Reverend Doctor Victoria Weinstein aka Peacebang aka Vicki The Impaler Will "Try" To Give Up Being An Ever So "Passionate" Big Fat U*U Bitch For Lent

Or at least that is pretty much what I gather from the content of her "Lenten Sermon" entitled 'Give Up' which Vicki The Impaler posted to her Peacebang blog the other day.

Here is Peacebang's Lenten "pledge" with (in)appropriate embedded hyperlinks -

"If you grew up Catholic, you will remember Lent as a 40-day period where you gave something up. Maybe dessert, or candy, or some other luxury. I am setting a challenge for myself that will be much more difficult to give up than any exterior treat: I am going to try to give up the “fiery burden” of constant passionate opinion, or at least to notice how often I feel obligated or entitled to offer mine. How often I find common cause with friends and strangers in hating the same things. I want to try to give that up for Lent. . ."

end quote

Why do Yoda's famous words,

"Try not.

DO.

Or do not. . .

There is no try."

come to mind here?

Another SPVM Police Officer Misuses & Abuses His Authority On Behalf Of The Unitarian Church Of Montreal aka The Church Of The Tarnished Image. . .

Unnecessary and unprofessional police interventions in my peaceful public protest outside of the so-called Unitarian Church Of Montreal by officers of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal aka SPVM don't get much more ridiculous than the police intervention which took place last Sunday morning. . . As I was engaged in what UU clergy misconduct expert Rev. Deborah Pope-Lance once insightfully called my "alternative spiritual practice", and another UU minister much more recently described as my "prophetic work", of publicly protesting against Unitarian Universalist anti-religious intolerance and bigotry, all forms of UU clergy abuse aka clergy misconduct, and a variety of other UU injustices and abuses in front of this alleged Unitarian Church a male Montreal police officer from the SPVM foolishly, and indeed quite idiotically, abused the power and authority invested in him by immediately demanding that I had to end my protest and leave the sidewalk in front of this U*U "church" because I was protesting in a bus stop zone. . .

My video capable DSLR was running and it documented everything that was said by this SPVM police officer as he attempted to force an end to my peaceful public protest by citing real or imagined Montreal municipal bylaws that should not be misused and abused to abrogate or suppress my own, or indeed anyone else's. . . constitutionally guaranteed civil right to engage in peaceful public protest.



Here is a short transcript of what was said starting at 56 seconds into this brand-spanking new U*UTube video -

Male SPVM officer: "Tu peut pas rester ici."

(Translation: "You cannot stay here.")

The Emerson Avenger: "Why not?"

Male SPVM officer: "Parce-que vous êtes dans un arrêt d'autobus premièrement, deuxièmement tu sers du terrain de l'église pour mettre tes pancartes."

(Translation: "Because you are at a bus stop in the first place, and secondly you are using the church's property to place your picket signs.")

It gets better. . .

The SPVM police officers had parked their police car right smack in the middle of the bus stop zone that this overly authoritarian SPVM officer pretended I was somehow violating by engaging in peaceful public protest in front of this alleged Unitarian Church. During the time frame of this highly questionable and "less than professional" police intervention no less than two STM buses were unable to properly pull up and stop at the bus stop in question as a direct result of this SPVM police vehicle being parked in the bus stop zone itself.

As may be seen in this second U*UTube video clip, which was taken immediately after the video clip in which this overly authoritarian SPVM police officer demanded that I must end my peaceful public protest in front of the Unitarian Church Of Montreal because there happens to be a bus stop in front of the entrance to this U*U "church", a Société De Transport De Montréal bus is forced to let passengers exit the bus in the street several feet away from the sidewalk precisely because the SPVM police car of the rather foolish police officer in question is parked right smack in the middle of the bus stop zone. . .

Doh!



In this third U*UTube video clip another STM bus pulls up to the curb of the sidewalk about 60 feet before the bus stop in front of the Unitarian Church of Montreal because the bus stop is being blocked by the parked SPVM police car. It should perhaps be noted that this is by no means the first time that SPVM vehicles have parked in the bus stop zone in front of the Unitarian Church Of Montreal after having been called to this U*U "church" by outrageously hypocritical Montreal Unitarian U*Us aka Totalitarian Unitarians attempting to misuse and abuse the Canadian Criminal Code or Montreal municipal bylaws to force an end to my perfectly legitimate peaceful public protest against a variety of U*U injustices and abuses.



More later. . .

Rick Santorum's Attack On Barack Obama's "Phony Theology" & UUA President Rev. Peter Morales' Attack On "Obsolete Religions" - What's The Difference?

In a Spiritual RevolUUtions blog post entitled 'A Muslim, a Catholic, and a Mormon walk into a White House: Theological Racism in the 2012 Presidential Race' UU seminarian Nicolas Cable aka Nic Cable, who also Tweets as @CableUU, takes Republican Presidential candidate hopefuls, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich to task for their "explosion" of what Nic calls "theological bashing" religious rhetoric which "erupted after the Obama Administration faced off against the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops on issues of contraceptive healthcare coverage."

Regarding Rick Santorum's attack on President Barack Obama’s United Church Of Christ version of liberal Christianity -

"It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology."

Nic Cable quite justifiably blogs -

"Santorum is implicitly suggesting that Obama’s theological tradition within the United Church of Christ is inherently a phony theology. The subtext to this is clear: the liberal Christian tradition and the social gospel movement are illegitimate. In other words, the President’s agenda of improving the lives of the most vulnerable is anti-Christian."

Here is the comment that I just submitted in response to Nic's blog post and a follow-up comment from Dawn -

“Wow. The political rhetoric and falsehood thrown around by candidates today is unbelievable. And you’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg.”

Indeed some of the UU political rhetoric and “religious” propaganda thrown around by UUA President Peter Morales is “beyond belief”. . .

I do not see a huge difference between Rick Santorum’s public attacks on Barack Obama’s UCC Christianity and Rev. Peter Morales’ attacks on Christianity more generally. Indeed Rev. Peter Morales’ rhetoric is arguably more intolerant and bigoted than that of Rick Santorum. . .

You rightly say that, “Santorum is implicitly suggesting that Obama’s theological tradition within the United Church of Christ is inherently a phony theology. The subtext to this is clear: the liberal Christian tradition and the social gospel movement are illegitimate.”

So what do you make of the following words from Rev. Peter Morale’s ‘A Religion For Our Time’ sermon which did double duty as his “stump speech” announcing his candidacy for UUA President?

“The old religions lead to tribalism, violence, suspicion, hatred, and oppression.”

“We live in dark times, filled with hatred, injustice, prejudice, ignorance. Sadly, obsolete religions created for another time contribute to the darkness.”

There is no question that Rev. Morales is referring to the three Abrahamic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam) but his broadly worded rhetoric implicitly encompasses any number of other “old religions” such as Hinduism and Buddhism just for starters. . .

end quote

Needless to say I *could* say quite a bit more about UUA President Rev. Peter Morales' own questionable anti-religious rhetoric but I have already been there and done that. . .

Ash Wednesday, Peacebang, And Projectile Vomiting: What's The Connection?!!

Can U*Us say Rev. Dr. John A* Buehrens? :-)

Without further ado here is The Emerson Avenger's parody version of former UUA President Rev. Dr. John Buehrens' U*U World-famous poem about evil entitled 'Ash Wednesday at the Doctors' -

"Tell me," inquired Dr. Tang, after saying that the mole
in the middle of my chest, though "interesting,"
isn't cancer, at least not yet, "You're a man
of the cloth. What's your theory of evil?"

I stammered inane things about suffering --
how some destroys, some integrates;
about natural evil -- like tornadoes, for example --
that from our point of view only destroy,

but from God's point of view may also enhance.
Before I could talk about the U*U Parish
of Monson, however,
he told me a tale about his younger daughter,
who had thrush as a child, became reclusive,

hard to reach, even strange, until one day
while visiting friends, when his wife, who is blind
in one eye, weak in the other, had Tarot cards cast
saying ominous things. On the way home in the car

the little girl woke from a sleep, and with a deep voice,
like a man's, clawed at her mother, saying, "I'm going
to kill you, anally impale you on the Statue Of Liberty's torch!"
"I grabbed her," said the doctor, "took her outside the car,

and said the only real heartfelt prayer I've ever prayed:
'O God, protect this child! Protect her from Peacebang!'
Then she threw up, projectile vomiting, looked at me,
and said, 'Thank you, Daddy!' She's been fine
ever since. Now what, Reverend, do you make of that?"

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "Picture Of An Asshole" Is In The Middle Of Unitarian Universalism *These* Days. . .

Rev. Scott Wells Tweeted a Tweet which left the impression that he had forgotten what's in the middle of Unitarian Universalism. . .

What's in the middle of #Unitarian #Universalism? boyinthebands.com/archives/whos-… #uua

— Scott Wells (@bitb) February 20, 2012

So The Emerson Avenger quite opportunistically took the opportunity to remind Scott that, back in December of 2003, former CUC Executive Director Mary Bennett ever so unilaterally, and just a tad foolishly. . . decided to insert Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "Picture Of An Asshole" between the two Us of "The UU Movement" aka Unitarian Universalism in a deeply misguided (and seemingly quite childish) effort to symbolize the self-vaunted "inclusiveness" of Unitarian Universalism which, ever since *that* poorly chosen fate of CU*UC Director Mary Bennett. . . has been known as "The U*U Movement".

@bitb Have you forgotten Scott? #KurtVonnegut Jr.'s "picture of an #asshole" #courtesy of CUC Director Mary Bennett emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2011/07/famous… #UU

— Robin Edgar (@RobinEdgar) February 21, 2012

All Roads May Lead To Rome But Many UU Pathways In Google Lead To The Emerson Avenger Blog. . .

Just saying, as they say. :-)

*Some* person of inherent worth and dignity from the UUA aka Unitarian Universalist Association Of Congregations made their way here via the Pathways UU Google route earlier today.

National Standing On The Side Of Love Month 2012 And The Emerson Avenger Blog's Web Statistics - What's The Connection?

Well not a lot really. . .

In that The Emerson Avenger blog did not receive a whole lot of new visitors as a result of people running Google searches for -

Standing On The Side Of Love Month

even though a TEA blog post titled 'In National Standing On The Side Of Love Month 2012 A Free & Responsible Google Image Search For A Unitarian Standing On The Side Of Love. . .' appears on the first page of results for such a free and responsible Google search for the Truth and meaning (or indeed lack thereof. . .) of Standing On The Side Of Love Month. That TEA blog post is currently ranked at number 7 but that Google ranking may change in the coming days, months, or indeed minutes. . . In fact The Emerson Avenger did not notice a whole lot more persons of inherent worth and dignity arriving at The Emerson Avenger blog as a result of running searches for various permutations of the phrase Standing On The Side Of Love than he normally sees, which does not mean to say that TEA did not see a significant increase in the number of visitors to the TEA blog over the course of National Standing On The Side Of Love Month 2012. . .

The last time that I reported on the number of visitors to this blog it was averaging about 80 visitors per day over a period of several months. In fact, The Emerson Avenger blog's web statistics show that, for the two year period between January 1st, 2010 and December 31st 2011, the TEA blog received an average of 65 unique visitors per day with the average number of page loads being slightly over 100 per day, which *I* think is a fairly respectable figure in light of the fact that this blog deals with the injustices, abuses and hypocrisies of the clergy, administrators, and lay leaders of what UUA President Rev. Peter Morales described as "a tiny, declining, fringe religion" in his now "memory holed" sermon titled 'A Religion For Our Time'.

No U*Us?


So The Emerson Avenger was pleasantly surprised to see 2012 get off to a really good start with a significantly increased number of visitors to the TEA blog in January and February of 2012. Although the number of visitors had been steadily climbing in the latter part of 2011 and early January 2012, this number of visitors has been almost exactly double the average number of visitors for 2010 through 2011 over the period of the last month, which of course corresponds with National Standing On The Side Of Love Month. The average number of unique visits has been 123 persons of inherent worth and dignity per day and the average number of page loads has been 201 per day. Not bad for an alleged "tiny, declining, fringe blog" about the lamentable injustices, abuses and hypocrisies of "a tiny, declining, fringe religion" that few people seem to be interested in these days eh U*Us?


The Emerson Avenger hereby extends a personal thank-you to the 3,942 persons of inherent worth and dignity who chose the fate of visiting The Emerson Avenger blog during National Standing On The Side Of Love Month 2012 aka Thirty Days Of Love for that wonderful Transcendentalist Super Hero known as The Emerson Avenger! ;-)

UUA President Rev. Peter Morales Viciously Kicks The UUA Board Of Trustees In Their Collective Balls On National Standing On The Side Of Love Day!

In the opening words of the brand-spanking new 'Congregations and Beyond: Consultation' post of his ironically titled 'Beyond Belief' blog -

"Some cynical wit once observed that there are two kinds of meetings—some meetings are preparations for action while other meetings are substitutes for action. Alas, I have been to plenty of meetings that fall into the “substitutes for action” category."

I hope that U*Us will forgive me for being a bit of a cynical wit here in suggesting that President Morales' above words are, at least in part, inspired by the UUA Board Of Trustees meetings that he has attended over the last couple of years. . . In light of what UUA President Peter Morales has quite openly said during UUA Board Of Trustees meetings, and about UUA Board meetings, I have reasonable grounds to believe that he is not so subtly suggesting that plenty of UUA Board meetings, or at least significant portions thereof, fall into the “substitutes for action” category.

I *could* go on but I will leave it at that for now. . .