Month: February 2006

Vegan Lent

Most Catholics in the US give up eating bird and mammal meat on Fridays during Lent. Since I became vegan five years ago, my friends and co-workers have teased me: “You’re not giving up anything! Maybe you should eat meat on Fridays!”

Adam Villani suggests that I give up soy on Fridays during Lent, and I’m going to take his advice. For a vegan, that’s giving up an especially satisfying part of the diet.

Gamera wishes Mike a slamin birthday (Bean Counter, Worcester)
This year I was surprised to receive a birthday cake that was both vegan and decorated with Gamera. Cake: The Bean Counter, Worcester. Photo: Claire Schaeffer-Duffy.

Easy conversations about things that matter

On page 19 of the new book The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins is an old Peter Maurin piece that I hadn’t seen before, or at least didn’t remember:

Easy conversations
about things that matter
would keep people
from going to the movies,
from talking politics,
from cheap wisecracking.
Easy conversations
about things that matter
would enable Catholics
to understand Catholicism,
to give an account of their faith,
and to make non-Catholics curious
about Catholicism.

Continue reading “Easy conversations about things that matter”

Mr. Hetero post-mortem

The “Mr. Heterosexual” contest was pretty much of a washout. I feel bad for the organizers.

In an article in the Telegram & Gazette, Milton Valencia wrote that “An estimated 175 to 200 people attended the event.” According to Worcester Magazine, the hall seats 1500. The street outside was closed off and full of police; earlier in the week, it was estimated that the organizers might have to pay $6500 for police protection alone.

Mr. Valencia described the event as “more like a church service than a pageant.” I didn’t think it was like a church service; I thought it was exactly like at scout camp when the adult leaders get up at campfire and do a skit, awkward and half-assed. Nothing wrong with that, but they don’t charge $12 for it and hold it at Mechanics Hall.

I strongly suspect I would have had a better time standing out in the cold with the demonstrators.

There were very few references to human sexuality in “Mr. Hetero”–the “War on Christmas” was referenced more times than sex. There was a bit of preaching before the intermission, but this felt tacked on, and organizer Tom Crouse never did go into his theory or opinions of homosexuality in any detail.

There was no opportunity for me to enter the contest; seven men had been selected to compete in advance. The winner’s name wasn’t mentioned in the newspaper or TV coverage I saw, and it was not clear if the planned $100 prize was awarded. The guy did get a trophy. (Update: The Boston Weekly Dig gave Jimmy Ottino his due.)

The only part that didn’t disappoint was the “man who has renounced his own homosexuality.” I had hoped for some bizarreness here, and I got it. Turns out the guy felt ambivalent about women at age 14, decided he was gay and had sex with two guys at age 15, and at age 16 had a conversion experience and started liking girls. It’s possible that this man was delivered from homosexuality, but the simple and obvious explanation is that the guy was never gay to begin with, just confused for part of his teen years like so many other men.

Lots more detail in my Indymedia article.

Continue reading “Mr. Hetero post-mortem”

Let us now praise “Mr. Hetero”

Why am I thinking of buying a ticket to the Mr. Hetero competition? Because, as today’s paper put it, “Rev. Crouse will introduce a man who has renounced his own homosexuality,” and that totally reminds me of the time L. Ron Hubbard introduced the first person cured of mental hangups by Scientology, live on stage, in 1950.

Continue reading “Let us now praise “Mr. Hetero””

Vigil for Allan McKeon at Union Station, Feb 13 at 5pm

There will be a vigil to remember Allan “Al” McKeon, who died homeless near Worcester’s Union Station Thursday night, at the station at 5pm February 13.

I have been shaking the trees trying to find someone who knew Mr. McKeon and will talk on the record. Word on the street is that he was receiving veteran’s services and had been drifting in and out of town too often to become part of any scene. I’ve gotten two very different physical descriptions for Mr. McKeon, which makes me fear he was not widely known.

Mr. McKeon was not one of the “16 on the street” reported here.

This vigil is sponsored by the Worcester Homeless Action Committee and Real Solutions.

Postscript

From Taryn Plumb’s account of the vigil in the Telegram & Gazette:

Three homeless people who knew Mr. McKeon also showed up at the gathering, crying and hugging.

“Don’t you understand how cold he was?” said one woman, Robin, who has been living in and out of shelters for 17 years. She claimed to have covered Mr. McKeon’s body with a sleeping bag the night he died.

“We sleep in a snowbank,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “Don’t leave me outside to freeze to death.”

“Opt Out” comes to Pie and Coffee

Military recruiters get the personal info of all American public high schoolers, unless the students “opt out.”

It’s like being on the nation’s largest teen junkmail list.

Worcester Indymedia has been investigating the opt-out rates of local high schools, and trying to understand the variations from school to school.

Some of us at Pie and Coffee have joined in the effort by putting the information on the website optout.pieandcoffee.org.

If you live outside Central Massachusetts, and are interested in collecting and submitting opt-out information from your local schools, contact optout.admin@gmail.com.

This is a privacy issue. It’s about not wanting to be pestered. It’s hard to recruit kids for the military these days, and in response some military recruiters are behaving more like used-car salesmen or telemarketers than soldiers.