Tomorrow is Easter.
Have a happy one!

I read this great article on the significance of Easter

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes are we healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53, 2-6

And the angel answered and said unto the women,
Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead.

Matthew 28, 5-6

I am hooked! I watched the first episode of the latest edition of that insipid and wildly successful show, the Bachelor. The Epic begins with our intro to Jesse Palmer, who I understand is from Barrhaven, near Ottawa. We find out he is one of those all-american types, except for the fact that he is canajan. U of Miami grad, backup QB for the Giants, big hunk of clean-cut manhood, etc... on to the women... nearly all hotties, but AH! There's a twist! One of the babes is actually Jesse's best friend (not a dude in drag, she actually is a girl) deep undercover! She is posing as a contestant and will be reporting to Jesse throughout the proceedings. How machiavellian! The audience doesnt get to see her or hear her real voice, so we are left guessing about her identity too... she is blonde, but so are 13 other women in the house.

We get the usual drive up in the limo and the assortment of bachelorettes trickle out. Some are incredibly dynamic, others nervous and shy. Jesse is poised and charming throughout. This guy is the shit... all the girls think so, because you see their hilarious reactions to him as they enter the house and
play to the camera. Some of them are already acting like nasty bitches and they have been on the show for all of two minutes.

Next, we get the "cocktail", where Jesse chats with each of the ladies, one after another. One of the girls is from Quebec City (naturally, she is a stone cold fox) and Jesse busts out some pretty decent french on her --subtitled for our yankee brethren. He exclaims with delight when he first meets her "you're
from Quebec City? I'm from Ottawa!" Jeah, Jesse. Representin'!

Next twisterino, that obnoxious host guy tells Jesse he has to give a long-stemed rose to the girl who made the best first impression... she will be exempt from the selection process that night. So Jesse proceeds to chose the girl with the longest stems. Some dopey fucking model. James begins to question
Jesse's judgment. "I'm ready for marriage and kids" talk aside, our boy has chosen a pretty obnoxious broad. (cut to shots of her being catty, ungracious, flaunting her rose) Some of the women are appalled. One of the women, the med student, I think, with whom I am already in love, says "who cares who gets the first rose, as long as I get the last one" Testify, sister!!!

There is definitely marriage material in this bunch, but will our hero triumph over wits dulled by years of head trauma on the grid-iron and come alive to this fact? Stay tuned.

Highlight of the night, or maybe lowlight (they build toward this crescendo for the better part of one-and-a-half hours) is Jesse's big fumble... the worst gaffe in the history of the show. It is third and goal... the QB has marshalled his forces for a 70 yard drive down field. The goal ligne seems inches away. He
lines up behind the centre... He calls an audible... Snap! It's the wrong audible! (end of football analogies).

Basically, he says the wrong name for the last girl he is selecting for a rose! The girl springs forward, delighted to take the rose, Jesse stammers, gives it to her, and looks about nervously.. finally calls the host outside, leaving the women perplexed... He explains his mistake (in all fairness, they are similar
names --katie and karen, or something)... the host looks like he is thinking "Is this guy for real"... Jesse is in agony, he feels terrible about the mistake and is sweating under the hot lights. Will the show take a giant shit all over one of the girls as her dreams are crushed and her rose is snatched from her little
hands? The host leaves it up to Jesse what to do.

Then Jesse does something that earns my respect. He owns up: This is serious, we're talking potential marriage here... I made a mistake, now I have to go out there and fix it -- or words to that effect. He marches out and explains what happened to the assembled women, apologizing to them. Class act! The host interjects, telling Katie that even though the rose was not intended for her, she has the option of staying. Tears in her cute little eyes, she elects to do that and "see what happens". A sixteeth rose is produced and awarded to the "right" girl (I use the term loosely, because she is an annoying beauty pageant winner, but anyway)

The jilted suiterettes (suiteresses?) say their goodbyes, and we close with a montage of what the season has in store --so tasty, you could eat it on a bun! I will spare you any more details, but it involves a shocking revelation and a stalker! Gasp!

Needless to say, I'll be tuning in next week... I'm so ashamed.

A psychopath can be described as a person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse. Psychopaths tend to lack normal human emotions such as guilt. They are also often highly intelligent and skilled at manipulating others. Also, psychopaths seem to appear normal. You would probably never guess there was something wrong with them. Maybe the burly thug who slapped his son across the mouth with such force as to draw blood and grinned maliciously at the ticket agent at Logan, daring her to say or do anything was not a psychopath. But the man who gazed blankly at the passengers boarding American Airlines Flight 11, was. Maybe, as the last of the passengers shuffled down the gangway, he bought a coffee and newspaper, checked his watch, and strolled calmly behind the people he was going to murder, feeling NOTHING. That, to me, is a very scary thought.

Less than two hours later, shortly before 9 a.m this flight, carrying 81 passengers and 11 crew members, slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. About 15 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles, with 56 passengers and nine crew members on board, crashed into the south tower.

A half-hour after the second crash, American Flight 77 took off from Washington, D.C.'s Dulles Airport en route to Los Angeles, California, carrying 58 passengers and six crew members -- but crashed into the Pentagon instead. Less than an hour after the third crash, United Flight 93 en route from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, with 38 passengers and seven crew aboard. Those were the people who fought back. Just a few of the many people who became heroes that day. In this age of moral relativism, where everything seems to have an excuse or a root cause, I think it is useful to simply look at some facts. In the wake of the Madrid attacks and subsequent developments I find myself thinking back to the actions of the people who "kicked things off" as it were, just over two-and-a-half years ago. Were they psychopaths? How can we know? But we know what they did. The facts can be laid out in stark terms, as I have done below. I don't care what the "root causes" were, I don't care whether or not the young men who did this were being "manipulated", and I don't care why they hated the U.S. To me, these people, and all those of their ilk, have forfeited their humanity, and as I told a friend today, in the wake of the "martyrdom" of the "Tunisian" and his accomplices --on the bright side, that is five less pieces of shit to worry about.

THE FLIGHTS

American Airlines Flight 11
From: Boston, Massachusetts (Logan Airport)
To: Los Angeles, California
Lives: 92 people on board
Crashed into North Tower of World Trade Center at 8:45 AM

United Airlines Flight 175
From: Boston, Massachusetts (Logan Airport)
To: Los Angeles, California
Lives: 65 people on board
Crashed into South Tower of World Trade Center at 9:03 AM

American Airlines Flight 77
From: Washington, D.C. (Dulles Airport)
To: Los Angeles, CA
Lives: 64 people on board
Crashed into the Pentagon at 9:43 AM

United Airlines Flight 93
From: Newark, New Jersey
To: San Francisco, California
Lives: 45 people on board
Crashed into rural Pennsylvania (southeast of Pittsburgh)

VICTIMS

Victims came from more than 90 countries around the world.
The following are the number of people who died at each site:

World Trade Center: 2,823 presumed confirmed dead (includes airline passengers)
Pentagon 125 (not including plane victims)
Flight 11 92 people on board
Flight 175 65 people on board
Flight 77 64 people on board
Flight 93 44 people on board

I'll NEVER forget. Not in another 2 years, not in another 20. how could I... there are sure to be more attacks.