeon, they were chained to the wall with a two foot long chain which was "never unfastened" (even for sanitary purposes). Most of them died slowly of disease or starvation. "This," says Orsini, "is the treatment to which the Most Holy and Merciful Father of the faithful condemns those who labor to drive out the foreign oppressor from their native land."

There were about 10,000 of these Political prisoners (though the total Population of the Papal States was only about 3,000,000.) in his foul and murderous jails when Pope Pius IX penned the encyclical and Syllabus in which he affected to save civilization and his friend Antonelli sent it out over the world. One does not know whether to be more disgusted with the, priests who perpetrated these horrors to protect their power or the priests and professors who today suppress the facts and lie about the general conditions.

But in the middle of this unholy period (1830-60), which the popes were so eager to prolong, occurred the great revolution of 1848 and the consecration of Pope Pius IX, and it is necessary to consider the relation of these events. In the Encyclopedia Americana there is a 20-column article on "The 19th Century." It devotes just six lines to the prodigious revolutionary wave which in 1848 swept seven kings from their thrones and the counter-revolutions of 1849, which led to an intensification of the butchery of democrats. The editors of the Encyclopedia must have known what to expect when they entrusted the writing of this article to Dr. J. Walsh, the zealous Catholic propagandist and anything but an historian.

Here I must be curt. In 1830 the French carried their Second Revolution, and by that year the Latin-American colonies and the Greeks had won independence; and there were revolts in many parts of Europe. These events raised the hopes of all liberals and, in spite of the fierce prosecution I have described, the Italian demand for freedom and democracy spread to the bulk of the middle class and to large bodies of the workers. In 1846 the miserable Pope Gregory died and, after the usual indecent struggle for the tiara, Pius IX was elected.

A provincial bishop, he had come to Rome with the reputation of a man who deplored the bloodshed and was in favor of making concessions. I confess that with all my experience in writing biography I do not understand his true character at that time. He had been sickly and epileptic as a youth, and anti-clerical fellow- pupils later insisted that he had taken a passive part in adolescent perversions. His British biographer, T.A. Trollope, was convinced by the evidence that he was "the biggest liar in the school."

In my "History of Freemasonry" I tell how, as a 46-year- old priest, he became a Mason - a charge repudiated with rage by Catholics but fully proved by the Masonic historian, my friend Dudley Wright - and as Bishop of Imola he was certainly on good terms with the liberals. The powers therefore favored his election; the liberals hailed it with enthusiasm. Under pressure from them he granted an amnesty, but he did nothing further until the revolution broke in 1848. In January of that year the peasants of Sicily, led by professional men, drove out the royal armies and proclaimed a republic, and the revolt spread to Naples.

In February was the Third French Revolution, and the flames spread to Germany, Austria-Hungary, and North Italy. The Papal States were surrounded by triumphant democracies, and Pius began to make concessions to the liberals of Rome, though the wily and unscrupulous Antonelli robbed those of real value. But in June Pius heard that the reactionaries had smashed the revolutionaries in Paris, and then that Austria was negotiating for a big Russian army. From that time the wretched Pope disowned all trace of democratic sentiment, if he had ever genuinely entertained it (as he certainly professed).

Mazzini, Garibaldi, and other republicans came to Rome, and Pius, alarmed at the revolt of, apparently, the whole people of Rome, signed a grant of a Constitution and then, as I said in the first chapter, fled, disguised as a footman, to the protection of the infamous King of Naples, to await the deliverance promised by Louis Napoleon and the Austro-Russian forces. Seventy years ago, a pious school (and altar) boy of 12 years, I devoutly kissed the skull-cap of Pius IX, for the church had declared him a quarter-saint (a "Venerable") and Rome had sent these relics (probably bogus, as was usual) over the world to collect funds. Today I execrate his blood-soaked memory and salute the bearded portrait of Orsini, the man who tried to assassinate Napoleon III for putting him back in the Chair of Peter.

Rome fell to the troops of the vile French adventurer, who based his power upon such a combination of the skeptical but bitterly anti-Socialist middle class and the clergy as there is today. But the Pope remained in the mountains until the last democrat was dead or cleared out of Rome. He promised an amnesty, but, with exceptions which, the Cambridge History, tells us, left 7,256 democrats outside the range of the amnesty. There were 90 executed in Rome. At Bologna "more than once 10 to 20 of the noblest citizens were shot in one day" (Orsini.), 10 in one day at Imola (Pius' former Bishopric), 15 at Ancona, 30 at Forli, and so on. There had been 2,000 political prisoners in the jails when Gregory died and Pius announced an amnesty. There were now 8,000. Torture was reintroduced. The Catholic mobs were armed and committed "atrocious acts of revenge" (Firini).

The historical law held good; there had been no reprisals after the popular revolution but the land groaned with torture after the clerical royalist counter-revolution. And it was in this atmosphere of holiness that the Pope marshaled his sacred legions for a solemn occasion and declared that the Virgin Mary had been born without the stain of Original Sin (the Immaculate Conception). This incidental development gives you the measure of the Pope's intelligence and "statesmanship."

It was in 1854 that he declared this a dogma of the church and urged Catholics everywhere to bow down to statues of "Mary Immaculate" (in flowing blue and white robes) and wear medals with the same familiar figure. Priests in every town and village of Europe gave rousing sermons on the Immaculate Conception. Every peasant child treasured and wore a brass or tin medal. And, naturally, a half-witted child in a village on the slopes of the Pyrenees came home one day in 1854 and told her parents that a mysterious but glorious lady in the familiar robes had appeared to her, not in the correct French that is usually quoted but in the half-Spanish patois of the village, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Pius swallowed the story and helped to impose the fraud upon the church, to the gorgeous profit of the store-keepers of Lourdes and the French church. He even blessed the enterprise of another village which tried to grow into a town by having a rival apparition.

At this time at least 50,000 men and women lay festering in the jails of Italy from the Alps to Sicily, and there were further tens of thousands in the jails of Hungary, and France. Such was the indignation of Europe that when British sympathizers with Garibaldi in 1869 organized a legion of volunteers in London to go out and help him to clean up Italy the British Premier, Lord Palmerston, said in the House of Commons when he was pressed to intervene: "I see no objection to a party of English gentlemen going to Italy to see the eruption of Mount Etna." Palmerston must have known, as the whole Navy did, that a British fleet was then cruising in Italian waters, and the commanders daily gave permission to batches of sailors and officers to have a day ashore and to take their cutlasses and pistols with them. Somehow they always had to use them.

The King of Piedmont had bribed the French to withdraw with a concession of what is known as the Riviera (Nice, Monte Carlo, etc.) and was unifying Italy under his crown, Garibaldi and his "Thousand" playing a glorious part in the campaign. It ended with the occupation of the Papal States and in 1870, of Rome itself. He offered the Vatican a generous annual allowance in compensation but it was indignantly refused. It was more profitable to denounce the Italians as "robbers" and describe the Pope as "the Prisoner of the Vatican" in Catholic lands. It was the accumulated allowance and compound interest on this that was hypocritically accepted by the papacy in 1929 as the price of the Pope's blessing on Fascism.

In fact the Papacy had no right whatever to compensation. It had got the territory originally by the gross fraud of the Donation of Constantine: it had soaked the soil of Central Italy with blood to hold it from 800 to 1870; and, above all, the inhabitants had voted overwhelmingly for incorporation in the kingdom of Italy and rejection of the papal yoke. The Piedmontese had taken an honest plebiscite in every province and in Rome. In the Roman province 232,856 votes for Victor Emmanual and only 1,590 for the Pope. In the Pope's own city 40,785 voted against him and only 46 for him. If ever you see these important facts mentioned today you probably find the Catholic tag attached that the result means nothing because the Pope forbade Catholics to vote. As a matter of fact 40,000 voters meant four-fifths of the total adult male population of Rome. Women had no vote in those days and the other fifth were clerics, papal officials, and clerical servants and merchants.

THE CONTEMPTUOUS DEFIANCE OF AMERICA

We now see the full enormity of the claim of the Catholic Encyclopedia that our modern scorn of the Syllabus is based upon "misunderstandings and malice" and that it really rendered "inestimable service to ... society at large." It is the customary trick. Catholic apologists who expect their works to be read by educated non-Catholics usually treat the Syllabus cavalierly. It does not claim infallibility, they say, and its condemnations and reprobations do not bind the modern Catholics. It just expresses the personal opinions of a worthy and remarkable pontiff "who, dazed by the new thought that was coming into Europe, did not discriminate sufficiently between its extreme forms (Atheism, etc.) and its social liberalism, and really felt that it was a danger to the moral principles on which civilization is built."

The Catholic Encyclopedia, which professes to the general public that it is the cream of up-to-date Catholic scholarship but is really the arsenal from which preachers and popular propagandists derive their ammunition, will have none of these glosses. Pius was the St. George, the grandest figure of those hectic years in the middle of the last century. "Civilization was threatened by the new thought and its more impulsive and more unscrupulous champions, and, as usual, the wise and inspired head of the church, sitting on the Olympus of the "See of Peter," screened from the passions of men by his holy environment, serenely pointed out to the world the dangers of its false liberalism."

It is time that American historians and sociologists resented the imposition of this mendacious junk upon millions of citizens instead of indirectly encouraging it by suppressing the facts. The "fearlessness" of Pius in issuing, between 1850 and 1863, the thunderbolts which are gathered together in the Syllabus is grotesque. The priest-writer who claims it must have known perfectly well, as every freshman in history knows, that during that period the Pope and the papal system were protected by the hundred thousand bayonets of the Russians, Austrians, and French besides the Swiss hirelings of the Vatican itself.

The writers whom the Pope criticized were not only beyond his power but laughed at him instead of threatening him. He was to a great extent condemning the leaders of the new Latin-American Republic, who had scornfully rejected the dictation of the church as well as the rule of the Kings of Spain and Portugal. The references appended to the Syllabus show this.

In the second place the Pope was condemning certain liberal Catholic, or what was later called Modernist, writers of France, Germany and Italy. These, from 1849 onward, were bullied into silence, and it required no more courage to dance on them than it does in jackals threatening a dead lion. The men who were really dangerous from the Vatican angle were dying in the putrid jails I described, or were scattered from Constantinople to Philadelphia.

Fearless! One is inclined to think that this pious Washington Catholic professor is writing just for agitated Catholic spinsters (with money) or children, but I suppose that even the recent converts of whom the church boasts have to swallow this stuff. But the worst of it is the pretense that the Pope had any right to speak in the name of civilization.

Thirty years earlier the five leading powers of Europe had, in a most humiliating letter, ordered the Pope to bring his dominion up to the level of civilization. I described their condition. After 1849 they fell back into that condition and were as foul as ever. There was not a more ignorant, more criminal more ineptly and corruptly administrated area in Europe. It rang with scorn of the Syllabus.

There are several columns of caustic works on the Syllabus, in a dozen languages, in the index of the British National Library. There was only one other kingdom in Europe at that time which was as low as that of the Pope. This was the Kingdom of Naples, and it was just as much subject to the Pope's moral rule as the papal Kingdom itself.

Next to them at the bottom of the scale of civilization was Spain, and to its queen Isabella II, Pius IX had recently presented the Golden Rose, Rome's annual tribute to a womanly model of virtue and piety. It is not disputed that Isabella was the most openly and indiscriminately immoral princess in Europe!

With particular scorn Europe noted that the Pope's encyclical 'Quanta cura,' in which Pius mourned the growing debauchery and the threat to civilization, and the accompanying Syllabus were sent out by Cardinal Antonelli as Secretary of State. He wrote his message in the same virtuous ink as the Pope. Through the ambassadors every country knew the details of Antonelli's amorous adventures, and some of them knew that he was taking colossal bribes from them for being allowed to influence the Vatican policy.

We need not express disgust at the hypocrisy of Europe. It, and America, are just as hypocritical today, the only difference being that in our days the hypocrisy is in the name of freedom and democracy and in those days it was in the sacred cause of suppressing freedom and democracy. I am not clear which is the more laudable. But the liberating armies were well on the march in 1854. I would not claim the same virtue of Crusaders for the armies of Victor Emmanuel, who by the unification of Italy doubled or trebled his wealth and power, as for Garibaldi and his volunteers, but at least they were bringing civilization to Central and Southern Italy while the Pope shrieked anathemas at them one day and talked about the threat to civilization the next day.

Under various headings (Illiteracy, Education, Crime, Wealth, etc.)' Mulhall's Standard Dictionary of Statistics shows the advance after 1870, when the papal rule that had blighted Italy for so many centuries was brought to an end. Dean Milman says of the temporal power in his classic "History of Latin Christianity: "Rome, jealous of all temporal sovereignty but its own, yielded up, or rather made Italy a battlefield of the Transalpine and the stranger and at the same time so secularized her own spiritual supremacy as to confound altogether the priest and the politician, to degrade absolutely, almost irrevocably, the Kingdom of Christ into a Kingdom of this world."

And Georgorovious, the highest authority on the history of the city of Rome, says: "The whole history of the human race affords no example of a struggle of such long duration, or one so unchanged in motive, as the struggle of the Romans and Italians against the Temporal Power of the Popes, whose Kingdom ought not to have been of this world."

Like the greediest prince in Europe the Pope had fought for his wealth and power, and his modern lackeys, who argue solemnly that a great moral power ought to be independent of secular powers by having its own territory, conceal from their readers that for centuries before 1870 these secular powers had corruptly intervened in papal elections and the papacy was never so free as from 1870 to 1929, when it had not an acre of territory.

As I said, the men of the Papal States now completed the work which their ancestors had begun 800 years before by voting the Pope out of power. The sequel was amusing. Pius summoned all the bishops of the world to the Vatican Council and they declared that the popes are infallible! We may say to the credit of the bishops that there was a formidable resistance. Clerics who knew some of these bishops told me 60 years ago that violent language was used. But the opponents were bribed, intimidated or driven out, and the dogma was carried; and from that day to this no Pope has said a word to his church for which he claims to be using his prerogative of infallibility.

The odor of the chief aim of the Syllabus, the determination to protect the Papal States as the basis of the wealth and power of the popes, is smelt in almost every clause of it. Again, though the world of the Syllabus seems remote, we perceive a parallel with our own time. Just as in our own day the Vatican, finding that Communism threatens the wealth and power of the church, implores the secular states to suppress it by armed force on the ground that it is dangerous to their civic ideals, so in the 60's of the last century Pope Pius asked the powers to crush Liberalism, the parent- devil whose spawn was Atheism, Communism, Socialism, Amoralism, Anarchy, on the ground that it threatened their civilization.

For the sake of effect he began by denouncing Atheists and Deists. Something like Pantheism had appeared in the works of a few Catholic writers but, naturally, none sanctioned Atheism, Deism, or Materialism, and the Pope knew well that he was wasting his breath when he talked about these. But this quickly led him into much broader conflicts with the modern spirit. He sourly attacked that cultivation of reason which, by creating science, enriched the modern world and enabled it to carry out its great new ideals (general education, social welfare, etc.) and on the other hand rid civilization of the blunders that had hindered progress throughout history.

We do not grudge the Pope the holy indignation with which he denounced Atheism, Deism and Materialism. That was a futile, but legitimate, exercise of his profession. But he was so stupid in his attacks on the use of reason that he is almost a heretic in Catholic doctrine. The Catholic scheme is that "Reason precedes Faith." The existence of God and the immortality of the soul, it admits, can be proved by the use of reason alone. Even the divinity of Christ and his establishment of the church must be proved by argument and historical documents (the gospel). Only then, when you have rationally proved that the church is of supernatural origin, can faith (an acceptance of statements on authority) begin.

I doubt if Pius IX was sufficiently clearheaded to recognize that this position was inevitable if the church wanted to win education adherents. And when he goes on to say that modern philosophy, which does not concern itself about either God or immortality, must not be studied without "any regard for supernatural revelation," that philosophy must "submit to authority," etc., he betrays a weird ignorance of the nature of philosophy; while when he suggests that Atheists or Materialists do not distinguish between right and wrong, truth and untruth, he shows he is as ignorant of Freethought literature as any common village preacher. Evidently he had never heard of Emerson and his colleagues in America.

With these blundering crudities we are not concerned here; and we are, not much alarmed by the clauses that follow, which purport to tell us the only conditions on which we can earn that eternal bliss which we all so ardently desire. Yet clauses 15 to 18 seem to be interesting in view of the statements of American Catholics. They give Protestant neighbors the comfortable assurance that unless we know that the Catholic is the true church and still refuse to join it we'll all meet in the Happy Hunting Ground. The psychology of this puzzles us. The theory supposes that there are folk who really believe that churchgoing is rewarded with eternal happiness and neglect of church going is punished with horrible suffering for all eternity yet - for trivial reasons or none - they won't go to church! We leave it to the psychiatrist.

But when the Catholic tells you that a man may (if not must) follow the religion which he believes to be true; that if he honestly thinks the Protestant faith the true religion God will not - or we reasonably hope that he will not - send him to hell, that Protestantism is after all a respectable branch of the Christian religion, tell him that his sentiments do credit to his American education but these are just some of the opinions (clauses 15 to 18) which Pope Pius IX commanded Catholics to reject and condemn. Of course, if he cares to retort that Pope Pius IX was just an old fool who did not know the theology of his own church you're stumped.

Of the remaining three-fourths of damnable and duly damned opinions a large number refer to the authority of the Papacy. Rip Van Winkle Pius saw the world still in a medieval dress with a lot of demonic folk going about trying to tear it off and substitute shorts and bare legs. At the head of states he sees feudal rulers, happily restored by the bayonets of the Russian serfs, who are fully justified in exploiting and torturing their people but are always forgetting that the Pope is their master.

They claim Powers which in the dog-Latin of medieval theology are called Exequatur, etc. They want to choose their own bishops and depose them when they are disloyal to their country in the interest of the Vatican. They drag sacred persons (priests) who are suspected of rape, mayhem, or fraud into profane courts of law as if they were ordinary citizens. They claim that they can stop the priests from reading a papal letter from the pulpit if they do not think it in the national interest, and that they may, if they think fit, prevent bishops from going to Rome (with their pockets and luggage full of gold).

They sometimes have the odd idea that since monks take a vow of poverty, individually as well as collectively, they may relieve these monks of the vast property - in some countries half the cultivated land of the country - they hold and thus enable them to observe their vow. And so on.

Such ideas, of course, tend to destroy civilization - and to reduce the Vatican's bank- balance - so the Pope thunders against them in clause after clause. But as it only applies today to low-grade, unconsecrated, and unimportant rulers of state like Franco, de Valera, and Eva Peron we pass on.

What is really of interest is the drastic, uncompromising, contemptuous challenge to fundamental principles of American life. At that time (1864) America was, from the Vatican angle, scarcely a part of civilization. Probably the Vatican had not yet heard that quantities of gold had been found in California 15 years earlier, so we will not be too severe on Rome for treating it disdainfully. Beyond the eastern fringe, where there were a few Catholic bishops, it was, to the Roman mind, a broad wilderness in which the chief industry was making and using colts and bowie knives.

These rebels against a "legitimate" monarch were now destroying each other in a Civil War. There would not be much money in the country for a long time to come, so its spiritual needs did not press acutely on the Pope's attention. We can, therefore, believe that, except in so far as the Latin-American Republics had taken their principles from the Constitution of the U.S.A., the Pope and his precious Cardinal Secretary of State did not think of America in despising and condemning the fundamental principles of that Constitution.

It is amusing in one respect. Some 50 years later Catholic apologists in America were blandly claiming, that freedom and democracy, which are said to be the most vital of those principles, were borrowed from the works of the 17th century Jesuits, Stiaiez and Bellarmine. Somebody discovered this while in the first half of the 19th century the Jesuits were the most deadly enemies of these ideals and egged on the princes who murdered the men who fought for them, these were really Jesuit principles, first proclaimed to a benighted Europe by the great Jesuit theologians.

Naturally, the American Jesuits who made this discovery kept out of sight the historical fact that the Popes had bitterly denounced and fought these ideals in Rome for centuries; nor did they remind folk that all that these theologians had really done was to discover that, now that half the sovereigns of Europe were Protestants, it was lawful and laudable for their people to rebel against them and depose or behead them.

In England, for instance, the Jesuits wanted the fanatical Philip of Spain to be the monarch instead of the genial and the universally-loved Elizabeth. They were, in fact, expelled even from France for advocating that regicide was legitimate. All this was kept out of sight, and, to meet the new European situation they set out to prove that the people can elect or depose a King (when he opposes the true faith), Someone then "discovered" that Jefferson and the other authors of the American Constitution had learned democracy from the pages of these Jesuit theologians. Naturally, no American historian or sociologist was rude enough to point out that there was no more freedom in lands where the Jesuits had influence than there is in Spain or Portugal today, and there never had been.

However, the point of interest here is that a large number of these propositions or sentiments condemned by the Pope were already embodied in the American Constitution and were regarded by Americans as installments of social justice which raised their civilization high above any in Europe. On the face of it one would say that Americans are more passionately attached to them today than they ever were, since the defense of freedom and democracy is loudly proclaimed to be the motive of hasty military preparations which may plunge the race in a far worse war than ever.

First of these principles, which it was not necessary to state in the Constitution since the new American life was essentially based upon it, was that People has a right to rebel against an unjust monarch, however "legitimate" - of royal birth, and duly anointed by the church - he might be. Compare clause 63 of the Syllabus: "It is lawful to refuse to obey and even rebel against legitimate princes." That was held by every American, was the starting point and basis of the greatness of modern America, and is a platitude of political morality today. But Pius IX commanded every Catholic to disavow it. He was, of course, aiming at the French, the Italian, the Spaniards, and the Spanish- Americans. But his action here is just a flat defiance of a basis of the American State and the Conviction of every American.

The consequences of this right to rebel are repeatedly stated in the Constitution and in American legal and political procedure today. The authority of the state is the collective authority of its members and is valid only when it carries out the will of the people. Only in the name of the people can politicians pass laws, and even in the law-courts it is expressly and repeatedly stated that it is the people that prosecute criminals.

Now look at a dozen clauses in the Syllabus that are prosecuted and condemned: Authority is merely the sum of numbers (of people) and material forces. The decision of a National Congress is not subject to further discussion, and the civil administration may demand this. A republic, as the origin and power of all rights, has an unlimited power. That the Will of the People, made known either by public opinion or in any either way, is the supreme law, apart from (not in opposition to) any divine or human right.

No sophistry can obscure the complete inconsistency of a condemnation of these propositions with this fundamental principle of American life. The peoples of America, North and South, had chosen the republican form, in which the only authority is the will of the majority. In 1848 several peoples of Europe had made the same choice. The intention of Pope Pius IX is to condemn them and justify the bloody violence with which in 1849 the corrupt feudal ("legitimate") monarchies had recovered power. He would equally have condemned the American rebellion against King George if that bully had been a Catholic.

The second fundamental law of the Constitution is that Church and State shall be kept separate. A dozen of the Pope's condemnations denounce this but it is enough to quote No. 55. "The Church must be separated from the State and the State from the Church." Compare Clause 79. "It is false to say (as every American did) that to grant civil liberty to all cults and full power to all men to discuss in public any sort of ideas and opinions leads to the corruption of the minds and morals of the people and the spread of the pest of indifferentism."

As part of this strict separation of religion from the State America decided that it should have secular schools and civil marriage for those who desired it. The Pope damns this plain American principle of education: "45. Public schools in which the youth of a republic are trained, with the exception to some extent of Episcopal seminaries, are and ought to be controlled by the civic authority ..." The Catholic tries sometimes to elude the point by saying that the Pope was merely legislating for Catholic countries. This is refuted here. There were at the time no Catholic republics, for the Pope would refuse that title even to the Latin-American republics. Clause, 47 and 48 make his meaning clearer: "The best interests of society demand that public schools shall be free from all clerical authority, control, or interference and shall be entirely governed by the civic and political authority, as the ruler and the general opinion of the public shall decide."

Still worse, because here even the American Catholic of today cannot pretend that any adjustment is possible between the American and the Catholic position, are the clauses on marriage (66, 67, 71, 73, 74). The condemnation of these propositions is a flat declaration that marriage by civil contract only is invalid. There is no room here to say that the Pope means that the clauses are for Catholics only. American law, like the law of every fully civilized country today, has the function of declaring whether or when the marriage of Catholics, as well as other citizens, is valid or invalid. It strictly holds that a Catholic pair are validly married and would prosecute them for bigamy if they dared to marry again without divorce, if they go through the civil ceremony without going to church for what the church calls the sacrament. The church may say that from its angle they commit sin but it just defies the civil law when it refuses to admit that "there can be true marriage for Christians on the strength of the civil contract only" (73) or that "by natural law the bond of matrimony is not indissoluble and on various grounds the civil authority may grant a divorce" (67).

There are other clauses which outrageously defy American law and sentiment. The Pope condemns (31) the opinion that special ecclesiastical courts for the trial of priests for offenses against the civil or criminal law (their common vice of perversity, for instance) and (32) the claim that ecclesiastical can compel the state to relieve clerics of the duty of military service where this is compulsory. I can imagine the cackle of the apologist at the idea that these things "apply" in America.

We will return to the point but, obviously, these and other laws of the church do not "apply" in any country where the church has not the least power to enforce them and as long as it has no such power. These are the permanent law and represent the standing pretensions of the church to dictate to the civil power because it claims to be superior to that power, as the Syllabus repeatedly claims. America leaves all sects free to cultivate their own pleasures and interests in their own buildings, and lays it down as one of its most fundamental principles that the representatives of the people are to carry out their work of administration in complete separation from religious influences or organizations. Hence all the conflicts.

We have, therefore, next, to consider what is the position of the Syllabus in theology today and how the glib propagandists of the church in America conceal their vital antagonism from their own followers and the general American public.

THE MASKED PAPAL AGENTS IN AMERICA

In 1927 a Catholic, Alfred E. Smith, Governor of New York, presented himself as candidate for the presidency. As he could not afford to ignore the fact that this question of the deadly opposition of papal and American ideals would be raised he published a letter (composed for him by priests) in the Atlantic Monthly explaining that as a Catholic he held no doctrine or sentiment that in the slightest degree conflicted with American ideals or the Constitution. He said such things as: "I believe in absolute freedom of conscience for all men and in the equality of all churches, all sects and all beliefs before the law as a matter of right and not as a matter of favor. I believe in the absolute separation of Church and State. I believe in the absolute right of every parent to choose whether his child shall be educated in the public school or in a religious school..."

The Protestant lawyer Marshall at once, and very ably, challenged him, and his shuffling was pitiful. To a great extent he relied on the political trick of getting a popular Irish priest, a military chaplain in the war and strident bugle-player to a New York regiment, to back up his assurances. Smith refused to meet Marshall's plain challenge to say what, if he were elected, he would do if claims of the Vatican conflicted with his American duties, and he made this obvious, and rather contemptuous, referring to the Syllabus, which was the vital issue: "You may find some dream of a Catholic State, having no relation whatsoever to actuality, somewhere described."

This would-be President of the United States seems to have been unaware that, in virtue of the murderous reaction of 1849, Pius IX was laying down the actual law for nearly one half of Europe - France, Bavaria, Austria Hungary, Italy, Spain and Portugal. It is more important that American Catholic opinion was already almost officially stated in the Catholic Encyclopedia, and, while one would not expect a good mixer like Smith to find time to look up what it said about the Syllabus, the church leaders who whispered encouragement to him from the wings - for the whole thing was a gigantic publicity-stunt for the church - knew very well what it said, as they were responsible for it.

In the article "Syllabus" the chief point is to instruct Catholics whether or no this papal document is "infallible" and therefore to what extent it is binding on Catholics. To listen to their glib male and female radio orators and read their popular writers today you would imagine that it is the orthodox Catholic position that the condemnations of the Syllabus are just the emotional outburst of a venerable prelate who lived in confusing conditions that are remote from our age. It would give the American Catholic layman a shock to read what his encyclopedia authoritatively says about it.

Looking up first what it says under "Infallibility" we learn that in official Catholic theology it means that the faithful have God's personal assurance that when the Pope says that he is defining some belief for the entire Catholic world he is not permitted to err. Catholics usually add that it must be a point of faith or morals, but the writer of this article says that the authorities are agreed that it applies also to an undefined range of questions which arise from questions of faith or morals, and that is in the Vatican decree.

The condemnations of Pius IX certainly fall into this category, and as the Pope insists that he is speaking in virtue of his "apostolic authority" to all the Catholics in the world, the Syllabus seems to be of the infallible sort. An irresponsible layman like Smith who knew more about brands of bourbon than about shades of theology might call it a dream that has no relation to realities. Even a Catholic theologian like Ryan, who has to Americanize Catholicism in order to get American dupes into the church, may call it just the "justifiable and reasonable" declaration of a Pope in difficult circumstances.

But an encyclopedia that is sponsored by the hierarchy and promises America to be strictly truthful cannot get away so lightly. It says that whether the Syllabus is or is not to be regarded as infallible is disputed in the theological world. Its value is differently explained by Catholic theologians. To the question whether it must be held to be infallible "many theologians say yes," while "others question this."

In any case, it goes on, "its binding force is beyond doubt" because "It is a decision given by the Pope speaking as universal teacher and judge to Catholics the world over." In what sense does it bind? It says: "All Catholics therefore are bound to accept the Syllabus. Exteriorly they may neither in works nor in writing oppose its contents; they must also assent to it interiorly." In other words, the most responsible document in American Catholic literature pronounces it infallible. And a few years later a layman standing in a position of grave responsibility before the American public, supported by the whole hierarchy, tells them that it is just a dream or ideal with no application in real life!

Where are those gentle-minded folk who say that I am harsh, impetuous, or worse when I say that Catholic propaganda is untruthful? American priests and prelates have themselves over and over again said, less flamboyantly, what Smith said in the Atlantic Monthly, as I show in my Appeal to Reason Library (No. 1-16-33; No. 3 1-19).

Twenty years after Pius IX had hurled his stage-thunderbolt the Vatican realized the futility of it all. The Papal States had been swept away like medieval modes of transport or ideas of treating disease. Italy was rising steadily in the scale of civilization and in the same proportion throwing off the yoke of the Vatican. France, in which the fright of the middle class at the menace of the Communards had given the church the same recovery of a bastard power as the fright of the middle class at the menace of Communism gives it today, was still more rapidly becoming secularized. Spain had gone over to a dangerous liberalism, and Spanish America was lost. Austria was no longer a great power. So the immutable Vatican changed its policy and its language and began to study diplomacy.

Leo XIII, the great Pope (under whom the church lost between 50 and 100 million followers), began that famous series of "grand encyclicals" or fragrant anthologies of platitudes and equivocations. In one of the earlier of them (Libertas, 1888) he frankly said: "Although in the extraordinary condition of these times the church usually acquiesces [says nothing about] in certain modern freedoms. She does so not because she prefers them in themselves but because she judges it expedient to permit them until, in better days, she can assert her own liberty." In other words, his predecessor's damnations were to be put away, like a rod, until the nations of Europe had another 1849, when the rod would be laid lustily on their backsides once more.

But events in France moved so rapidly in the wrong direction, from his angle, that he lost his diplomatic poise in the following year and issued the encyclical Immortal Dei. It was really a heavy rebuke to France for decreeing the separation of Church and State. Incidentally he gave his august permission to the French (who frivolously laughed at it) to keep the republic they had set up, and this first recognition of the right of people to choose such a political form - rather this first failure of a Pope to anathematize them for doing so - was hailed by American Catholics as a very belated blessing on the American Republic; and a few tactful alterations in the translation of the encyclical enabled them to greet it as the summit of political morality.

The sub-title "On the Christian Constitution of States" was given to the translation. In the Latin it was, "On the Catholic Constitution of States." It told the French that they might have a republic on condition that not merely religion but the Catholic religion only was to be established. It was as violent a repudiation as ever of the idea of separation of Church and State and of the secularization of education; two fundamental principles of American life. The American Catholic clergy and hierarchy, however, now mendaciously represented that under the great Pope the church repudiated all this medieval stuff that his infallible predecessor had imposed upon all Catholics, and the process of Americanizing the canon law set in; a process that would go on from success to success until they would discover that the principle of the American Revolution and Constitution were actually derived from Roman moral theology.

At the annual Council at Baltimore gloriously star-spangled sentiments were heard. Kinsman ("Americanism and Catholicism," 1924) quotes the pastoral letter of the Council of Baltimore of 1884: "A Catholic finds himself at home in the United States, for the influence of the church has been constantly exercised on behalf of individual rights and popular liberties." Few Americans may have known the verdict of the great historian that "the banners of the church were rarely seen on the side of the people," but they were few who had never heard of the fires of the Inquisition which had paralyzed the rights of individuals for centuries and the feudal monarchies which the church had sustained in Europe for ages.

Some writers brought the Syllabus back to notice. Catholic propaganda therefore increasingly took the line of representing that Rome had abandoned the principles on which its older tyranny had been based or said that at least the American branch of the church was free to disavow those principles. The bishops were, apparently, unaware that the "Liberal Pope" Leo XIII had in his later years seen the futility - the leakage from the church was now tremendous - of making half-hearted or insincere concessions (in regard to labor, biblical criticism, the rights of conscience, etc.) and had begun to withdraw them.

Our vivacious Catholic Encyclopedia says that "the United States at all times attracted the attention and admiration of Pope Leo XIII" and gives a list of his benevolent (or routine) messages to its bishops. It says: "In 1898 appeared his letter Testem Benevolentiae to Cardinal Gibbons on Americanism." Who would gather from this that this letter to the American Archbishops and bishops made them red with indignation? It was the most humiliating message that Rome had sent to any national hierarchy for a long time, and precisely because the bishops were permitting Catholic writers to give false versions of Catholic teaching in order to conciliate Americans. I cannot say that this letter was never translated into English and so never reached the laity but certainly there is no English translation of it amongst the 5,000,000 books of the British National Library. I read it in the Latin, which Rome published and the French joyously translated in order to show Frenchmen that the Roman leopard had not really changed its spots.

This practice of softening the rigor and arrogance of the church's doctrine, which Pius IX had called Liberalism and would later be known as Modernism, had gone so far in the United States that it was then known to the Vatican as Americanism, and Leo severely rebuked it. He says that his purpose is "to correct errors," such as that Catholic doctrines may be modified and the real teaching kept out of sight for tactical reasons, or that Catholic discipline might be relaxed where the political circumstances suggested this, and that new methods of propaganda were to be introduced to suit modern requirements. The bishops must see that all such ideas are suppressed.

The truth was that America was not yet important from the Vatican angle. Its wealth was increasing but Rome did not get much of it, while, on the other hand, the millions of the Irish, Poles, Italians, etc., who had settled in it drifted away from the church. The Lucerne Memorial presented to the Pope by American Catholic laymen in 1891 claimed that of 26,000,000 Catholic immigrants and their descendants, 16,000,000 had apostatized. The Canadian Catholic paper Verite in 1898 said that there were between 15 and 17 million apostates. The New York Freeman's Journal (Catholic) in the same year said 20,000,000. In 1901 Irish priests who were brought over for a special mission said 10,000,000.

There had at all events been a colossal leakage, and the great mass of the faithful were amongst America's poorest citizens. Let us say that by 1898 the Vatican had, through American conditions, lost about 15,000,000 Poles, Irish, etc., who in their native lands had been, according to their means, its most generous contributors. But the tide was then turning. The priesthood was expanded and organized on a business basis. Wealthy Catholics increased until the American Catholic body, in proportion to its size, became Rome's fattest pasture. Sociologists like Bodley were predicting that the population of America would rise to 400,000,000 - Gladstone said 600,000,000 - by the end of the 20th century; and the Catholic population of this richest country in the world could be 70,000,000.

So the Vatican opened its pockets and closed its mouth, and the Americanization of Catholic teaching went on merrily. Cardinal Gibbons himself said: "We American Catholics rejoice in our separation of Church and State, and I can conceive of no combination of circumstances likely to arise which would make a union desirable to either Church or State." Of course American Catholics rejoiced at that time and still rejoice in the separation of State and Church. If any Church were established by law as the one official religion of America, what hope would the Catholic one-seventh of the population have of seeing their religion selected for the honor?

But when the cardinal went on to say that he could not conceive of any circumstances in which Catholics would want to have their church established he was lying. Didn't he, like every other Catholic in America, believe that in time the majority of the Americans would belong to the "true faith"? Or did he reject not only the syllabus but the "great encyclical" by Leo XIII on "The Catholic Constitution of State."

Archbishop Ireland said, in a speech which was afterwards published and scattered all over America, to a mass-meeting of Catholics at Milwaukee on August 11, 1913: "Would we alter, if we could, the Constitution in regard to its treatment of religion, the principles of Americanism in regard to religious freedom? I answer with an emphatic, No." This was quoted and endorsed by, the late Dr. J. Ryan, the chief exponent of church doctrine in these matters, the leading professor of the Catholic University of America, in his work "The State and the Church" (1923); and instead of being corrected by the Vatican he was raised to the dignity of 'Monsignor' (My Lord).

Every phrase of the star-spangled version of Catholic teaching is defended in this work, which was published by the Department Of Social Action of the National Catholic Welfare Section. He barely mentions the Syllabus and its "justifiable and reasonable" condemnations, but in regard to the damnation of the belief that Church and State ought to be separated he says: "Pope Pius IX did not intend to declare that separation is always inadvisable, for he had more than once expressed his satisfaction with its arrangement obtaining in the United States."

Is there no limit to the swallowing capacity of Catholic readers? Would even the muddle-headed Pius be expected to demand that the Catholic Church should be established by law in Protestant countries? In 1864 there were about 3,000,000 Catholics in the United States, and Dr. Ryan wanted us to admire the Pope because he liked an arrangement which put his church in America on the same footing as the larger sects!

Another delicious passage in this chief work of the chief oracle of American Catholics was his defense of the suppression of critics which the Church notoriously insists on in Catholic countries. It would do the same in America if it had the power and it does it to some extent today by sneaking appeals to Washington to see that criticisms of itself "disturb the national unity." It is a matter of public knowledge, since Mr. Joseph Lewis and the Rationalists of New York took the matter to court, that Catholic officials at New York tried to prevent the importation of works of mine in which I criticized the Church. So Ryan had to admit the intolerance and how complete it would be if Catholics were in the majority. But it is, he said, quite natural and moral because "error has not the same rights as truth." What a delightful social order we should have if the ruling power at any time could suppress or muzzle all who differed from it on the grounds that they were in error!

These mendacious apologists for the church, writers and radio speakers, strike a particularly high note of hilarity when someone asks whether a Catholic majority in America would light once more the fires of the Inquisition. On Ryan's ingenious principles one would expect it, but the apologists treat the idea as fantastic. Yet they know perfectly well that the church claims today, in the official version of its Public Canon Law - the code translated into English is Private Canon Law - that it has the right and the duty to put heretics to death.

I translated several passages from Dr. de Luca's official Roman (specially passed by Leo XIII) manual ("Institutions," 1901) of the law in my Appeal to Reason Library (I. 25). I pointed out that just over the American frontier in Canada, Cardinal Lepicier (another Roman professor), stated the church's position in the same terms in his "De Stabilitate et Progresser Dogmatis" and that he quotes a Canadian canonist, The Very Rev. Dom Paquet, declaring it in plain French in his "Droit Publique de L'Eglise" (1918). There is not the least controversy about it amongst Catholic experts, and therefore all the popular writers and radio speakers lie about the matter in America.

One more point. While heads (like Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler) and professors of American Universities lent their patronage in the Calvert Associates - whose "Calvert Handbook of Catholic Facts" (1928) is a tissue of lies - to this gross scheme, Pope Pius XI, was negotiating with the vile Dictator Mussolini, whose murder of Matteotti had shaken his position, about the price of Catholic support. Most of Mussolini's chief followers were anti-Catholic and the Pope drove a hard bargain, his terms including $90,000,000, Kingdom, the establishment of the church, clerical control of education and marriages, penalization of critics of the church, etc.

In their acrid quarrel the Pope had his Secretary of State print a public letter in the papal daily paper on the position of the church in a modern state. I deal with it fully in my "True Story of the Roman Church" (Vol. 12 pp. 18-20). Here I must say, summarily, that it reiterated all the claims of the Syllabus as the, unchanged and unchangeable law of the church, and, although at that time it was not even clear that Catholics were in a majority in Italy, he, as I said above, got most of them. This was in 1929. How many American papers dared to tell the facts? How many Catholic writers and radio-spouters changed their note and began to tell the truth?

The enemies of the American way of life, the plotters against the state, the cloak and dagger folk today, are not the Communists. They are the Catholics. If they had, or ever got, the power they would rip up the Constitution. Of course, they never will get the power. That is not the point. It is not that we tremble in our shoes in anticipation of the day when the 20,000,000 real Catholics of today may become 70,000,000 or 80,000,000. Although Catholic men's associations are now organizations for helping your economical interest and the clerical body is just an economic corporation, the church still loses as many honest men and women as it attracts hypocrites. The point of actual social interest is that for any large and powerful organization to promote its economic interest by such lying is a grave social evil.

Yet this Catholic body is flattered by the entire press and allowed to usurp a dictatorial power far greater even than its numbers and size deserve. We, in fact, listen with respectful attention to its claims that it alone can save civilization, while everybody knows that by its extension of its unscrupulous methods to our relation to the Soviet Union it is one of the major causes of our risks, anxieties, and poisonous international hatreds. One of the urgent needs of America today is to recognize dearly that it is fraudulent and demoralizing.

Contributed by the Bank Of Wisdom.

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Nick DiSpoldo, Small Press Review (on "Children, Churches and Daddies," April 1997) Kuypers is the widely-published poet of particular perspectives and not a little existential rage, but she does not impose her personal or artistic agenda on her magazine. CC+D is a provocative potpourri of news stories, poetry, humor, art and the "dirty underwear" of politics. One piece in this issue is "Crazy," an interview Kuypers conducted with "Madeline," a murderess who was found insane, and is confined to West Virginia's Arronsville Correctional Center. Madeline, whose elevator definitely doesn't go to the top, killed her boyfriend during sex with an ice pick and a chef's knife, far surpassing the butchery of Elena Bobbitt. Madeline, herself covered with blood, sat beside her lover's remains for three days, talking to herself, and that is how the police found her. For effect, Kuypers publishes Madeline's monologue in different-sized type, and the result is something between a sense of Dali's surrealism and Kafka-like craziness.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada
I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer's styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.

Ed Hamilton, writer #85 (of children, churches and daddies) turned out well. I really enjoyed the humor section, especially the test score answers. And, the cup-holder story is hilarious. I'm not a big fan of poetry - since much of it is so hard to decipher - but I was impressed by the work here, which tends toward the straightforward and unpretentious. As for the fiction, the piece by Anderson is quite perceptive: I liked the way the self-deluding situation of the character is gradually, subtly revealed. (Kuypers') story is good too: the way it switches narrative perspective via the letter device is a nice touch.

Children, Churches and Daddies.
It speaks for itself.
Write to Scars Publications to submit poetry, prose and artwork to Children, Churches and Daddies literary magazine, or to inquire about having your own chapbook, and maybe a few reviews like these.

Jim Maddocks, GLASGOW, via the Internet I'll be totally honest, of the material in Issue (either 83 or 86 of Children, Churches and Daddies) the only ones I really took to were Kuypers'. TRYING was so simple but most truths are, aren't they?

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what is veganism?
A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don't consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources.

why veganism?
This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions.

so what is vegan action?
We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty.
We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification.
We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems.

A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations.

vegan action
po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353
510/704-4444

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C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review (on Children, Churches and Daddies) cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist. "I really like ("Writing Your Name"). It's one of those kind of things where your eye isn't exactly pulled along, but falls effortlessly down the poem. I liked "knowledge" for its mix of disgust and acceptance. Janet Kuypers does good little movies, by which I mean her stuff provokes moving imagery for me. Color, no dialogue; the voice of the poem is the narrator over the film.

Children, Churches and Daddies no longer distributes free contributor's copies of issues. In order to receive issues of Children, Churches and Daddies, contact Janet Kuypers at the cc&d e-mail addres. Free electronic subscriptions are available via email. All you need to do is email ccandd@aol.com... and ask to be added to the free cc+d electronic subscription mailing list. And you can still see issues every month at the Children, Churches and Daddies website, located at http://scars.tv

Also, visit our new web sites: the Art Gallery and the Poetry Page.

Mark Blickley, writer The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

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MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG)

functions:
* To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change.
* To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants
* To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking
* To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen

We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues.

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Gary, Editor, The Road Out of Town (on the Children, Churches and Daddies Web Site) I just checked out the site. It looks great.

Dusty Dog Reviews: These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.

John Sweet, writer (on chapbook designs) Visuals were awesome. They've got a nice enigmatic quality to them. Front cover reminds me of the Roman sculptures of angels from way back when. Loved the staggered tire lettering, too. Way cool. (on "Hope Chest in the Attic") Some excellent writing in "Hope Chest in the Attic." I thought "Children, Churches and Daddies" and "The Room of the Rape" were particularly powerful pieces.

C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review: cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist.

Cheryl Townsend, Editor, Impetus (on Children, Churches and Daddies) The new cc&d looks absolutely amazing. It's a wonderful lay-out, looks really professional - all you need is the glossy pages. Truly impressive AND the calendar, too. Can't wait to actually start reading all the stuff inside.. Wanted to just say, it looks good so far!!!

Dusty Dog Reviews: She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, "Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment." Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers' very personal layering of her poem across the page.

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Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA
Indeed, there's a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there's a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Mark Blickley, writer
The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.

Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book or chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers. We're only an e-mail away. Write to us.

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Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies') obvious dedication along this line admirable.

The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST's three principal projects are to provide:
* on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment;
* on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST's SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet;
* on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development.
The CREST staff also does "on the road" presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061

Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies') obvious dedication along this line admirable.

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Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA
"Hope Chest in the Attic" captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family.
"Chain Smoking" depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. "The room of the rape" is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

want a review like this? contact scars about getting your own book published.

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Paul Weinman, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) Wonderful new direction (Children, Churches and Daddies has) taken - great articles, etc. (especially those on AIDS). Great stories - all sorts of hot info!

The magazine Children Churches and Daddies is Copyright © through Scars Publications and Design. The rights of the individual pieces remain with the authors. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Okay, nilla wafer. Listen up and listen good. How to save your life. Submit, or I'll have to kill you.
Okay, it's this simple: send me published or unpublished poetry, prose or art work (do not send originals), along with a bio, to us - then sit around and wait... Pretty soon you'll hear from the happy people at cc&d that says (a) Your work sucks, or (b) This is fancy crap, and we're gonna print it. It's that simple!

Okay, butt-munch. Tough guy. This is how to win the editors over.
Hope Chest in the Attic is a 200 page, perfect-bound book of 13 years of poetry, prose and art by Janet Kuypers. It's a really classy thing, if you know what I mean. We also have a few extra sopies of the book "Rinse and Repeat", which has all the 1999 issues of cc&d crammed into one book. And you can have either one of these things at just five bucks a pop if you just contact us. It's an offer you can't refuse...

Carlton Press, New York, NY: HOPE CHEST IN THE ATTIC is a collection of well-fashioned, often elegant poems and short prose that deals in many instances, with the most mysterious and awesome of human experiences: love... Janet Kuypers draws from a vast range of experiences and transforms thoughts into lyrical and succinct verse... Recommended as poetic fare that will titillate the palate in its imagery and imaginative creations.
Mark Blickley, writer: The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing the book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book and chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers - you can write for yourself or you can write for an audience. It's your call...

Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA: "Hope Chest in the Attic" captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. "Chain Smoking" depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. "The room of the rape" is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

Dusty Dog Reviews, CA (on knife): These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding. Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Dusty Dog Reviews (on Without You): She open with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, "Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment." Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers' very personal layering of her poem across the page.
Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada (on Children, Churches and Daddies): I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer's styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.
Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA: Indeed, there's a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there's a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Published since 1993 No racist, sexist or homophobic material is appreciated; we do accept work of almost any genre of poetry, prose or artwork, though we shy away from concrete poetry and rhyme for rhyme's sake. Do not send originals. Any work sent to Scars Publications on Macintosh disks, text format, will be given special attention over smail-mail submissions. There is no limit to how much you may submit at a time; previously published work accepted.