Friday, April 02, 2010

Father Gabriele Amorth - Professional Exorcist

I saw this short quote over at Merle Kessler's blog:

Noted Italian exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth, commented this week that the recent defamatory reporting on Pope Benedict XVI, especially by the New York Times, was ‘prompted by the devil.
And my first thought was along the lines of, "When you have a hammer, all your problems begin to look like nails."

But then I went over to Wikipedia to see if Father Amorth had an entry. I mean, it says right in the quote that he is noted, so I figured that might make him, in Wikipedia terms, notable and thus worthy of an entry.

Sure enough, there is an entry about him. But that quote above hardly does him justice. The entry is rich with his beliefs.

For example, his favorite movie? The Exorcist!

Really. Aside from the over-the-top special effects, he thinks people should see the movie so people knows what he does.

Number of exorcisms? 70,000! The man is, literally, a holy terror, exorcising, on average, 8 times a day!

Leading cause of demonic possession?
People have lost the Faith, and superstition, magic, Satanism, or Ouija boards have taken its place, which then open all the doors to the presence of demons.
Most common problem after demonic possession? Curses.

Leading cause of curses?
A curse can originate from such things as maledictions by close relatives, a habit of blaspheming, membership in Freemasonry, spiritic or magic practices, and so on.
Think about that!

Pet peeve? The new exorcism rites. He says they are:
A blunt weapon.... Efficacious prayers, prayers that had been in existence for twelve centuries, were suppressed and replaced by new ineffective prayers
The man is, if nothing else, hard core.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Renewing My License

I had to go to the DMV this morning to renew my license. Picture, fingerprint, money and I was done. It just took 90 minutes.

The time was allocated as follows:

  • Waiting to be called: 50 minutes (Under the G, 46. Oh, that's me!)
  • Waiting to get my picture taken: 20 minutes
  • Getting out of a parking lot filled with people who should not be allowed to drive: 10 minutes
  • Taking the eye test, validating my information: 7 minutes
  • Getting my picture actually taken: 2 minutes
  • Parking when I arrived: 1 minute
I got to the DMV at 5 after 8am. This put me behind the overachievers and people who line up at 3am in front of Target on the day after Thanksgiving. They were all in there, numbers in hand. My number, which was G046, seemed rather depressing since they were on G002 when I got it. (They have letters for categories, A-J, and as far as I could determine, G was for people with easy renewal transactions.)

Then, about the time I got called, the dregs of humanity started in through the front door. Fortunately, I was ahead of that wave, so while I waited 20 minutes to get my picture taken, when I walked out I would have guessed that the line for pictures was at least 45 minutes long... probably longer given how many of those people seemed unlikely to be able to handle tasks like standing with their toes on a line drawn on the floor in order to have their picture taken.

Still, I've been through the system, I was pleasant to everybody behind the counter, and I could have passed the eye test from a good 20 feet back from where I actually had to take it. I'm free to be an idiot for a few more years.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Signs of the Times - 2

I got my W2 tax form from my company today.

As part of the pre-printed form there were ads. Ads for tax preparation, of course, but ads.

So it has come to this, ads on with my tax forms.

I just wonder who got the revenue, my company or ADP who does the payroll processing.