Celibacy, Pedophilia and the Church…a blasphemous obscenity

Celibacy, Pedophilia and the Church…a blasphemous obscenity

Unfortunately as the Church’s crisis rages throughout the world, mea culpas just don’t make the grade. Not that we have even had a genuine apology from the Pontiff himself.

When there is an apology, it has usually come out as the “bad apple in the basket” syndrome, a very lame excuse at best. NO. What needs to be done is to examine the institution of the Church and how IT has led, and created this obscenity.

At the root of the issue is this concept of Celibacy. We need to examine Celibacy, where it originated etc. in order to even begin to understand the problem and all its perverse ramifications.

First, it should be noted that this isn’t merely a problem generic to the Roman Catholic Church, but also to many other august religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. But we will get to that later. Let us start with our own neck of the woods, the Mediterranean basin.  The story goes back to ancient times to such figures as Osiris, Dumuzi, Adonis, Orpheus, Dyonisos, Attis, Jesus,  all male figures, all castrated or dismembered in ritual, and their female counterparts, Anath, Isis, Ishtar,Venus Aphrodite, Cybele, the Virgin Mary etc. This ritual institution of castration, dismemberment and ultimate death, started back in Neolithic times and continued on to the Roman.

“Whether the son-lover is Attis, Dionysos, or Zagreus, the imagery of dismemberment and death followed by resurrection is the same. The sickle used for the castration of Attis and the flint knife used by the priests of Cybele point back to the sickle of the Old European male companion of the Mother Goddess of the Neolithic Era." ^{Myth of the Goddess, Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, Arkana, pp 407}

What this castration and dismemberment connoted as it does in its present day notion of the Passion of Christ as the absolution of all sin, is the notion of sacrifice i.e. shedding blood leading to the idea of regeneration, fecundation, giving back, seeding and seeking the blessing of a bountiful harvest as well as the more subtle notions of equalizing power between the male and female, the gods and mortals.

What this doesn’t mention is that throughout the ancient world in all the Temples dedicated to the Mother Goddess, all the priests were Priestesses. There were no male priests allowed, unless they were castrated. It was the reverse of what it is today.

The holiest Sacrament practiced and dedicated to the Goddess was the Sacrament of sexual coitus as being the most sublime expression of Life…and no wonder, since it is through the sex act itself that life propagates itself.

When Patriarchy took over Christianity, the women were banished by the Bishops of the Church, but the institution of castration continued as celibacy for the “Fathers,” the priests. The sacrament degenerated into a ritual Communion, the partaking of the flesh as a crumb of bread and the blood as wine. The Sacrament or sex act as practiced between the priestesses and worshipers and the male catamites who were de-facto “feminized” men and the worshipful was demonized as whoredom and perversion.

This is the legacy of the Church: that patriarchy perverted the holiest Sacrament of Sexual Coitus and turned it into the perversity of a spirituality denuded of flesh. Not the legacy, but the travesty of the Church. In my mind this is the ultimate sin…what they call the sin against the Holy Spirit but which in fact is the sin against the flesh.

No wonder then that since that time the Church has become the magnet of all perversity.

Now let us shift gears and analyze why it is that the church attracts so many pedophiles.

To begin with let us look no further than the syndrome of poisonous pedagogy. This simply means that the way we are brought up, the way we are taught and shaped and formed by our earliest caretakers, be it our parents, milieu, schools etc. imprints itself on our psychic, emotional, and physical make-up in terms of how we identify who we think we are and that we pass on these traits to our offspring and in our interactions with the world around us.

This means that if we have been raped, physically and mentally abused and tortured as children, the great probability is that we will inflict this same obscenity on our own children and those whom we are put in charge over as adult guardians and caretakers. This horror that is passed on is perpetrated against the very same age group and demographic that constituted the profile of the original victim, invariably a young child of either sex. It is not a great logical feat to imagine or conjecture if we turn the sequence around and ask, just how many of these pedophiles in the Church were abused as children …and more importantly, why they were attracted to the Church in the first place.  One answer to the latter is that one of the salient psychological features of rape, especially for males, is the sense of ensuing castration and emasculation. If for no other reason than the identification  being to the “female” or “bottom” as opposed to the “top.” What  greater sanctuary can there be than the sanctuary of a Church, which is the haven and matrix of celibacy…read emasculation. So they come to the Church in hordes hoping to find some salvation, but unfortunately you can take try to take the hell out of the demon but not the demon out of hell. Or is it the other way around? And so the cycle continues.

The ultimate obscenity of it all is in my mind the notion of spirituality, holiness and goodness attached to all this “religious” activity. The Pontiff going around the world  preaching celibacy outside of the holy sacrament of marriage, while his priests are fucking little boys and girls. To top it off, the Pontiff preaching against using safe sex practices e.g. condoms to some of the poorest and most disenfranchised and most vulnerable people on the planet plagued by disease, HIV etc.

If  this is not the most supreme and utter BLASPHEMY I don’t know what is.

I HEREBY EXCOMMUNICATE THE PONTIFF OF THE UNHOLY ROMAN CHURCH AND ALL ITS PRIESTS, CONDEMN THEIR ACTIONS, THOUGHTS AND BELIEFS IN THE NAME OF THE MOST HOLY MOTHER GODDESS. MAY SHE HAVE MERCY ON THEM ALL, FOR I CERTAINLY DO NOT.               

 My anathema extends to all organized religions which practice celibacy in one form or another, including Hinduism and Buddhism. Fortunately Judaism and Islam are not polluted by this obscenity but they have a lot to answer for in their treatment of women, their barbaric attitudes towards nature and the murderously patriarchal organization of their religious and political institutions. A pox on them as well. 

Bogos Kalemkiar

March 8, 2011

Artist’s Statement (a work in progress)

Artist’s Statement (a work in progress)

We are all called upon, from time to time, to take a stand, write a resume, apply for a job with a curriculum vitae etc. We as artists would hope that our art would speak for itself.

For the demands of the here and now, here is my two cents worth.

I first became aware of any “gifts” I may have had around the age of eleven, after we immigrated to Canada from Egypt. The English language was definitely not my forte at that time, and I took refuge in the world of art as a duck takes to water…as an escape from the verbal exigencies of having to learn a new language, and the appraising gaze of my elders. Art for me became a sanctuary where I could be myself with no compunction to cater to the dictates of others.

Art has sustained me as a sanctuary throughout my life, despite the times I have strayed from my garden…it always welcomes me back with open arms and nourishes me as very little else can. In this regard, she is truly a loving muse, not to be slighted or taken for granted.

For my views on the political dimension in art please refer to my essay, The Fascism of Good Taste.

There are two veins which broadly define my artistic expression. The first one I will call, illustrative, and basically means just what it says. I began my study of art by copying other artists, and then, I copied from nature, and finally the human form. After years of rendering the world around me I reached a point where I felt that I could re-create, and re-fashion the world without copying from a model. I discovered that I could do this from the reservoir of information and experience I had gathered and developed, and stopped copying. I found that I had developed the ability to visualize what I wanted to render, without resorting to any object outside my inner frame of reference. This was a very important milestone for me, as it freed me in ways I do not want to belabour here.

This last led me to my final destination which I call, automatism. This automatism is the same as, or similar to the “stream of consciousness” which people like Andre Breton discusses in his Surrealist Manifesto and provided me with another springboard, one which freed me from the constraints of “naturalism.” Automatism allowed the potentiality inherent in the chaotic, to play alongside and with the learned, and orderly, so as to unleash the floodgates of creativity. If this sounds slightly pompous please forgive me. I am merely trying to describe a mechanism which may lead to extraordinary virtuosity and insight, or, banality. The mechanism in itself is no panacea or full proof cornucopia of creativity.

A child’s scribble may be more loaded with integrity than all the classics combined. On the other hand, spurting semen or shit on a canvas may be very outré, or, appropriating other people’s hard labour and tagging some pseudo-intellectual conceptualist post-modernist nonsense, may be considered very avant-garde and fetch millions of dollars…but then I would be accused of envy.

Please check in again for any additions…in the meanwhile, good foraging.

Bogos Kalemkiar, Toronto, March 4, 2011.

Afghanistan, the Last Frontier

Afghanistan, the Last Frontier

I first went to Afghanistan in the spring of 1971 on my way to India, in

those heady days of the Hippy Trail to Shangri-La. Herat, the first

sizeable town I arrived at after crossing the Iranian border was something

out of A Thousand and One Nights. There were no paved roads of any kind,

the air was unpolluted, and the caravansaries still accommodated camels and donkeys. Hawkers came selling precious and semi-precious stones the size of eggs and antique genuine handicrafts in the common room at the inn. If one was wise one didn’t bargain under the influence of any intoxicants. Even so, these precious items could be had for a song, given the currency exchange value of the almighty U.S. dollar. The road from Herat to Kandahar was the same dirt road it had been since Alexander crossed the desert 2300 years ago. Main street  Kandahar was lined with emporiums selling the best hashish and opium one could buy this side of the Golden Triangle. A visit to any emporium required one to sample the wares and be inveighed upon to buy kilos of the stuff all packaged and ready for export in the most ingenious ways imaginable.

Two years later, on my way back from Shangri-La everything had changed.

There was one brand new spanking highway built by the Soviets from their

border all the way down to Kandahar and another pristine highway built by

the Americans from Kandahar to Herat. Already the stage had been set for

the battle for Afghanistan, the last uncontrolled and free territory in

the old world -not that occupation had not been tried before. Since the

1830’s the British Raj had sent several “expeditionary” forces to try to

subdue Afghanistan (one of which had been totally massacred by the Afghans

in 1842) and by the 1920’s had only succeeded in getting a government in

place that acquiesced to British Imperial rule as far as the maintenance

of some border points was concerned, but was self-governing otherwise. Even Winston Churchill did a stint in Afghanistan as a young subaltern. The British laid their imaginary boundaries in the sand, the same way they did everywhere else on the planet, without any regards for the people’s and tribes who occupied these areas from times immemorial. In the case of Afghanistan the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and a host of others were all lumped together under a simulacrum of British Imperial rule.

One little observed fact be it by the West i.e. democratic tendency, or the ex Soviet Union i.e. socialist tendency, is that neither side recognizes traditional Afghan societal structures. Most Afghans, including the Pathans were not sedentary but by and large, nomadic herder peoples. They are organized in tribal cultures that are sorted out in a clan system. The average so-called Afghan owes his allegiance not to a concept called Afghanistan but to his clan leader, who in turn has the privilege to sit on a tribal council. Afghanistan is probably the last place on the planet where the predominant population is nomadic herder tribes. These societies also exist to a lesser extent in Iran, Pakistan and India and are fast becoming extinct.

At the height of their occupation of Afghanistan the Soviet Union had over

350,000 soldiers pounding the Afghans with all the hardware they had

available to them. Their battle cry was ‘socialism and civilization.’ By the end of their ten year occupation of Afghanistan, they were severely beaten, and ignominiously retreated with the ensuing downfall of the Soviet Union itself.

Today we have the "American alliance" under the Nato flag engaged in a

war with the so-called Taliban, pounding the Afghans with savage capitalism under the guise of democracy and civilization.

The U.S. and the Soviets used Afghanistan as their surrogate battlefield in a hot war to serve as a proxy for their cold war dementia. By the time the Soviets were kicked out, the Afghans were left to deal with the carnage without so much as a thank you from the Americans. The Taliban arose out of the ashes with their ensuing savagery. A savagery that was the direct result of years of war against the Soviet armies.

During that war, Osama Bin Laden and the hordes of Mujaheddin from the Muslim world were the darlings of America fighting the good fight with the blessings of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher  in their proxy war against Soviet “hegemony.”

After 9/11 with the American bombardment of Afghanistan into the stone age, the Taliban, who are mostly Pashtun tribals, were supplanted with the so-called Northern Alliance, a motley collection of tribals from the northern reaches of Afghanistan including Tajiks, Uzbeks and others who now hold the reins of power with the full backing of the U.S. under  Nato. Western governments and their foot stools, the mainstream media, would like us to believe that the war in Afghanistan today is against a bunch of fanatics called the Taliban, but the facts suggest otherwise. The war is against the Pashtun peoples who just happen to occupy the central and southern regions of Afghanistan and who now have a score to settle with their northern tribal neighbours. This is a blood feud that has bloomed into a full scale civil war, just as Iraq has spiraled out of control as a result of the American invasion. And let us not kid ourselves...this was all deliberately planned with this intended outcome. The last thing the Americans want is a united front against them either in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Afghanistan also happens to be a vast untapped and unexploited region, rich in undreamt of resources and it sits right in the middle of an extremely strategic location, smack in the middle between China, Russia, the Middle East and the by extension Europe and the West. Let us not expect the Americans and the rest of the Nato alliance to want to leave Afghanistan voluntarily anytime soon.

But the West will stay in Afghanistan at its peril if the lessons of history are to be factored into the equation. If the West thinks it can cow Afghanistan into submission, it is in for a very rude awakening. The only way the West will win the hearts and minds of the Afghan peoples is by pouring in billions of dollars in aid and not armaments the way the Americans rebuilt Germany and Japan after WWII. But we know that that’s not in the cards...if it had been it would have been done after the Soviets were expulsed. The question then becomes, why not? Check for the next installment.

Bogos Kalemkiar

Toronto  November, 2007

Police, Gangs & the Neocon Agenda

Police, Gangs & the Neocon Agenda

            With all the hand wringing and outrage over the gun violence that has gripped and put Toronto in the big league of American cities reeling from Murder Inc., e.g. New York 537 murders, Chicago 443, Huston 336, Philadelphia 380, etc. on the average per annum and the corresponding reaction from the politicians to the police, from the media to the communities affected, the subject is the hot ticket of the day. It seems an opportune time for all the kooks itching to finally collar us into a concentration camp police state to come out of their closets. The effects of the Neocon Agenda and its gutting of the social safety net have finally come home to roost.

            Inter gang violence, whether black on black, latin,  Asian, etc. is very sexy especially if innocent white bystanders get killed in the mayhem. The emphasis is always on “what is wrong with these people.” The attitude so far has been “well, as long as they are killing each other, who cares…let them kill themselves off.” It is even better if the situation is such as it is in the aboriginal communities where the violence is self-inflicted with astronomical rates of suicide amongst young people from alcohol and drug related self-immolation. And of course no one talks about the higher than fifty percent ratio of the white element in these gangs.

            Despite their differences, the one common denominator as it relates to inter racial and inter gang violence is the fact that these groups exist as disenfranchised, marginalized, invisible and exploited minorities in a predominantly white society with white institutions. Another important denominator is that these groups are not spread out amongst the general population but live in tight communities whether racial or economic, where everyone knows everyone else. For good or ill it is to the status within the community that individual members aspire to, especially if they feel there is nothing for them outside  the community or in the society at large. Does McLuhan’s tribalism ring any bells here?

            Given all of this, it came as a bit of a surprise to hear Toronto Police Chief William Blair’s speech at the University of Toronto debating club last year on the subject of relations between police and the affected communities. Chief Blair acknowledged that the problem was in part due to the ongoing marginalization and disenfranchisement of youth in the ghettoes of the city and  the need for government  to intervene and help these communities. Just what kind of help was left somewhat vague.

            The Chief said that since only a miniscule fraction of the affected communities resorted to violence it was wrong to tarnish whole communities, and that with some diligent police work, the gangs could be isolated and neutralized. Apologetically, Chief Blair also pointed out that there were surely racist officers in the police force, but by and large there were no more racists in the police department then there were amongst the general population. This statement unfortunately is a truism and it obscures the fact that we live in a de-facto racialized society.

            So we neutralize some gangs but who is to say there will be no more gangs? How and why did these gangs start up in the first place? How do we eradicate the breeding ground for such gangs? The demagogues say that it must me done with a heavy hand, with the use of extreme force such as the intervention of the military or beefed up police presence and with severe judicial penalties such as obligatory minimum sentencing, etc. Imagine, army or riot police surrounding the various projects, patrolling the corridors of the high rise tenements, tanks and armored cars on the streets and in the courtyards. Great, another Baghdad. The proponents for such measures conveniently choose to ignore the fact that most of these projects already exist in a virtual state of siege. Racial profiling…just what is that? All we have to do is ask the hundreds if not thousands of non-white teenagers living in the projects about the way they are treated by the police and security on a daily basis, which by the way will only result with the violence spilling outside the confines of the ghettos.

            Within the context of and as a mirror of the society at large, the history of police relations with these communities speaks for itself. Between 1975 and 2005 Toronto police shot and killed around 50 young people (that they acknowledge) of mostly racialized minorities and wounded many more in the GTA. The vast majority of these people was people of colour and/or mentally disturbed. Every single officer who was charged (most weren’t) was exonerated by all white juries. The police were clearly stating that shooting and killing was their preferred way for dealing with anyone (especially non white minorities) who resisted them in any way, shape or form. They hoped to set a clear example and thought they would cow the target population into compliance by doing so. Their strategy has clearly backfired. Today all these young people are armed to the teeth and firing back at the police when they are not shooting each other.

            Chief Blair in his speech acknowledged that the police have extraordinary powers, presumably meaning that the police have an extraordinary obligation to the public. For example, the police with the full sanction of the Law have the right to shoot a fleeing person in the back whether that person is armed or not. Many of those people shot and killed by the police were presumably  in the process of fleeing from the police. Were any of them white teenagers between the ages of 15 and 25? None. Almost all of the people shot and killed were black, Latino or south Asian and half of them were between the ages of 15 and 25. Most of them were unarmed or could have easily been disarmed without the use of deadly force.

            It looks like Chief Blair is initiating much needed changes within the police department. The really important changes need to come from the various levels of government and the society at large. Here are just a few things we can initiate as a civil society to address this problem

We can:

• Bring high profile community based programs such as film making, theatre, music production, media publication and the performing arts to get the youth within the projects to come out, participate  and network with the society at large in meaningful and self-respecting ways.
• Keep youth in the schools by getting rid of the moronic three strikes and you’re out rules foisted on us by the ex Harris government.
• Double the minimum wage to a living wage.
• Provide a guaranteed annual living supplement to anyone living under the poverty line.
• Start a wide range of on the job training programs where employers are paid to hire and train underprivileged youth in meaningful careers and trades.
• Bring back rent control to allow people more freedom to relocate.
• Create stringent psychological hiring practices for the police department with mandated quotas for hiring minorities and women.
• Decriminalize the use of recreational drugs and provide safe, government controlled drug dispensing clinics.
• Legalize and license prostitution to oversee the health and safety of sex trade workers.
• Force the television and movie industries, advertising etc. to profile non whites and minorities for a modicum exposure to the public.
• Make quotas for the hiring of non white minorities into the educational system as teachers and not janitors.
• Re-zone the housing project districts so that people can live and work there, allowing people in the projects to operate small and medium sized business within walking distance of where they live.

            Some will say that these programs will cost too much and ignore the enormous amounts shelled out just to maintain the police and correctional services. It costs an average of $100,000 a year to maintain a felon behind bars. Others will say decriminalizing drugs and prostitution will increase crime. The facts prove otherwise. It is the criminalization of these activities that is the real crime. All we need to look at was the misguided attempts at prohibition in the 20’s and 30’s and the culture of crime that created. Alcoholism and drug abuse need to be seen as medical conditions that need remedial help. When these behaviors and tendencies are not treated as such they fester and metastasize into criminal behavior.

            The recent report by the Washington, DC. based Justice  Policy Institute clearly states that more police, punitive measures and prisons aren’t the answer to reducing gang activity but that investing in jobs, schools and programs for marginalized youth is.

            Let us hope we have some new, meaningful and creative solutions to the crisis rather than let the situation spiral out of control and we turn into a Canukistan of the North with gated communities, armed vigilantes and all the sorry rest of it…a police state a la our neighbours to the South. Unfortunately, this latter scenario is already taking place and we have a federal political party in office, the Conservatives, who are beating the war drums for more punitive measures to deal with crime to scare the public into voting for them in the next election. Let us not fall for the same crappy tactics that the Mike Harris government foisted on us more than ten years ago with its dire consequences. Unfortunately Harper’s hired guns are the very same people that ran the Harris government and it looks like we are going to have a repeat fiasco unless we wake up and do something about it.

Bogos Kalemkiar

Toronto

Dear Naomi Klein,

Dear Naomi Klein,

I was at the David Lewis Lecture tonight in Toronto, on Feb. 25/2010

You were inspiring and full of insight and information, prodding in the face of some very difficult issues and I basically agree 99.999% with everything you said except for that 0.001% which is this:

It started with that map you showed that some high powered firm has made for investors etc. The map showed Canada as the most pristine light coloured oasis on the planet.

Now the Canada I know is slightly different. First we know the hell the tar sands have created in Alberta. You probably know as well that most of the tens of thousands of lakes in Northern Ontario are highly contaminated with mercury and uranium mining by-products so that their waters are unfit to drink and most of the first Nations communities that depend on those waters are at high risk of contaminants and cancer producing agents. 

We also know about the effects of the dams built by Hydro Quebec in James Bay and the effect they have had on the Atlantic fisheries. Let us not forget the effects of all the greenhouse gases, acid rain, melting glaciers etc. etc. in the high Arctic. The effects of climate change and pollution are not only affecting people living in Tajikistan, Bolivia and Micronesia, but they are having a severe impact on our own rural Aboriginal communities right across the continent.

To cut to the chase: yes we have an abysmal climate debt, which by the way started with the Imperialism and colonization of the planet since before Columbus, that historical debt as well as the debt of the consequences of the industrial revolution, BUT towards whom is this debt owed exactly? The poor of the planet, yes, but how is it going to reach them?

Through the urban elites of South America, Africa and Asia? The very same people that have wrapped the debts they have incurred around the necks of their own peoples vis a vis the World Bank and the IMF? Is it OK for the government of Argentina to sell the right of their precious water reservoirs to the likes of Donald Trump?

Remember the remarks by David Lewis in that short film clip about the family farm in the face of agri-business? That’s what it is all about.

Before I forget, the message you seemed to be giving to all the good people in that audience, the nice, comfortable and well heeled Canuck intellectual predominantly white bourgeoisie was: look you people, you’ve got it all, you’re living in your ivory tower, you owe the rest of the planet something…yes they do owe…not just to the rest of the planet, but to themselves…their ivory tower is a fucking illusion…yeah it’s picture perfect, but it’s just a veneer masking the poison beneath the surface. Are they going to pay out of the goodness of their hearts, out of fucking charity? I think it is wrong to appeal to people’s charitable tendencies…my motto is that beautiful old Russian proverb…eat bread and salt, and speak the Truth!

Bogos Kalemkiar, Toronto   < bogos777@hotmail.com>

The Wall Street Racket or Go on Strike and don’t pay your Bills.

Well, they’ve done it again. The rich neo-con bastards and their ass kissing neo-liberal cousins in shareholder heaven on Wall St have just jerked us off big time once again. George W just roared in to their rescue with all the other snivelling cowardly vassal regimes world-wide to bail the thieving parasites out of trillions of dollars in debt from criminal extortion otherwise called securities investment which just slipped out of one pocket and into another. How come the rest of us don’t get help with our debts? Where did all the money go and where did the new money come from all of a sudden when there isn’t so much as a plug nickel to help the rest of us with our bills, our rents and mortgages, our health,  & education  costs etc.? Of course, the money came and will continue to come out of our pockets one way or the other while the Federal Reserve keeps prinitng more U.S. dollars to prop up its criminal vassal regimes e.g. Canada to keep them from going bankrupt and getting deeper into the bottomless Pit of American Imperialism. Never mind the rest of the planet where most people are lucky to live on the equivalent of a dollar a day with bad water and having to foot the bill for privatizing the very fucking air we breathe just to let these motherfucking shareholders and so-called investors  make more money out of our blood and sweat.

One little footnote that was glossed over in the corporate media was the fact that the price of a barrel of oil suddenly plummeted from the stratosphere where they were sucking the marrow out of our bones and now is worth the shit that it is. How come? Isn’t it obvious that these shareholders and securities firms that handle their money like to speculate and jack up the price of everything so they can make their blood money out of it? And how come governments world-wide let them with the  U.S.in the lead with market deregulation? And how come these so called free markets always are bullish when there is some  war going on and people are being slaughtered? And how come the Democrats in the first Congressional vote on bailing out Wall St. voted 2 to 1 for the bill and the Republicans voted 2 to 1 against? Eh,  how come? Not that I like the Republicans but I thought the Democrats were on the side of the people! Hey Obama,  are you listening?

When will this shit shell game come to an end?

In the meantime they have us at each other’s throats, whether it’s the race game, resources, terrorism or whatever  they concoct.

When  are we going to wake up, get  together, and call these shysters on it?

            I know, just stop paying your bills. If we ALL went on strike and stopped paying our bills what could they do?

What they would have to do is write off all our debts just like they bailed out Wall St.

I say hooray for Recessions and Depressions and all the rest of it. For us down here in the trenches who live in permanent Depression, there ain’t no difference.

Bogos Kalemkiar

Toronto