Where Do Gurus Hide?

I've heard him described as a "living saint," and something more than a mere mortal. And now he's a fugitive from justice with an arrest warrant. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

With the subject of their deliberations still missing and presumed on the lam, a Hays County jury on Tuesday sentenced a religious guru to 14 years in prison for each of 20 counts of molesting two girls who grew up on the Hindu ashram he founded and led in Central Texas.

This should not be so shocking. We read about church leaders all the time who have been caught in a sex scandal of some kind of another. But I have a keen interest in following this story due to my personal involvement and experiences, and the friendships I've had with a number of devotees, as well as having business dealings with some of them early in my career.

I can't help but be dismayed by the blind allegiance to this man, and attempting to justify improprieties against a 12-year-old.

When he began fondling her when she was 12, Rose said: "It just felt so wrong. He was my first kiss by a man ever. The first time anyone touched my breasts, it was Prakashanand."

In the few instances in which they told an adult of the incidents, the women said, they were instructed that the touching had a higher purpose. "I was told it was a test and if I failed it I would go to hell," Rose said. The other women said they were told the guru was gracing them.

[...]

The dramatically differing testimony left jurors with the task of establishing whether the women were lying to hurt the guru or whether his devotees were lying to protect him. Each side struggled with proving or disproving a case based on incidents alleged to have occurred 15 years earlier.

Well, let's see here. A devotee tells a young girl who has not yet entered her teens that she will go to hell if she does not allow a saint to fondle her breasts and kiss her lips. It is not hard to see who is trying to protect whom.

One also has to wonder just how brainwashed you'd have to be to fork over enough bail money to sustain a struggling town during an economic downturn, or feed 100,000 poor and homeless people quite well for a month or longer.

Hays County authorities also began the process of collecting $11 million in bond money and other financial commitments they said Prakashanand forfeited when he did not show up in court Monday morning.

[...]

...[Peter] Spiegel, a direct-marketing executive who lives primarily in California, has the most to lose from Prakashanand's disappearance. Not only did he put up a $1 million cash bond, he also signed a $10 million indemnity agreement in October 2008. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to return the guru's passport so he could travel to his other temples.

Prakashanand's passport was revoked five months ago, but prosecutors said the agreement still called for Spiegel to pay $10 million if the guru did not show up for trial. On Tuesday, Spiegel said he did not fully understand what he was signing at the time.

Bullshit! I've known this savvy businessman for 20 years. He did not amass his wealth by not fully understanding what he was signing at any time! I'm sorry he placed a bet and lost, but you don't get to demand your $11 million back from a casino because you didn't fully understand how the craps table works!

WHAT WOULD JESUS DRIVE?

From my early exposure to Swamiji and his devotees, I distinctly remember an emphasis being put on total devotion to God, rather than being focused on maya, the illusion of our present reality which interferes with our understanding of God.

It's always refreshing to see the preacher of such a beautiful philosophy driving around in a Lexus with vanity plates!

Meanwhile, the guru is missing and law enforcement can't seem to locate an 82-year-old bearded man in saffron robes. I can't help but wonder if they are searching in the wrong country, despite the revocation of his U.S. passport. Perhaps the notion of justice is also part of maya.

"Christ, What a Hysteric"

The HBO series "True Blood" is all the rage these days. Rolling Stone devoted a cover to it. And it's pretty humorous if you want my opinion, given that it is a vampire series. I mean, come on, how do you promote a vampire series without fangs or blood?

[Oh, screw you, Bhotofucket!] Glad I keep backups:




Someone was offended by it. And I didn't create the title of this post; she did, along with a "Trigger warning for sexualized violence."

I've heard that about me.

Please. Can we separate fiction from reality? I know it's all too easy to draw them together with metaphors, but... just saying. Get a grip. (And regarding that boob grip, they are a couple. Wanna do it in fake blood? Be my guest! Free country!)

Some of us still have the ability to make distinctions and draw lines.

Mike Masterson: Colossal Asshole Award

Mike Masterson, the opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Northwest edition, i.e. the most heavily Republican district of the state, got me all wound up this morning with this piece in today's paper.

Ahh, the joys of being a white, heterosexual IDIOT.

I really hope the link works -- it could be subscription only which I have by virtue of piggy-backing on my mother's print copy subscription. In any event, you'll get the gist of it...

By the way, just like Prejean, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton and nearly 70 percent of my fellow Americans, I, too, am a Christian, one who believes that institution of marriage is between one man and one woman. The people of other major religions believe likewise.

As with most of that vast majority, I also couldn’t care less what consenting adults do in their own bedrooms. But to destroy the holy and sacred institution of marriage based on the behavioral preferences of one group representing a fraction of our population would be a drastic mistake.

The colossal asshole got it all wrong. This is not about what consenting adults (and make note of his use of "consenting") do in their bedrooms; it's about what rights consenting heterosexual adults have in a relationship recognized by the state which non-heterosexual consenting adults do NOT have. And it matters fuck-all whether we are 7/10ths of 1%, or 6%, or 42%. We are tax-paying, hard-working Americans with ethics and moral values as well. And I'm fucking fed the hell up with "opinion editors" and anyone else trotting out these tired old arguments, and using the most insulting phrases like "behavioral preferences" only adds fuel to my fire.

Mr. Masterson, a "behavioral preference" would be, for instance, one in which a man prefers to pee sitting down to avoid splatter. My own "behavioral preferences" include things like having the toilet paper flap on the top vs. the underside, and always squeezing the toothpaste tube from the bottom. But when it comes to fucking in the privacy of my bedroom my sexual orientation, this is not a preference or a behavioral choice. My route is what is natural for me as a gay man.

But wait, Masterson's reasoning gets even more embarrassing for him.

It would be like cracking an egg that, once broken, would open the marriage door to all forms of sexual behaviors and predilections. Try to visualize pedophiles marrying children, a husband with multiple wives, humans marrying animals. Don’t laugh. Once we fallible human animals choose to erase a moral boundary established by a much higher force than convenient political popularity, where can any meaningful lines ever be drawn in our society?

Trust me, I'm not laughing. Yes, try to visualize pedophiles and sex with animals, you sick twisted fuck. Spread that fear to your readership and continue distorting reality to suit your own theocratic jerk-off fantasy.

Apparently at this point in the scribe, he lost sight of a word he used earlier: consenting.

You see, children are not consenting adults; we already have laws in place to prevent pedophiles from marrying children, and without those we'd already have heterosexual pedophiles marrying children. As it stands now, we have a lot of heterosexual pedophiles simply raping children outside the institution of marriage, as opposed to within it. And this has abso-fucking-lutely NOTHING to do with same-sex marriage. And Masterson has got to know this; if he doesn't he has no business being paid to write opinion pieces for a major statewide newspaper; he should be submitting them as a reader to an editor who actually has some common sense.

But it sure works great as as humor piece scare tactic when you have absolutely nothing else to hang your (ass)hat on.

As if this just simply isn't too over-the-top to fathom, he has to toss in the obligatory visual of humans marrying animals. Again, animals can't consent. And seriously, while we're on the subject of "fractions of our population," how many people would go that route, even if it were legal? (It's a rhetorical question, don't answer it. I have no doubt somebody somewhere, probably one or two of his newpaper's subscribers, would give it a whirl.)

And then Masterson continues with the granddaddy of them all: speak out while you still have the basic right, because Carrie Prejean is living proof that we're about to lose that right.

Even a beauty queen with no ax to grind with anyone is not exempt from personal attacks today for simply giving an honest opinion shared by most Americans. Carrie Prejean and her grandfather are right. It is time for everyone who believes in values and freedom to get off their duffs and be counted-while they still can be.

Mr. Masterson, am I included in your definition of "everyone who believes in values and freedom?" Only to a certain extent? We would like to "get off our duffs and be counted." That's the fucking point of our Gay Agenda. Only people such as yourself just keep shitting all over it with your asinine propaganda and fear-mongering.

If I wasn't such a proponent of free speech, I'd be tempted to tell you to shut the fuck up. But I will not take that low road. You go ahead and make a colossal asshole out of yourself in the statewide press as often as you want. Eventually, you will be on the losing end of this battle. Even in Arkansas.

Eggs are gonna get cracked. And there ain't no demons, pedophiles, or animal fuckers lurking within. Just basic civil rights, and that's some scary shit for many people, apparently.

More on Mike Masterson.

How Dare You Get Raped: Prepare for a Lashing

Or not.

Gee, I love having "allies" in the world who believe victims of rape need to be punished for having a crime committed against them.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pardoned the victim of a gang-rape whose
sentencing to 200 lashes caused an international outcry, a Saudi newspaper said
on Monday.

[...]

The 19-year-old Shi'ite woman was abducted and raped along with a male companion by seven men last year in a case that has drawn criticism from around the world.

Ruling according to Saudi Arabia's strict reading of Islamic law, a court sentenced the woman to 90 lashes for being alone with an unrelated man and the rapists to prison terms of up to five years.

Christ. Let's keep up the support for such allies by buying their crude oil and shit.

Machismo: Brazilian-Style

I'm not sure why a 15-year-old girl arrested on suspicion of petty theft would be held in jail for 26 days. That seems excessive to me. Or why they would have put her in a jail with men. Or why they would allow her to be raped and tortured continuously while being held, basically treated like a sex toy for their pleasure.

Oh, and they didn't just allow it.

The police in the jail did more than turn their backs on the violence. They shaved her head with a knife to make her look more like a boy, investigators said, and now are blaming her for lying about her age.

Because if she did lie about her age and was 19, shall we say, then the rape and torture resulting from her being put in a jail with men in the first place would have been more justifiable? I'm just curious.

Ana Júlia Carepa, the governor of Para, has been scrambling to clean up the mess since the situation became public late last month. Ms. Carepa pressed Raimundo Benassuly, the state police chief, to resign the day after he said publicly that the girl had lied about her age because she had a “mental deficiency.” The police have said that the girl had claimed she was 19, not 15, during several run-ins with the law.

Ms. Soares said that officials, including the judge in the case, a woman, did not press the girl for documentation proving she was an adult, even though she is under five feet tall and weighs about 80 pounds. “When I first saw her I thought she was 12, not 15,” Ms. Soares said.

For Ms. Carepa, the girl’s age is beside the point. “If she is 15, 20, 50, 80 years old or almost 100, it doesn’t matter,” she told journalists in Rio last month. “A woman cannot be in a cell with men.”

What has been particularly disheartening to federal human rights officials in the case of the 15-year-old girl is how many people had the chance to protect her. Ms. Soares, the lawyer, said the police, the judge and a public defender who had visited the jail all knew the teenager was in an all-male setting.

“Several officials were aware of what was happening, and at worst they were complicit in it,” Ms. Soares said. “It’s a very serious situation.”

This is just mind-boggling.

If the above link doesn't open, here's an alternative link to the story.