Clinton to Depose Oprah? (washingtonpost.com)

It's always an unfortunate word choice to use Clinton and "Depose" in the same sentence. Check out The Corner for suggested names of his show. I nominate "Who Wants to Blow a Millionaire?"

Antismokers going too far?
But there's an even better argument. The co-op members can keep smokers off their property because it's their property. The good people of 180 West End Avenue have every right to enjoy lives free of puppies, loud parties and cigarette smoke if they choose.

I'm not buying this argument. The Co-Op board is regulating more than "their property." They are preventing one member from disposing of his own property in the manner he sees fit. If smoking affects the common areas, they can require that the abutter manage that (by installing filters, air purifiers, etc.). But the individual apartment does not belong to the Co-Op. Co-ops have a monopoly power, and monopolies must be carefully monitored and regulated by the state, to prevent their becoming illegal or abusive.

Which Presidential Hopeful Are You?

I can't possibly be John McCain. I believe in the First amendment.

"Deep Throat"

The Linda Lovelace stories the alst week ahve reminded me to blog about the other "Deep Throat." For the record, I believe Bob Dole was Woodward and Bernstein's source during Watergate. Let future "Google" searches reflect this for all posterity. :-)

New Blog

Visit Kairos from now on for religiously-oriented blogs. I'll keep all but the most obviously political ones off this page henceforth.

I have decided that spinning off religious blogs makes the most sense. I kept running into the idea that some of the specifically religous things here were limited by the political orientation of this site, and some political ideas weere limited by the fact that I needed to talk religiously about them. So Go Forth for that stuff

O Judgment, Thou Art Fled to Brutish Beasts

My argument with my colleague the other day set me to mulling about the blinders people put on. How can it be that people can look at Saddam Hussein (to take one example) and suppose that a mere piece of paper will be sufficient to restrain or even end his evil? How can people look at Yasser Arafat and say "He does have some valid points..."?

The answer I have come to is found in a John LeCarre novel, one of the early Smiley books. (I think it was The Honourable Schoolboy but may be mistaken.) LeCarre has a good riff on why "M" won't hire people who hate communism, because they are halfway already to loving it. When someone wonders why then they bother fighting the Bolsheviks, the answer comes (I'm paraphrasing) that it is to protect the existence of "Reasonable Man."

There lies the answer. My colleague, like so many other willing but naive Americans, is a Reasonable Man. And a Reasonable Man must be an Honourable Man. "I wouldn't go blowing up civilians and myself unless I was really desperate," he thinks to himself, "so that must be how they feel." "Why do they hate us?" ask Honourable Men, for in civilized places Honourable Men apologize for having given even unintentional offense--and no one would attempt to murder 50,000 in a single swoop without having born grievous offense. Honourable Men believe that the UN will solve all the world's problems, as though that august body were somehow distinguishable from the dictatorships and kleptocracies that comprise it.

See Stanley Kurtz for a different, but complementary take on "reasonable men". As he notes, the enemy at present is neither reasonable, nor honourable. Even if that analysis fails, however, let us remember that even those who claim to be reasonable, honourable men act in ways that defy honour and reasonableness (though not necessarily reason).

Shakespeare understood it well enough, leaving Marc Anthony to remind us of it:

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
((JC, III:2)

But perhaps I wrong the honourable men whose daggers would stab us all.

Quis custodies?

Amy Welborn has asked an important question today: "One of the most frightening things about this moment is that in every other time of crisis in the Church's history, there's one force that has rescued it, and it hasn't been the hierarchy, not even, for the most part, popes. It's been religious orders...What's the modern equivalent?"

There's a group that has largely gone unheard from in recent days, but it seems to me to offer a potential solution to the problem: the Permanent Diaconate. Since the American Church reestablished this holy order in 1968, following Vatican II, the role of deacons has been one of sacrament and service. “Word, Liturgy and Charity” are the triune obligations of deacons.

There are some 13,000 deacons in the American Church, more than in the rest of the world combined. Neither entirely lay people nor fully clerics, the role of the diaconate is nevertheless sacramental, and principally focused on spreading the Word. Though many parishes use deacons seemingly exclusively to read the Gospel and assist with Communion, many other deacons are out in the front lines of Catholic interaction with the world. They run soup kitchens and rehab programs, publish newspapers, work as bankers and police officers. In short, they do everything a good Christian can do, and then they help run the Church on Sunday. Important to note is that 97% are or have been married (only 3% are divorced, compared to 12% of Catholic men over 35 as a whole).

It has been my contention for some time (even before the scandal) that the diaconate offers a solution to the shortage of vocations in the American Church. Deacons are empowered to perform all sacraments save Reconciliation and the Eucharist. A handful of deacons in every parish could greatly increase the outreach and effectiveness of even a small number of priests, placing the fate of the parish much more firmly in the hands of the parishioners. And because the deacons are canonically ordained, it will give lay members a voice outside the usually liberalizing bounds so common in the lay ministries (at least the ones I have encountered).

There are several potential difficulties with the diaconate, but none seem insurmountable. First, there is a deep-seated ambivalence about it within the clergy. Conservatives don't like deacons because deacons are not celibate. Liberals dislike them for the same reason. To the conservative set, it threatens to undermine celibacy. To the liberals, it threatens to weaken the case for liberalizing. Oddly enough, both cases are enhanced by a quirk of the ordination. Though a married man may be ordained a deacon, he may not remarry, should his spouse pre-decease him. (This strikes me as bizarre in the extreme, by the way. Such an attitude really does seem to me based in the "fear of sex" that so many anti-celibacy activists accuse Rome of. Perhaps there is a good theological argument for it; I have not heard it.) Additionally, at least in the case of my own diocese, there exists a bias against younger deacons. I meet the minimum age (albeit barely) for the diaconate, but this fall was strongly discouraged from applying until I am older (I am 32, and would be 35 at the time of ordination). If I don’t join the next class in two years, my life is likely to demand that I put it off until my late 40s or 50s.

Nevertheless, Deacons have historically been significant sources of strength and power within the Church. One of the most remarkable results of Vatican II was to revive the Permanent Diaconate, but its potential has yet to be realized. Perhaps this is the moment. If Bishops can be persuaded to expand the opportunity and training for deacons, they would have a new reservoir of people at a time when they need all the help they can get. By including Deacons in the plans for addressing sexual abuse by clergy, they increase the participation of parishioners substantially, while still maintaining some control over the situation. The fact that most deacons are married and parents cannot but help to improve the system of accountability. And the fact that deacons are required to maintain a life and a profession outside their ministerial duties means an expanded diaconate would moderate the problem of clericalism.

There are no doubt thousands of men like myself in the church right now who felt called both to the priesthood and parenthood, and chose the latter. It is time to call on them to help resolve this crisis. As the US Conference of Catholic Bishops itself has noted, “The diaconate is still a ministry in development, with a new identity emerging over time and in practice.”

For an overview of the Diaconate, with some good links, click here. To find out about joining in your diocese, click here.

Non Sequitur

An aptly titled cartoon for our present condition in the Church. Today's strip pretty much nails it.

In Between Naps

A remarkable blog on St. Catherine of Siena, to which I can add nothing.

The Boston Globe, surprisingly, continues to "get it."

The clergy's buried truths
Prevalence of male teenage victims in scandal points to other issues
By Donald Cozzens, 4/28/2002
The church's first step in facing the difficulties in the clergy might well be to address with compassion and sensitivity a reality it wants to deny: Many of its priests and bishops are gay.

Coming to grips with this reality is an important first step to a renewed church and a healthier priesthood.

Once again, the Boston Globe seems to be leading the way on this story, at least among the iberal media, in a way that I never previously expected. "Both pedophilia and ephebophilia are criminal, and in the eyes of most religious traditions, immoral...As the distinction takes hold, it is accompanied by the disturbing realization that most of the reported victims of priest abusers are not children, but teenage boys."

And "Commentators and behavioral specialists stress the absence of any link between sexual orientation, specifically a gay orientation, and the abuse of young children. But given the presence of large numbers of gay men in the priesthood, what is the significance of the disproportionate number of teenage boys among the victims of non-pedophile priest abusers?"

If you've been into the Catholic blogging, you already know most of what's in this. But bear in mind, this is the front page of the Sunday Globe's Focus section, not normally a place where one finds stories of this caliber, and "POV".

On to Iraq?

U.S. Blueprint to Topple Hussein Envisions Big Invasion Next Year
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, April 27 — The Bush administration, in developing a potential approach for toppling President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, is concentrating its attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops.

What's left unsaid in this story is the causus belli.

Lt. Cdr. Michael Scott Speicher, USN, went missing on the first night of the air war in 1991. His F/A-18 was shot down, and though Cdr. Speicher was initially declared KIA, the remains of the aircraft were later discovered in the desert, with indications he probably succesfully ejected. 60 Minutes did a story on him in the last couple of years, and the DoD has reclassified him as MIA.

First, a little known aside about Cdr. Speicher: he took some leave from Saratoga while it transitted Suez, and spent Christmas in Bethlehem. The Associated Press interviewed him there for a wire story that appeared in many papers.

The probability that an American serviceman has languished in an Iraqi prison for 11 years while the country and the world "moved on" is intolerable. If true, a military response would be demanded whether or not we had declared a war on terror.

Unfortuntaely, my own suspicious nature makes me wonder whether Cdr. Speicher is now to be used as the cause of the War. Will we hear Pentagon briefings declaring that it has been "discovered" that the Iraqis are holding him? Will this "discovery" turn out to have been withheld from the public for a number of years, against the day we finally decided to do something about Iraq?

Cdr. Speicher has been in my constant prayers since January 1991, when he was the subject of one of the greatest homilies I have ever heard, from the chaplain at my college. I was then, and remain now, a "hawk" on Iraq. I will fiercely support any effort to remove Hussein from life in this world. But that homily reminded me of my spiritual duty too, at a time when my entire focus was on wordliness. When rumors that Cdr. Speicher survived began to apear in the media, I followed them closely. It may be a grave sin, but I prayed that he had died 11 year ago, rather than suffer the horrors survival would surely have entailed. I now hope and pray that any government revalations that appear will be genuine, sincere, and timely. But I'm doubtful.

1918 World Champs Update

It is very difficult to blog when Derek Lowe is pitching the game of his life!

Over at Amy Welborn

In Between Naps Jesus told Peter that "...the gates of Hell will not prevail..." against His Church, but it sure seems like someone's on the other side of those gates and is pushing like crazy!

Amy quotes a reader who touches on something that's been troubling me. I wonder if a large part of the weakness and venality of the American cardinals stems from doubts about evil. I know that sounds weird, and this is a not-yet-fermented idea, but bear with me.

It has been a conviction of mine for some time that the greatest trick the Devil has ever played on Man is to persuade us that he doesn't exist. Precisely because so many of us don't really believe in the Devil, it is very difficult to see Devils in our midst. Depraved and evil actors such as Paul Shanley are difficult to confront because they do appear, to postmodern eyes, to be what they really are. (I could quote from Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters here, but I am afraid my readers are growing tired of cosntant CS Lewis allusions.)

A very good priest friend, who helped me through my crisis of faith, dealt with my doubts about hell by observing that, as Catholics, we are required to believe in the existence of Hell, but we are not required to believe anyone is in it. If this flirtation with Universalism has evenr eached very holy priests (such as my frined) can it not be far from the hearts of the bishopric?

Somehow, I think a world in which evil is understood for what it is, and in which we know of a force called "satan" which seeks to steer us from the path of righteousness, would be a world in which much less of this scandal would have gone on.

A Day of Reparations

I have not, to my knowledge, told any lies about abusive priests, nor have I covered up any lies, at least not deliberately. I didn't reassign anyone, nor tell the media that a serial abuser is "a good man." I even attended BC High while several abusive priests were there, though I knew nothing of the abuse and was never approached myself. In short, I have done absolutely nothing wrong, as any reasonable person can see.

But I want the collective body of the Church to do this day of reparations. The Body is sick, and every part must work to make it healthy. When I have a stomach complaint, I am more, not less, dependent on my healthy feet to cary me to the doctor. Christ himself was blameless, and only becuase he was so could the Atonement heal the rest of humanity, or make healing possible. In this one regard, as in few others, I have credit and to spare with God, and so can and ought to share that with those who have used theirs up.

Those who so understandably say they are not at fault forget our duty. We must help those who are weakest among us. Who is weaker than the venal cardinal who tries to hide that which our Faith tells us cannot be hidden?

The Day of Reparations is not sufficient, but it is necessary. And each of us must not only participate, but at the conclusion remind the leadership that they have borrowed a great deal from those who participated, and that the time to repay them has come.

NPR : All Things Considered for April 26, 2002
Study of Sexual Behavior

Specialists who have studied sexual behavior and worked with priests say that proposals to address the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church by screening homosexuals out of the priesthood are based on a flawed understanding -- and doomed to fail. Frank Browning reports.

Once again, the Pefectly Modulate Voice of Reason at NPR obfuscates. "Child sexual abuse is an overwhelmingly heterosexual problem, so purgin gays doesn't work," PMVR tells us. Grand. Except the report on the "science" of the issue ignores the fact that most victims of abuse in the present scandal are not children (as most people understand the term) but adolescent boys.

Even the Boston Globe has gotten the message, that the scandal here is much more about ephebophilia than pedophilia. Would someone please notify NPR?

(And if you want to know why I bother listening, there's a great segment here.)

Canossa

In case you are wondering what "pulling a Canossa" means in the poll...

Brought to you by a brain full of useless knowledge.

NRO goes PBS

Donate to NRO That’s where you come in. If you like what you are getting on National Review Online, if you want more of it, and if you believe that NRO is providing a vital service, please give us a hand and contribute to the site. A donation of just $10 or $25 will prove immensely helpful towards enabling us to hire new staff so that NRO can move ahead.

Fine, but one freakin' Sarah Brightman pop-up add, and I'm through with you, Jonah Goldberg!!!!!

US Copyright PA-66-009

On Sunday, as ever, there will be street carnivals with schoolgirls singing"Happy Birthday to You, Papa Saddam".

The Best of the Web picks up this curious story about Saddam's upcoming natal day festivities. But they don't ask the most important questions: will the Iraqis pay royalties?

The Corner on National Review Online K-LO IN FANTASYLAND? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Rod, I’m sorry you expect the worst, but I for one wouldn’t be so quick to consider that the Vatican is planning to obstruct justice (especially before we know what the actual story is).

An excellent point. Let's all remember when we see unnamed sources to ask, Cui bono? Who gains by leaking the story? The answer: anyone who fears this might happen, whether it's been discussed or not. It doesn't mean there's a plan.

A whiff of fascism

From Victor Davis Hanson:
The truth is that a lunatic fringe similar to Hitler of the early 1920s is also active now in America, and has tried to galvanize resistance to the Untied States by using the events of Sept. 11 and the recent fighting in the Middle East. But this time the racists, fascists, and faux-victims are from the purported Left and not the Right. If the Democratic party will not denounce these totalitarians and their extremist supporters like Al Sharpton — as the Republicans once ostracized the militias and white supremacists — then all ordinary Americans must step up to employ clear and honest language in opposing their frightening agenda. They are not progressives, not even socialists, communists, or anarchists. Rather, their language is pure hatred — as well as anti-Semitic and fascistic. The governments they support overseas are murderous and dictatorial; their currency is race — oppressed "people of color" are good, other "oppressors," especially Jews, less so — and their message is violent and wishes an end to the present democratically elected government in the United States.
The only way to confront the new fascists is to speak honestly about them and not remain silent. Each time a Palestinian extremist uses the word "Jew," each time an activist praises Libya, Iraq, or Iran and either condones or praises suicide murderers, each time a screaming protestor slanders the present president of the United States as a killer, terrorist, and war criminal, each time we hear of conspiracies that explain our aid to Jewish Israel, we must all simply remonstrate, "Hitler would smile at every thing you say."
And, of course, he would.

Pope reported set to give Law Vatican posting
by Jack Sullivan and Eric Convey
Friday, April 26, 2002
PHILADELPHIA - Embattled Boston archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law, under siege from the epic sex scandal threatening his 18-year legacy, will likely be replaced and sent to the Vatican by the beginning of June, according to sources.

Law, who arrived in Newark, N.J., yesterday after the historic two-day conclave of American cardinals at the Vatican, will be reassigned by Pope John Paul II to an as-yet determined position prior to a scheduled deposition of Law in a legal suit against the archdiocese, according to church officials.

"There will be a promotion by June at the latest,'' said one source. "They will not have him subjected to a recorded deposition."

One source said the pope is trying to rescue Law, who has been one of the Holy Father's favorite appointments, according to observers. Much of the public attention during the meetings in Rome was focused on Law and whether he should resign.

If I go to confession, and admit to stealing $5 from my mother's purse, won't the priest tell me that I have to give the money back, as part of my penance? When did restitution cease to be a part of reconciliation? Of course there is no restitution for destroyed innocence, but taking one's punishment as accorded by the world is a form of it.

Even though I have long expected a reassignment to Rome for Law, this is still shattering. That this Pope would seek to protect Law as a favored son undermines so much of what JPII has accomplished. It is perhaps the most disheartening thing to date.

Voice of the Faithful

I keep hearing about this group, and from its founder, on the radio as local news stations cover the crisis in the Church. Looking at their website, I have a sneaking feeling that their agenda covers a good deal more than holding Cardinal Law to account. There are no particular comments about celibacy, or women clergy, so I am inclined to be supportive. But slogans like "Keep the Faith, Change the Church" make me suspicious.

Any readers have information?

"Power Sharing"
Nuns' group to seek greater voice in Rome
By Mary Leonard , Globe Staff, 4/26/2002
WASHINGTON - A US delegation of Roman Catholic nuns travels to Rome today prepared to deliver Vatican officials a frank letter denouncing the church's handling of sexual abuse cases and calling for power-sharing with religious women and an open dialogue on human sexuality.

George Jonas in Canada's "National Post" captures my thoughts on this sort of thing pretty clearly:

Sickness can't be cured by marriage. It isn't celibacy that makes underage children sexually appealing to pedophiles: It's their paraphilia. The strain of celibacy might cause some priests to start affairs with their housekeepers; it won't cause them to commit sexual crimes against children...All this is rather self-evident, and it can't fail to occur to those who are exploiting the scandal to further their socio-political agendas. People who use pederasts in the Church as a pretext to push for married priesthood or for the ordination of women, argue in what seems to me transparently bad faith...Under the guise of concern for the Church, they try to shape the debate to reflect their own notions of feminism or sexuality. Some may be genuinely pained by the scandal, but it seems to me that many consider it a godsend."

Meanwhile, back at Integrity
Integrity
Does anyone doubt that the Catholic Church in America is in desperate need of such saints? Isn't that what we all hope are bishops were and might still become? As we think about the current scandal -- immersed in its details --, let us think seriously about JPII's focus on the need for saints. I can think of nothing better than saintly laymen to shame, by the example of their holiness, lax bishops and priests into recognizing that they are not adequately devoting themselves to the Gospel. Some may think this too pious of a dream. I think JPII shares the spirit from which it stems, though:
"The eyes of faith behold a wonderful scene: that of a countless number of lay people, both women and men, busy at work in their daily life and activity, oftentimes far from view and quite unacclaimed by the world, unknown to the world's great personages but nonetheless looked upon in love by the Father, untiring laborers who work in the Lord's vineyard. Confident and steadfast through the power of God's grace, these are the humble yet great builders of the Kingdom of God in history."

Does the elevation of laymen into Saints in some unfortunate way remove them from our daily lives, though? Is canonization--especially the miracles requirement--a process that disconnects, rather than connects, ordinary people from holiness. The priest in the Power and the Glory is not to my mind a saint, but is a better model of the sort of thing I might hope to achieve with a lot of support from above. But people who after life achieve miracles on Earth seem to me beyond what I can hope for. Yes, I know God can help even the weakest creature achieve anything. But a recognition of my own inadequacy tends to discourage rather than encourage saintly aspirations.

Inchoate thoughts on a Friday morning.

The Stars and Bars

Another segment on NPR this morning, this time about the NAACP's boycott of South Carolina. The NAACP is unhappy because the Confederate flag, though it no longer flies over the capitol, still has a place on the capitol grounds. This set me to thinking.

When I was 9 years old, I visited my mother’s aunt Florence in a nursing home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She had not seen me since I was a toddler, and I was eager to make a good impression. Some time before, I had discovered my great-great-grandfather’s regimental history. Peter had served in the Civil War in a Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, and it turned out he was a genuine hero, having saved his regimental colors on more than one occasion, and been wounded severely assaulting the “West Woods” at Antietam. His battlefield promotions and scars of honor were certain to make excellent conversation.

And so, with the enthusiasm only a boy filled with vicarious heroism can muster, I recounted every bit of Peter’s derring-do, bravery, and his lasting contribution to the Republic. At the end of it, she looked down at me, and said (and here let me try to capture the accent), “Son, those were mah people he was killin.”

For my Great Aunt Florence, you see, was from southwestern Virginia, the Harrisonburg area. That day I learned that the assumptions I had hitherto made, that the Federals were the “good guys” and the Confederates were the “bad guys”—that Peter was fighting a good and righteous fight—were not the same assumptions other people made. And not just any other people: people in my family.

In early October, a few days after flags stopped flying at half-staff, I was walking across the grounds at work and paused to look up at the Stars and Stripes, awakened now from their mourning watch. Pulling myself to attention, hand over my heart, I allowed the tears to come, and felt a spiritual kinship with Peter that I not felt before, not because I had done anything special, but because, for the first time, I understood why he had.

In the days of Napoleonic battlefields, the colors meant everything. They were the point around which soldiers in disarray would rally themselves, and reform to make the next charge. For that reason, bearing the colors was a supreme honor, and a supreme danger—enemy sharpshooters took particular care when aiming at the color bearer. Twice in combat, the sergeant in charge of the flags of the regiment fell, and twice my great-great grandfather immediately picked them up. Both times he was shot for his trouble.

The great Civil War historian Shelby Foote gave a talk at a college several years ago. The school is located in central Virginia, and many in the crowd—most—came to hear about the War Between the States, not the Civil War. One audience member asked a question about the controversy then beginning to erupt over state flags which incorporate the Stars and Bars. Foote gave a moving speech about the ignorant people, the bigots and racists and Klansmen, who have never understood what that flag stands for, and Foote received a standing ovation. With all possible respect given to him, a man I admire and whose work as an historian I hold in the highest regard, I disagree.

I am no longer especially interested in the complex causes of the Civil War. Whatever principles were or appeared to be at stake, the men who started that war fought under the flag of secession and rebellion. However proudly and nobly they fought; the time in our history has now come when we must acknowledge that the secessionists were, in a moral and a historical sense, simply wrong.

Of course nowadays, all but the most unreconstructed racist will at least pay lip service to the idea that slavery was wrong. But (many will continue) a good cause--states’ rights--got caught up in a bad one--slavery. For them, the flag really represents the good one, which is what Foote seemed to say. The Constitution does cede powers to individual states that allow those states to pass laws and do things that I abhor; but by 1861 few slaveholders could fail to have seen the evil of the institution.

Even setting slavery aside, we must understand one other sense in which the Confederates were wrong. More than the causes and roots of the Civil War (or the War Between the States, or the War of Northern Aggression), we must not lose sight of the intended result. Whatever their cause, the men who fought under the Stars and Bars or any of the other flags of secession ultimately fought to end the Union.

Is there a man or woman of good will among us, since September 11, who thinks that the end of the Union would have been good for the world? Would the world have been a better place on December 7, 1941, if there were no United States to attack at Pearl Harbor? In 1940, when Great Britain needed even aging destroyers to convoy supplies across the Atlantic? In 1918 when France and Great Britain had exhausted themselves? For all the things the United States has done wrong in the world, can any of us honestly say that things would be better if the United States had ceased to be in 1865?

The camps and watchtowers and razor wire which have come down in Western Europe and Asia and Latin America are proof enough that it is time to acknowledge this simple truth: the flags of the Confederate States of America ultimately represent the one thing that should be anathema to all Americans. It is the one thing our present enemies consider necessary: the end of America. Conservatives, even those of us who think “states’ rights” is not always and everywhere racist code language, can no longer afford such symbols places of honor, or even a place at the table.

And so, Aunt Florence, I give you now the answer I did not know to give then: those may have been your people Peter was killing, but they were wrong.

Mr. Moussaoui's Message (washingtonpost.com)
After Sept. 11, most Americans came to understand that they faced a skilled and determined enemy interested not just in hurting Israel or removing U.S. bases from Saudi Arabia but also in damaging the United States to the maximum extent possible. The greatest danger now is to let that lesson fade. Listen to Mr. Moussaoui. He means what he says, and he speaks for others.

A spot-on editorial in today's Washington Post. Whatever they've been eating or drinking over there, ship a few hundred cases up to Capitol Hill. The Post has been remarkably clearheaded recently.

The Corner on National Review Online THE BAD GUYS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
One last thing: I think it is worth remembering that while it wasn't the Knights of Columbus who abused kids, it also wasn't a bulk of the bishops. Bad decisions are moral wrongs and tragic, but these guys still aren't the ones who "raped those boys."

Maybe not. But some of them are in fact accessories to those who did; morally, certainly--possibly even legally. Rod Dreher is right: more is needed from the Cardinals. And fast.

Shooting stars

Last month, U.S. General Warren Edwards, deputy commanding general of coalition land forces in Afghanistan, recommended five Canadian snipers for Bronze Stars for their performance in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Yet, on the eve of the honour being bestowed, Ottawa bureaucrats stepped in, citing protocol, and prevented the awards from going ahead. The Department of National Defence says the medals can be presented only after the U.S. Embassy informs the Canadian government of its intention to do so, sends its request to the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs' Office of Protocol, which will then send it to the Chancellery at Government House, which will then present it to a committee of eight officials who will decide if the snipers can be honoured.

This is no doubt interesting to scholars of diplomatic procedure, but the truth behind Ottawa's decision to step in is more interesting still, and a lot simpler. Sources inside the Department of National Defence have told this newspaper that protocol was seized on to buy time for the federal government to play catch-up and decide whether it too should honour the soldiers for their exemplary work. So the honours were iced to save Ottawa's blushes. The incident casts light on Ottawa's lack of interest in, and squeamishness about, military affairs.

The splendid quality of the Canadian snipers has been acknowledged for weeks and was documented in prominent newspaper photographs and stories. Despite the cold, snow and thin air of the Afghan mountains, the Canadians have systematically silenced enemy guns. A Newfoundland corporal hit an enemy gunner at nearly 2.5-kilometres away, a record distance under combat conditions. "All I thought of," said one Canadian sniper, speaking with a righteous seriousness that should make his compatriots proud, "was [of] Sept. 11 and all those people who didn't have a chance and the American reporter who was taken hostage, murdered and his wife getting the videotape of the execution; that is my justification."

Gen. Edwards noticed the Canadian qualities. News organizations noticed. So why was Ottawa caught by surprise? Because the federal Liberal government habitually pays no mind to the military. It takes a U.S. general to point out that our forces are actually doing a great job. This is not a government that stands on ceremony when it has the political will to get something done -- such as awarding a lucrative contract or grant. If it really cared about boosting military morale, it would have moved Heaven and Earth to make sure the snipers got their awards. It would not have compounded the offence of not noticing their work by getting in the way when somebody else did. Ottawa should immediately give its permission for the award of Bronze Stars, then get out of the way.

America The Despised
by Takis Michas
The National Interest
In the summer of 1999, the popular Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis said during an interview: "I hate Americans and everything American. I hope that the youth will begin to hate everything American." This most popular of Greek contemporary composers—a close friend of Slobodan Milosevic, who was reportedly ferried around in the latter’s private plane—had already been widely acclaimed for his assertion during the Kosovo war that "there is no difference between Hitler and Clinton." Moreover, he advocated at the time a nuclear alliance formed of Greece, Belarus, Serbia and Russia and directed against Greece’s erstwhile NATO allies—the United States in particular.

Finish reading the piece: it's provactive and disturbing. Imagine: the birthplace of democracy likes the apotheosis of it less than that other great Mediterranean civilization, the Palestinians: "Another poll found that only 6 percent of the Greeks, the lowest number in Europe, supported a U.S. campaign against countries that harbor terrorism. (A similar poll taken among the Palestinians showed that 7 percent supported America’s anti-terror campaign.)"

Governor calls for 'justice' on reparations / State probes slaveholder policies, alleged overcharging of minorities
Jackson, in an editorial board meeting at The Chronicle this week, said he would not expect reparations to be paid to individuals but to nonprofit groups, educational programs, arts facilities or other groups that help minorities

Gee, I wonder which nonprofit group he has in mind?

USS Cole Comes Home to Norfolk After Repairs (washingtonpost.com)
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The USS Cole returned to its home port Thursday a stronger, better ship than when a bomb ripped it open and killed 17 of its sailors a year and a half ago in Yemen.

I blame the anthropologists

Yesterday I had a lengthy argument at lunch with a colleague about the Middle East. This colleague is intelligent, thoughtful, not at all rabid--even a classicist, of all things. Usually, his type is just the sort to make distinctions among a sea of relativists. But he can only see what he calls "bad guys" and "not quite so bad guys" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Leaving aside the details of our disagreement, I can only say that I was unexpectedly troubled by this conversation.

GK Chesterton wrote The Everlasting Man in 1925. The second chapter is titled "Professors and Prehistoric Men," in which Chesterton attacks the science of paleoanthropology. Actually, that's not true: he assails the paleoanthropologists, for assembling out of a bit of leg, jaw, and cranium "Java Man" (which was then named "Pithecanthropus," which has since been reclassified as "Homo Habilis"). The basis for the complaint is that scientists allege to infer the origins of religion from scraps of bone. Chesterton assails them for even inferring the existence of species, which at the time was a fair complaint, given the paucity of bones. It is still fair, but the quantity and quality of remains has improved. But even today, his basic premise stands: paleoanthropology is a nasty field, where the lumpers and the splitters also divide into the "Out of Africa" and the "Simultaneous evolution" crowds. The "single species" thesis has given way to multiple hominids, and the genetic clock people argue with the osteo-crowd. The Johannsons and the Leakeys have a feud running that has as much venom (if fewer assassinations) than the Hatfields and the McCoys.

In other words, the evidence is fairly weak for any one case, and so multiple cases are defended more by vigorous assertion than concrete data. (I love this stuff, by the way: I read "Lucy and the First Family" when I was 9!)

The problem, that Chesterton discusses and that to my mind is much worse today, is that the anthropologists and the paleontologists have allowed evolution to create in them a sense that we, "mankind," (or "humankind" if that's your bugaboo) do not differ from the other animals except by degree. "We share 99% of the genes of the chimpanzee" we hear all the time (the bloody geneticists are so much worse than the anthro folks!). Jared Diamond even wrote a book a few years ago dedicated almost entirely to this point, The Third Chimpanzee. The argument ultimately is that the difference between man and beast is a social construct, that we differ only in degree, and not in kind.

Chesterton knocks this notion down marvelously, simply by starting from the French cave paintings, discussing all the inferences that anthropologists and archeologists have tried to draw from the pictures. He responds, “When all is said, the main fact that the record of the reindeer man attest, along with all other records, is that the reindeer man could draw, and that the reindeer could not.”

These days, the argument is much more complex. Koko, the chimp who speaks in sign language, or elephants that paint, are posited to attest to the supposed fallacy of Chesterton’s argument. But they miss the point: of course animals can be taught to do things that man does, but they must, in fact, be taught. Chimps in Africa, Jane Goodall has shown, have a complex social structure, and even appear to fight wars of a sort. They have not, however, spontaneously developed art or language in the estimated 6 million years since hominids and pongids split. The Elephant Graveyard contains not a single headstone or memorial plaque placed by an elephant. If the theory of evolution by natural selection is true, one would expect a capacity in lower orders that only gets fully exploited in higher ones.

The fact remains, only hominids have done certain things. There is, empirically, a difference in kind between hominids and every other class of life known to exist.

So, what, precisely, is my point?

Simply this: this tendency to see only a difference of degree in nature, has clouded our ability to see differences of kind in many other places. Former President Carter derides the “axis of evil” as “too simplistic.” My colleague cannot see the distinction between Palestinian terrorism and Israeli self-defense. “Look at the numbers!” he told me over and over. Many people claim that if the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan exceeds the number in the World Trade Center, what the US did was worse.

Never mind the number of lives ultimately saved in Afghanistan. Even without that, there exists a difference in kind between some deaths and others. “Not to the mothers!” inevitably comes the response. How many chimps seem to worry about the mothers of the chimps they sometimes murder? The mere fact of an existence of “ethical man” should disprove so much of these people’s thesis, but willing self-deception clouds their eyes. Try to imagine an organization called “Animals for the Ethical Treatment of People.” Animals can show affection, compassion, even bravery. Show me a starving wolf that will give a scrap of meat to an animal from another pack.

There are differences of kind between man and beast. But if we cannot acknowledge that self-evident truth, how much harder it will be to acknowledge that there are differences between man and man.

Masschusetts Demockracy--Calling all Republicans

Same-sex marriage ban dealt a setback In the first legislative action on the question, a key State House panel dealt a setback yesterday to a ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage, calling it discriminatory against gay and lesbian couples.

In a 15-0 vote, the Joint Committee on Public Service recommended the Legislature reject the measure, which requires an amendment to the state Constitution.

''The proposed amendment is incredibly discriminatory, and harmful to families and to children,'' said state Senator Susan Fargo, a Lincoln Democrat and a member of the committee. ''It would be creating a class of people who are being treated in a way different from other people. So I'm pleased with the unfavorable ruling.''

Masschusetts has got to be the least democratic state in the Union. A few weeks ago, here in the Bay State, we began the public spectacle of people running for office seizing and auctioning state property to finance their campaigns. Why? Because the Demockrats on Beacon Hill refused to fund the "Clean Elections Law. This law was passed by referendum, and requires public funding of campaigns for people who agree to abide by certain standards.

I'm actually opposed to it; public funding is a terrible idea. But the referendum required the Legislature to fund it or repeal it, and the Politburo did neither. Tom Fineran was quoted in the Globe as mocking it thusly: "He told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce that the public campaign-finance measure is a 'welfare program for aspiring politicians, most of whom are so pathetic that they can't even stand on their own two feet.'" (Finally, a welfare program even Speaker Finneran can oppose!)

I'm inclined to agree with the remarks, except that Finneran, who doesn't think of himself as "pathetic" nevertheless didn't have the courage to repeal a law "he derided as 'silly,' 'frivolous,' and 'insulting.'" The democratic process has a method for handling these things, Mr. Speaker, but you are so used to the one-party system you seem to have forgotten this.

Now comes today's news that a House panel has unanimously blocked a proposed referendum on gay marriage. 5,000 years of recorded history support the notion that "marriage" is a phenomenon limited ipso facto to a man and a woman, but 15 lawmakers in Massachusetts find it "discriminatory," so the rest of the population can't be trusted to make up its own mind. (When did "discriminating"--that is, making choices between one thing and another--become such a sin? I thought most of these lawmakers were in favor of "choice!")

Attention Masschusetts Republican Party! Start running serious candidates for the legislature, please. So long as you keep finding cartoons to run, the Demockrats will continue to strangle democracy. Voters of the state, unite! You have nothing to lose but your high taxes and condescending political class.

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today The Truth Helps
Something of note from Today's "Best of the Web":
Remember all the nervous Nellies who insisted that by identifying Iran as part of the "axis of evil" President Bush was setting back efforts at rapprochement between Washington and Tehran? The Financial Times reports that "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, has quietly authorised the Supreme National Security Council to assess the merits of starting talks with the US and the threat posed to Iran in the light of President George W. Bush's denunciation of the Islamic republic as forming an 'axis of evil' with Iraq and North Korea."

I miss "Due South"

No particular reason for this post, except I miss the TV show "Due South." If only CBS hadn't insisted on making it the sacrifical lamb against "Friends."

And, on a related note: please watch "Scrubs." Yes, everybody fools around, and it gets a little racy. But it's the only live-action sitcom where the characters do more than sit around and whine about their lousy sex lives. Perhaps another time, I'll do a write up of what makes Scrubs and a few other shows worth watching.

"That's for the Courts to decide"

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in the case of Gonzaga v. John Doe. The issue at stake is fairly mundane: can a student recover damages from a University for violations of the Federal Education Records Privacy act? I'm not especially interested in that issue.

The original cause of the suit does interest me, though. The student, John Doe, was accused of date rape, a fact of which he was never apprised by Gonzaga University. He only learned of it when he was informed that the University would not sign a letter attesting to his good moral character, which was required for him to receive a teaching certificate. The ugliest testimony makes Doe appear a reprehensible fellow, which he may in fact be. The best testimony makes him out to be a nearly innocent victim of a University administration run amok. The girl in question, Jane Doe, certainly appears to be a victim of something, though it's not clear whether it is John Doe's malfeasance, or the unwarranted and undesired intrusion of third parties who determined to turn her into a victim.

What troubles me about all of this is not who is right or wrong; I am not engaging in a defense of either John or Jane Doe. Reading a summary of a case in legalese and hearing Nina Totenberg describe it on NPR does not, generally, allow one to make intelligent judgments about guilt or innocence.

Rather, what troubles me is that the facts here only arrived in court after one student was convicted in absentia of a crime he did not know he stood accused of, and apparently over the objections of his accuser.

How can it be that rape, a felony, is dealt with as a disciplinary matter? Unfortunately, that is precisely how most Universities deal with it: they demean it, by putting it on the same level as having a loud party, or breaking a roommate's stereo. A reasonable person might approach this and ask, why do the feminists stand for it? A crime has been committed, after all, and prison stands at the end of the process for those who are convicted. Placing rape on the same level as petty violations of civil order should be seen as an affront to the dignity of women. Except that the system is rigged in favor of the accuser, and little if any evidence is required, save an assertion by the alleged victim.

Do not suppose I make light of rape; I do not. It is a heinous crime, with which I have had more than one encounter, and I have no sympathy with its perpetrators.

But university administrations do not have the training, ability, or inclination to impartially investigate criminal actions as crimes. Whether a political agenda (to see men as part of a “rape culture” as so many campus women’s groups desire), an understandable empathy with a victim, or simple incompetence is at the root of the inability is entirely irrelevant. Colleges should not treat something as serious as rape as a disciplinary issue, and those who are accused are entitled to the same protections of the legal system as those who accuse them. Rape should be investigated by law enforcement, and prosecuted in the courts.

However, since it would seem unlikely that most colleges would willingly cease holding their drumhead courts, what is required is action at the legislative level. There does not seem to be any way for Congress to act; rape is not in most instances a federal crime. What is required is a model state law, that could be enacted by individual states.

Sexual assault or abuse of a minor falls under “mandatory reporting laws” which are not held to be unreasonably intrusive. This law would be modeled on those, and require schools to report to law enforcement all investigation of matters that might in a criminal case result in significant prison time or fines. It is not intended that schools must report to police all accusations of sexual assault; only that schools must report those that are investigated or acted upon. If a person wants to complain to the dean, then changes his or her mind, no police report need be filed. But the college should not be able to punish the accused in any way in such an instance.

This would have the positive effect of subjecting university “judicial proceedings” (yes, they really call them that) to open scrutiny. Unfairly-accused students would have access to evidence gathered in the criminal proceeding to halt or reverse unfair disciplinary sanctions. If a university chose not to refer the matter to local police or prosecutors (if, in other words, it found an accusation “not credible”) it would be prohibited from punishing the student internally. The college would of course retain the power to suspend a student pending the outcome of criminal proceedings, and might even be able to punish an acquitted student if civil damages against the accused were awarded.

Many college students and professors have been extraordinarily vocal about protecting the rights of terrorists captured under arms and held at Camp X-Ray. Will they be just as vocal about Americans whose guilt is not nearly so certain?

From the Pope's address to the Cardinals
We must be confident that this time of trial will bring a purification of the entire Catholic community, a purification that is urgently needed if the church is to preach more effectively the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all its liberating force. Now you must ensure that where sin increased, grace will all the more abound (Romans 5:20). So much pain, so much sorrow must lead to a holier priesthood, a holier episcopate, and a holier church.
God alone is the source of holiness, and it is to him above all that we must turn for forgiveness, for healing and for the grace to meet this challenge with uncompromising courage and harmony of purpose.

I wish the Holy Father had included "mea culpa" in here, but I think most observers have missed an important point. The Pope did not include the words "I'm sorry," but he did say that "we" (the leaders of the Church) "must turn [to God] for fogiveness." There is no reason to ask God's forgiveness if there is no sin: clearly, then, the Pope has acknowledged the sin of the Cardinals.

It should have been more explicit; it may yet be so. But all the voices I heard reacting to the statement didn't notice the implicit acknowledgement, and it is important to do so.

His concluding prayer, that "the Lord...give the bishops of the United States the strength to build their response to the present crisis upon the solid foundations of faith and upon genuine pastoral charity for the victims, as well as for the priests and the entire Catholic community in your country," is actually much more troublesome to me.

On the one hand, the tone can been seen as appropriate: the sinners themselves (that is, the Cardinals) must repent of their own accord; help them to do so, O Lord. On the other, it troubles me a very great deal that the prayers may indicate a sense that this is a uniquely American problem. This is a problem for the entire Church, and it demands a churchwide solution.

We ought not forget, too, that John Paul has been deliberate in his actions and statements, taking careful measured steps. This is appropriate; after all, there are decades-worth of allegations appearing, and moving hastily now cannot undo what happened 30 years ago. So I will hope and pray that the Pope already knows where this will end, and is patiently leading all of us home.

More "The Connection" and NPR

Dick Gordon smartly intoned again this morning, promising a "look inside the Jenin refugee camp," and offered to ponder on whether it was a "human rights disaster as some Palestinians claim" or the "site of a battle as the Israelis" say. In a lower, very knowing tone: "Or perhaps somewhere in between." Oh, the balance, the fairness! Thank Heaven for the Connection and its listeners!

And, for the second day in a row, the Pope was accused of "making his mark" on the American Church, this time with the appointments in 1984 of Bishops O'Connor and Law as Archbishops of NY and Boston, respectively. Unbelievable, really. It's as though the Rock of the Church has done nothing for the past 24 years but wander around spraying his scent, marking cornerstones of churches, sprinkling musk instead of Holy Water on people who renew their baptismal vows.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media: The Pope is not "marking" anything. He has confronted and defeated great evil many, many times, always by patient application of his intellect, the Wisdom found in Scripture, and by the Grace of God. He is a human being, and has made many mistakes, but he is not some petty local American politician who "makes his mark" on his way to bigger and better things. He is a man trying in what may be the last days of his life to rectify a great evil, and to preserve the Church at the same time. Please, please, please stop using your droll and cliched images from American electoral politics. It is unseemly, and unintelligent.

"Factoid versus Fictoid"

Reader Mike Petrik writes: "I'm afraid that the meaning of Norman Mailer's word has mutated, and trying to rehabilitate it is probably a lost cause (unlike 18th Century Federalism?). Might I suggest that a new word "fictoid" be used in its place? After all, a word to describe urban legends and Internet lore and the like is very useful. Just a thought."

Excusing for a moment the shot at 18th Century Federalism (which has been updated by the way: I'm opposed to Tariffs), I like this comment very much. I would prefer not to surrender on the rehabbing of Norman Mailer's word, but agree, it is very useful to have such a word, and better a new one than a quixotic quest to preserve a formerly useful one.

Therefore, let the word go forth from this time and place: Mike Petrik has coined and the Federalist Party has defined "fictoid (n): a commonly-held, widely-reported, but generally untrue, unproven or at least wildly-exaggerated, piece of information. Cf., 'Urban legend' and 'Clinton, WJ'" (Oh, if only the Clinton years were merely a fictoid!)

This cracked me up

So, like many bloggers, I'm curious if I'm shouting down a well or not. So, I decided to take a peak at yahoo, and see if I've made their listing yet. I search on "blog" and get the following response at the top, where, presumably, the paid advertisements go:

Yahoo! Search Results for blog •Find Your Ancestors! - Find your Blog ancestors now. Search the world's largest online ...
www.ancestry.com

My "blog ancestors"--that's great! "Look, junior, here's a picture of Grandpa Drudge. Next to him is your uncle Andrew Sullivan. Oh, and there's the whole National Review side of the family. What a shame, the way their Corner collapsed and all."

Traficant Appeals Conviction

CLEVELAND – Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. is seeking to overturn his conviction on corruption and bribery charges, saying a judge violated his rights by restricting testimony of his witnesses.

Traficant was convicted April 11 of taking bribes and kickbacks from businessmen and his own staff. Sentencing is set for June 27.

In a motion filed late Monday in U.S. District Court, Traficant said the verdict should be overturned and a new trial convened because of errors by U.S. District Judge Lesley Wells.

He'd have better luck arguing incompetent counsel.

Muslim Charity's Lawsuit Raises 'Distressing' Issues, Judge Says (washingtonpost.com)
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said in Washington that the government's decision to shut down the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in December -- on allegations that the charity was a fundraising front for the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas -- was a matter of "great significance."
She also warned government lawyers that she would not look favorably on their request to keep classified information concealed from public view.
"I'll make no secret that the government is going to have a very heavy burden to submit information exparte [in secret, in the judge's chambers]," Kessler said. "In a case with as many serious ramifications as this one, unless the law is crystal clear . . . everything should be in public and on the record."

Shouldn't the judge actually review some of the evidence exparte before declaring this? I'm no fan of secret trials, but this is a war, and revealing our ability to wage it in open court seems like a pretty dumb idea.

Nothing unusual in that, though, with this judge. According to her bio, she was originally appointed to the federal bench by Jimmy Carter, and elevated to her present post by W.J. Clinton.

Other cases she's been involved in? Federal Racketeeering charges against "Big Tobacco". VP Cheney's "Energy Task Force". Vieques gunnery practice. Her record in these cases is somewhat mixed, but she appears on the whole to be a good deal more "liberal" than "conservative."

Which Evil Criminal Are You?

Take this Test and find out. For more annoying tests, go here.

My answer: "Congratulations, you're Imelda Marcos!You're famous for your shoes (enough that you eventually opened an entire museum of them), and sometimes lauded as a celebrity. But underneath, you're still the woman who spent billions of dollars of money stolen from the Filipino population; theft that lead to extreme poverty. Your husband, Ferdinand Marco, stole well over $5 billion, and plunged the entire country into heavier and heavier debt. Your response? Spend it. Spend it all. Even when you claim to have reformed, sources estimate that you illegally hold $12 billion worth of shares. I guess luxury's just your style."

Audio for NPR segment

The link to the actual Jane Meredith Adams segment, blogged below.

This Just In

Enron Expects Asset Write-Off Of $14 Billion (washingtonpost.com) Enron Corp. officials estimate that the failed energy giant has only about half the $50 billion in assets it reported when it filed for bankruptcy in December, in part because of "possible accounting errors or irregularities."

The Post is also reporting that President Richard Nixon is seriously considering resignation, in spite of a spate of non-denial denials.

I'd like to nominate this for the Best of the Web's "bottom news story of 2002."

"Factoid"

Over at "In between naps" I found a post by Amy Welborn that pretty much sums up what's wrong with Disney. In it, though, Amy presented one of my pet peeves. She uses the word "factoid" in the CNN sense of it: a small, interesting but not especially important fact. The often-execrable Norman Mailer actually coined the word, to mean something like: a commonly-held, widely-reported, but generally untrue, unproven or at least wildly-exaggerated, piece of information. Thus, many smaller urban legends fall into the category of "factoid," as do many commonly held beliefs about the environment and Bill Clinton's sex-life. Just wanted to clear that up.

The Connection
The Cardinals Fly to Rome

The last time a pontiff convened a gathering like this, the Vatican was under fire from invading armies. This time, the greatest threat to the Church may be its own soldiers.

Listening to the preview for this segment on WBUR during my morning commute, it struck me how little the American media understands the Church, and especially this Pontiff. Host Dick Gordon told the audience that the show would explore "the mark the Pope wants to make on this issue" in his remaining years. Yes, that's it. The Pope, the highest official in "Christ's pilgrim Church on Earth" (as we papists like to say), is worried about "making his mark" on an "issue" in his waning years of human life. He mightn't be concerned at all with matters of good and evil.

Don't get me wrong, as much as I admire John Paul, I'm still waiting for him to demonstrate that he has applied his intellect and instinct to the present circumstance as he has to so many other evils during his reign. But to cast the situation as though he were some junior senator from New York trying to appease the firefighter vote back in Rockaway is just plain dumb.

Likewise, on morning edition, we were treated to the comments of one Jane Meredith Adams, who describes herself as having returned to the Catholic Church after a "20-year vacation." (There are so many things wrong with that characterization of her absence. I will nevertheless resist the urge to write them all down.) Adams focused a lot on what the priest in her Parish calls "the Pelvic issues" and on the "bad PR" one gets for being Catholic. What was missing was any sense, given her complaints, of exactly why she bothered rejoining. Since I compain above about Catholics who talk too widely about the particulars of our Faith, I suppose it's not entirely fair to criticize Adams for not doing so, but her comments left me with the distinct impression of a person on her way out the door, not wandering back in. Lots of phrases like "the powerful men who run the church" were sprinkled throughout, along with demands for "truth." Sadly, the "truth" she demanded was entirely the worldly kind; a good and valid kind, to be sure, but insufficient in a communion dedicated to the next world.

At some point--the Pope must choose it, I think--this scandal must move from scandal to sin: Contrition and Repentance, and Penance must be made to happen. The media are focused on scandal, and they give no appearance of understanding sin. We Catholics, who are asked daily in our workplaces and our extended families, and on television and the radio, must answer not of the world, but of the spirit. We must demonstrate that this is not Watergate: there is no horse race here. The fate of Cardinal Law is entirely beside the point: the corruption of children and adolescents; the weakening of a bastion against evil; the wedge driven between the faithful and Christ. These things are the story. We must all emphasize this every chance we get.

Relapsed catholic religion | news | media | culture | opinion Posted 12:45 PM by K Shaidle
From our bulging "But You Started It" file— ''Elements in our society who are very opposed to the church's stand on life, the church's stand on family, the church's stand on education ... see in this an opportunity to destroy the credibility of the church,'' said one Cardinal. ''And they're really working on it—and somewhat successfully.''

Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore made a similar point at a news conference this week, saying, ''It's really the media of the United States that has made this an American problem. We're in this feeding-frenzy situation right now, where the coverage of cases of 20, 30 years ago is being plastered in the headlines.''

The scandal is not caused by the media, and the cardinals should know that. But I do have a problem with the many issues-Catholics who are very publicly hanging their hats on this. I really think that underlying sacramental and dogmatic questions should never be discussed in the presence of non-Catholics, or at least non-Christians. Celibacy and Chastity as Catholic moral teaching are not the business of others, except when encountered in an evangelical context. It drives people away, both from among the faithful, and those who are exploring things. This is a point (to make yet another reference) that CS Lewis makes in the introduction to Mere Christianity: squabbling about such issues in public has the effect not of winning converts, but of driving them away.

The Cardinals have to know, of course, that not one word of this excuses them, and hiding behind it is cowardly. But I could really do with fewer people on talk radio talking about the sanctity of the confessional and such--especially when they lack a basic understanding of the theological and canonical underpinnings of it.

"Mosque See TV!"

A good bit of satire here. My personal favorite: Sesame Arab Street

For children. Join lovable Grover, Big Bird, Elmo, Bert and Ernie as they sing songs, learn the alphabet, and offer hateful tirades against America and Israel's latest political and military plans.

Sunday morning "Integrity"

I've been saving Jack's Integrity blog for the weekend, since the hotel lobby computer didn't seem the right setting to digest it.

First, my condolences to Jack, whose grandfather died yesterday.

Communion
I think this concept of communion is difficult for us to understand. Partly, I am sure, because it is beyond the reach of our intellect. My search of the Catechism shed no light on the subject for me. Nonetheless, the pope's seems to suggest that, in coming to understand the communion of the trinity, we will come to better understand our comminion in Christ and with his other disciples. Surely this will impact how we live out the Gospel in our lives and interact with those yet to be grafted to the single vine.

GK Chesterton sheds light on it in The Everlasting Man. Chesterton describes the family as the Trinity. Instead of Father-Son-Holy Spirit, the family models it with Father-Mother-Child. In belonging to a church, we model it by Priest-Sacrament-Communicant. The Sacrament can be any of them, realy, not just the Eucharist, and it is through baptism that we enter into the community fully and, if we wish, irrevocably.

"For their work, prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary married and family life, their daily labor, their mental and physical relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life if patiently borne—all of these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. During the celebration of the Eucharist these sacrifices are most lovingly offered to the Father along with the Lord's body. Thus as worshipers whose every deed is holy, the lay faithful consecrate the world itself to God."

CS Lewis makes much of this in Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. We spend so much time looking at the big things, we fail to notice that the cross we need to bear is often nothing more than the cross of worry. When Screwtape's "patient" becomes aware that his town is likely to be bombed, Screwtape advises Wormwood to keep the Patient focused on half a dozen scenarios for escape, survival, avoidance, etc. Keep him focused on these, Screwtape advises, for it is nearly impossible to resign yourself to half a dozen varying and contradictory fates all at once. At all costs, Wormwood is to keep the Patient from resigning himself merely to accepting worry as the problem. The bombing, the Patient can do nothing about: it lives in the future, and only in the future might it become a cross to bear. In the present, anxiety should be accepted and then turned over to God.

This, I think, is why despair is the gravest sin. Because despair, in the end, says all things are in my power, and my power is useless. It rejects Grace explicitly. But if we offer all that Jack describes as sacrifices, and say to God, "Please grant me the Grace and Wisdom and Fortitude to accept this condition"--this worry--then we have made a sacrifice to God, and diminished ourselves in the face of the Undiminishable. Lewis writes elsewhere that there are in the end only two kinsd of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "Thy will be done." (This last in The Great Divorce, I think.)

I need to call attention here to two songs off "All That You Can't Leave Behind," the U2 album. "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out of" captures the worldy half of this concept perfectly (it is actually too humanist for the band's usual standards, but combine it with the final track "Grace" and you get a fuller picture). Despair occurs because you get "stuck in a moment." Only once you realize that "this time will pass" can you move on. The agency for the passing of time, "Grace," becomes a factor only later on the album. "Grace, she takes the blame, she covers the shame, removes the stain."

[If there were a legal way to link to the songs here, I would do so. But it seems a little dubious to conclude a blog on God with illegal copies of songs.]

Zero Tolerance and Birth control

A while ago I asked about asked about schools with "zero tolerance" policies and contraceptive distribution (in the footnote, at the end of the post).

It appears that at least one does give out birth control medication. If anyone can tell me about Somerville High's discipline policies, I'd appreciate it.

Teens Get 'Morning After Pill' For Free Students at Somerville High School are aware of it. A push to educate teens at the school has lead to an average of five students inquiring about emergency contraception at the school clinic each week.
After seeing a health practitioner at the center, students can get the pills, called Plan B, for free.

I love that--"Plan B." I bet the school that offers Plan B doesn't spend a whole lot of time on Plan A[bstinence]. There's an email circulating about things you ahve to believe to be a democrat. One of them goes something like "You have to believe that the third grade teacher who can't teach your kid to read is qualified to teach him about sex."

Ground Zero

You will find little here that can be called original, and would do well to skip this blog entirely, if you’ve already “moved on.” But I made my first trip to Ground Zero a few days ago, and I need to express a little of that moment. I have been to the City 8 or 9 times since September, but had not been required to go downtown, and hadn’t volunteered either.

I actually happened on it by accident: I know that sounds improbable, but it’s true. I got out of a cab at City Hall, an hour early for a meeting on Wall Street, intending to walk the last 1/2 mile. My tourist map of Manhattan was in the briefcase, and I honestly didn’t know quite how close to the WTC site City Hall sits. Off to my right, a blank spot in the sky suggested the proximity. This in itself is amazing. One looks at the spot where the Towers stood and understands immediately that no gap in the Manhattan skyline can be that large on its own. Someone has clearly done something to the skyline, and only one thing could do that much.

St. Paul’s chapel attracted my attention, and gradually it dawned on me that it was surrounded by banners and memorials, and posters of the missing and dead. It is very hard to describe the way in which this recognition snuck up on me, as did the banners themselves. Without planning or deliberation, I had crossed the street and was reading them before I had even fully acknowledged them. Heading along the North side of the chapel, peering into the graveyard as much as looking at the signs, I discovered that I had arrived at police barriers, and was gazing upon the site. I closed my eyes, bowed my head, and silently prayed. At so many points along this short walk, I found myself on the edge of tears, scabbed-over wounds suddenly threatening to bleed again. The moment of prayer was the only time in my life I have ever felt utter silence in a city.

Startling things still live in the plaza, though most of the site now looks like an ordinary construction zone. Tall cranes and great shovels poke above the trailers that line the East edge of the site, and surprise you by depositing rubble instead of landfill into dump trucks. One skyscraper along the southern edge is entirely covered in black cloth, as though shrouded in mourning, a sign of gratitude and an American flag the only interruptions of its monolithic sadness. A building to the West, next to St. Paul’s, still has many panes of glass replaced with plywood. Somehow, in all that, the thing hardest to process was how dirty the windows of the buildings remain. No window washers have scaled the facades since September 11, and so the dust of the Towers and the airplanes and the workers and the firemen and the passengers and the police and the EMS teams and the terrorists still coats the glass. Who will be the one to wash away the dust?

Around a corner, large crates of marble sit, presumably for the restoration of a lobby. I find that hopeful. But up that same street, papers and soot still clog a storm drain.

I cannot count myself among those who think such visits ghoulish or inappropriate. My own visit lasted half an hour or 45 minutes, and in that time I saw others who were crying, or praying, or taking pictures. I want to be reminded, however much it hurts, of what I felt when it first happened. I want to remember, so long as the enemies of freedom and civilization still cower in their caves, and hide in “refugee camps” behind women and children. While they strap dynamite to their young and use civilians as missiles, I have no interest in forgetting. It is not a memorial, and I do not wish to make it one. It remains a present, active outrage.

Regulation's costs

Tight Water Standards May Be Cause of Pipe Leaks (washingtonpost.com) "After 18 months of study, an expert investigating a rash of tiny but expensive leaks in copper plumbing pipes in Montgomery and Prince George's counties said he believes he has made progress in identifying the cluster of factors that could be causing the problem...Edwards said his research leads him to stand by his original theory that tighter federal water quality standards have contributed to leaks in WSSC customer pipes...Nor does he believe any utility could anticipate interactions that might occur from changes in federal rules combined with different chemicals used in treatment, filtration or relining." [emphasis supplied]


Isn't that last the fundamental problem with the usurpation of state power by Washington?

An Odd Accusation

Interesting op-ed in yesterday's NY Times. It seems the Republican mayor of New York has nominated an African-American man to serve the city in a prominent role. A group of black city workers is angry, accusing the man of having neither "the know-how nor the desire to address those issues that affect our communities of color."

A columnist for the Times takes up the nominee's case. "It was a false and disgusting and dangerous charge. It was a charge with no merit at all, no basis in fact. It came out of nowhere," he writes.

As Warner Wolf might put it: if you guessed that the columnist was Bill Safire, you lost! It was yesterday's Bob Herbert column. I know absolutely nothing about the nominee or his critics (in the group calling itself "100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care"). I am completely and utterly uninformed, and therefore agnostic, on Ray Kelly's nomination.

What is interesting is the quickness of Bob Herbert to call the charge "false and disgusting and dangerous." When Herbert took up the nomination of Charles Pickering to the US Court of Appeals, he had this to say: "Judge Pickering, a close friend of Senator Trent Lott, is a right-winger whose views over many decades have been insensitive, and frequently hostile, to the rights of minorities, the disenfranchised, the poor and women." In the same column (Feb. 7th, not available for free at the Times' website) he tries to associate Pickering with various racist groups, including the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. The vitriol is palpable: "Judge Pickering has been antagonistic to...voting rights." "Pickering's nomination is an affront to black people." "Pickering's racist past."

I guess false and disgusting charges are only dangerous when the guy being picked on is your guy.

John Miller and others at "The Corner"
CIA IN VENEZUELA
Robert: At some level, I hope the CIA was involved in the Venezuela coup--at least in the sense that they were on top of events, rather than disconnected from them. This is far different from saying they "stage-managed" the coup, as some have suggested. What amuses me is how the Left--without a shred of evidence--assumes the CIA was down there doing bad things.

Am I the only person who wishes the CIA were even half as competent as the left seems to believe it to be?