New music this week from Ghost, swim school, Bims, Follk Bitch Trio, Avi Kaplan, BBBL, I'm With Her, Aly & AJ, Melvins, Hawkwind, Beirut, World Order and much more. Enjoy!
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I really have no business commenting on the Life and Death of Pope Francis. He seemed a nice enough man and he tried to do good (he most certainly championed for the down-trodden), but he also did some bad (the church still has a huge child molestation problem).
I'm not Catholic. He wasn't my leader.
That said, I do have a story.
A friend of mine (and even closer friend to my wife) was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in 2016. She was a decent if flawed person, just like anyone decent. She didn't deserve it and she went downhill quickly - certainly faster than any of us were ready for. She was in a wheelchair and frail when she was surprised with a trip to The Vatican to meet Pope Francis.
She was Catholic, and devout. As I understand it, to be granted an audience with the Pope, even in a group setting as she was to be, is considered one of the best things that can happen in a life. That she was ill and frail made no difference; she was going to get on that plane and she was going to go. Her audience was set for May 24, 2017.
Google the date, I'll be right here.
Yes, that's the same day Donald Trump pushed his way into the Vatican to meet Pope Francis, displacing a meeting with a small group of Americans - who never got to meet with Francis. Trump was an absolute pig of a man throughout the day - never once apologizing for his conduct or for displacing a group of Americans who had been planning this meeting for months. Francis chastised him to his face.
But he didn't meet with my friend. She and her group got bumped for Donald Motherfucking Trump.
She took it with grace, saying that the Vatican official apologized repeatedly about the circumstances, offering a tour and other amenities that I won't go into here.
She would be dead a few short months later. She never saw the pandemic or just how ruinous everything would become.
I can forgive Pope Francis for the snub. The events of the day were obviously out of his control and the opportunity to lecture an American President to his face doesn't come often. I don't blame him for taking the meeting. I'm unhappy about the snub of the people who saved and paid to come see him directly, but they at least had the grace to apologize. My friend forgave them, so I will.
Which no one from the Trump administration ever did.
I notice that a lot about Catholicism (as it's practiced in most places - not the US) is about forgiveness. But I'm not Catholic.
I will NEVER forgive that fucker for bullying his way into destroying the dreams of a group of American Catholics, at least one of whom was dying.
But he's never going to ask either, so fuck him.
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Maybe y'all should have been more concerned about Pete Hesgeth's tattoos than about Kilmar Abrego Garcia's.
I will give Francis credit for smacking the current administration around as one of the last things he did before he died.
But I am getting a little sick of all the Photoshopped pictures of Francis and the (unsubstantiated) couch fucker together.
Look, I know that Ms. Noem has explained why she was carrying so much cash that it made her a mark for a thief, but why wouldn't she want a paper-trail to exist?
Why yes, I have noticed a serious decrease in the numbers of cargo ships making port in my area.
I have a friend who works at a government agency that has had to do the "e-mail us 5 things you accomplished this week" e-mails. I've seen a few examples of what she's done, and unless you have a PhD in her field you won't understand more than 4 words of it. So far, she hasn't been laid off.
We are at war with Oceana, not Eurasia. That has always been true. Tear down those lying posters now!
The Onion has been rerunning every article they ever did about Pope Francis. Some are quite funny.
I do believe that The White House did not take my bid for a sponsorship of yesterday's egg roll seriously. I offered $1.75
By the way, given the new/old guy's Easter address, does he suffer from Biden Derangement Syndrome?
So the guy who will run the Vatican until we have a new Pope is some dude named Kevin. Really.
I cannot understand why anyone would want to travel to this shithole country.
Speaking of which, can we send Stephen Miller back to whatever dystopian hellscape he comes from?
And because I love you, here is the video for the first song in this week's playlist:
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