"The Right Sort of Roman."

William Bennett says what I've been dancing around for the last several days:

Let me repeat this last part: He drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl. And he plead guilty — but then fled the country.

One entertainer got it right, the singer Jewel. Here's a Tweet she sent out yesterday: "Polanski admitted raping a 13 yr old-whys every1 in the arts upset hes facing jail? cause hes a gifted director? what am i missing?"

Let me say one last thing about this. Time passed is not the issue, and neither is accomplishment in the arts — justice and the message we send is precisely the issue. As Mark Steyn notes, what are we going to do, start an "Artists United for Pedophile Rapists" movement here?

When scandals turned up in the Catholic church, the elites — as everyone — were rightly shocked. It was a major, several year story. And the abuses investigated, detailed, and condemned went back to 1950, 27 years earlier than Polanski's crime. Priests and parishes and archdioceses were punished and sued and even bankrupted. There is a major double standard here — not because that is what is wrong, but because what Polanski did was wrong and too many want to dismiss it and move on — because he's in the favored class of the elite.

Are these artists and other Polanski defenders really saying a child can be drugged and raped, a 13-year-old child mind you, and the consequence is time, for simply time — never mind fleeing justice — will heal that? This is a horrible message, and the artistic industry, so callous to claims about lyrics encouraging this kind of trashy behavior in the past, better get it right when the behavior is real and when the message they send is one that most people — rightly — abhor. You want to know why Michael Medved titled his book Hollywood v. America? It wasn't because of this case, but it might just as well be now. Who defends child rape? Well, now you know who.

Mark Shea makes a similar point:

The reality has never been that our elites much care about victims of sexual abuse: they care about having a useful tool to bash the Church, which some pervert priests and (far more) some spectacularly bad bishops have handed them. But the fact remains that, when the Right Sort of Roman rapes a kid, the people who were cursing and swearing about sexual abuse will turn themselves into pretzels to justify it.

Indeed, Kathy Shaidle is quite right (she agrees with me! How could it be otherwise) to note that our chattering classes have been quietly laboring to mainstream pedophilia for quite some time now. Mark my words: the Church will one day be condemned for forbidding what some of her neglectful and corrupt ministers are presently condemned for having allowed.

Error has no rights.

Living advertisement for secular atheism's Asperger's syndrome - P.Z. Myers - fires with all phaser banks at the notion that a mere Christian can give him suggesions about how not to act like a total walking pustule on the body politic of Christendom.

Some choice bits:

We're getting advice from Christians now! Look and laugh at this list: Five things that would make atheists seem nicer. It's gone awry even with the title. I especially appreciate the word "seem," because Lord knows there's nothing that could make us actually nice, and obviously we need the suggestions of a Christian, since we're all such not-nice people. I should make a counter-list of "five things that would make Christians seem intelligent" — maybe then one of them would notice the nasty implications of this clown's title.

But I'm the wrong guy to do it. You see, I'm not nice, and proud of it. I have no interest in being nice, and I think it's rather pathetic to start an argument by baring your throat to my teeth and begging for mercy before you've even started. It just makes me smirk and snap. It doesn't help, either, that his list is so snide and feeble…so sneebly.

There is projection all over this one. A charitable assumption might be that the original author was implying that atheists were "nice" but unfortunately weren't able to communicate their essential niceness.

On the other hand, if the original author was implying that atheists were not capable of being "nice," then didn't Myers' response prove that point?

And:

Science uses both inductive and deductive logic. Induction is the idea generator, the process that spins out tentative hypotheses that can be evaluated by observation, experiment, and deductive logic. Science is not infallible, and no one ever claims that it is, but it has something that religion lacks: a process of testing claims against real-world observations. To claim that science is as open to abuse as religion is ignorant nonsense. You can claim virtually anything about gods in religion, and all that matters is how many rubes you can persuade to believe it. Scientific claims are constrained by evidence.

And, yet, despite being constrained by evidence, fraud is rife in science.

For example, where is the base-line data supporting Global Warming, which is now allegedly lost, and which its developers were extremely reluctant to produce for critical examination? And where is Myer's outrage over that breach of scientific protocol?

Did Cyril Burt "cook the books" for his famous twin study? Even today, we don't know, but shouldn't science be able to answer that question since it is based on pure "evidence"?

What about the fact that no one has been able to replicate the study on the brain structure of homosexuals, on which study is based the claim that there is a "gay gene"?

Cold fusion?

The interesting thing is that the notorious frauds generally confirm the popular belief, or, more specifically, the worldview that the scientist wants to confirm. This is hardly surprising since science is a human enterprise engaged in by real humans and not the Spock-like creatures of science fiction. Human beings are fallen and drawn by their concupiscent desires to see what they want to see. Worldviews shape the data because worldviews determine what counts as "evidence" in the first place.

And to claim that scientific fraud and false belief are innocuous is an embarrassing kind of special pleading.

Just ask those who were sterilized in the name of eugenics.

Whoopi Goldberg on The View defends pedophilia.

Despite giving the thirteen year old quaalude and champagne,"It wasn't rape-rape," and the rest of the world sees thirteen year olds "differently.

Amazing what liberals will accept.

Tomorrow is "Blasphemy Day."

From the Catholic League:

The Center for Inquiry will launch the first International Blasphemy Day on September 30, the anniversary of the 2005 publication of the Danish cartoons that so inflamed Muslims worldwide. Billed as a free speech event designed to oppose such things as a Muslim-sponsored U.N. resolution banning criticism of religion, the day has drawn the support of people like PZ Myers. Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota known for intentionally desecrating a consecrated Host, says the day was established to “mock and insult religion without fear of murder, violence, and reprisal”; he wants every day to be Blasphemy Day.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue spoke to this event today:

The Center for Inquiry is factually incorrect to say that “Free speech is the foundation on which other liberties rest.” Freedom of conscience is the first liberty, and it is inextricably linked to freedom of religion. Moreover, the whole concept of inalienable rights presupposes a belief in the Creator. In other words, atheists have the right to mock religion because our Christian Founding Fathers afforded them human rights.

They are all such phonies. The stated purpose of Blasphemy Day has nothing to do with any religion but Islam, yet there is not one scheduled event insulting Muslims. We can only guess why. So who have they chosen to mock? You guessed it—Christians.

Artist Dana Ellyn will wander to Washington, D.C. to show her masterpiece, “Jesus Does His Nails,” a portrait of Jesus polishing a nail jammed into his hand. In Los Angeles, there will be a film about a gay molesting priest and another about a boy who is so angry about being sent to bed that he asks God to kill his parents. Oh, yes, American Atheists will conduct “De-Baptisms” in New Jersey.

Nice to know that even the atheists know that Christians can be counted on to react to their antics like good Christians. Which is why there will be no violence.

Of course, if Christians did anything like this toward other religions, atheists would cite it as evidence of the "divisive spirit" of religion and a reason that religion must be extirpated.

Yesterday, I was listening to Dan Barker in a debate with Dinesh D'Souza prattle on about how religion "divides" people - all while completely ignoring the fact that Christianity and Islam in their own ways created a way of breaking down divisions into new, more inclusive communities - and advocate the elimination of religion, as if that wouldn't be "divisive."

Religious people don't act this way for two reasons: (a) they generally have a mature view of the fact that the world is filled with other people who have feelings and who wouldn't do to others what they wouldn't want to have done unto them and (b) they don't uniformly suffer from Asperger's.

If only famous movie directors could marry...

So now that it's a famous "artist" and friend to those who matter, pedophilia is not such a bad thing, especially if it occurred 30 years ago and the victim was kind of, sort of willing, or drugged, and holds no grudges.

Here is a Salon article on the media's attempt to rehabilitate Polanski.

Apparently, a film director who plead guilty to raping a 13 year old and fled from justice is not a big deal.

Patterico points out the graphic details about why Roman Polanski was facing jail time.

Again, so very sorry for overreacting...let me sign those forms to enlist my children in the Hitlerjugend.


Hot Air asks:

"Hey, who’s up for another clip of kids chanting about Obama?"

If only teachers could marry.

San Francisco teacher sentenced to five years for lewd conduct for dating 11 year old girl.

Tips for going off to college, and not ruining your life.

From Fallible Blogma.

Worth bookmarking this now since Boff is off to college in two years.

It seems that I kept most of the fourteen tips, and it worked out alright for me.

Particularly, the one about having classes in the morning.

Liberal Fascism

Wintery Knight provides this video of "eco-fascist celebrities" attempting to prevent a journalist from asking embarrassing questions, but looking like jerks while doing it.

Secular Atheist on Aquinas

According to Jurgen Habermas:

Habermas, who defines himself as "a methodical atheist", is a member of the Frankfurt School of philosophy. His most recent essay - A Time of Transition - was published in Italy this month.

Sandro Magister, the Vatican affairs writer for the Italian news magazine l'Espresso quotes Habermas' confession that he is is "enchanted by the seriousness and consistency" of the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, "the opposite of the feeble thinking that pervades current theology".

Habermas says: "Thomas represents a spiritual figure who was able to prove his authenticity with his own resources. That contemporary religious leadership lacks an equally solid terrain seems to me an incontrovertible truth. In the general level;ing of society by the media everything seems to lose seriousness, even institutionalised Christianity. But theology would lose its identity if it sought to uncouple itself from the dogmatic nucleus of religion, and thus from the religious language in which the community's practices of prayer, confession, and faith are made concrete."

If only Rabbis could marry.

Rabbi charged with child molestation from the '70s.

Apparently, Massachusetts, where the molestation allegedly occurred, has a statute of limitations that is tolled when the defendant leaves the state. California has a similar statute. I've used the statute once in 25 years of practice. It doesn't get much use, which is odd in this day and age of easy travel.

Also, I'm saying "allegedly" with all serious. The statistic about 40% false rape charges ought to remind everyone that reputations can be damaged forever by assuming that a charge amounts to a conviction.

Reparations

You don't see this kind of class very often.

Michael Forrest has been blogging about Catholic apologist Robert Sungenis' writings about the Jews. Forrest was a former supporter and writer of Sungenis' ministry, until he decided that Sungenis had stepped into clear anti-semitism, at which point Forrest felt that he had to make reparations for any sin that he may have cooperated with. Forrest has been on this project for three years and is now closing it down.

Very few people acknowledge their mistakes, much less make an effort to undo the damage they may have caused.

Walking away from it, rather than having it becoming an obsession, is also very classy.

[Via Mark Shea.]

Still the Anti-Christ after all these years.

Answering the question of why so many Calvinists sound like they have just time-travelled from the 17th Century, it seems the reason is that they are still being taught 17th Century terminology and ideology.

This explains why apparently normal Americans can use historically derogatory terms like "Roman," "Romanist" and "Papist" and not understand that these terms are freighted with historical bigotry.

God bless their ignorant little hearts. It's the same way with members of the older generation, dropping their casual racial slurs with all innocence, which makes my toes curl when I hear it. Of course, that is becoming less of a problem every year because no one is providing continuing education courses that reinforce the use of those derogatory slurs.

Science is Latin for "Faith"

It feels so spiritually rewarding to know that we may commit to a multi-trillion dollar program to (a) fight global warming and (b) socialize everything without any supporting data.

Apparently, the "data" supporting global warming has been "lost."

But that's no reason not to trust the people who saw the data. It's not like fraud every happens in science.

Huh? A "new species of shark" with "forehead genitalia"?

Sounds like a joke, but this site claims:

New species are not just discovered in exotic locales -- even places as urban as California still yield discoveries of new plants and animals. Academy scientists recently named a new species of chimaera, an ancient and bizarre group of fishes distantly related to sharks, from the coast of Southern California and Baja California, Mexico.

The new species, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark (Hydrolagus melanophasma), was described in the September issue of the international journal Zootaxa by a research team including Academy Research Associates David Ebert and Douglas J. Long. Additional co-authors included Kelsey James, a graduate student at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and Dominique Didier from Millersville University in Pennsylvania. This is the first new species of cartilaginous fish to be described from California waters since 1947.

Chimaeras, also called ratfish, rabbitfish, and ghostsharks, are perhaps the oldest and most enigmatic groups of fishes alive today. Their closest living relatives are sharks, but their evolutionary lineage branched off from sharks nearly 400 million years ago, and they have remained an isolated group ever since. Like sharks, chimaeras have skeletons composed of cartilage and the males have claspers for internal fertilization of females. Unlike sharks, male chimaeras also have retractable sexual appendages on the forehead and in front of the pelvic fins and a single pair of gills. Most species also have a mildly venomous spine in front of the dorsal fin. Chimaeras were once a very diverse and abundant group, as illustrated by their global presence in the fossil record. They survived through the age of dinosaurs mostly unchanged, but today these fishes are relatively scarce and are usually confined to deep ocean waters, where they have largely avoided the reach of explorers and remained poorly known to science.

Forehead genitalia? That seems, hmmm...., convenient, at least if you're a fish.

It seems weird that we are still discovering these new species.

But at least they aren't being exposed to the 10 Commandments.

Seeing this makes me regret overreacting about refusing to allow my children to become part of the Obama propaganda mill.

The children in this video seem so happy.



Update:

Big Hollywood has the school district's response:

Response to Unauthorized Video of Class Activity
September 24, 2009

Today we became aware of a video that was placed on the internet which has been reported in the media. The video is of a class of students singing a song about President Obama. The activity took place during Black History Month in 2009, which is recognized each February to honor the contributions of African Americans to our country. Our curriculum studies, honors and recognizes those who serve our country. The recording and distribution of the class activity were unauthorized.

So, it was a class activity, and the defense is that no one was supposed to know about it.

Great.

The Last Emperor

The man who would have been Sultan of the Ottoman Empire - Ertugrul Osman - has died.

Saxon Gold Hoard Discovered...

...by a guy with a metal detector.

It seems to be from the 7th Century, some of it had inscriptions from the Psalms. Were the Saxons Christianized by the 600s?

According to the article:

The Staffordshire hoard contains about 5kg of gold and 2.5kg of silver, making it far bigger than the Sutton Hoo discovery in 1939 when 1.5kg of Anglo-Saxon gold was found near Woodbridge in Suffolk.

Leslie Webster, former keeper at the British Museum's Department of Prehistory and Europe, said: "This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries.

"(It is) absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells."

The Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels are intricately illuminated manuscripts of the four New Testament Gospels dating from the 9th and 8th Centuries.

Here are some pictures.

Seeking a Dispensation for the Disparity of Cult

Give the Protestants long enough and they will recreate Catholicism.

This should not be surprising since basic human problems are basic human problems and, by definition, are found in every culture,

and

there are often only a finite number of answers.

In this case, the burning question that C. Michael Patton at Parchment and Pen is answering is whether a Calvinist may marry an Arminian:

I received an email last night asking me a very good question. The sender is a Calvinist who is interested in a girl who is an Arminian. He asks, “Would it be wrong for me to date her and perhaps someday marry her, even though she is most likely an Arminian and I am a Calvinist?”

From a Catholic perspective this seems like a strange way of phrasing a legitimate concern. A Catholic would probably be more concerned with the irreconcilability of worship, than views on soteriology. Namely, having a husband and wife together at Mass or a church service where one or the other could not participate does not advance the unity of marriage. Also, it seems "legalistic" to make compatibility turn on one's understanding of the finer details of theology. How much of "TULIP" do Calvinists have to agree on before they are incompatible? How does the average person know what their position is on "total depravity" without a degree in theology? Shouldn't church membership be one way of sorting this out?

Patton's answer is very sensible; one might almost say "catholic":

I believe that as long as both are Christians following the Lord and prioritizing the issues of their faith correctly, one can move forward in a relationship, even if there is disagreement on the Calvinist/Arminian issue. Being Christian and seeking the Lord are the two foundational components, not lining up every particular of your Evangelical theology. If you were a Protestant and she was a Catholic, I would caution against the union.

However, were both of your respective beliefs about Calvinism and Arminianism to remain as they are in the coming years of marriage, I would not be so naïve as to think that the issues raised will not be the cause of some conflict from time to time. There will be times when decisions made and attitudes adopted will affect your relationship.

Patton suggests that the persons involved look at questions like, "Is the person a Christian?," "Is the person following a Christian life?" and "3. Does this person have any non-essential practical or theological hang-ups?"

Another issue I would add would be, "can the individuals discuss and agree how the children will be brought up?" Among Catholics, a marriage of the kind that Patton is discussing - those involving a disparity of "cults" among Christians - requires a dispensation and an agreement by the non-Catholic that the children will be raised Catholic. Before I was married, I thought that the latter requirement was an urban legend, until the priest brought out the agreement for my future wife to sign. If I had been asked prior to that moment how I felt about such a thing, I would probably have been against it as treating adults like children. On the other hand, it turns out that among all the turbulence of the marriage and divorce, the one thing that was never contested was that the children would be raised Catholic and having one less thing to fight over was a mercy.

So, it seems that the Catholic Church may have a thing or two left to teach.

A plan for study

From the Maverick Philosopher.

The dating life

An study in Indiana established that 40% of rape charges were false accusations. Not unsubstantiated, false.

A study of rape allegations in Indiana over a nine-year period revealed that over 40% were shown to be false — not merely unproven. According to the author, “These false allegations appear to serve three major functions for the complainants: providing an alibi, seeking revenge, and obtaining sympathy and attention. False rape allegations are not the consequence of a gender-linked aberration, as frequently claimed, but reflect impulsive and desperate efforts to cope with personal and social stress situations.” ( Kanin EJ. Arch Sex Behav. 1994 Feb;23(1):81-92 False rape allegations. )

In 1985, a study of 556 rape allegations found that 27% accusers recanted when faced with a polygraph (which can be ordered in the military), and independent evaluation showed a false accusation rate of 60%. (McDowell, Charles P., Ph.D. “False Allegations.” Forensic Science Digest, (publication of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations), Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 1985), p. 64.)

On the other side is that there are men who match their perjuring sisters for being pustules on the body of society. I know of one woman in her 50s who was "rufied" at a nice restaurant by a man in his late 50s, something that I thought was apocryphal, happened on television shows or among college students.

The Battle of the Sexes takes no prisoners, it seems.

James Fennimore Cooper's Literary Mistakes

This article collects "Dan Brown's 20 Worst Sentences" so you don't have to.

Only 20?

Some examples:

17. Deception Point, chapter 8: Overhanging her precarious body was a jaundiced face whose skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes.

It’s not clear what Brown thinks ‘precarious’ means here.

16. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: A voice spoke, chillingly close. "Do not move." On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly. Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink with dark red pupils.

A silhouette with white hair and pink irises stood chillingly close but 15 feet away. What’s wrong with this picture?

And:

14. Angels and Demons, chapter 100: Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers glorified the four major rivers of the Old World - The Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio Plata.

The Rio de la Plata. Between Argentina and Uruguay. One of the major rivers of the Old World. Apparently.

And:

9. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 32: The vehicle was easily the smallest car Langdon had ever seen. "SmartCar," she said. "A hundred kilometers to the liter."

Pro tip: when fleeing from the police, take a moment to boast about your getaway vehicle’s fuel efficiency. And get it wrong by a factor of five. SmartCars do about 20km (12 miles) to the litre.

How like Dan Brown - a show-off about his knowledge of technical trivia, but too lazy to do any research.

Finally:

5. Angels and Demons, chapter 4: learning the ropes in the trenches.

Learning the ropes (of a naval ship) while in the trenches (with the army in the First World War). It’s a military education, certainly.

4, 3, and 2. The Da Vinci Code, opening sentence: Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.

Angels and Demons, opening sentence: Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own.

Deception Point, opening sentences: Death, in this forsaken place, could come in countless forms. Geologist Charles Brophy had endured the savage splendor of this terrain for years, and yet nothing could prepare him for a fate as barbarous and unnatural as the one about to befall him.

Professor Pullum: "Renowned author Dan Brown staggered through his formulaic opening sentence".

And there is so much more. From my 2004 review - "I've read the Da Vinci Code so you don't have to." - there's this:

Yet another lame literary device is the “convenient selective stupidity” strategy. Hence, we have the “Papal Bull” Captain Bezu Fache, who has intuited that Langdon is guilty of murder, think nothing of the fact that a cryptographer shows up at the crime scene(!?!) and claims to have a message for his chief suspect from the American embassy.(!?!) (p. 51- 53.) Of course, it could well be the case that French cryptographers have a long-standing tradition of providing answering services for various embassies, but I was skeptical the moment I read this gambit. Strangely, though, Fache, a determined man interested in railroading Langdon, wasn’t.

Perhaps it is time to hand Western Civilization over to the Muslims if this is the most rewarded form of modern writing.

The Reading Life

Here is a site with "in-depth author interviews."

Stifling Dissent

Michael Barone explains the Left's need to stifle dissent:

I would submit that the president's call for an end to "bickering" and the charges of racism by some of his supporters are the natural reflex of people who are not used to hearing people disagree with them and who are determined to shut them up.

This comes naturally to liberals educated in our great colleges and universities, so many of which have speech codes whose primary aim is to prevent the expression of certain conservative ideas and which are commonly deployed for that purpose. (For examples see the Web site of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which defends students of all political stripes.) Once the haven of free inquiry and expression, academia has become a swamp of stifling political correctness.

Similarly, the "mainstream media" -- the old-line broadcast networks, the New York Times, etc. -- presents a politically correct picture of the world. The result is that liberals can live in a cocoon, an America in which seldom is heard a discouraging word. Conservatives, in contrast, find themselves constantly pummeled with liberal criticism, on campus, in news media, in Hollywood TV and movies. They don't like it, but they've gotten used to it. Liberals aren't used to it and increasingly try to stamp it out.

"Mainstream media" tries to help. In the past few weeks, we have seen textbook examples of how MSM has ignored news stories that reflected badly on the administration for which it has such warm feelings. It ignored the videos in which White House "green jobs czar" proclaimed himself a "communist" and the "truther" petition he signed charging that George W. Bush may have allowed the Sept. 11 attacks.

It ignored the videos released on Andrew Breitbart's biggovernment.com showing Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now employees offering to help a supposed pimp and prostitute evade taxes and employ 13- to 15-year-old prostitutes. It downplayed last spring's Tea Parties -- locally organized demonstrations against big government that attracted about a million people nationwide -- and downplayed the Tea Party throng at the Capitol and on the Mall on Sept. 12.

Actually "mainstream media" is doing its friends in the Obama administration and the Democratic party no favors, at least in the long run. Obama comes from one-party Chicago, and the House Democrats' nine top leadership members and committee chairmen come from districts that voted on average 73 percent for Obama last fall. They need help in understanding the larger country they are seeking to govern, where nearly half voted the other way. Instead they get the impression they can dismiss critics as racist or "Nazis" or as indulging in (as Sen. Harry Reid said) "evil-mongering."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned us that there was a danger that intense rhetoric could provoke violence, and no decent person wants to see harm come to our president or other leaders. But it's interesting that the two most violent incidents at this summer's town hall meetings came when a union thug beat up a 65-year-old black conservative in Missouri and when a liberal protester bit off part of a man's finger in California.

These incidents don't justify a conclusion that all liberals are violent. But they are more evidence that American liberals, unused to hearing dissent, have an impulse to shut it down.

Great Moments in Media

Right up there with my favorite feature in National Lampoon - "English Aristocrats getting hurt," which features pictures of English Aristocrats falling off their horses in polo and foxhunting events - is this clip of Wolf Blitzer tanking on Jeopardy:



If these people aren't knowledgeable about the kind of trivia that makes up the World, what are they good for?

The Irony of Projection

Megan McCardle follows up on her "fundamentalist" reading of Limbaugh with this:

I know, I know--I'm a humorless west coast liberal who doesn't get an obvious joke. No offense, but Limbaugh's listeners are not known for their ability to appreciate maybe-sort-of-satire. I don't think it's ridiculous to say that for Rush Limbaugh, racism isn't a big problem in this country, but anti-racism is one of the greatest threats facing America today. So when he does a "satire" that comes perilously close to his normal rants against feminazis and raice-baiters, well, I don't really think you can expect the rest of America to get the joke.

[Emphasis added.]

What's that? "No offense, but Limbaugh's listeners are not known for their ability to appreciate maybe-sort-of-satire"??????

Well, of course, everyone knows that Limbaugh's listener's are a bunch of Hillbilly's "clinging to their guns and religion."

Please.

Incidentally, among who are Limbaugh's listeners "not known" for their ability to appreciate satire? Liberals? People who went to college? People who live in New York?

And what is it when we classify a group with a broad-brush, derogatory stereotype? Racism? Elitism?

Isn't this exactly the mindset that Limbaugh was lampooning?

It's amazing that someone as smart as McCardle can't see the satire. In a somewhat later excerpt, in response to a caller who said that the police chief had cleared the black students from a race crime, Limbaugh "argued" that the video camera didn't have sound and so - obviously - we could not hear the white student taunting the black attackers.

McCardle isn't a hillbilly. She's college educated. She doesn't cling to her guns and religion. So, why doesn't she *get* that Limbaugh is "accusing" the white victim of the "hate crime."

Now, unless McCardle et al really believes that Limbaugh was serious - and what does that do to their trope that he is inciting racism against blacks - then they ought to conclude that he had his tongue in his cheek and was doing "schtick."

But they can't reach that conclusion because it seems that Limbaugh and his listeners are a bunch of ignorant yokels who wouldn't be able to spell "Swift" if you spotted them everything but the "S."

An Honest Conversation about Race.

Rush Limbaugh is getting beat up by conservatives and libertarians like Rod Dreher and Megan McCardle for a Swiftian satirical bit linking the story of the white kid who was bit up on a bus by two black kids to Kanye West's bullying behavior to Newsweek's lead story on how white's are racist to the Democrat's who have decided that any opposition to Obama is racist. McCardle and Dreher think that Limbaugh is currying favor with the vast legion of KKK members in America because he describes the school bus beating as something typical of "Obama's America," despite the fact that Limbaugh clearly doesn't think it is typical but is lampooning the "only white's can be racist" attitude, e.g., he accuses the white victim of provoking the fight because of his inherent racism.

The real clue to the sarcasm should have been when Limbaugh tells a caller that the local police chief was wrong in ruling out a racial motive because the white victim was undoubtedly taunting the blacks.

Limbaugh spreads it on a bit thick, but, hey, it's a sort of open discussion about race. As "open" anyhow, in a society where the discussion proceeds from the premise that whites have to shut up, listen and not say anything disturbing the consensus that white's are never the victim.

What caused me to post this was Vox Day's interesting post on the subject." Day writes:

The reality is that as much as the various twits at the Atlantic would like to sweep it under the table, (to Dreher's credit, he does not), violent black-on-white crime is far more common than the reverse and one of the many reasons for this is that the same guilty white liberals who were piddling themselves with joy over Obama have been making excuses for violent black criminals for nearly fifty years.

As long as we're on the subject, it's worth noting that statistics readily demonstrate that the racist lynchings of the past were far less of a problem than violent black crime is today. The Tuskegee Institute reports 3,437 lynchings of black Americans between 1882 and 1968. If one takes into account the 1,293 lynchings of white Americans as well as the relative population difference, this means there were roughly 38 race-motivated lynchings per year. In 2005, the FBI reported 37,460 white women were raped or sexually assaulted by black men. By contrast, zero black women were raped or sexually assaulted by white men. In other words, over the course of a year, 990 white women are now attacked by black men for every racist lynching of the past. Naturally, guilty white liberals are much more deeply concerned about the latter than the former. Nor is it only a problem for white women, as an additional 964 black women were raped or sexually assaulted by black men for each of those lynchings as well.

To be fair, Day notes that there are false accusation of rape against black men, just as we know that there have been false accusations of rape by black women against white men. (See Duke LaCross team.)

Nonetheless, the disparity between black on white rape and white on black rape seems weird enough to require some explanation. I might be willing to accept some difference in rape statistics, but "zero" seems inexplicable. Are black women less likely to report rape generally? Was 2005 an anomalous year?

On the other hand, if this statistic is true, that can't be good for civil discourse. It certainly would reinforce buried prejudices, which may be why I instinctively don't want to accept Day's "factoid." I guess the point here is to ask whether we really want an "honest discussion about race" if this is the kind of thing that we are going to learn.

Also, the lynching statistic is interesting. If Day is right, then there were as many lynchings in America in less than 100 years as there were people executed by the Spanish Inquisition over 300. I don't know what that means - that the Spanish Inquisition could have worked harder? It is an odd factoid.

What really matters.

NPR writes:

Through the eyes of the H1N1 virus, a Catholic church is a playground. The font of holy water near the church entrance is a great place for the virus to leap from one person to another.

The passing of the peace, during which parishioners shake hands, is yet another favorite place for the virus.

And then there's Communion: The priest puts the host, or wafer, on a parishioner's tongue or into the person's hand, and then does the same for the next person. Often, he then serves wine from a common cup. It's wiped clean each time, but that's no guarantee it's virus-free.

Mark Shea observes:

Yes, yes. I'm exaggerating. But really, it's rather silly. Our Manufacturers of Culture have been telling us for years that Approved Victime Groups should be allowed to engage in all sorts of incredibly dangerous activities and that a thin latex barrier will keep them safe. When the Pope say, "No it won't. So don't engage in the dangerous activity" he's labeled a murderer and even an architect of genocide.

Now, when the flu is going around and a couple people have died, we must suddenly refrain, not only from acts of worship, but even from normal human contact and live in terror of somebody touching us.

Mark is right. This is an example of the crazy upside-down world we seem to have started inhabiting sometime during the last two decades. For example, we have continual problems with juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy and youth violence, and our secular masters, after giving the matter serious thought, have decided that the answer is to define the Boy Scouts as the enemy.

Here, we have the NPR insinuating that Catholic worship is a veritable focal point of contagion, but not once has the media suggested that that gay sex should be discontinued in the interest of fighting the AIDS contagion. That's either because of a naive faith in a thin, breakable latex sheath, or because NPR, and its media cohorts, have a sense that worshipping God is far less important than using the lower alimentary tract for recreational purposes.

It's a crazy world.

The Return of Jimmy Carter

Ah, the late 70's. A time of appeasing our enemies and throwing our allies under the bus.

Good times, good times.

Obama is poised to kill European missile defense.

Terrific. All we got out of Carter was Iran for the next 30 years.

Photo-fakery at the Times

Photographer accuses Time magazine of cropping his photo to demean Cheney:

The Sept. 14th Newsweek cover line — “Is Your Baby Racist?” — should have included a sub-head, “Is Dick Cheney a Butcher?”

Featured inside the magazine was a full-page, stand-alone picture of former Vice President Dick Cheney, knife in hand, leaning over a bloody carving board. Newsweek used it to illustrate a quote that he made about C.I.A. interrogators. By linking that photo with Mr. Cheney’s comment and giving it such prominence, they implied something sinister, macabre, or even evil was going on there.

I took that photograph at his daughter Liz’s home during a two-day assignment, and was shocked by its usage. The meat on the cutting board wasn’t the only thing butchered. In fact, Newsweek chose to crop out two-thirds of the original photograph, which showed Mrs. Cheney, both of their daughters, and one of their grandchildren, who were also in the kitchen, getting ready for a simple family dinner.

However, Newsweek’s objective in running the cropped version was to illustrate its editorial point of view, which could only have been done by shifting the content of the image so that readers just saw what the editors wanted them to see. This radical alteration is photo fakery. Newsweek’s choice to run my picture as a political cartoon not only embarrassed and humiliated me and ridiculed the subject of the picture, but it ultimately denigrated my profession.

Time magazine's response:

Frank J. De Maria, the vice president of corporate communications at Newsweek, issued this statement Wednesday in response:

We doubt any reasonable reader would, in David’s phrase, think something “sinister, macabre, or even evil” was going on in that image as presented. Yes, the picture has been cropped, an accepted practice of photographers, editors and designers since the invention of the medium. We cropped the photograph using editorial judgment to show the most interesting part of it. Is it a picture of the former vice president cutting meat? Yes, it is. Has it been altered? No. Did we use the image to make an editorial point — in this case, about the former vice president’s red-blooded, steak-eating, full-throated defense of his views and values? Yes, we did.

"Red-blooded, steak eating, full throated...?" Which, obviously, could only be communicated by a picture focusing on the former VP over a blood cutting board?

How is this not "photo-fakery" make a partisan point?

Even the fake journalists are offended that they were scooped.

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Cool Internet Stuff

Check out the reconstruction of the Bay Bridge with moveable cams.

Holding Paper

Pro-life activist Jim Pouillon was murdered because the killer was offended by Pouillon's pro-life message.

The murderer sounds like a kook. He apparently killed a businessman because of some perceived grievance and had plans to kill another person before he was arrested.

Nonetheless, if the shoe was on the other foot - well, it has been on the other foot - we would be hearing a week's worth of retrospectives on the victim and listening to musings about the danger of the pro-life movement as a whole.

Speaking of invidious social pathologies, Creative Minority Report did the service of scouring the fever swamp left for its take on the Pouillon murder and came back with the following from Huffington Post:

If somebody is constantly harassing people and the law can do nothing about it, maybe this was the only option.



it fascinates me how these old a** men are so fixation on abortion rights- they probably haven't even had sex in 30 years.



It's sad that he lost his life...That being said, this is a little OT. but has anyone noticed how many of these anti abortion protesters are old men? This guy was 61 years old, why is he worried about what is going on inside the uterus of a woman of child bearing age?


When anti-abortionist are allowed to protest in front of a school; but the President of the United States is censored for fear of indoctrinating children, the rest of the population better pay attention - the right has lost its collective mind and have moved beyond obstructionist to anarchist. They believe in violence and have guns a plenty, they talk of revolt and succussion and show no regard for human life or any one or anything that does not fit into their narrow view of the world.


if he was in jail he would not have been on the wrong end of a bullet!!!!


There's mention in two thousand year old Sanskrit literature of abortions being performed. Abortions are most definitely not some new-fangled 'lefty' innovation, as the lunatic right would have you believe.



Have you seen the horrible graphic posters these sociopaths display? It's not free speech, it's terrorism.

[Via The American Catholic.]

Calvinism on Natural Law.

Lots of links to "Two Kingdom Theory."

Economic Indicators

The "Ghost Fleet," parked near Singapore, is still there.

And there are indications that ship construction might go into cessation in 2011.

Not "the best medicine in the world" once Obama gets ahold of it

Obama proposes to tax medical innovations.

Media Malpractice

Poor NY Times readers woke up last week without a clue that Obama had appointed America's first Communist Czar, or why he had resigned. The NYT's explanation is that they were short-staffed before the Labor Day weekend.

*Snort*

Here is a NY Post op-ed on the NYT's failure:

“This is not an excuse,” the managing editor of The New York Times said after offering the following excuse for completely missing the Van Jones story, except in a blog post: “Our Washington bureau was somewhat short-staffed during the height of the pre-Labor Day vacation period.”

Here’s how long-staffed The New York Times actually is. Long after Glenn Beck reported — back in July — that Jones was history’s first communist czar, and even after Gateway Pundit reported, on Sept. 3, that Jones had signed a wackadoodle 9/11 “truther” petition, The Times sent two reporters to Boston (in a story published Friday, Sept. 4) to pre-report the non-story of Joseph P. Kennedy II’s run for Ted Kennedy’s seat. (He later said he wasn’t interested. Also, the picture of Joseph the Times ran was actually of his brother Max.)

And:

Only in Timesland can you be in charge of doling out $80 billion in contracts (“A Small White House Program” — The Times’ John M. Broder, on Sept. 6) and be less important than the Naked Cowboy.

The Times was aware of the story, knew it was bigger than most of the stuff it puts in the paper every day, and had plenty of resources to cover it.

But The Times purposely ignored it because it was hoping that the story would go away, because it likes people like Comrade Jones and was hoping he wouldn’t be forced out. The Times doesn’t like people like Glenn Beck and didn’t want him to be able to claim Jones’s scalp. The Times’ prejudice blinded it to the fact that Jones’ fall became obvious on Friday, when a White House spokesman refused to defend him.

Newspaper of record? The Times isn’t so much a newspaper as a clique of high school girls sending IMs to like-minded friends about their feuds and faves and raves and rants. OMFG you guys! It’s no more objective than Beck is.

Jones wasn’t an obscure functionary. There was a huge profile devoted to him in The New Yorker back in January. He was a “legendary figure” in the environmental movement, says The Washington Post. He got four breathless fanzine pages devoted to him in Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s bestselling book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded.” He was a rising cstar, maybe even a supercstar.

To date, The Times has still not told its readers that Jones is or was a communist, calling this notion merely a charge made only by Republicans — we all know how nutty they are! — not as a fact.

Yet Jones said in 2005, “By August [of 1991], I was a communist” and “I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ ” If Comrade Jones has disavowed communism, I couldn’t find any mention of it.

The Times continues to treat communism as a cute campus peccadillo like pot smoking or nude streaking. A Times think piece (Sept. 9) worried that Jones’ fall was “swift and personal.” Being a communist is personal but being the pregnant teen daughter of a vice presidential candidate is public business?

Beck doesn’t claim to be neutral, and neither should The Times. It doesn’t have to report both sides of the news any more than Beck has to give equal time to Janeane Garofalo.

But — in both cases — wouldn’t that be fun?

No wonder the MSM is tanking.

Women's Ordination

Clerical Whispers has this interesting post about how a United Church of Christ minister apologized for UCC participation in a so-called ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood:

Rev. David Runnion-Bareford, Executive Director of the Confessing Movement in the United Church of Christ, responded to the situation by sending an open letter to Boston area Catholics via Cardinal Sean O'Malley.

In his letter, he apologized for the "division and confusion" caused by Rev. Nancy Taylor and the Church of the Covenant—the church were the ceremony was held.

"Please accept our deepest and sincere apology for the behavior of Rev. Nancy Taylor of Old South Church, UCC and the UCC related Church of the Covenant. They do not reflect the heart and mind of our United Church of Christ whose premise is 'that all may be one.' Those of us who truly value the unity of all Christians and treasure our ecumenical relationships with you as Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ are grieved,” Runnion-Bareford wrote.

The Confessing Movement UCC pastor also said that his movement is also “fully aware that this event was not motivated by a sincere desire to honor the call of God and the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the ministry of committed Christian women.”

Rev. Runnion-Bradford further criticized the women for refusing to take a vow of chastity and for promoting a self-centered gospel, citing the “Body, Sex and Gender” section of the group’s web page.

“We know that 'Womenpriests' openly include candidates who are engaged in the practice of sexual license. It is significant that the participants would not take the vow of obedience or chastity. We are aware of the statements on their website proclaiming a false gospel of self and mutual affirmation, denying the fall of humanity and our need for repentance from sin and personal transformation through the atoning crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

"We note that it is not incidental that this event was hosted in Boston by a church that is prideful about its aggressive religious sanction of homosexual, bi-sexual and transgender relationships and same gender 'marriage.' We also note that the pansexual activist group Integrity participated and assisted with hospitality," Runnion-Bradford observed in his letter.

Rev. Nancy Taylor also received a letter from Rev. Runnion-Bradford according to a press release from the Confessing Movement pastor. In his letter he took Taylor to task for her “divisive statements and behavior” saying that they “appear to violate the Minister's Code of the United Church of Christ, which says, 'I will be a responsible representative of the Church Universal and participate in those activities that strengthen its unity, witness, and mission'."

Rev. Taylor’s appearance and words of support for the women who attempted ordination could have implications for UCC practices as well, said Rev. Runnion-Bradford.

He asked Taylor, “Can we infer from your actions of this last week that you would approve of groups who have justice issues with the United Church of Christ carrying out their own ordinations of individuals they believe valid regardless of our church's standards and protocols?"

Here is the Womenpriests' Mission Statement:

We believe in God for whom love is truly the highest priority, who expects the Church to be a community of care and mutual concern, brothers and sisters among whom leaders are servants and to whom power means comfort and healing.

We believe in God who cherishes every part of our personality, our intelligence and spiritual gifts, but also our bodies, our sexuality, our longing for relationships, warmth and touch.

We believe in God who has created all human beings to be sons and daughters, who calls both men and women equally to leadership and ministry in the Kingdom of Love.

We believe in God who does not exact cruel sacrifices from us, but heroic deeds of love as Jesus showed us, deeds of generosity, a God who wants us to respect and love ourselves while giving and sharing of our best for the sake of others.

We believe in God who expects us to be creative and free, who wants us to express our opinions honestly, to fight with all our heart and mind for truth and justice rather than blindly obey commands, to trustingly challenge those in authority when they make mistakes.

How very reassuring that these "womenpriests" are willing to vow not to be "blindly obedient," particularly if they feel that their sexuality, longings, warmth and touch may have to be compromised.

Slouching towards Gomorrah

Body Worlds plans cadaver show dedicated to sex.

No, there's nothing wrong with secular culture.

Nothing at all.

From the article:

The way a plastinate is exhibited can vary from country to country to reflect local sensibilities. A vote of local employees decided that one of the copulating female cadavers should wear fewer clothes in Zurich than was the case in Berlin.

"Switzerland is the first country that already said from the outset that we could show whatever we wanted," said von Hagens.

"Zurich is ready ... but it's maybe not so easy in every other town," he said. "We have discussed whether it is proper to show homosexuality and in what way. This is a very delicate subject."

Death, sex, the essential dignity of human beings, whatever...but let's be careful that we treat homosexuality with respect.

Cornerstone Forum offers this:

Welcome to the final manifestation of the sexual revolution. It was shamelessly irresponsible while it lasted, but now it's come full circle: Eros has turned to Thanatos for titillation. What a perfect and perfectly fitting commentary on its wildly successful attempt to uncouple (if you'll pardon the expression) sex and reproduction, leading directly to the demographic death of Europe and many of the cultures it once inspired.

Secular culture has managed to separate sex from reproduction. Now, it's managed to separate sex from life itself.

Good work, modern culture, good work.

[Via Ignatius Insights.]

The Ruling Class

"This is my Townhall meeting for you."

Say, what?




Meeting with elected officials isn't a privilege. That's the kind of thinking found in an aristocracy, where the hoi polloi is graced with the presence of the better sort.

We are all Georgians now.

Fossils of early hominids found outside Tbilisi.

Apparently, this might raise questions about the dating of the "Out of Africa" theory.

Holding Paper.

The Wintery Knight has the videos of an ACORN employee giving advice on how to run a white-slaving, pedophile whorehouse in compliance with Federal tax laws.

And as an added bonus, at the same site, you will find Bill O'Reilly's interview with Planned Parenthood on how PP enables child abuse.

Congratulations to 60 Minutes and other major news organizations for breaking these stories.

Not.

The Divorce Culture

Mark Shea links to this article on the "evolution of divorce." After pointing out Ronald Reagan's contribution to "no fault" divorce, the article makes a lot of interesting points:

But the psychological revolution's focus on individual fulfillment and personal growth changed all that. Increasingly, marriage was seen as a vehicle for a self-oriented ethic of romance, intimacy, and fulfillment. In this new psychological approach to married life, one's primary obligation was not to one's family but to one's self; hence, marital success was defined not by successfully meeting obligations to one's spouse and children but by a strong sense of subjective happiness in marriage — usually to be found in and through an intense, emotional relationship with one's spouse. The 1970s marked the period when, for many Americans, a more institutional model of marriage gave way to the "soul-mate model" of marriage.

Of course, the soul-mate model was much more likely to lead couples to divorce court than was the earlier institutional model of marriage. Now, those who felt they were in unfulfilling marriages also felt obligated to divorce in order to honor the newly widespread ethic of expressive individualism. As social historian Barbara Dafoe Whitehead has observed of this period, "divorce was not only an individual right but also a psychological resource. The dissolution of marriage offered the chance to make oneself over from the inside out, to refurbish and express the inner self, and to acquire certain valuable psychological assets and competencies, such as initiative, assertiveness, and a stronger and better self-image."

I have noticed that a clear majority of the divorced women I have known have explained their divorce on the fact that they found the marriage unsatisfying; the husband hadn't "grown" - presumably his interests which were fine in his teens or twenties were not as interesting in later years, or the spouses didn't get along, or the wife just felt entitled to something better. The sense I've gotten is that the husbands in these cases were faithful and somewhat blindsided and wanted the marriage to continue. The number of stories I hear about abuse is small. (On the other hand, there is a clearly strong vein of "he was a cheater" also.)

And:

The divorce revolution's collective consequences for children are striking. Taking into account both divorce and non-marital childbearing, sociologist Paul Amato estimates that if the United States enjoyed the same level of family stability today as it did in 1960, the nation would have 750,000 fewer children repeating grades, 1.2 million fewer school suspensions, approximately 500,000 fewer acts of teenage delinquency, about 600,000 fewer kids receiving therapy, and approximately 70,000 fewer suicides every year. As Amato concludes, turning back the family-­stability clock just a few decades could significantly improve the lives of many children.

Skeptics confronted with this kind of research often argue that it is unfair to compare children of divorce to children from intact, married households. They contend that it is the conflict that precedes the divorce, rather than the divorce itself, that is likely to be particularly traumatic for children. Amato's work suggests that the skeptics have a point: In cases where children are exposed to high levels of conflict — like domestic violence or screaming matches between parents — they do seem to do better if their parents part.

But more than two-thirds of all parental divorces do not involve such highly conflicted marriages. And "unfortunately, these are the very divorces that are most likely to be stressful for children," as Amato and Alan Booth, his colleague at Penn State University, point out. When children see their parents divorce because they have simply drifted apart — or because one or both parents have become unhappy or left to pursue another ­partner — the kids' faith in love, commitment, and marriage is often shattered. In the wake of their parents' divorce, children are also likely to experience a family move, marked declines in their family income, a stressed-out single mother, and substantial periods of paternal absence — all factors that put them at risk. In other words, the clear majority of divorces involving children in America are not in the best interests of the children.

And:

In the 1970s, proponents of easy divorce argued that the ready availability of divorce would boost the quality of married life, as abused, unfulfilled, or otherwise unhappy spouses were allowed to leave their marriages. Had they been correct, we would expect to see that Americans' reports of marital quality had improved during and after the 1970s. Instead, marital quality fell during the '70s and early '80s. In the early 1970s, 70% of married men and 67% of married women reported being very happy in their marriages; by the early '80s, these figures had fallen to 63% for men and 62% for women. So marital quality dropped even as divorce rates were reaching record highs.

What happened? It appears that average marriages suffered during this time, as widespread divorce undermined ordinary couples' faith in marital permanency and their ability to invest financially and emotionally in their marriages — ultimately casting clouds of doubt over their relationships. For instance, one study by economist Betsey Stevenson found that investments in marital partnerships declined in the wake of no-fault divorce laws. Specifically, she found that newlywed couples in states that passed no-fault divorce were about 10% less likely to support a spouse through college or graduate school and were 6% less likely to have a child together. Ironically, then, the widespread availability of easy divorce not only enabled "bad" marriages to be weeded out, but also made it more difficult for "good" marriages to take root and flourish.

I think this is the real problem. I knew a teacher at one of Fresno's inner city high schools who said that her students often treated her statement that she was married to the same man for thirty years as akin to the statement that she was from Mars. These students had no experience with and no concept of the permanency or indissolubility of marriage, having had experience with Mom and Dad's succession of "relationships." Why, then, should we expect such people to think of marriage for themselves as any different than what they saw with their parents?

In the 1970s, proponents of easy divorce argued that the ready availability of divorce would boost the quality of married life, as abused, unfulfilled, or otherwise unhappy spouses were allowed to leave their marriages. Had they been correct, we would expect to see that Americans' reports of marital quality had improved during and after the 1970s. Instead, marital quality fell during the '70s and early '80s. In the early 1970s, 70% of married men and 67% of married women reported being very happy in their marriages; by the early '80s, these figures had fallen to 63% for men and 62% for women. So marital quality dropped even as divorce rates were reaching record highs.

What happened? It appears that average marriages suffered during this time, as widespread divorce undermined ordinary couples' faith in marital permanency and their ability to invest financially and emotionally in their marriages — ultimately casting clouds of doubt over their relationships. For instance, one study by economist Betsey Stevenson found that investments in marital partnerships declined in the wake of no-fault divorce laws. Specifically, she found that newlywed couples in states that passed no-fault divorce were about 10% less likely to support a spouse through college or graduate school and were 6% less likely to have a child together. Ironically, then, the widespread availability of easy divorce not only enabled "bad" marriages to be weeded out, but also made it more difficult for "good" marriages to take root and flourish

This is good economics, but lousy society. I believe that virtually everyone today goes into marriage with an "exit strategy." Somewhere, perhaps in the back of their mind, husbands and wives have some kind of plan for how they can exit the marriage if necessary. This plan may be instantiated in separate savings, separate income, separate names or some other way. The effect of this mindset has to be to encourage the behavior that it anticipates because each partner has to weigh any decision - buy a house? have kids? quit the job? - against the exit strategy. That mindset can't encourage stability and trust.

Second, marriage rates have fallen and cohabitation rates have surged in the wake of the divorce revolution, as men and women's faith in marriage has been shaken. From 1960 to 2007, the percentage of American women who were married fell from 66% to 51%, and the percentage of men who were married fell from 69% to 55%. Yet at the same time, the number of cohabiting couples increased fourteen-fold — from 439,000 to more than 6.4 million. Because of these increases in cohabitation, about 40% of American children will spend some time in a cohabiting union; 20% of babies are now born to cohabiting couples. And because cohabiting unions are much less stable than marriages, the vast majority of the children born to cohabiting couples will see their parents break up by the time they turn 15.

A recent Bowling Green State University study of the motives for cohabitation found that young men and women who choose to cohabit are seeking alternatives to marriage and ways of testing a relationship to see if it might be safely transformed into a marriage — with both rationales clearly shaped by a fear of divorce. One young man told the researchers that living together allows you to "get to know the person and their habits before you get married. So that way, you won't have to get divorced." Another said that an advantage of cohabitation is that you "don't have to go through the divorce process if you do want to break up, you don't have to pay lawyers and have to deal with splitting everything and all that jazz."

Witness the exit strategy mindset.

The Spirit of Ecumenism

Patrick Sean O'Hannigan has a post on what's right/wrong with Catholicism, which he posted in response to a friend's post on what's right/wrong with Evangelicalism. I like this series of observations by Father Longenecker:

While we're on the subject, this series of six posts ("What I Love About the Catholic Church") from Fr. Dwight Longenecker also offers much to chew on, and Fr. Longenecker is smarter than I am. This is how he writes about the Catholic stew (and if this be "triumphalism," then so is breaking out the home movies and the photo albums when friends come over):

In the Catholic Church you find what is best from every other religion and denomination. It is syncretistic in practice without being syncretistic in dogma.

Do you like the austere asceticism and counter-cultural life of the Mennonites and Amish with their odd clothes, old-fashioned lifestyle and prophetic and pastoral way of life? We got monks.

Do you find Hinduism intriguing and fun with its flowers and candles and statues and temples and little festivals and offerings and devotionals? Catholics have all that without the idol worship.

Do you like Anglicanism with beautiful buildings, sophisticated educated people, fine music, sumptious liturgy and a spendid history? We've got all that.

On the other hand, do you like down to earth worship with folksy people involved in fellowship, peace and justice and making the world a better place? There sure plenty of that in the Catholic Church.

What about scholarship? Are you impressed with the bookishness of Protestants, the erudition of the Jewish scholars and the love of Bible learning among sincere Evangelicals? Catholics have it too.

What about Eastern religions? Are you drawn to esoteric spiritualities? Mystical experiences? Meditation? Monasticism? Catholicism offers a rich banquet of 2,000 years worth of spirituality.

Back in High School, I was introduced to William James' idea in the "Variety of Religious Experience" that there were four basic approaches to religion: mystical, liturgical, rational and emotional. Most Protestant denominations take one approach and that defines their spirituality. In contrast, the Catholic church is large enough, and old enough, to incorporate all the different approaches into its body, which then makes it easy for critics to pick and choose what approach they want to criticize, but in fact makes for a great strength within the Universal Church.

Pot meet Kettle.

Democrats booed Bush during 2005 State of the Union speech.

There are two possible results of the phenomenon of Republicans acting as poorly as Democrats. One result is that it all gets worse, in a race to the bottom. The other may be that the Democrats will see that they don't have a monopoly on disruption and uncivil behavior, that those tactics can be turned on them, and, perhaps, the left will learn that there may be some benefit in the social contract of patience and civil behavior.

It could happen.

The Unmoved Mover

Here is an excellent discussion of Aquinas' "First Way" proof of God - the argument from motion:

The Argument from Motion is based on the observation that all change involves the transition from possibility ("potency") to actuality ("act"). That is, when something changes, it moves from a state of potency for a certain attribute to a state of actuality for that attribute. An acorn is in potency for an oak tree (it is potentially an oak tree). When it becomes an oak tree, it is in act for an oak tree. It’s essential to note that "potency" means that the substance does not posses that attribute, it merely can, under the right circumstances, posses it. No thing can simultaneously be in potency and in act for the same attribute.

When something changes ("moves"), it goes from potency to act with respect to that attribute. But, by definition, a substance cannot change itself, because it lacks the attribute — it is in potency, not actuality. It can’t give itself what it doesn’t have. This is the basis for Thomas' famous dictum:

"That which is moved is moved by another."

And:

This kind of casual series in which the series depends on the continuing existence of each component is called an essential series. The components of an essential series depend on the simultaneous existence of prior components. If one one member of the series doesn't exist (the nerve in my arm is cut), then all of the subsequent changes cease. Aquinas (and Aristotle before him) observed that, for an essential series, infinite regress of potency-to-act is not possible.

This is why: in an essentially ordered series of changes, each change depends simultaneously on a change from a prior member of the series. If all members of the series were merely in potency, but not in act, the series could never get started, because potency means lack of actuality. No subsequent "down-the-line" member of an essentially ordered series has independent causal power of its own. So an infinite essentially-ordered series of changes is impossible, because without a first act, it is merely potency (not actuality) all the way down, and nothing could get started. An essentially-ordered causal series must begin with act, not potency. There must be a first member of the series that is in pure act, without potency, or the essential series — the change — would not occur at all. The First Mover in the series must be itself unmoved, because if it were moved — that is, if it went from potency to act — it would necessarily be moved by another, and then wouldn’t be the first member of the series. An essentially ordered casual series must have a First Mover that is itself unmoved.

It's important to point out that Aquinas (and Aristotle) assumed an eternal universe for the purposes of the Argument from Motion. The First Mover is necessary for each and every essentially ordered series of changes in nature. The First Mover is necessary for change occurring at each moment. The argument is unrelated to the Big Bang; as noted, Aquinas assumed (for the sake of the First Way) that there was no temporal beginning of the universe. The argument works irrespective of whether or not the universe had a beginning in time.

And an excellent discussion of the damage that the New Atheists are doing to their own cause:

There have been brilliant atheists (Hume, Russell, Quine) who have struggled with the profound philosophical issues raised by Aquinas’ Five Ways and by a host of other demonstrations for the existence of God. Their contributions warrant respect, but they have never successfully refuted the classical arguments. These powerful and elegant demonstrations of the necessary existence of a First Cause have been set aside by stipulation, not by refutation. It is merely fashionable to deny them. Yet this denial isn’t a denial of the truth of the arguments; it’s a denial of philosophical rigor. It’s a sneer. It now seems that our materialist intelligentsia’s understanding of classical philosophy has degenerated to the point where public intellectuals like Coyne can make arguments that would embarass a teenager in a first semester philosophy course.

Coyne doesn't understand the Argument from Motion. His arguments are too uninformed to even be sophistry. He’s all spittle. But there are people who do understand, and they’re taking notice. Thanks to the high public visibility of New Atheists like Coyne and Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens and Dennett, the anti-intellectual nature of New Atheism and the sheer malignity and fatuousness of what passes for New Atheist thought is becoming increasingly apparent to those who are paying attention to this debate. Many non-theists are cutting ties with New Atheism. The damage that Coyne and other New Atheists are doing to their own atheist cause is incalculable.

No argument with that point. Numerous books are going into print that absolutely flay the New Atheist arguments for the nonsense that offer. One example is David Bentley Hart's "The Atheist Delusion: the Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies." Another one appears to be Keith Ward's "Is Religion Dangerous?" Finally, check out Vox Day's highly entertaining book "The Irrational Atheist."

On Aquinas.

On "Ecclesial Angelism" and other heresies.






[Via Mark Shea.]

Say what?

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman says that democracy can be worse than autocracy.

According to Friedman, it depends on whether the autocracy is "enlightened," which in practical terms means that it agrees with Thomas L. Friedman.

Friedman observes:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

Our one-party democracy is worse. The fact is, on both the energy/climate legislation and health care legislation, only the Democrats are really playing. With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.” Many of them just want President Obama to fail. Such a waste. Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist. But if he’s forced to depend entirely on his own party to pass legislation, he will be whipsawed by its different factions.

I don't know about the ability of an enlightened one-party autocracy to overtake us in electric cars - Friedman seems to forget how the Soviets managed to overtake is in the critical field of vacuum tube technology - but the Chi-coms certainly have managed to overtake us in the area of forced abortions, capital punishment and genocide.

What, again, is the objection to the term "liberal fascism?"

Update: Jonah Goldberg points out that the argument that civil liberties don't matter much when the trains run on time has a long history among apologists for fascism:

So there you have it. If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman's intellect illuminated the land. If only enlightened experts could do the hard and necessary things that the new age requires, if only we could rely on these planners to set the ship of state right. Now, of course, there are "drawbacks" to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say. More to the point, Friedman insists, these "drawbacks" pale in comparison to the system we have today here in America.

I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it's the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn't picky in this regard). This is the argument for an "economic dictatorship" pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It's the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.

From the "Remember When?" file

Democrats held hearings on George H.W. Bush's speech to students.

More Media Malpractice

How the media ignored the Van Jones scandal...and the Jeremiah Wright scandal...and the Edwards scandal.....and others.

We have to feel sorry for those who rely on the mainstream media: they haven't a clue about what's going on in the world.

Like a Coelacanth breaching the waves




Here is the website for the "North American College of Gnostic Bishops." The NACGB member churches includes the "Apostolic Johanite Church," which explains its charism as:

Is the Apostolic Johannite Church a Christian Church?We are part of the "catholic" (universal) Tradition as it was understood by the pre-Nicene Christian Churches, and we use Christian form and Sacraments in our worship. While many of our members do consider themselves Christian, we welcome members from a wide variety of faith traditions including Wiccans, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, and Hermeticists.

Do you believe in the Bible?
Both the Old Testament and the New Testament are sources of our inspiration, as are other works including the Corpus Hermeticum and the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Scriptures. We understand these texts from a Gnostic view, rather than a superficial or literalist one.

What do you believe in?
We invite you to read our Statement of Principles...

"We affirm that there is one Great, Unknowable, and Ineffable Godhead that made manifest the Universe through Emanation and that while the Universe is contained within this Divine Godhead, the Godhead transcends it.

We affirm that every Being contains the 'Sacred Flame,' a Spark of the Divine and that Awareness of the Sacred Flame within constitutes the highest level of Self-Knowledge and the Experience of God simultaneously. This act of Awareness, which is held to be liberating, transcendent and experiential, is called Gnosis."

What do you mean by Gnostic?Gnosticism is a pre-Christian syncretic religious tradition that stresses mysticism, personal responsibilty, revelation, and practical philosophy. We are saved from Ignorance and Deception through Knowledge (gnosis) of our own Divine origin and nature.

Do you practice the Sacraments?
We do honour the seven Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Matrimony, Penance, Holy Orders, Eucharist, and Extreme Unction as part of our Apostolic Tradition.

Are your Sacraments valid?
Yes. As an Apostolic Church our clergy and Sacraments are recognized as "valid yet illicit" by the Vatican.

Do you believe in the Trinity?
We do affirm the Trinity of the Divine as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We also use the language of Pleroma (fullness), Logos (word), and Hagia Sophia (holy wisdom).

There is also the Order of the Thelemic Knights, which for a First Century holdover from a spirituality that claimed that matter was evil takes a suprisingly supportive view of the practice of gay sex.

In fact, most of the FAQs from the "member jurisdictions" read like they could have been written by any randomly selected committee from the ELCA or the UMC. The Gnostic Christian Church seems to have a real historical tradition going back to the deep and forgotten time of George W. Bush's second term, rather than a real history going back to the true Gnostics of the early church.

"Why I am not a Thomist"

The Thomist professor of philosophy at Marquette - Mark Johnson - confesses that he is not a Thomist:

I told them that I didn’t feel that I could really consider myself a full student of Thomas’s teaching until I had a reasonable mastery of some basic texts and skills. And so, until I acquire them, I can’t be a Thomist.

So here is a list of ten things I haven’t done yet, that I need to do. What do you think?

I am not a Thomist because:

I have not yet read all of the writings of Augustine, cover-to-cover.
I have not yet read all of the Bible (in the vulgata), cover-to-cover.
I have not yet read the Metaphysics, cover-to-cover.
I have not yet read Gratian’s Decretum, cover-to-cover (but I have read Raymond of Peñafort; does that count?).
Yeesh! I haven’t read Lombard, cover-to-cover (big feelings of inadequacy!).
I don’t know the medieval or Dominican liturgy very well at all.
I don’t really know the doctrine of St. Albert.
I haven’t memorized Isidore’s Etymologies.
I remember reading through Damascene’s De fide orthodoxa, but I’ve forgotten what it says!
I haven’t read through the whole Corpus Dionysiacum, or Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed, or…..ugh.

St. Thomas read and memorized all that without the benefit of the internet, copying machines, word processing software, etc., etc., but people like Richard Dawkins think they can waive their hand and dismiss him as "ignorant" and "superstitious." Compared to Aquinas, Dawkins doesn't have the intellectual firepower to carry St. Thomas' jockstrap.