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Roman Catholic church’s paedophile investigator jailed for possessing thousands of child porn images

Which of these belongs in a satirical fake newspaper?  If you answered “both”, you’d be right if we were living in a slightly saner world.  But we’re not.  And given that hint, I’m sure that anyone who’s made it this far can easily make the distinction between the the humorous, made-up story:

A similar phenomenon was observed last year when Danish fishermen discovered a species of scallop that appeared to have perpetuated itself by growing a thick layer of bacon around its body.

… and the sad reality:

A Catholic Church child safety co-ordinator who was in charge of investigating sexual abuse allegations was jailed for 12 months today for internet peadophile offences.

Christopher Jarvis, 49, a married father-of-four, investigated historic claims of child abuse, interviewing the victims when they were adults.

He was responsible for child protection at 120 churches and parish community groups for nine years.

He also, as a member of the Devon and Cornwall Multi-Agency Safeguarding Team, had access to police and social services information about victims of child abuse.

…

Police officers who traced him to his home in Plymouth, Devon, found more than 4,000 child porn images, mainly of boys aged 10 to 12, on his church-supplied computer and a memory stick when they raided the house in Penrose Road.

The good news here is that he was caught and convicted, so, increasingly, someone is watching the watchmen.

I’d ask the exact opposite question:  how can I trust someone with power who does pray?  How can I rely on someone who expects futile, empty gestures to produce real-world results?  I wouldn’t want a president who relied on goat-entrail divinations to predict unemployment figures; why should I want one who drops to his knees, hands clasped, and begs the sky for rain while cutting emergency services that would help fight drought-induced wildfires.

What are the chances that, the day after writing about another failed end-of-the-world and looking forward to the next one, I should finish the book I was reading, and decide to take a break from catching up on my stack of unread books to do a little catching up on my stack of unread magazines?  And what are the chances that an issue of the Skeptical Enquirer would be the one I randomly selected from the pile, and, further, that the specific issue I chose should contain an article (based on a blog post by Robert Sheaffer) about cosmic events in 2012?  It boggles the mind.

Think about it.  On the day after I joked about 2012, I accidentally read an article about 2012!  Clearly, this is the work of [Attention, believers!  Insert the name of your favorite unseen entity here for a mere $250 donation!]!

Now that my eyes have been opened, I need to learn more about this person named Peter Gersten.  This UFOlogist isn’t some Mayan Calendar whacko; no, he has hard astronomical evidence that at 11:11:11 on December 21st, 2012 (winter solstice – another highly unlikely coincidence, so it must be true!), an energy vortex will open in Sedona, Arizona.  So sure of this prediction is Gersten that he plans to leap into this vortex off a cliff to move on to the next phase of his existence:

But I believe that some type of cosmic portal will be opening at that time and place and that an opportunity will present itself. I fully expect that it will either lead to the next level of this cosmic program; freedom from an imprisoning time-loop; a magical Martian-like bubble; or something equally as exotic. In March 2012 I will reach 70 years of age and nine months later we arrive at the cosmic coordinate. I think it will then be time for me to move on – in one form or another. I’d like to see what else our Cosmic Computer has to offer.

Uh, one question, though – what happens if his next form is also a corporeal one in a world with gravity, and there’s nobody waiting on the other side with a nice, cushy mattress for him to land on?

Because, of course, it’s supposed to do just that today.  When God couldn’t make the May 29th Doomsday earlier this year, he rescheduled for October 21st (presumably the almighty has a busy schedule and just couldn’t squeeze Armageddon in any earlier).

As of this writing there are still a little under 12 hours left of today in this time zone and lots more for those closer to the other side of the International Date Line,  so of course it’s entirely possible that the end is yet to come.  But I’m going to go ahead and make a prediction anyway:  today’s End of the World will be a big disappointment, just like all the others have been; I guess I’ll just have to hold out for the 2012 Mayan Calendar thing and see if that one’s any more interesting.

The clip-clop! clip-clop! of a passing black horse-drawn buggy  was so familiar that Jacob didn’t even think to turn his gaze away from pruning a cluster of unacceptably colorful wildflowers from along the fence bordering his tobacco field.  It wasn’t until the wagon ground to an abrupt halt a few feet away that Jacob turned to look – and by then it was too late.

“Visitors?” he’d wondered.  “On a Thursday, when everyone knows I have butchering to do to get ready for market tomorrow?”

But when he finally saw the buggy, he knew right away that something was wrong.  Its windows were dark-tinted glass, the spokes of its over-sized wheels chromed, and an elaborate stained-glass-and-candles apparatus cast an eerie blue-violet light from its underside.

The doors popped open, and three bearded men in dark glasses sprung out and charged at Jacob; before he could overcome the initial shock, he found himself pinned against the fence by two of the men while the other stood before him brandishing an ominous-looking pair of shears.

“Hold him steady, Jacob and Jacob!” ordered the scissor-wielder.

“Sure thing, Jacob,” replied Jacob.

(Fun fact:  All Amish people are named Jacob, even the women.  This is a constant source of frustration for police investigating Amish crime scenes, and is also the reason so few people are brave enough to write stories about them.)

“Now, Jacob, you learn what happens to people who mess with the Bergholz Clan!” said Jacob to Jacob.

Snip!  Snip!  Snip!

The strangers rushed back aboard their vehicle and trotted away, leaving the still-stunned Jacob gazing down in shock at the scatted locks of his new-shorn beard, some already drafting away on the breeze.

To all my Amish readers who might view this cautionary tale and think, “that could never happen here”, I can only say:  don’t be so sure.

I’ve been meaning to get back into blogging a bit, but somehow got so into the habit of not blogging that I just couldn’t bring myself to get re-started. But driven by the combined inspirations of watching FreeThoughtBlogs come together, the desire to get myself writing again in general, and the nagging feeling that the monthly hosting fee I pay for this site is going to waste if I don’t actually use it for something, I’ve decided to blow the dust off this place and start spewing forth more collections of words onto the Interwebz. So now that I’ve publicly said I’m going to do it, I have to come up with at least one post with a little more content than “I’m going to post something.”

There are a few unrelated internet-based projects that have been bouncing around in my head for a while that I’m going to force myself to start working on as well, and to facilitate those I’m in the process of looking for a different hosting setup. That means this blog will be moving soon, to a new host, a more recent version of the WordPress software, and maybe even a new theme if I get really crazy. This will be done as transparently as I can manage – hopefully any links to existing material here will continue to work.

NO, people, these things do not happen in threes. They only seem to happen in threes because you keep resetting the counter when it reaches three! If the saying was “these things always happen in sevens”, everyone would be counting a few deaths further back and wondering who number 7 would be, and then when someone famous passes away, you’d shout, “Aha! Seven again!” and reset the counter.

Now there is, perhaps, something interesting in the common choice of three as the number in which groups of related “things” happen. Two is just coincidence, but three makes a pattern, which might just fire off a few extra neurons in the pattern-matching hardware we call our minds…

No, I’m not what you’d call a fan of his – I’ve been largely indifferent to his music, and found his later behavior (alleged and otherwise) to be creepy and sad at best. Fifty’s not a half bad run, but still, there’s a little pang of sadness for him in my cold, cold godless heathen heart. My condolences go out to his friends and loved ones, and to Farrah’s as well; those are the people who will have a missing place in their lives that will be remembered long after the rest of us have moved on to the next news cycle.

We lost Ed McMahon a few days ago, too, something I wouldn’t have mentioned except that I was reminded today of a story about him:

The navy sent my father to training outside Chicago in the year when the first Superbowl took place. He and a friend went into the city on leave on the night of the game and the first bar they found was a little more upscale than they might otherwise visit, but they settled on it because it had several TVs and wasn’t too crowded, so they could hear and see the game. Ed McMahon walked in just as things got started and sat down right next to them; they ended up watching Superbowl 1 with him, and he bought them drinks and sat and talked to them late into the night.