Political Correctness

Political correctness (also politically correct or PC) is a term used to describe language, or behavior, which is claimed to be calculated to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to the racial, cultural, or other identity groups being described. The concept is not exclusive to the English language. A text that conforms to the ideals of political correctness is said to be politically correct.I found this definition on Wikipedia, a free dictionary atlas available online.

Why must some people be PC and others not? I belong to several Yahoo Groups online and over the course of several weeks, things have been posted and discussed. I have knocked heads with specifically 2 self proclaimed intellectuals who pull out their soap boxes, quote how many degrees they have, belittle/criticize others, challange others to debate things, then tuck their tails and run when they have the same things done to them. The 1st intellectual was discussed in my "Witch Wars" posting earlier this month. The 2nd intellectual who has a problem with having their soap box kicked out from under them just ocurred yesterday. I have learned with the help of 2 dear friends, I will call them T & D, how to have proper etiquette when dealing with these asshole blowhard types. T said let them rant & rave publicaly so that others can see their true colors and take the debate offsite. D sent me we site that deals with proper Email etiquette rules for effective email replies. I have used both in trying to deal with the current blowhard, only to have being Politically Correct come back & smack me in the face.

It all started out a couple of weeks ago with me posting an email that I received about Starbucks denying Marines in Iraq coffee. Well this blowhard, who states that she is a great communicator with an English degree, belittles me on the message board instead of sending me a private message saying that I had false information. Part 2, I just posted a fact how artificial sweetner poisoning can give false symptoms that someone has MS. Again, she posts publicly that I am wrong. She then follows up this post with a rant & rave about people posting chain emails on a Witches site without doing research about the authenticity of the subject matter. After this, she further insulted and picked apart a post that T had posted about a particular discussion. Well at this point, I have had enough so I posted a response of why are you always picking us apart? Well the blowhard posted her reply and invited me to have a private discussion off site about it & I did email her 2 emails early in the day giving her back what she gave us. No response back at all! I later sent her an email quoting her invite to discuss this, nothing again.

At 8 pm, another member of this site posts a message reiterating the same thing that the blowhard said, not wanting to carry this on publicly, I sent the 2nd person an email, only to have the original blowhard send me along with now several other people who happen to be Elders in the Pagan Community, an email crying that I have been harassing her all day and to now stop communicating with her. I responded in my defense saying that did you send everyone the posts you put up berating T and myself, only to have her again send an email to myself and the Elders crying that "I asked you to Stop!". I was not sure if the moderator on the NJ site, I will call her M, saw any the messages that I sent the blowhard, I also apologized to M, who is a friend of mine, about the whole ordeal.

Now comes this morning, I received an email from someone just telling me to chill out. I followed the advice of 2 close friends on how to handle assholes correctly now to only have it slap me. I have tried to be PC and have learned to say "FUCK IT"! Every asshole continues to be an asshole and walk all over people without the 3 fold rule or bad karma coming back to destroy them! I know an asshole around my way with a supposed bad ticker, a holy roller born again type, this prick is living on borrowed time. Would you think that he would be nice to people? Fuck no! He continues to be rotten, mean, and fucks over everyone & brags about how much he does for his church while he is doing it.

So you know what, if everyone else can not be PC, why can't I from now on? Why can't I go around and berate people, get on my soap box, say how great I am & how much you all suck, fuck people over, and just be a nasty prick? I won't! I'll tell you why, because I am better than that! As my dad once told me, an asshole gets it in the end and I'm no asshole. It might not be now, but believe me, it will all catch up to them some day!

Percocet vs Kadian (Time Release Morophine)

When faced with chronic pain due to injury, which is better? Percocet (10/325) up to 5 times a day? Kadian (30mg), a time release Morophine, 2 times a day? I suffer from chronic pain. Thru working my ass off my entire life, something has to give, and it has; my back and my neck. For those of you that know me, you see me gimp around day in and day out, those that don't know me, let me fill you in. I am out on Workers Comp for the 2nd time since 2001. I had 3 herniated discs in my lower back that healed up good enough in 2005 for me to go back to work and get my life back in order. Then in February of this year, I re-injured my lower back and added my neck & mid back to the list. Now at 39 years old mind you, I have 1 herniated disc & 3 bulging discs in my neck, 2 herniated discs in my mid back, and 3 herniated discs in my lower back along with perminate nerve damage in my arms & legs.
I went from 5 mg of Vicadin 3 to 4 times a day in 2001 for pain and just up until the other day, 30 mg Kadian 2 times a day with Percocets 5 times a day between and after the extreams. The Vicadins give you a warm fuzzy feeling and fades quickly, the Percocets kill the pain, but wear off in a couple of hours, and the Kadian time releases the pain killer into your system, but the pain goes up & down all day with the time release as well as your emotions and the psychological effects of Morophine. I felt physically better with the Kadian, needed only 2 muscle relaxors a day as compared to the 3 per day I was taking whith the Percocets, but the negatives were killing me psychologically. I became withdrawn, argumentative, paranoid, and constantly edgey & very short tempered. I flew off the handle over the smallest things and my close friends began to wonder if I dropped off the face of the earth because they never saw me anymore due to the withdrawness. I went to the Pain Management Doctor this past Monday to get my back injected for the umpteenth time and to re-up my scrips & to ask the Doctor to take me off the Morophine. The Doc argued her point that the long termed effects of the Kadian were much better for my condition, and the Percocets would not do as good of a job on the multi level herniations as the Kadian would. I told her all the bad side effects that I was experiencing and that I would rather have the ability to control the pain as needed rather than waiting on a time release of meds & that I would rather have the extra physical pain associated with the weaker Percocet than the psychological pain associated with the Kadian. Needless to say, its Friday night and I am going to play Tiger Woods 2007 on PS2 with my friends & I am back to my normal psychological happy self with a little extra pain down below, but this pain is better than the deep pain above! Later, b.0.b

Why I became a Pagan.

After many years of being pissed off at the “Do as I say, but not as I do BS” & being sent letters saying “You are not a good Catholic because your Church support is 5 weeks behind”, I decided to explore another path of Spiritual Enlightenment. These weren't the only two reasons; there is more, alot more. Back in 1999, I got separated and divorce proceedings were set in motion from my first wife. There were differences that couldn't be solved, especially the big one, what place in our marriage would her boyfriend play. Since then, I & she have put all that aside and now get along good. Anyhow, since I was now divorced, I was bad in the eyes of the Church. Fast-forward a year & a half; I got remarried to my long lost soul mate, Sunnie. Now, not only am I divorced because due to my 1st spouse was guilty of being involved in an affair, I was not married within the Church. My parents paid the 800 bucks in 2004 for an Annulment for me because they wanted my 1st marriage to be done with in the Church's eyes. There's something interesting, legally my marriage was done, but the Church wanted a piece of pie too to say that it never took place. So now back to 2001, I am now happily remarried and I do what every “good” Catholic was programmed to do, go to Confession during the Easter season. It was Good Friday and I am in the confessional confessing my sins one minute, and the next minute I was thrown out of the confessional by one of the “older” priests of Saint Dominic's parish because I was guilty of committing a Mortal Sin every day being married outside the Church and since I was guilty of this, it was like see ya you piece of shit, I am better than you, you evil sinner. I was floored; I was now lumped in the murderer and rapist category. I then went to a younger priest who did absolve me without any prejudice because I was here to confess my sins in the eyes of God. Let’s just say, I never again went to confession. In 2004, I lost being hired by a Catholic Grade School because the Pastor of Saint Doms, the fuckin pompous asshole that he is, would not give me his OK to get a job teaching, to put food on my table, to clothe my kids, to pay tuition & church support, because I was divorced & remarried. It didn't matter that I always volunteered my time there by coaching soccer & being a scout leader or I always gave money when asked, I was a Heathen because I was divorced. My question was this, “So it is all right for countless children to be sexually abused by priests only to be covered up by sending these assholes somewhere else to only cause more harm again & again?" So now its 2005, the age of the internet, with a few strokes of the keys, I found a witch's meet up group and discovered that witches, contrary to popular belief, are not evil, they practice a Pagan religion called "Wicca", or the religion of the "wise". They not only don't worship the devil, nor sacrifice animals or babies, & don't have wild sex orgies; they worship God & Goddess and are thankful for all that nature has given us. And the big thing that really caught my attention was that Pagan religions predated Christianity by tens of thousands of years! Wow I thought, this is for me because each person is free to worship the divine as they see fit and most importantly it ok who I am! Since then, I am a dedicated member of an Eclectic Pagan Coven, the Pennypack Coven located in Mayfair, which is 5 minutes from my house. My Coven mates are a loving bunch of hardworking regular ordinary every day people! My immediate family and close friends support me in my decision to worship as I do too! My next hurdle is to come out of the "Broom Closet" to my devout Catholic parents, but I will cross the bridge eventually, but that’s all for now, see ya all soon.

Blessed Be,

Treborus

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

In the Midnight, double feature, picture shooowww, F**k the back row! Wow remember that! A chilly Autumn night back in the late 80's, props stuffed in your coat, GCC Northeast parking lot, guys in drag, women in French Maid outfits, guys in their underwear, all lifestyles young and old, gay and straight, male and female, all comming together for one 2 hour event....The Rockey Horror Picture Show! I am writing this because last night I fell asleep on my couch and woke up at about 2:30 only to see my step-daughter watching the RHPS on the Retro Channel. I woke up in the middle of the Time Warp Dance, and watched it up until Dr. Scott came crashing through the wall in his wheel chair. I caught myself screaming at the TV at 3am BRAD, JANET, DOCTOR SCOTT, ROCKY, F**K OFF, BRAD, JANET, DOCTOR SCOTT, ROCKY, F**K OFF! I knew at this point, I should turn it off because I would probably wake the rest of the house up, so I did and Time Warp Dance continued to play through my mind the rest of the night. I have seen the RHPS way too many times to remember and each time it got better, not the movie because the plot really sucked, but the extracurricular activities especially the spectator participation really rocked! On a typical Saturday night, I would pick up my cousin Rita up from the Dunkin Doughnuts that she worked at around 11pm. We would hookup there with our other friends or tailgate in the GCC parking lot till we could get in and get our usually seats in the back so that we could avoid getting wallopped by the IFO's (Idetifiable Flying Objects, more on that later). Our IFO's included rice, toast or stale crescent rolls from Dunkin Doughnuts, and loaded water guns. The part that made RHPS great was audience participation! For those who never seen it on the Big Screen, you lived a sheltered life! There was nothing like bodies mashing together in the aisles doing the Time Warp Dance, singing, YELLING & CURSING AT THE SCREEN, throwing rice & toast up in the air and forward towards the screen at the appropriate time, soaking the people in front of you with your water guns, watching costumed people act out the movie, YELLING & CURSING AT THE SCREEN (oops I did say that already didn't I), and most of all just being able to unwind and blow off steam and just let it all out! With all this going on, I never once witnessed a fight at all! Pretty amazing huh? Especially with all the shit flying through the air and the YELLING & CURSING at the top of your lungs, nobody stood up to fight or argue, you knew what you were getting into when you went. I used to live for Saturday nights when for 2 hours a week you could forget all your problems, unwind, hang with your friends, and just be yourself! Sunnie just told me that around Halloween each year at the Bucks County Play House they put this on, is it the movie or a play, I just don't know, but I will find out and would like to get a group together (Yes this means you RMKP {my cousin Rita} and the old gang) for a night where we could really go back to the days of old & be free to be ourselves and just have carefree fun for 2 hours! b.0.b

Halloween, Samhain, & Dia de los Muertos

October 31st, it was Halloween, Samhain, & Dia de los Muertos all rolled into one. First off, let me explain a few things. Samhain is the Pagan Sabbat or holiday that originally was a Druidic festival celebrated on the eve of November. It was considered a time when the veil of this world and the Spirit world was very thin and the spirits of the dead moved freely between the worlds. Since the doorway of the worlds were open, it was believed that fairies and other creatures of folklore wandered among the living as well, therefore offerings were left so that they would be appeased and not harm the living. As a result of this, modern day Halloween is fill of costumed characters and tricks or treaters. Another legend was that people dressed up to fool the spirits in believing that they were spirits too. Following the rise of Christianity, the festival was called Hallowmas, or All Hallows' Eve, from which modern day Halloween is derived. In the 10th century, Christian Monks observed this Pagan celebration & the problem its popularity presented to the conversion efforts of the Church, so the literally "cooked" up their own solution. They cooked up large batches of fava soup and offer them up for the souls of the dead on the street corners of the town. The hungry peasants took great delight in the vats of fava bean soup and the Church allowed the practices to continue because of the conversion opportunities available to the Monks who fed the poor and it wasn't untill the 15th century that the Church officially claimed the day of celebration as Christian, calling it Ognissanti or All Souls Day. The same tradition carries on in modern day Mexico now. October 31st is called Dia de las Muertos, or the Festival of the Dead. This day is marked with sugar skulls and various other foods prepared to honor the dead. The Festival is a time to reflect and honor your dead relitives. Most people visit the graves of their relitives and bring them samples of their favorite things such as their favorite liquor, cigars, candy, and etc. They burn a candle in their memory as well as leaving their offerings for them. This past Tuesday, my mom & sister as well as a few friends came over to my house. My mom & sister Kara saw my 4 kids and my step daughter all dressed up then they left once the kids went out. My wife Sunnie, took the 2 babies around the neighborhood & the 3 older kids went around with their friends. Later that night, 3 members and friends of my Coven (HPS Talitha Dragonfly, Lady Jaz, & a newcomer Bill) came over to my house and we held a Dia de los Muertos Ritual in my back yard. I honored my grandmom and grandpop for without their kindness & generosity, I would never be living where I do now because they gave me their house when they passed on to the next world. Without this, I would of never met my wife Sunnie or be blessed with the 2 babies. Anyhow, I set up my shrine to them with a solitary white candle, a ring of dried marigolds, and a picture of them. When I was kneeling down talking to them, a leaf fell next to my grandmom's picture (please note my grandmom used to freak out in the fall due to all the dirty leaves) and my Ritual necklace, broke off and fell next to my grandpop's picture (my grandpop never wore any necklaces). In closing, I had a great time on this day combining all 3 holidays into 1 great day that I spent with both my Family here and beyond and my new Pagan family! Harvest Blessings to ALL! Treborus