Last spring the Chicago Archdiocese went to great lengths to stop me from blogging about the crimes of pedophile priests, especially my perpetrator Fr. Thomas Barry Horne of Bartlett IL.  Now my attorney says it’s okay for me to blog again, so today I’m publishing the article I was forced to remove within hours about publishing it one year ago today. It describes a “mediation conference” concerning my lawsuit as a pedophile priest victim here:

Chi Archdiocese tries to silence CofA Blog, read story here at CofA Blog.

I’m also writing an online book about my experiences with the Catholic Church protecting its pedophiles and attacking the victims, at City of Angels Blog 15 (http://cityofangels15.blogspot.com ) which I hope to finish by 2015. It’s titled “Faster Than the Speed of Life” and today I’m publishing the first of several entries on this writing project:

Starry Eyed for Krishna, In Pursuit of the Priest

Last April the Chicago Archdiocese tricked me into thinking they were ready to settle my case, in order to get me in the offices of their corporate attorneys.  Then they proceeded to tell me that the family of my perpetrator, Fr. Thomas Barry Horne of Bartlett IL was going to sue me (though his family never contacted me and my email address is all over CofA Blog). The “Mediators” whispered things in my ear that were calculated to scare me into not writing this blog anymore.

And I did stop writing for a while.

Then my lawyer said recently, “Go ahead and toot all you want” about Father Horne and the pedophile priests. So today I’m re-publishing the censored post from April 18, 2011.

So City of Angels Blog is back today with the two posts linked above. Only thing I’m not allowed to publish now is the amount of money I got in a settlement, and well, there never was a settlement. But I didn’t start City of Angels Blog with money in mind anyway.

Who knows what will appear at CofA Blog between now and the end of 2014.

-Kay Ebeling, Producer, City of Angels Blog covering the pedophile epidemic among Catholic priests since Jan. 2007.

As the Presidential election approaches in November, most politicians claim an allegiance to a continued pursuit of fossil fuels by oil and gas companies, and maintain fracking the Marcellus Shale is in the nation’s best interest. The advocates outside the water festival want the country to put its resources into alternative energy sources.

The World’s First International Water Heritage Site
By Charles E. Sullivan and John C. Webster

Washington’s birthday, 2-22-2012, 2:22pm. Citizens of Morgan County, West Virginia, gathered on the Morgan County Courthouse steps in the Town of Bath, corner of Fairfax and Washington Streets (U.S. 522), to celebrate the 22nd Annual Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting and to demonstrate against the international ecocrime of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas (fracking).

We proclaimed a reinstatement of rights that citizens of this country, and the many states that united to form it, were supposed to have been guaranteed by the founding fathers, through original documents forged by that elite gathering of privileged landowners (who pondered to create an enlightened system of government within the constraints and beliefs of their time) and thereafter added to and slowly strengthened by a Bill of Rights to The Constitution of The United States of America.

Realizing both the myth and history of our nation, and attempting to set our current condition within that context, two documents approved by the grassroots organization Morgan County Frack Ban (http://www.frackban.org/) were read by Charles E. Sullivan, Frack Ban orator, after co-member John C. Webster read the following excerpt from The Constitution of West Virginia:

Article 2, 2-2. Powers of government in citizens.

“The powers of government reside in all the citizens of the state, and can be rightfully exercised only in accordance with their will and appointment.”

Unfortunately, the citizens of West Virginia have not been allowed to exercise those rights. We feel, therefore, that we must go around the current system as it now stands and proclaim a line in the sand beyond which the corporate governance of this state, and of the United States, must not go in an attempt to destroy “the terrible beauty” of West Virginia and to poison its water and its people.

Preamble to A Declaration of Community Water Rights and Heritage
By Charles E. Sullivan

The Republic of the United States of America was founded upon revolutionary principles. And while many would deny it today, these are again revolutionary times. It therefore seems appropriate to invoke the thoughts of one of America’s greatest thinkers and most conscientious citizens—Henry David Thoreau, who lived from 1817 to 1861.

For those of you who do not know the story, Thoreau went to jail for refusing to pay his taxes. Had he chosen to pay them, Thoreau recognized that he would be supporting a war, the war against Mexico, to which he was morally opposed. So he went to jail rather than pay taxes that would, as he saw it, expand the territory of slavery. Thoreau was a fierce abolitionist.

Even our seemingly mundane lives are filled with such moral choices. Action and inaction, cooperation and non-compliance with the law have consequences. This is what gives our lives meaning; it is what defines who and what we are as human beings. Those who are most alive are passionate about everything they do.

Henry David Thoreau famously declared in his essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, “Let every man make known the kind of government that would command his respect and that will be the first step toward obtaining it.”

Thoreau was a man with a social conscience. He was, above all, a man who stood on and acted upon moral principle. This did not always enamor him to his fellow citizens. In a culture predicated upon exploitation and wasteful consumption, truth, particularly inconvenient truth, is rarely popular.

Thoreau also told us, “The fate of the country does not depend upon how you vote at the polls—the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.” He also said, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. ”

In essence, Thoreau tells us that by strictly adhering to the systems of power, rather than working outside of them when necessary, we are treating the symptoms of disease rather than its underlying cause. One must think outside of the box and one must act according to the dictates of conscience. Or, as another author once said, “You must stand for something or you will fall for anything.”

It is in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau that I offer the following thoughts:

The citizens of Morgan County demand a government that represents working class people and the poor rather than corporate interests and the privileged elite. Its credo must be human need, not corporate greed. Furthermore, we recognize that capitalism is not democracy and that democracy is not capitalism. These are radically opposing ideas, and we must take care not to confuse them.

Our diverse forests are commodified, measured in board feet to be clearcut and off-shored at prodigious bargain rates, like a liquidation sale. World class biodiversity is being turned into biological deserts and monoculture. Money changes hands. The few are getting rich at the expense of the many. The world and the people who live in it are treated like products to be exploited. We are told that nothing is sacred, save for the dollar and markets.

In reality, every political economy is underlain by ecology and by living, evolving, biological systems. Ecology is the only economy that really matters. One cannot make a living on a dead planet; and one cannot drink money.

George Orwell, the author of a chilling novel called 1984, astutely observed, “In times of universal deceit, speaking truth is a revolutionary act.” Being here today is such an act. It is in that spirit that we offer A Declaration of Community Water Rights and Heritage.

A Declaration of Community Water Rights and Heritage
By John C. Webster

When, in the course of human events, it is again necessary to reaffirm our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as the various governments of these United States of America – at all levels – have become destructive to them, we must reestablish the proposition that governments derive their just powers from consent of the governed.

To these ends, and realizing that protection of our natural water sources, their courses, and the surrounding ecosystems that produce and support them, are essential to ensure and secure the future of Morgan County, West Virginia, and that of its citizens; we do, therefore, proclaim the following Declaration Of Community Water Rights and Heritage, in order to stop the insidious intrusion of corporate governance upon the very means of our existence in violation of the public trust:

Whereas 70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water, of which only 3% is fresh water derived from all sources, and of which only 1% can be used as potable water; and,

Whereas the hills, hollows, mountains, and valleys of Morgan County, West Virginia, are 80% forested and must be protected as progenitor of the naturally fresh, clean, and potable water necessary to replenish two-thirds of all human bodies that is water; and,

Whereas we recognize the historic efforts made by citizens of this county to guarantee the future of its potable water supplies, even in the face of unchecked development, never-ending divisions to vast and interconnected areas of contiguous, protected ecosystem required to produce said natural water supplies, and on-going degradation of same; and,

Whereas corporate governance has led us to a situation where we have no rights as a people to community control, by way of ballot referenda, to redress grievances, a situation resulting from 135 years of corporate rule over West Virginia and its legislators by timbering, coal, oil and gas industries, the latter of which has begun the international ecocrime of hydraulic fracturing; and

Whereas hydraulic fracturing for natural gas is but the latest and most perfidious attempt to destroy, for profit, the very means of our existence, as well as unalienable rights set forth by the 1776 Declaration of Independence, and thereafter by federal and state Constitutions; and

Whereas, in that same year, George Washington, then-future President of the United States of America, did purchase an original lot in the newly chartered Town of Bath, this country’s first resort spa, surrounding the famous Berkeley Springs, around which the town was built, and which springs have been permanently protected within the 4.5 acre Berkeley Springs State Park; and

Whereas we must also protect – by a ban on hydraulic fracturing – the additional and various fresh water springs, wells, runs, creeks, rivers, and lakes of this county, including but not limited to Warm Springs Run, Sleepy Creek, the Cacapon and Potomac Rivers, and the Cacapon Resort State Park Lake;

We do, therefore, appeal to attendees at this year’s 22nd Annual Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting, being held at the Country Inn adjacent to Berkeley Springs State Park, to join us in declaring the Town of Bath, the County of Morgan, West Virginia, and all watersheds arising within or flowing through or around them, to be The World’s First International Water Heritage Site.

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A 12 -minute ‘YouTube’ video of the complete 2-22-2012 proclamation, filmed by Brent Walls, can be viewed at http://www.frackban.org/apps/videos/videos/show/15984950-declaration-of-water-rights-and-heritage-site.

(Charles E. Sullivan is a botanist, naturalist, nature photographer, writer, and a student of Henry David Thoreau. John C. Webster is a gardener, garden designer, horticulturist, plant breeder, and a student of Thomas Jefferson. Patty Heaphy, a writer and former teacher of English, served as editor for this piece.)

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A landowner’s only recourse with the gas and oil companies is to sue for damages after the fact, and renters have no rights at all, thanks to laws rushed through state and national legislatures, such as the Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act introduced, debated, and passed in a matter of weeks in the West Virginia state legistlature November 2011. (Read more and see more images at Part 1 of this story “Water Sanctuary Declared as Fracking Encroaches on WV Town, Feb. 23, 2012)
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Posted by Kay Ebeling, originally at City of Angels 9 as The City of Angels is Everywhere

As oil and gas companies suck every last carbon resource out of American landscapes, natural gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has left behind deadly poisons in waters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and other states.

Water Sanctuary Declared in Berkeley Springs WV 2-22-12

“George Washington, then-future President of the United States of America, did lay out the newly chartered Town of Bath as this country’s first resort spa, surrounding the famous Berkeley Springs, around which the town was built, and which springs have been permanently protected within the 4.5 acre Berkeley Springs State Park.”

To prevent fracking from coming too close to the precious and special water resources of this Eastern Panhandle region of West Virginia, yesterday in Bath, West Virginia, aka Berkeley Springs, at Morgan County Courthouse, Feb. 22, 2012, at 2:22 PM, citizens clamored for sanity and a stop to fracking, which is encroaching from western counties.

The group will continue its protest outside the 22nd Annual Berkeley Springs Water Tasting, Sat. Feb. 25 from 9AM to 5PM. Join us on the sidewalk across from The Country Inn on Highway 522.

(Feel free to reproduce these photos freely. Please credit Kay Ebeling at City of Angels 9 when publishing, thank you…)

(Above right, Dina Coe)

How long would it take to stop subsidizing the oil industry and start instead subsidizing and encourating development of wind, solar, geothermal, sea water, and other ways to generate power that don’t involve oil and gas pillaging for short term profit at a long term cost?

(At left Russell Ratliff)

(Steve Kaldes above waves United States of Corporate America flag)

Instead of the USA developing a sustained energy program, even President Barack Obama buys into natural gas extraction by “safe fracking” as an energy source the U.S.A. needs until it can develop alternative energy, per his State of the Union address this year and Democratic party conventional wisdom. He sounds like another politician beholden to oil and gas gazillion dollar campaign donations.

Here Are

More Images

from the Event in Berkeley Springs Feb 22, 2012, at 2:22 PM

(At left, Lois Walton signs the Statement)

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To Read the Proclamation and Watch Video of Charlie Sullivan Declaring It, click link to Morgan County USA reported by Russell Mokhiber.

“George Washington, then-future President of the United States of America, did lay out the newly chartered Town of Bath as this country’s first resort spa,” stated Sullivan, “surrounding the famous Berkeley Springs, around which the town was built, and which springs have been permanently protected within the 4.5 acre Berkeley Springs State Park.”

John Webster introduced Sullivan who read A Declaration Of Community Water Rights And Heritage that participants then signed.

(See More at City of Angels 9)

I know there are others out there who got the name Sunshine during the hippie era of the late 1960s early 1970s in the USA.  I got so christened at the Holy Man Jam in Boulder Colorado, 1970(?), where several gurus, mystics, yogis, and monks were presenting to hundreds of hippies in university square.

The sun went behind clouds and we were afraid rain would ruin the celebration.  So I jumped on the stage and led a rain dance, drove the clouds away with our energy we did, and as the sun broke through people called out to me, “Your name is Sunshine.”

I went from Boulder to Dallas and moved into a Yoga ashram.  Much anticipated, Swami Satchidananda came through to give us mantras and new Yogic names.  My housemates were coming out of the little office now named Gurudev and Lakshman and Sita, etcetera.  When it came my turn, the old Indian Brahman said to me, “I cannot change your name, you are Sunshine.” 

So it stuck.  I was Sunshine until years later, in college in Austin, studying Journalism, the name Sunshine Ebeling was too long and lacked credibility, so I shortened my real name Kathryn to Kay and it stuck.

Over those enchanted months as a hippie traveling our strange world, I met numerous others, males and females, who had ended up with that same name Sunshine.  I wonder, where are you all now, where are the Sunshines?

Contact me at cityofangelslady@yahoo.com to connect, if you are Sunshine or know where there are others.  I’m planning on kicking around another couple decades, so no rush.

-Kay Ebeling

Reporting from Appalachia

Now that H-B 4498 for Compassionate Use of Medical Marijuana has been introduced in the West Virginia State Legislature, next step towards passage would be a public hearing in the Health and Human Resources Committee, whose members’ email addresses and phone numbers are posted below.

Meanwhile per WSAZ in Charleston: 63 percent support medical marijuana in poll taken soon after introduction of HB4498 to the West Virginia State Legislature last week. 

A public hearing will be “an opportunity for individuals to come and offer their opinion on the bill,” said Dave Dawson of West Virginia NORML in Charleston. 

 “At a public hearing we can present witnesses and experts to offer opinions and findings of studies to the committee.

“If a public hearing has a strong showing the committee may be more inclined to put the bill onto the agenda.

“HB 4498 is still in the Health and Human Resources Committee and is still not on the committee agenda to be discussed.   If HB 4498 does not make it onto the committee agenda it will not be voted on by the committee and will not go to the house floor for a vote this session. 

“However we still have time to request a Public Hearing.  They have been hearing your calls so keep them up!” 

LOBBY FROM YOUR LAPTOPS:  Below is contact information for members of the Health and Human Resources Committee of the West Virginia State Legislature. 

Email or call them and ask for a Public Hearing, with at least three days notice, for House Bill 4498, Compassionate Use Act for Medical Cannabis

Don Perdue Committee Chair don.perdue@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3269

Barbara Hatfield (D – Kanawha) Committee Vice Chair  bobbie.hatfield@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3140

Joe Ellington (R – Mercer) Committee Minority Chair joe.ellington@wvhouse.gov  (304) 340-3172

Jonathan Miller (R – Berkeley) Committee jonathan@delegatejmiller.com Minority Chair (304) 340-3147

Anthony Barill (D – Monongalia) Anthony.barill@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3173

Denise L. Campbell (D – Randolph) denise.campbell@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3145

Thomas W. Campbell (D – Greenbrier) tcampbell@grcs.com (304) 340-3280

Ryan Ferns (D – Ohio) ryan.ferns@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3270

Barbara Evans Fleischauer (D – Monongalia) barbaraf@wvhouse.gov (304)340-3169

Tiffany Elizabeth Lawrence (D – Jefferson) lawrencefordelegate@hotmail.com (304) 340-3152

Charlene Marshall (D – Monongalia) charlene.marshall@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3900

Clif Moore (D – McDowell) clif.moore@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3189

Ruth Rowan (R – Hampshire) ruth.rowan@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3157

Amanda Pasdon (R – Monongalia) amanda.pasdon@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3153

Carol Miller (R – Cabell) carol.miller@wvhouse.gov  (304) 340-3176

Patrick Lane (R – Kanawha) patrick.lane@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3275

Eric L. Householder (R – Berkeley) eric.householder@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3274

Anna Border (R – Wood) anna.border@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3136

Troy Andes (R – Putnam) troy.andes@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3121

Margaret Anne Staggers (D – Fayette) margaret.staggers@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3197

Ralph Rodighiero (D – Logan) ralph.rodighiero@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3154

Meshea Poore (D – Kanawha) meshea.poore@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3248

Linda Goode Phillips (D – Wyoming) linda.phillips@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3163

David G. Perry (D – Fayette) d.perry@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3117

Ricky Moye (D – Raleigh) rickymoye@wvhouse.gov (304) 340-3162  

HB4498:http://www.legis.state.wv.us/Bill_Status/Bills_history.cfm?input=4498&year=2012&sessiontype=RS&btype=bill  

Health and Human Resources Committee: http://www.legis.state.wv.us/committees/house/HouseCommittee.cfm?Chart=hhr

If you want to engage your delegate or a delegate member of the committee about why HB 4498 should be enacted you can cite research and reports we have accumulated and uploaded to http://wvnorml.org/resources/facts-and-stats . 

WVNORML will continue to update and add to this resource bank but for now there is plenty of information in the links and downloads.

VIDEO:  Charleston WV news report on introduction of HB4498

Posted by Kay Ebeling, reporting from Appalachia

Here is the email I’m sending them:

Dear Delegate: Hold Hearings on HB4498 Compassionate Use of Medical Marijuana Act 2012 for West Virginia

They didn’t even pave paradise*, just threw gravel all over it. Before and After Pictures Below document removal of a waterfall by natural gas industry contractors, to make way for a road accommodating hydraulic fracturing wells in Blake Run area of Wetzel County, West Virginia.

Using a waterfall to illustrate its point, Chesapeake Energy ran its “Champion of Natural Beauty” ad displayed at right around the same time it was overseeing removal of a waterfall from Wetzel County West Virginia to make way for a road carrying natural gas products in and out of the region.

Ad Copy reads:

“The mountains of West Virginia are an American treasure. Their bold natural beauty reflects the spirit, pride, and fortitude that are so firmly engrained in the character of this state and its people. Chesapeake is proud to be here- helping to safely produce the vast reserves of clean burning natural gas in the Marcellus Shale and to build new prosperity and stability for generations to come. Chesapeake Energy. America’s Champion of Natural Gas ™

BEFORE: 2004

AFTER: 2010

WELL MAP Blake Run, Wetzel County WV

Information in this post was garnered from http://wcag-wv.org/W/Water/WaterfallRemovalBlakeRun.htm Wetzel County Action Group, West Virginia

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Posted by Kay Ebeling, Producer, City of Angels Blog.
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* * Paving Paradise refers to Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell: Watch video where this story originally appeared at City of Angels BLog today.

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From 4,300 feet away, Condensate Tank Discharge “was loud and could be heard and seen for hours,” reports West Virginia activisit who published video of natural gas fracking [watch at City of Angels Blog] at Durig Well in Wetzel County, West Virginia, on Feb. 26, 2011. 

Rocking of tank as it discharges is noticeable in second half of video.

Source of all these materials: http://wcag-wv.org/ Wetzel County Action Group.

February 16, 2011 pictures of polluted water being released from pipeline on Blake Ridge.

Published on AlterNet by Kay Ebeling, producer of City of Angels Blog since 2007.

Since they say ordaining women is “on a par with clergy abuse,” the Catholic Church must think female priests are okay, as the Vatican has barely responded one way or the other about its pedophile crime epidemic. -ke

From Huffington Post story linked below:

“Last year, the Vatican made ordaining a woman one of the gravest canonical crimes, on par with sexually abusing a child.”

They call both priest pedophilia and ordaining women “grave canonical crimes” but then let pedophile priests remain in the clergy. In fact, a Catholic priest has the ability to forgive all crimes, so any criminal activity involving a priest is forgivable, so go ahead and start ordaining women…

Circular Reasoning
from Kay Ebeling

READ this story with photo at City of Angels Blog

From Lance’s Blog: “Designer Camelle Ilona Daley has a line of stylish clerical clothing. The picture (at CofA Blog) of a model wearing female priestly garments provoked some controversy among my friends on Facebook. Some were offended, I saw one comment that said, “these are the END TIMES…” Some objected to female priests; others objected not to a female priest, but to this particular picture, which seems to them to be suggestive.”

See Fashion Collection for a Female Priest at House of Filona

Read story that sparked this blog entry at Huffington Post:

Roy Bourgeois, U.S. Priest Who Backs Women’s Ordination, Detained

VATICAN CITY — A U.S. Catholic priest who supports ordination for women was detained briefly by police Monday after marching to the Vatican to press the Holy See to lift its ban on women priests. The Rev. Roy Bourgeois and about a dozen supporters had marched down the main boulevard leading to the Vatican holding a banner “Ordain Catholic Women” and chanting outside St. Peter’s Square …

The Bush tax cuts are the main cause of our nation’s debt, not spending, even though that is the sound byte repeated over and over by corporate media. 

Reporters used to be reporters, not flacks reading corporate press statements, as we see on network news. 

Today even NPR sounds like it’s delivering the Republican message. 

The USA used to be a humane place where everyone had a home, and if you worked, you could afford a car and to send your children to college. 

If people had good jobs again, they would pay directly into the treasury and Social Security from their paychecks, and cuts to safety net programs would not even be a consideration.  Our laws have to stop rewarding businesses for sending jobs overseas.  We have to re-instate taxes on millionaires.

How many yachts and mansions does a person need?  Especially while the rest of us can barely keep roofs over our heads?

Kay Ebeling