The great photographer Margaret Bourke-White once averred she became positively irrational if she couldn’t get a shot she wanted. I know the feeling, but I guess part of the reason I never became a professional photojournalist is I am too polite about it.

Case in point: I’m driving home from Orlando, up I-95, in the lost, lonely mood I usually am after vacationing in a spot where I’m likely to run into a lot of happy couples. It’s the morning after New Year’s Eve and it’s gray and cloudy and looking very, very somber, and I am driving back north away from the sunshine and warmth of Orlando and Disney World and back into the Baltimore Maryland cold. So I’m not feeling exactly cheerful.

As I drive through North Carolina, I see an abandoned motel to my right, that oddly has its front walls entirely removed. What you see is just the shells of the rooms behind the wall, like a lot of post office boxes with their doors torn off. The effect is of a stark hollowness.

No… I think to myself. It’s too obvious… But I can’t get the image out of my mind. I’m driving north and the miles are piling up and I just want to get back home and back to my nest and sulk for the last few remaining days of my vacation and maybe do a little housework. But I can’t get the damn thing out of my head. I even know Exactly the shot I want to get. I can picture it in my head clearly…picture exactly where I need to stand and what angle to shoot at and what my camera settings are.

No…no…it’s too obvious. And…I don’t want to go there. I’m feeling down enough as it is right now. Do I need to make myself feel worse? I think not. Damn…the sky is just right for that shot though. I’ve never seen a place with just its front wall torn off. Why the hell did they do that? It’s so damn odd… Be nice to just wander around it a bit. No…it’s probably fenced off. I’ll bet they have No Trespassing signs plastered everywhere. Do I want to get arrested in North Carolina? Seriously. Just let it go. Damn the sky is just right… Those gray clouds…just the right amount of sunlight up there. That scene really wants to be low contrast. I should just keep going. I don’t need to go there. I’m feeling miserable. Damn that sky is just right. If I stop some other trip it won’t be right. They might have the rest of it torn down by then. I should just keep going. There will be other shots like that one. I’ve never seen a place with just the front wall torn off like that. Do I really want to be wandering around a derelict building all by myself? It might be dangerous. Some thug might see me pull up in my Mercedes-Benz and decide to shoot me for my car and my camera and nobody would ever know what happened to me. Too dangerous. Why the hell did they just take down the front and leave the rest of it up? It’s so damn perfect. It’s like its bearing its empty heart to the sky. All those people who stayed inside, found warmth, shelter for the night, maybe a moment or two of love, and eventually they all left without a second thought and now it has nothing. The front wall was its face…and then the people left and its face fell away and all that’s left are the empty rooms open now to the sky. I should keep going. I don’t need this. I should turn around. Do I really want to go there? Darn it…I can’t let that one go… How far to the next exit…

Which by then was about 3 miles ahead of me and the motel in question about 12 miles behind. I did a loop back and on the way looked for some other possible shots in the landscape. And I found a few, which made me feel better about loosing travel time. There were two service roads paralleling the main Interstate where some lonely restaurants and strip shopping seemed to be barely holding on. I figured after I took a few shots at the abandoned motel I could drive up one of the service roads and get a few more of other stuff by the highway.

I actually had to drive past it again and loop back to find the correct exit. What apparently happened was a new highway was built nearby, cutting off the old exit by the motel, which killed its drive-by business. I had to go back to an exit a few miles in the other direction, and find the place where I could access the service road that led to it. There were few other surviving businesses along that road. A collection of self storage bins. Some odd pumping station whose purpose I had no idea. There were some empty highway billboards and a junk yard/auto body shop that looked like it had been picked over until nothing of value was left. Yet it seemed to still be in business. I wondered who got their work done there. Close by the motel was a trailer/RV park that actually seemed to still be doing a reasonably good business. It was called Sleepy Bear.

I have no idea what the abandoned motel next to it was called, but it was clear that its current owners wanted nobody getting near it. There was a huge, and I mean huge NO TRESPASSING sign right in front. The building itself was only partly fenced in however. Anyone could just walk onto the property from the street.

The service road dead-ended just past the motel, where the old highway interchange had been closed off. I wasn’t about to park in the lot. But there were some pull-offs just down the street that were off the property and I stopped Traveler there and popped the trunk. I took out the new camera, popped off the lens cap, adjusted the hood, switched on and checked my settings. I took a quick light reading. Then I wandered over.

Damn…that sign is big…

Okay…fine. They didn’t want me trespassing. I looked the site over to see if I could get the shot that had been so fixed in my mind the moment I laid eyes on the motel, without setting foot on the property.

Yes…I can do this…

But I was beginning to get the creeps. It was deathly silent all around me…gray and overcast and a tad chilly. Even the Interstate just a few dozen yards away was quiet, due to it being early New Years Day. All the revelers were sleeping it off. Only us lonely travelers on it now…just the occasional sound of a car going by was all there was.

I walked up to the fence along one side of the motel. I couldn’t take my eyes off the building. In a creepy sort of way it felt like it was looking back at me, through empty eyes…

Damn…they really did just yank the front walls off of everything here. WTF…???

I began to wonder if trespassing meant don’t go beyond the fence or if I was trespassing by simply walking up to it. I decided to just get my shots and skedaddle. This is why I am not a professional photojournalist. I am way too timid. The spirit of Weegee laughs at my timidity.

I couldn’t shoot through the fence…the chain link was too much in the way. So I raised my camera above my head and started shooting. The nice thing about a digital camera is you can see your shots instantly and know if your getting it. Every time I clicked the shutter the LCD display on the back of the camera showed what I had just taken. So I could adjust the camera angle a tad and take another…and so on until I had it. At one point, I knew I had the one I wanted…the one that said it. Whenever that happens, it’s like a little electric current goes through me from the camera. I swear.

I backed off and looked around some more. I felt something tempting me in. But I wasn’t going to risk getting arrested. I’d seen a little house down a private driveway next to the motel, and there were certainly people over at Sleepy Bear. As I walked back to Traveler I saw a truck towing a nice vacation trailer behind it drive away. I wondered if the driver noticed me. I walked briefly to the front of the motel again, near the sign but well on what I thought was its good side.

Damn…that sign is Big…

I fired off one more shot of the front of the motel and tarried with the idea of wandering around the front some more to see if there were any other good shots I could get from outside the fence. But something about that sign kept creeping me out.

They really mean it…

So I got back into Traveler, started up and headed back toward the Interstate. There were a couple other shots I’d seen as I made my way to the motel and as I approached one of them, a sign that said simply “Units Available” in front of a long lonely row of cookie-cutter identical self storage bins, I wondered if I could just stop my car in the middle of the road and take it from out the window, because it didn’t look like there was any usable shoulder to the road there. I didn’t want to get stuck. I was about a quarter mile away from the motel.

Suddenly I saw a police car coming at me from the opposite direction. It blew right past me and if it wasn’t doing at least 90 I am no judge of speed. There was nothing in the direction it was going, except Sleepy Bear, the little house behind the motel, and the motel, and the end of the road.

Damn! Damn! Did someone see me taking pictures and call the cops??? I wasn’t about to hang around and find out. Good thing I didn’t stick around… I decided to forgo getting my other shots and politely asked Traveler for triple digit velocity. Traveler happily obliged. I don’t think Das Auto likes being confined to American highway speeds. I had a couple tight curves to navigate but Traveler hunkered down over them and didn’t even flash the Electronic Stability Program light at me, and there wasn’t anyone else out on the roads just then except me and Mr. Policeman.

Good thing I didn’t have the camera hanging out the window… I figured the cop, if he was called out for a trespasser at the motel, would first check the area and only then would the thought cross their mind that perhaps the perp was in the car that they’d shot past like a bat out of hell. By then I’d be well down the Interstate and it would be a fifty-fifty shot at guessing whether I was going north or south, if I was even on the Interstate to begin with. I didn’t think anyone could have gotten my license plate, and at a distance all I would have seemed to be driving was a white compact car of some kind.

I slowed to legal speed when I got on the Interstate. I wasn’t about to get caught in a radar trap either and I had noticed a lot of them already that morning.

Probably they’d have let it go when they discovered the trespasser had left the scene. Why bother, right? Except…do you blast down the road like a bat out of hell just to nail a trespasser at an abandoned motel?

I wasn’t trespassing dammit. I stayed behind the damn fence. What is it with that place…?

I stressed about it all the way to the Virginia boarder. I took the memory card out of the camera and hid it so I could plausibly say, What…Who…Where…Huh if cornered. Except that people who wear their hearts on their sleeves like I do don’t make excellent liars.

The spirit of Weegee mocks my timidity. Did I take some pictures? You talkin to me? Yeah I took some fucking pictures…

Oh well. I got my shot and it was worth it…

Abandoned Motel – Lumberton, NC.

Dang…I wish I could wander around that site and get a few more shots. But I don’t think they want to let me…

Via Towleroad…

Florida Megachurch Dumps Pepsi Over its Positions on Gay Issues

The Bell Shoals Baptist megachurch in Brandon, Florida is making headlines for carting 10 Pepsi machines out of its premises and replacing them with machines from Coca-Cola, because, they say, Pepsi donated to Prop 8, sponsors Gay Pride parades, and runs ads that cater to homosexuals.

Your church had ten soft drink vending machines in it?  Wow.  What else you got in there… A Chick Fil A?  A swimming pool?  Oh…I see you have an online Store!  Very nice…

Oh look at all the microphone stands that came to church on Sunday.  

Church is such a…different experience from when I was a little Baptist boy…

Very different.  So…is that really a church or is it a sports arena?  Do you have hockey games Sunday nights?  Is Coca-Cola served?

[Update…]  Dan Savage shares my astonishment at the lovely modern amenities now available to customers of today’s modern luxury MegaChurches…

Here’s another reason why I want to disappear into Disney World for a while…

GOP Lawmaker’s Graphic Sex-Bragging Caught On Tape

Michael Duvall is a conservative Republican state representative from Orange County, California. While waiting for the start of a legislative hearing in July, the 54-year-old married father of two and family values champion began describing, for the benefit of a colleague seated next to him, his ongoing affairs with two different women. In very graphic detail.

For instance:

She wears little eye-patch underwear. So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And
 so, we had made love Wednesday–a lot! And so she’ll, she’s all, ‘I am going 
up and down the stairs, and you’re dripping out of me!’ So messy!

Oh how lovely.  Haven’t I already seen this movie? 

As the OC Weekly reports, 
Duvall has "blasted" efforts to promote gay marriage, and got a 100 percent score from the Capitol Resource Institute, which describes its mission as to "educate, advocate, protect, and defend family-friendly policies in the California state legislature". In March, a spokeswoman for the group called Duvall "a consistent trooper for the conservative causes," adding that "for the last two years, he has voted time and time again to protect and preserve family values in California."

See…this kind of thing is funny for a while (oh look at what just popped out of another conservative’s closet…!), but then it gets so soul wearying.  I really need to remember that morality and values and honor and decency really do represent more in our lives then convenient hooks to drive the rubes to the polls with…that there is more to the human status then this runt represents. 

People need to look…really look…at what’s motivating all those moral crusaders of the right, waving scarecrows bearing their neighbor’s faces.  They’re just pushing your buttons because they know it works.  And why is that?

I saw this little news tidbit over at Box Turtle Bulletin.  But first, let’s review some testimony about marriage from Alan Chambers, president of the ex-gay therapy group Exodus International.  Alan likes to tell people that homosexuals can change.  Here he is, giving testimony at a 2004 U.C. Berkeley Debate on Same-Sex Marriage…

My name is Alan Chambers; I am a Christian…

Hello Alan…

…a husband to my wife, Leslie and I also used to be a homosexual. To be clear, I did not choose my same-sex attractions nor did I willfully adopt a homosexual orientation, but my response to both, my behaviors, were a choice.

I remember being a lonely 18 year-old searching for Mr. Right. I remember the ache to have a man hold me, protect me, love me and devote his life to me. I remember thinking I would do anything to fill that insatiable need. I did everything short of praying for my knight in shining armor to show up on my doorstep. I was certain that beyond the shadow of a doubt that the missing piece to my life’s puzzle was going to be found in the man of my dreams.

Nearly 14 years later, I am happy, content and satisfied emotionally, physically, spiritually, relationally and sexually. My process was one of self-determination and willful choice to move beyond the box that enslaves so many wonderful same-sex attracted people. Change is possible and I am living proof. I used to be homosexual and today I am not.

Had same-sex marriage been legal in 1990, I am certain that I would have tested that option. I met men who I wanted to marry. Yet today, as a mature adult with a sober perspective, I realize that I wasn’t searching for a man as much as I was searching for an answer, a drug even, to numb the pain and to make me feel better about who I thought I was. The law kept me from making one, if not many, life-altering mistakes.

Recently, Dennis Teti wrote in "The Weekly Standard", "Governments’ purpose is not to dispense rights but the secure rights created by nature and nature’s God." The current laws saved my life and continue to save the lives of other young people like me who need life saving boundaries.

As a former homosexual, I know that this battle has little, if nothing, to do with marriage, but rather with an absolute need for social approval and acceptance. This experiment with marriage, being promoted by a few, is about silencing inward guilt, pain and the gut-wrenching reality resident within homosexual and lesbian people that their desires will never be completely satisfied in the ways they seek homosexually. Legal endorsement and approval of same-sex marriage will simply guarantee that more lives those of today’s and future children, will be ruined. We already live in a truly tolerant society where the law views us all equally. Race, religion, gender, age or disability affects our personal freedoms. The laws in place that protect marriage do so to protect an institution that has been the bedrock of societies for thousands of years and most importantly to protect children. A two parent, one man-one woman, family is the best environment in which to raise the next generation. We must do all we can to protect this family unit.

Again, I am one of tens of thousands of people whom have successfully changed their sexual orientation. I am grateful for the message of change and for the current laws that saved my life.

Saved your life did they…?

Woman accused of stabbing husband formally charged

BOULDER – A woman accused of stabbing her husband less than two months after their wedding day is now facing second-degree murder charges.

[Traci] Housman told police they were drinking a lot the night of Aug. 2 and started arguing after "John began telling everyone, ‘I’m a gay guy.’"

According to the wife the fight got physical when they got home and she stabbed him in self defense.  She’s facing 32 years in jail now.  Good thing this guy wasn’t allowed to marry another man, eh Alan?

You’re right Alan…absolutely right.  This battle has little, if nothing, to do with marriage, but rather with an absolute need for social approval and acceptance.  Right on.  It is being promoted by a few, is about silencing inward guilt, pain and the gut-wrenching reality resident within homosexuals.  Some homosexuals.  The ones that hate themselves and want more then anything else to be heterosexual.  Homosexuals like you Alan.  As long as there exist some gay people, anywhere, who could accept themselves just as they are, and live happy, contented, decent lives just as they are, and find someone of their own sex to love and cherish and settle down with…then what does that make you? 

Silencing inward guilt?  Can a man really buy self respect by driving a dagger into the hopes and dreams of his neighbors?  Really?

Via Sullivan…a handy little snapshot of the state of the Union…

As the GOP declines in popularity, Fox News gains audience. Or in other words, as reality presses closer in, that subset of the American population who never saw a fact they couldn’t look right in the face and deny, is cocooning.  Surprise, surprise.

What was once a cultural divide has become a chasm, bigger, and vastly more dangerous then anything the "generation gap" of the 1960s could have produced.  Again, from Sullivan…

A reader writes:

I just want to share a sad story with you. Tonight I was at my regular Friday night AA meeting in LA that I have been attending for 18 years – I am a 48 year old woman. One of my oldest friends, a male with 30 years sobriety, is a Republican. I am a Democrat. Every week he talks politics with another like-minded friend. Tonight he arrived a bit later than usual, so as I gave him a hug, I said, "Thank goodness you arrived because I am sure Betty* (name changed) did not want to discuss politics with me!"

He then turned around and started screaming at me. I was so taken aback, I didn’t even know what he was screaming about at first. When I finally tuned in, he was yelling that Obama "sent the SEIU thugs to beat up the senior citizens" protesting at the health-care town hall meetings and that Obama had instructed the SEIU "if they come at you, you go at them twice as hard."

When I tried to reasonably protest this statement, he just spewed forth a tirade of vile invectives.

We were outside and there were about 30 people milling about. I was shocked, embarrassed and literally frozen in place. I managed to turn and walk away. This is a man I have known and respected for the entire length of my sobriety. I am fairly certain this friendship is over. Reasonable discourse is over. The lies and hate spread by the right-wing have won. As a side note, his wife, who is one of my best friends would not talk to me for over a month after the election in November. I am just heartbroken. Sorry, I know this is not the most well-written account, but I am so shaken, I can barely wrap my head around it.

I have an acquaintance…someone I used to call "friend" but simply cannot anymore…who nonetheless calls periodically.  I wrote of my frustrations about that Here.  Last time he called I ended the conversation when he started going on about how the new supreme court justice Sotomayor was a racist.  Next time he calls I’ll have a simple question ready for him…

Do you think President Obama was born here in the United States?

End of story.  Life is short.  The American Dream is still beautiful and I believe in it and you don’t anymore.  There is are lot of things Americans need to discuss with one another and hash out together and the politics of life in a democracy is you have to have those discussions and maybe even a few major arguments and in the end you compromise and you hold a vote and you get on with it.  But you’re not there anymore.  You’re somewhere on the dark side of the moon where not even light can penetrate.   We can’t talk anymore, and to have an America Americans need to be able to talk with each other and you want to shut down the talking so everyone can listen to you scream about nothing for as long as you have the breath to scream about it.  Fine.  The conversation is shut down…with you.  I’ll talk it out with anyone who has a gripe about what I think or what I believe, no matter how angry they are…but not with a Fox News crack addict.  You drag yourself out of that gutter and maybe I will.  But not before.

Via Sullivan…

A reader writes:

I live in suburban Orange County, California, which is great place for my family and the weather can’t be beat. I grew up near Edinburgh, Scotland and moved to the US in the late ’80s, when the UK was just a mess. Orange County is one of the most conservative, wealthier counties in the US. Even so, I had an unbelievable experience the other day that brought home the recession in a way that still upsets me.

While on a lunch break I pulled into a gas station in Irvine to gas up. While I was standing around waiting for my gas guzzler to fill up I heard a small boy crying. Over in the far corner of the parking lot was a fairly nice sedan, late ’90s model, perhaps a Lexus. It was parked next to the air-and-water pump. I could not see anyone but I could still hear a child crying from somewhere near the car. Then I heard something like "No, Daddy, that hurts." Well, this got my attention real quick, so I wandered around the back of my car to get a better look.

Two small good looking young boys, ages roughly 3 and 7 were being bathed in the free water pump by their parents. The young kid was crying as the water was cold and the dad was attempting to rinse the shampoo from his son’s hair  The mom was trying to comfort the young one. When I looked at the car again I noticed it was absolutely packed with clothes, etc.  It hit me right away that this family was homeless.

I could just see the sadness and desperation on the mom’s face. I felt a chill inside. I walked up to the dad and offered him all the cash I had – about $30. The look in his eyes was something I will always remember: grateful, yet ashamed. A sad, sad situation. And for this to happen in Orange County is just remarkable.

It was seeing this back during the big Reagan recession that cured me of my libertarian delusion.  For the same reason a nation of free people still needs a rule of law, an economy needs regulation to prevent corruption and maintain a healthy state of competition in the marketplace.   So when you hear some dimwit libertarian or Randite ask "Who are you to tell other people what to do with their property?", the answer should be, loud and clear "I’m one of the people who gets sick whenever someone in the boardroom of a hedge fund I’ve never even heard of sneezes, that’s who."

I could just see the sadness and desperation on the mom’s face. 

That face is what you get when you take the brakes off.  Every.  Time.

Germany seriously challenged America’s dominance in the Preserved Food You Can’t Imagine Ever Taking Off The Shelf Even In Your Most Desperate Moments category with their mighty Cheeseburger In A Can…

Well I’m here to tell you we Americans, the people who gave the world SPAM, Individually Wrapped Slices Of Fake Cheese, Fake Potato Chips In A Can (we call them Pringles on this side of the pond) and Cheese Puffs, the snack food you can put in your will, just couldn’t stand idly by and let some other country desecrate the joy of eating better then we can.  Well I’m happy to say that good old fashioned American Know-How has risen to the challenge with (drumroll…)…

Chicken In A Can!

Just the thing for that swine flu shelter you’re going to be building this weekend…

Top thAT Deutschen…

Remember those multiple lead poisoning in children’s toy scares?  Remember that poison pet food scare.  The poison toothpaste?   The tainted milk…which thankfully didn’t reach our own shores (I don’t think…).

Well prepare to become afraid of anything made of steel…

Finds of Radioactive Steel on the Rise in Germany

An internal memo in the Environment Ministry that was sent to Germany’s states on Feb. 6 listed 15 "incidents of contaminated steel," in 12 states. The list included radioactive bars, steel cables, chippings and valve housings. The list of findings has since risen to 19.

Since last August, a total of 150 tons of contaminated metal has been seized…

The situation is a novelty in Germany. Never before have officials had to deal with so much radioactive material in transit. Last week, Gabriel announced soberly that "radioactive steel products had been found in several federal states." Internally, though, his ministry officials have described the situation as dramatic. The problem is said to have "huge dimensions," according to sources.

Some of the metal had so far exceeded the limit of 10 becquerel per gram that it had to be confiscated immediately…

More than 500 elevator buttons, which came to Berlin from France, showed radioactivity levels of 270 becquerel per gram. The buttons have since been replaced. A component found at a company in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and tested on Jan. 19 radiated an astounding 600 becquerel per gram.

The scare in Germany is being traced to three steel processing plants in India.  How the radioactive material is getting into the steel is a mystery at the moment.  The suspicion is that it may be medical or other radio active waste that is being carelessly recycled.  There’s a lot to be said in favor of global trade.  But when you are trading with nations whose environmental, employee and consumer protections are little to none, you need to be aware that cheaper isn’t always…well…cheaper…

German companies now worry that the contamination could have costly consequences. They are concerned that they might lose customers were they to deliver contaminated stainless steel. In addition, the costs of safe disposal could be as high as thousands of euros per ton of metal.

I’m assuming they built my Mercedes from steel made in Germany, but my first reflex was to go get a giger counter.  Then I thought…I’ve been driving it for over a year now, so I’m probably fucked anyway.  And a radioactive Mercedes-Benz would go nicely with my radioactive Fiestaware. 

I’ve shown you this one before…right…?

It’s the flagpole at one of those churches that look nothing like churches, just down the road from Love In Action in Memphis.  The church it’s in front of has no steeple, nothing at all in it’s style or structure to suggest that it’s even a church at all.  It looks from the road, like your basic office building.  Seems the god of the white upper class, at least in the bible belt these days, likes its sanctuaries to look like either office buildings, or shopping malls.  A look perhaps befitting fundamentalism’s new emphasis on worldly things. 

I can’t say much about the rest of the bible belt because I haven’t wandered there much, but Memphis seems to have more megachurches that look like shopping malls per capita then the rest of America has shopping malls. There’s Germantown Baptist, which I visited the last time I was down there.  Nestled in the midst of a very well-to-do suburb of Memphis, it has it’s own tennis courts, day care, and big screen TV’s inside the sanctuary, so the folks in the back rows can see what’s happening on the stage.  Then there is the place the locals call Six Flags Over Jesus…Bellevue Baptist Church.  I’ve not been there yet, but the locals say it not only has the big screen TVs mounted on either side of the stage like Germantown, but TV cameras mounted on cranes that can pan around and capture all the action for the TV audience.  It’s got a bookstore, A GRACE Family Life Center, a JOY Christian Recreation Complex, a Love building, a Praise building, a really nice website where you can find a link to their Live Sermon Webcast, and a User Agreement with this wee notice:

Hypertext Link: You may provide a hypertext link to this web site on another web site only upon the receipt of written consent from Bellevue. To receive such consent, fill out a request form. Upon receipt of written consent, you may provide a link in the following manner: (a) the link points to the URL http://www.bellevue.org and not to the pages within the site; (b) the appearance, position or other aspects of the link do not create a false impression that Bellevue is associated with, or endorses, another web site, church or product; (c) the link does not dilute or damage Bellevue’s trademarks, service marks or goodwill; (d) the link does not display Bellevue’s web site with frames. Bellevue may revoke its consent to the link at any time in its sole discretion.

We all have to protect our brand I guess. 

Okay…so much so obvious.  You’ve all heard me going on about megachurches before.  But last night I was surfing my bookmarks and via The Flypaper Theory I discovered World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church, and I think they’ve done them all better. World Overcomers Outreach Ministries has a grand Walk Of Nations entranceway, a bookstore, a gym, an Olympic sized swimming pool, a bowling alley, a video arcade, and a pool hall.  I’m a bit surprised they don’t have a bar somewhere in there too.  The next step, is for someone to put a floating megachruch on the river somewhere, with a casino inside.  But to make sure they leave their competition in the dust, World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church are even building their own Statue Of Liberty. 

Well…kind of…

Our Lady Of Manifest Destiny, as PeskyFly puts it.  I had to stare at it for about five minutes before I could convince my brain of what my eyes were seeing.  The torch is gone, replaced by a cross.  The tablet that once read July 4th, 1776, has been replaced by the ten commandments.  And yes, they will unveil the thing tomorrow, on the fourth of July, 2006.  According to this article in the Memphis Commerical Appeal, the seven spikes on her crown that represent the seven seas of the world has been changed to signify the seven redemptive names of Christ. The crown itself has been inscribed with the name "Jehovah".   An old colossus, to replace the new one given this nation as a token of esteem once upon a time…

The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus

The lamp of course, had to go, because the golden door has to go.  Yearning to breath free are you?  Don’t you know that freedom is only possible if you believe what we tell you to believe, live how we tell you to live, and worship how we tell you to worship?  Democracy is a lie straight from Satan, because only the devil would think up a system of government that gives heathens the same rights as the righteous.  Think about it.  True freedom means doing what we tell you to do and thinking what we tell you to think because we’re righteous and  if you’re not one of us then obviously you aren’t.  Give your conscience to us and you’ll be free.  We’ve got a really swell video arcade and pool hall you can while away the hours between sermons in.  And the TV reception inside the church is great.  Have you visited our gift shop yet?

Some days you gotta wonder if the cultural scolds aren’t right about this being a lost world.  Once upon a time it was only prostitutes and the marketers of vibrators and skin magazines who plied their trade to the lonely and love lorn.  But at least the sex itself was real.  It’s come to this now…

No.  Just…no.  There’s something seriously wrong here.  I’ve had an arm around me as I slept a time or two in my life.  There’s no comparing the embrace of a real live human to a stuffed pillow shaped like an arm with a stuffed hand shaped appendage at the end of it.  Christ…that photo is depressing as hell.

I saw something similar in kind about a year ago…interestingly it was another Japanese product…

I dunno…  How do you bring one of those into your house without wanting to just shoot yourself?  At least with a prostitute, the sex is real.  But you can’t fake having a lover.  You just can’t.  At least I can’t.  That’s why I’ve never been tempted by prostitutes.