"Self-Styled Muslim Cleric" engages in act of terrorism.

You have to admire CNN which makes sure that the reader knows that this terrorist wasn't really a "Muslim cleric."

//Australian police stormed the cafe where a self-styled Muslim cleric had been holding hostages early Tuesday, ending a crisis that had shut down central Sydney for hours.//

One wonders where this marvelous restraint is when they report on "Catholic Women Priests."

//Four Roman Catholic Women Ordained RC Bishops by Roman Catholic Womenpriests//

Gender Fluidity is not fluid enough.

David Mamet shuts down play that wanted to recast his female character as a male and make a play about gender relations into one about homosexuals.

Here's a review of the production:

[First-time director Erin] Eggers made the daring decision to cast a man — Ben Parman — as a transgendered version of Carol. Mamet's script provides support for this; Carol refers to herself at one point as "of some doubtful sexuality" and as having overcome sexual "prejudices" and "humiliations."

All of which explains why Carol might view John's clumsy and paternalistic efforts to help her through gendered glasses. Parman himself takes care of the rest, embodying a Carol whose very body language — stiff, angular and uncomfortable — reflects Carol's fear and fury at an outside world she views as an implacable enemy.

The play (which I've seen in the theater and read) is about the relationship between a male and a female. It's specifically all about the male teacher/female student relationship. If it's about 2 men, it's a different story. There's nothing wrong with telling different stories, bouncing off an old text, and any given production can stand on its own merit, but Mamet owns the rights, and he has control for now. But should he have been more accommodating?

Interesting observation about changing the nature of the play.

And interesting connection to the women priests issue.

Another reason to defund NPR...

...because it seems to think that it is the successor to St. Peter.

Which would make it a church, and I believe in the Separation of Church and State.

NPR issues one of its perennial encyclicals that "Female Priests Defy Catholic Church At The Altar."

On a recent June day in Maryland, four more women were ordained as priests. The gallery at St. John's United Church of Christ was filled with Catholic priests and nuns, there to support the women and the ordination movement — though visitors were asked not to photograph them. Witnessing the ceremony was enough to risk excommunication.


The audience turned to watch as the women made their way down the aisle, beaming like brides. The two-and-a-half-hour ceremony ended with Holy Communion — the moment they'd been waiting for. Each woman performed the rites for the first time as a priest, breaking bread and serving wine as tears of joy flowed down their faces.

From a Catholic standpoint, they were women pretending to be priests - they weren't ordained, and the wine and bread they were playing with stayed wine and bread, which insofar as they thought it was the Body and Blood of Christ makes them guilty of idolatry.

That's their problem.

In another cut-and-paste excerpt from a previous story of this kind, NPR offers:

As members of the Roman Catholic Church, these female priests are all breaking church rules, which allow ordination only to baptized males. No member of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests has been excommunicated by the Church, but they have felt repercussions. They've not only been threatened but also have lost friends and colleagues within the Church — many of whom fear they will lose their jobs if they support the women's ordination movement openly.


LaRosa recognizes they are breaking Church law — specifically Canon 10:24 — but says, "when you have an unjust law, sometimes it needs to be broken before it can be changed."

Because, you know it's all about "rules."

My problem is where is the journalist guidelines about giving some deference to reality. If a group of women get together and call themselves the Supreme Court, does NPR start referring them as "justices"?  I doubt it.  So, why does NPR get to appoint itself as a super-magisterium in this situation?

By the way, it is probably too much to expect NPR to get the little facts right when it is acting as the Vicar of Christ, but there is no Canon 10:24.  There is a Canon 1024 which declares that only a baptized male can be licitly ordained, but no Canon 10:24.

Which suggests that NPR couldn't be bothered to check the facts with the Catholic side of this issue even to the extent of reading the on-line Canon Law.

Here is Newsbusters' take.