On my first day back home on my yearly pilgrimage to see my family and eat shitloads of good food and retain my American-ness, whatever that is, I opened the morning paper, which gets thinner and crappier every year. It's kind of sad to see newspaper culture disappearing in the US, but at least it thrives in Turkey even though I also feel sorry for the trees, making it a lose-win-lose situation.
On the front page was the latest installment in the ongoing Followers of Christ train wreck. The Followers of Christ are a little cult in Oregon City (read: buttfuck backwater, nothing akin to any city) who keep making the papers for failing to seek medical care for their sick children, and their children die on them because oil and prayers just don't cut it in the real world. So the first bit of good news was that the Wylands were found guilty of criminal mistreatment of their little girl. The better news was that they didn't manage to kill her, and that she will most likely regain the sight in her eye.
It was all pleasing news, another chapter in the ongoing "Church vs. State" thingie that seems to open up every summer around the time I come here. In 2009, it was the Worthingtons. They were not at all good news. Despite the posh-sounding name, the Worthingtons were a pair of shit-asses who, frankly, ought to be denied the right to reproduce. Their baby daughter died at 15 months after laying on hands, oil, and a bit of wine failed to make her breathe while a cyst on her neck, obviously placed there by the Devil hisself, slowly choked the life out of her.
Disappointingly, the dad in this fiasco only got a few months in prison. His wife Raylene, who apparently was led astray by the Devil, had allegedly made a tentative suggestion during the witchery around her dying baby that the girl be taken to a proper Devil doctor, so she got off with nothing but a dead baby. At the time of the trial, she was pregnant with another little Church vs. State precedent-setter, whose fate is probably something I'll learn about in another summer trip home while I'm getting back in touch with my American side.
Raylene Worthington, however, wins the Stranger "Biggest Dumbass" Award. Not only did she allegedly sit by and get ignored on the doctor thing while her baby died, she had also lost her little brother not long before, because Jesus didn't love him either and He had decided the boy should die of a blockage in his urinary tract that caused him to lose the ability to pee for a couple weeks.
Ouch.
Maybe it was just some creepy Job thing, letting the poor Beagley kid die a slow and painful death as a show of faith, but clearly it didn't work out for him as well as it did for old Job. His parents' trial was 2010's Church vs. State train wreck.
Anyway, the point of this whole Oregon-based rant is this. Everyone struggles with their separation of religion and legislation issues. If this is how it looks in Oregon with the anointin' and layin' on of hands and cypherin' and all, I'm pretty freaking glad the Turkish media are focusing on headscarves, because this is about all I can handle of dead babies and losers who should get their baby licenses taken away.
As a pointless aside, I despise Keanu Reeves for his crappy acting and erstwhile attractive face (spoiled by the crappy acting, why didn't you just remain Ted-esque and Rivers Edge with Dennis Hopper, my dear boy?) but I should credit a Film Moment for where I got the term "baby license" from:
Open Letter To Dennis Hopper:
Dear Dennis Hopper,
I love you and I wish you weren't dead. I also wish your celebrity death triad hadn't included Gary Coleman and Art Linkletter.
With creepy adoration,
Stranger
The other inspiration for this post wasn't all the dead kids in Oregon City. It was supposed to be about some cool things that happened to me on my first day back. As I think about it, the minimal prison sentences these baby murderers have been getting aren't that cool at all. I blame God and the judiciary. It seems that, in terms of actual justice as I see it, the score is Church 3: Grown-Up Reason 0.
The real reason I wanted to post in the first place was totally frivolous, which is that my boots arrived.
Ever since I got my sweet university job where I make money and gain personal satisfaction and stuff, I decided I had to reward myself with these boots. That's right, I totally have this secret shoe thing, and since I started having some money I've been looking every week, in a porno-istic way, at these boots on their website.
Unlike their harnessed sisters which I already own, these babies fit like a dream on the first go and won't take a year to break in properly.
Open Letter To My Boots:
Dear Boots,
It's enough to just to smell your sweet, sweet leather smell, and to stroke your luscious leather uppers from time to time. My feelings for you are unnatural and I'm okay with that.
With deep affection,
Stranger
 |
| Dumb as posts. |
 |
| God just didn't love her enough. |
It was all pleasing news, another chapter in the ongoing "Church vs. State" thingie that seems to open up every summer around the time I come here. In 2009, it was the Worthingtons. They were not at all good news. Despite the posh-sounding name, the Worthingtons were a pair of shit-asses who, frankly, ought to be denied the right to reproduce. Their baby daughter died at 15 months after laying on hands, oil, and a bit of wine failed to make her breathe while a cyst on her neck, obviously placed there by the Devil hisself, slowly choked the life out of her.
 |
| Doesn't Jesus love me? |
 |
| Thicker than pigshit. |
Raylene Worthington, however, wins the Stranger "Biggest Dumbass" Award. Not only did she allegedly sit by and get ignored on the doctor thing while her baby died, she had also lost her little brother not long before, because Jesus didn't love him either and He had decided the boy should die of a blockage in his urinary tract that caused him to lose the ability to pee for a couple weeks.
Ouch.
 |
| As stupid as they look. |
 |
| Sucked for Job. |
Anyway, the point of this whole Oregon-based rant is this. Everyone struggles with their separation of religion and legislation issues. If this is how it looks in Oregon with the anointin' and layin' on of hands and cypherin' and all, I'm pretty freaking glad the Turkish media are focusing on headscarves, because this is about all I can handle of dead babies and losers who should get their baby licenses taken away.
As a pointless aside, I despise Keanu Reeves for his crappy acting and erstwhile attractive face (spoiled by the crappy acting, why didn't you just remain Ted-esque and Rivers Edge with Dennis Hopper, my dear boy?) but I should credit a Film Moment for where I got the term "baby license" from:
Open Letter To Dennis Hopper:
Dear Dennis Hopper,
I love you and I wish you weren't dead. I also wish your celebrity death triad hadn't included Gary Coleman and Art Linkletter.
With creepy adoration,
Stranger
 |
| It's bad for kids when God wins |
The real reason I wanted to post in the first place was totally frivolous, which is that my boots arrived.
 |
| Hello, ladies. |
Unlike their harnessed sisters which I already own, these babies fit like a dream on the first go and won't take a year to break in properly.
Open Letter To My Boots:
Dear Boots,
It's enough to just to smell your sweet, sweet leather smell, and to stroke your luscious leather uppers from time to time. My feelings for you are unnatural and I'm okay with that.
With deep affection,
Stranger
 |
| Being in America mostly makes me want to Eat and Buy Things, in what is surely a microcosmically meaningful phenomenon. |
4 comments:
That has just taken the wind right out my sails.
I second your anger.
Nuff said.
Isn't it astounding that anyone would even treat these people as grown-ups, let alone worry about their freaking rights?
That's PC for you.
Keep writing.
I see the word verification to submit this post says 'pakism'....... I'm offended.
I do love ironic word verifications...
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