And for the reasonably sane in Wisconsin, that cross would be Father James Altman.
The fiery, unhinged priest, as you will see, is clearly giving my usual target, crazed evangelicals, a run for their money:
A local priest whose public condemnation of Democrats as “Godless hypocrites” sparked both outcry and defense last fall has now drawn new attention for his anti-vaccine rhetoric and largely maskless services.
Altman
A community member last week shared with the Tribune a photo from Easter Services at St. James the Less Catholic Church where Father James Altman presides, showing a crowded church, and a page from a church bulletin calling vaccines “an experimental use of a genetic altering substance that modifies your body — your temple of the Holy Spirit.”
The flyer, which was posted to the church’s website as of press time and reviewed by the Tribune, states it is “diabolical for anyone to virtue-signal/shame/compel you to take such an experimental drug, making you nothing other than a guinea pig,” and also says those recommending inoculation are “lying to your face.”
“God is still the best doctor and prayer is still the best medicine,” the missive closes.
During his Palm Sunday mass, which was apparently attended by a large number of parishioners in contravention of Covid regulations, Father Altman railed against the public health measures designed to protect the public:
“You’ve all heard the horror stories, all because godless vermin fed us fear and instituted godless, Nazi-esque controls on all of us and on those we love,” Altman said.
“Let us be clear, God damns every single one of those godless moves, whether it be in civil government or worse, in the complicity of many in the church. In fact, if hell itself has many levels,” Altman said. “The lowest, hottest levels are the final burning place for those shepherds who were complicit in the godless restrictions.”
Later in the sermon, Altman said, “The godlessness of what has happened over the past year, the godlessness of what Fauci is now promoting in double masking, is damnable in the hottest fires of hell, and I’m not joking.”
Altman condemns those in the church adhering to COVID-19 precautions, including leaders, calling it “damning,” and encourages the audience to “do all that we must” to make sure the government never “restricts our life of faith again.”
“Their authority ends at our door,” Altman said.
You can see the good father in full rhetorical high dudgeon in the following video. I suggest you only watch about four or five minutes of it. More than that may see you feeling the fires of hell licking at your soles and souls:
Sometimes I feel embarrassed to be living in a province as benighted as Ontario. But then I realize that it is neither me nor my fellow citizens (for the most part) who are the clueless and the incompetent. That distinction is one the Doug Ford-led provincial government has the dubious honour of bearing.
I have chosen but three of a wealth of letters in today's Star attesting to that fact:
I cannot tell you how safe I felt waking up to know that all those essential workers would not be able to take the day off and go to a golf course. How brilliant to close the courses!
Great job, Doug! You sure know how to hold your ground in the face of the hordes of doctors and scientists and experts who implored you to do the one thing you could to save this province: institute paid sick days. You sure know how to take a position and stick to it (beyond any reasonable amount of time).
And how to sort out the meaningless measures and make them look as though you are doing something. I mean, moving, initially, to close down those swamps of infection, children’s playgrounds.
A brilliant move! Imagine, we thought you weren’t up to the job!
Yes, I certainly feel safe.
Elizabeth Young, Georgetown
If warehouses and factories are the primary sources of COVID-19 transmissions, why were they not targeted initially to be closed for the next few weeks?
Why are all vaccines not being immediately redeployed to their essential workers?
Why has the provincial government not yet introduced paid sick leave benefits?
If playgrounds have been proven to not be a source of COVID-19 transmission, then why were children facing increased restrictions that would further jeopardize their mental health and well-being?
If Doug Ford is continually unwilling to follow the advice of health-care experts, then why will he not resign and let someone take over who is willing to make the choices that will best protect the health and safety of Ontarians?
David Tepper, Thornhill
Once again, Premier Doug Ford and his cabinet have failed us. They, together with Ontario’s chief medical officer, have proven themselves to be incompetent and morally bankrupt in their handling of the pandemic.
Once again, despite receiving consistent and persuasive advice from clinicians, epidemiologists and their own medical-scientific advisory panels, and, in the face of an unprecedented, unsustainable and extremely dangerous health care crisis, they have once again failed to take the actions required.
Ford resorts to bluff and bluster while playing fast and loose with the facts and tries to deflect the blame to others. He and the cabinet have caused and continue to cause so much avoidable sickness, suffering and death.
Our health-care system and the people who work in it have been perilously damaged, while at the same time the business community also has been seriously damaged.
The government has consistently failed to grasp that, in this pandemic, trying to balance the economy and public health ends up damaging both, whereas a strong focus on public health minimizes damage to the economy.
I am angry, outraged and deeply saddened.
Terry Donaghue, Toronto
There are times when ineptitude causes irritation or minor annoyance. Clearly, this is not one of those times.
I don't feel particularly inspired to write these days, but I am always on the lookout for aptly expressed sentiments by others. In the print edition of today's Toronto Star, there are two letters of note pertaining to the Doug Ford government's mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ontario, or as I like to call it, Contagion Central, has never been in worse hands:
Beating the virus while staying open was magical thinking
Toronto Star
It is easier to reject the unfathomable and proceed with our lives as we know it. Politicians have been exploiting this human response. They have nurtured our belief in magical thinking. It is about to bring us to our knees.
We can pay low taxes and still get all the services. We can keep drilling for oil and drive cars and somehow climate change can still be averted.
We can enjoy endless growth in the face of finite resources on this planet.
During the acceleration of a pandemic, we can reopen everything to give business and customers what they want, and still somehow beat COVID-19 and maintain access to hospital care if we come down with appendicitis.
Experts warned us in February that April was going to be a pandemic disaster in Ontario without stringent new measures. Instead, we opened things up.
True leadership grasps the situation and takes ownership of the task of convincing people that choosing the responsible approach to overcome the crisis is key.
Ford is a master when it comes to deflecting blame
Toronto Star
Premier Doug Ford heard two months ago of a third wave disaster approaching, rolled the dice and lost.
We’re in a dire situation with hospital ICU beds filling up and potentially under-staffed.
With the introduction of a tougher set of rules, there was no acknowledgment that there were errors in judgment by the provincial government.
Instead, Ford is deflecting all blame from his own government by pointing the finger at the federal government for a lack of vaccines and implementing steps that give the appearance that he’s acting tough, but not taking the measures he should have to be effective.
Ford claims if more vaccines were available this third wave could have been avoided when the science always indicated that the virus would win the race against vaccines.
Ontario has only demonstrated the capacity to inject just over 100,000 vaccines per day while hundreds of thousands of vaccines are somewhere in Ontario not getting into the arms of Ontarians.
Ford gives us the appearance of taking control of the situation by implementing border controls; eliminating outdoor activities like golfing and other meaningless measures, instead of providing paid sick leave; improving the vaccine rollout plan to get more needles quicker into the arms of Ontarians in the hot spots, imposing a curfew that other jurisdictions and countries have used successfully and increasing the use of rapid testing in essential workplaces.
I can only hope that by some miracle we don’t see the frightful triage scenes we’ve seen in other countries in Ontario.
Such is the state of things in Ontario. Huf Gym, in Mississauga, refuses to close despite the law. Indeed, as the following video report makes clear, the law seems to be abetting this illegal operation:
Peel police have confirmed the officer’s badge number as 1889 but didn’t identify his name or what he was doing at the scene.
“Upon learning of the incident, I immediately directed that the Sergeant be suspended and commenced an Internal Affairs investigation,” Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said in his statement.
“Our officers will enforce municipal and provincial regulations as required,” he added.
The Covid numbers in Ontario today are grim: 4,812 new cases and 25 more deaths.
The following report by the CBC's Ellen Mauro places the blame precisely where it belongs: the massive incompetence/ideological intransigence of the Ford government in dealing with our ongoing Covid disaster.
I found the following on Facebook, written by a Black man named David Gray. For those interested in going deeper into his post, I have provided links to all the victims of police and/or white violence/racism he cites in his post.
I need to drive my two-year-old to daycare tomorrow morning. To ensure we arrive alive, we won't take public transit (Oscar Grant). I removed all air fresheners from the vehicle and double-checked my registration status (Daunte Wright), and ensured my license plates were visible (Lt. Caron Nazario). I will be careful to follow all traffic rules (Philando Castille), signal every turn (Sandra Bland), keep the radio volume low (Jordan Davis), and won't stop at a fast food chain for a meal (Rayshard Brooks). I'm too afraid to pray (Rev. Clementa C. Pickney) so I just hope the car won't break down (Corey Jones).
When my wife picks him up at the end of the day, I'll remind her not to dance (Elijah McClain), stop to play in a park (Tamir Rice), patronize the local convenience store for snacks (Trayvon Martin), or walk around the neighborhood (Mike Brown). Once they are home, we won't stand in our backyard (Stephon Clark), eat ice cream on the couch (Botham Jean), or play any video games (Atatiana Jefferson).
The video, first uploaded to Shirell Johnson's Facebook page, shows a man identified by social media users as U.S. Army sergeant first class Jonathan Pentland walking alongside a young Black male only identified as Deandre, asking him what he's doing in the neighborhood and aggressively telling him to leave. At one point in the video, Pentland pushes Deandre.
Prepare to be tutored about the relationship between Covid swabs and zombies, thanks to the good offices of the most Reverend Jim Bakker:
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Steve Quayle warns Jim Bakker's audience that nasal tests for COVID-19 are part of a plan to obtain DNA samples to be used in the creation of targeted biological weapons that will turn everyone into flesh-eating zombies. https://bit.ly/2PwdRC9
As I have written elsewhere on this blog, my patience for those who willfully embrace ignorance, who prefer the blunt hammer of dark conspiracy to the hard work of thinking, is non-existent. And despite well-articulated arguments that the way to reach such people is not through confrontation, abuse or disdain but rather empathy and discourse, the well-entrenched cynic within me suggests that such an approach is both very time-consuming and of very limited efficacy.
Time is not on our side in our current Covid pandemic.
But if one were to judge by anti-vaxxer news reports, it is all much ado about nothing.
Take, for example, the anti-lockdown rally in Brantford Ontario over the weekend, which saw possibly a thousand unmasked protestors, bitter over our current lockdown and standing closely together in their solidarity.
The consequence of challenging such a benighted but obdurate mindset is both ugly and instructive. Last week, Martin Regg Cohn wrote a column advocating mandatory vaccinations:
The logical alternative to never-ending lockdowns is to make vaccinations mandatory. Yes, mandatory — like mask mandates.
No, I don’t mean physically restraining people and forcefully injecting them. After all, we don’t forcefully apply masks to people’s faces, we merely forbid them from forcing themselves upon us unmasked and unasked.
In other words, he says there must be restrictions on the freedoms of those who place their wants and beliefs above the requirements of public health. Those restrictions would include bans on overseas air travel, entry to nursing homes, and crossing the border.
“YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM WILL GO FUCKING HYPERACTIVE UNTIL YOU DIE AND HOPEFULLY FOR YOU THAT WILL BE VERY SOON.”
“I HOPE YOU AN YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY ARE FIRST INLINE TO GET PUNCTURED WITH THIS EXPERIMENTAL INOCULATION.”
“How much did you get paid to run that PsyOp? ... End the lockdowns. End the mask mandates. Ban the vaccine.”
“You sir, are obviously a shill for the pharmaceutical industry and should be shut down.”
“Nazis didn’t give Jews the right to decide. Are you German? Have you heard of the Nuremberg Code? Created to protect against medical experiments.”
“Your article of forced vaccines is not only disgusting but actually a crime against humanity! Who the f__k do you think you are? I hope that you get what you deserve, God is always watching for demons like you!”
“How about we dump you off in a totalitarian country like China, where you can live anong like-minded sheep and dittoheads. In fact, perhaps North Korea is more your style.”
“This is the largest mass extinction event we can imagine and you are helping pushing along all the lemers until they fall off that cliff.”
“Do you have a monetary gain? Were you ‘asked’ to write your article by a member of the government or ministry of health to help them push the vaccine?”
“You are an aggressive participant in slow motion mass murder.... Vaccine dependency is mass murder in slow motion. You are an uneducated buffoon … who is your puppet master?”
Jesus said that we will always have the poor amongst us. It is obvious that today, we must also add a few other categories to that observation.
Police in Brantford have laid 12 charges following large protests held amid the provincewide shutdown over the long weekend and say more charges may be coming.
That's the question pundit Roland Martin asks about their uniform silence over the sordid sex scandal engulfing Republican Matt Gaetz, who is a House Representative from Florida. Before getting to the video of Martin's comments, here is a short primer on the scandal.
First and foremost, it has been established that Gaetz is under federal investigation for sexual misconduct. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the justice department (DoJ) is investigating whether Gaetz, 38, “had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him”. If these allegations are accurate, then Gaetz could have violated federal sex trafficking laws.
Adding credibility to the allegation is this little nugget:
Gaetz has faced accusations of disturbing sexual conduct before. In January 2020 Chris Latvala, a Republican congressman, tweeted that Gaetz “created a game where members of the FL House got ‘points’ for sleeping with aides, interns, lobbyists, and married legislators”. Gaetz also reportedly bragged of his sexual exploits and showed other lawmakers nude photos of women he’d slept with. According to CNN, he showed his colleagues these photos while he was at work. Gaetz, by the way, was also the only lawmaker to vote against a bipartisan anti human-trafficking bill. A number of his colleagues have also spoken out about “love of alcohol and illegal drugs, as well as his proclivity for younger women”.
If you watch just the first two minutes of the following video, you will see what is sticking in Roland Martin's craw:
One thing that at least can be said about the evangelical set, I guess, is that they are remarkably and consistently selective in their moral outrages.
Despite both the overt and subtle nature of racism in Canada, it is hard to imagine living in a country where Black people are essentially told, "Your vote is undesirable. You are a threat to the status quo that so many white people have fought so hard to maintain."
Such is the situation in 28 American states, where legislatures have introduced bills that would severely circumscribe voters' rights with measures ranging from limits on absentee ballots to requirements for photo ID. Indeed, in the state of Georgia, it will now be a crime to offer food or water to people standing in line to vote.
Please advance the following to the 9:45 minute mark to get a full flavour of these discriminatory measures:
It would seem that Republicans know their time is up, and they are doing everything within their (corrupt) power to hold back the clock.
In what can only be described initially as a fluid situation, assuming he wandered in from a nearby water body, a beaver proceeded to a Toronto subway station, presumably to sample the wonders of Ontario's capital. This tourist invasion 'threat' led to an immediate closing of the station,
Animal control officers arrived at 8 a.m. and did a “safe recovery,” allowing the station entrance to be reopened.
He also wanted to assure the public that the beaver was safe.
Well, that's the official story. Here is the real scoop:
It is often said that with age comes wisdom. While that may be true in some instances, perhaps it is more accurate to say that with age comes context. Within the frame of years lived is a wide canvas, one that often provokes, at least on my part, more bemusement than enlightenment.
But I have come to one conclusion, not especially insightful or earth-shattering perhaps, but nonetheless practical and useful: People should leave other people alone or, put another way, just don't bother people.
I know in this age of echo-chamber social media that many feel emboldened to share their hateful, racist and extreme views, convinced that they have a wisdom to impart. Feeling especially chuffed, many are happy to act out their ignorant hatred, as evidenced most recently by anti-Asian attacks, both in the United States and Canada.
From verbal insults to physical assaults, including being spat upon, 643 complaints were submitted to the council’s online platforms from March 10 to Dec. 31, 2020. Overwhelmingly, these incidents were fuelled by false and racist beliefs about the spread of COVID-19, according to the study’s authors.
“In addition to the ways we know COVID transmits, the spitting and coughing symbolizes a revenge, as if an act of ‘Go back where you came from, where the virus came from,’” said Kennes Lin, a social worker and co-chair of the CCNC Toronto chapter, who was one of the report’s authors.
Avvy Go, director of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic in Toronto, was walking home when she was accosted and spit at by a group of young people who blocked her route.
Horrified, Go yelled, “Excuse me!” but the group continued on, laughing among themselves.
“I was just taken aback. I was just stunned,” said Go, director of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. “For some of us, every time we step out, we have to worry if we will be targeted again.”
The trauma of experiencing racist attacks, whether verbal or physical, is substantial. The above-referenced report offers some disturbing insights:
About 73 per cent of those who reported incidents said they suffered emotional harm or mental distress from what occurred. About eight per cent reported physical injuries.
Individuals who reported an incident in a Chinese language as opposed to English were 34 per cent more like to suffer emotional distress from the incident and 100 per cent more likely to have experienced a physical assault.
Close to 50 per cent of incidents occurred in public spaces (park/street/sidewalk), while another 17 per cent took place in grocery stores or restaurants.
There is much, much more to the report, which I suggest you take a look at as time permits.
So what is to be done? Other than raising public awareness about these hateful attacks and mobilizing support for the Asian community, I return to what I said at the beginning of this post. Miscreants need a reality check in order to understand that very few are thirsting for their 'wisdom,' and the best course for such individuals is to keep their hatred to themselves, and just don't bother people.
As we have become increasingly aware these past several years, institutional investments matter. And as public awareness has grown, so has pressure for the big funds to divest from ethically and environmentally suspect parts of their portfolio, be they holdings in fossil fuels, tobacco, firearms or gambling, to name but a few.
For teachers, the pressure to divest is not new. Well over two decades ago, there was a group of us who tried to convince the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan to take its money out of Maple Leaf Foods. At the time, the food-processing giant was in the midst of crippling wage cuts (about 40%) at its Burlington Ontario plant.
The response we got was disappointing. We were told that the Plan had a "fiduciary responsibility' to its members to make as much profit as possible. Matters of principle could not be taken into consideration.
Fortunately, that amoral strategy is changing in Canada, thanks to grassroot pressure by union members.
A Canadian Crown corporation has sold off its entire stake in the American private prison industry following a public campaign by the union that represents the majority of federal employees.
The Public Sector Pension Investment Fund (PSP) bought more than 600,000 shares of CoreCivic and the Geo Group, two of the largest providers of private prisons, jails and immigration detention centres in the United States, in the last half of 2020.
In late February, days after a Toronto Star storyexposed those acquisitions, PSP moved to sell off its shares in the two companies, according to a letter signed by PSP president and CEO Neil Cunningham.
“We believe it’s a victory,” said James Infantino, the pensions and disability insurance officer at the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). “We got out of an investment that our members abhor, so that’s in itself something to note and hopefully, it’s something that we can build on.”
A victory it is. If you know anything about the private prison industry in the United States, you know that its profits come from cutting corners (understaffing, denial or delay of needed medical care for prisoners, inferior food, etc.) If you are interested in the topic, an excellent book is American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey IntoThe Business of Punishment, by Shane Bauer. Given that a disproportionate number of people in prison are Black and Latino, it is difficult to see private prisons as anything other than a system of modern slavery.
Indeed, there is a thought-provoking documentary on Netflix called 13th, which looks at the sad history of incarceration that followed the abolition of slavery and continues to this very day.
There is no way of avoiding the fact that inmates in both public and private prisons have become mere fodder for a cold, cruel and very calculating capitalism that should make everyone feel ashamed. An awakening public conscience is one reason to feel at least a modicum of hope that things may be changing.
It is to be hoped that other institutional investors soon will no longer be behind bars.
