There are two possible reasons why someone from an alleged financial network, and therefore someone supposed to know her stuff, could say something this stupid (it’s short):
1. She is, in fact, very stupid.
2. She is shamelessly serving the interests of her corporate masters.
I mean, even my social security clients, many of whom are seriously mentally ill, know that you can’t get Medicare when you’re 45.
Think Progress reports on a Missouri School District that forced its marching band to return T-shirts it ordered. The T-Shirt’s design is depicted below.
The reason?
Assistant superintendent Brad Pollitt explained that the t-shirts were banned because they were imposing on religious views:
Though the shirts don’t violate the school’s dress code, Pollitt noted that the district is required by law to remain neutral on religion.
“If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections’ and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing,” Pollitt said.
Now, most likely this is just another example of school administrators following the path of least resistance. The fundamentalists will stand up and scream but the rationalist can usually be counted on to keep discretely silent. In this country, it’s considered unseemly to openly advocate for reason.
But it’s always possible that Mr. Pollitt actually believes he is being neutral on religion, which means that he thinks that evolution is a religious faith. It follows, then, that all of science is merely a religious faith, and that we can no longer safely assert in the public schools that the planets go around the sun, that the earth is round, or that the moon is not made of green cheese.
In point of fact, this is not neutrality on religion, this is an establishment of religion, since it basically holds that the public school will not allow recognition of any fact which contradicts any article of faith, no matter how absurd that faith may be. There’s a good article here pointing out that a) almost every religion believes some arrant nonsense that science has proven to be false, and b) that it is highly unlikely that Mr. Pollitt would have felt any need to be neutral between scientific fact and lunatic beliefs held by non-Christians (thus proving my point that this action is really an establishment of religion, specifically the totally ignorant variant of the Christian religion).
We are truly an ignorant nation.
My wife and I subscribe to Funny Times, which is indeed funny. However, the current issue (not on line) has a not terribly funny, but entertaining interview with sometime Funny Times contributor Lenore Skenazy, who has lately earned the sobriquet: “America’s Worst Mom”. Her crime? She let her 9 year old son take the subway by himself, after he proved to her that he was man enough to handle the trek on his own. She wrote a column about it, and all hell apparently descended upon her.
I’m in perfect agreement with her basic thesis, which is that we have allowed ourselves to be terrified into believing that the world is a far more dangerous place than it is, and as a result many of us have wrapped our kids in cocoons that destroy their childhoods and stifle their ability to act independently.
This little interchange brought me up somewhat short, however:
Q: Why were our parents different from today’s parents?
A. Our parents were watching Dallas and Dynasty, where the biggest crime was big hair. Today’s parents are drowning in bad news …
Hold on a minute! That was me. I actually did watch Dallas, which is a story for another day. But in my recollection, the parents of my day were already far down the road toward overprotection. Is it possible that things have gotten even worse for our poor kids?
Maybe it has always been thus. When my kids were small I used to tell them that when I was young I used to have to put cardboard in my shoes to plug the holes. It wasn’t true, but I got the story from my father, about whom I suspect that it was. But it is a fact that when I was young, I walked to school (about a mile each way) every day from first grade on, rain or shine (I have a distinct recollection of the exception to the rule, when my mother actually picked us up when it was slamming down rain. ). When I felt like going somewhere I hopped on a bus, something I was certainly doing when I was nine, since I used to go to Korvette’s in downtown Hartford to waste my hard earned newspaper delivery money. If we felt like playing baseball, we went to Elizabeth Park, by ourselves, and played with whoever happened to be there. Not only did I go by myself, I don’t think I regularly bothered to inform my mother about where I was going. There were six of us, so she couldn’t keep track anyway. If Mark Twain is to be believed, the life of a kid in Hannibal was even more detached from parental oversight. If this pattern of ever increasing parental oversight holds true, what a constricted life the children of today’s children will be living.
I don’t think my experience was unusual, and I do think that it helped us become capable of living and acting independently. So hurrah for Ms. Skenazy for striking a blow for kiddie liberation. You can’t read the interview on-line, but she has a blog (who doesn’t?) you can visit here at freerangekids.com. It’s chock full of examples of the absurd lengths to which we have gone to “protect” our children.
My wife discovered these two gourds growing on the outside of the fence around her garden. They’re at least two feet long. I guess all this rain must be good for something. It’s surprising the deer don’t eat them, since they appear to eat everything else we would rather they leave alone.
My son says on his Facebook page that he attended a large pro health care event in New York City yesterday, which as far as I can see went unmentioned in the Times today. The sad fact is that without mention in the press these events may as well not take place, since if they are not covered they can safely be ignored by all the major actors in the debate.
I’m reminded of the many anti-Bush demonstrations that were ignored, despite substantial numbers of participants. There were demonstrations at both of his inaugurations, which were ignored. There were massive demonstrations against the war in Iraq, which were trivialized, with the numbers attending obviously minimized.
Nowadays, 10 anti-health care people at a forum are news, and if they do something totally outrageous, like comparing Obama to Hitler, intimidating people with guns, or chanting Heil Hitler to a Jewish health care supporter, they get on national television. The entire Democratic Party felt the need to condemn Moveon because one person posted a video that compared Bush to Hitler, but the Republican party floats unscathed above an ocean of such comparisons, to which Republican Congressmen and Senators give tacit and sometimes near explicit condonation.
This sort of asymmetry is interesting. A crowd of progressives or millions of anti-war protesters get less coverage, and less respect, than a few militia types or a handful of uninformed, Limbaugh manipulated racists.
Democrats don’t help, since they make no attempt to shape the debate. Still, it’s amazing how easily the right can dominate the conversation with lies and cries of victimhood.
Sheila Horvitz, of Takeback.org, has written to let me know that her organization and the Colchester Democratic Town Committee will be hosting a gubernatorial forum on Monday, September 21st at the Colchester Library. I’ll check back with Sheila on the exact time, and I’ll post something again as the date draws closer.
She asked if I had any questions to pass along for the candidates and potential candidates (other than Amann, I think they’re all still exploring). Anyone out there have any suggestions?
Update: The forum will start at 6:30. Amman, Bysiewicz, LeBeau and Malloy will be there, and Nancy DiNardo will be on hand as well. You can download the flyer below.
The Boston Globe reports that the Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocese is trying to keep the public from seeing internal documents bearing on the decisions made by the present Cardinal of New York relating to the assignment and re-assignment of child molesting priests:
A Roman Catholic diocese in Connecticut has invoked the First Amendment’s separation of church and state in a request to the US Supreme Court to let it keep clergy sexual abuse documents under seal, a move that appeared to contradict the church’s recent pledges of openness.
Justice Ginsburg, a female and a Jew to boot, turned down the Church’s request, though to this lawyer the church’s argument is so clearly correct that one must suspect some sort of animus on her part. How could anyone disagree with this reasoning:
“Because courts lack a legitimate role under the First Amendment to examine a church’s employment decisions regarding its ministers, the courts similarly lack constitutional authority to require a church to produce and publicly disclose confidential internal documents or testimony that would be germane only to second-guessing those decisions,’’ the diocese wrote in its 33-page court filing.
Not to worry, the Church decided to do some Justice shopping, and has asked good Catholic male (and rumored Opus Dei member) Antonin (the “Fixer”) Scalia to overrule the presumptuous Jewess:
Following the Ginsburg decision, the diocese specifically asked Justice Antonin Scalia to keep the documents under seal until the full high court decides on whether to take up the review.
Personally, I can’t see why they asked Scalia, since he’ll obviously bend over backwards to avoid any appearance that his personal preferences might play a role in his decision making.
The documents in question were produced in connection with a series of lawsuits (23 of them, but who’s counting?) in the course of production and disclosure and motion practice. Some nosey newspapers are asking for copies of the documents, and the lower court judge agreed they should see them. The Connecticut Justices (all but one of whom will surely rot in Hell) barely discuss the First Amendment issue, choosing instead to focus on the purely irrelvant fact that the Church had not asserted a privilege during the litigation itself, and had therefore waived it. (I’ve attached a copy of the Connecticut decision below).
We can only hope this injustice will not stand. It’s self evident that the Church’s decisions about it’s pedophiliac priests are nobody else’s business. Why, in my mind’s eye I can almost see the type of intrusion into matters of religion that might result from this. What havoc to true religion would be caused if documents something like this were to surface?
Memo to: The Right Reverend Bishop Bernard O’Shaugnessy
From: Father Francis Vespucci Don BoscoAs you know, we have to make some personnel decisions in the coming weeks. You have asked for my recommendations and I enclose them herewith.
Father O’Malley, over at Our Lady of the Perpetual Agony, needs reassignment. People are asking questions. As you know, Father O’Malley prefers boys age 4 to 6, so we recommend he be transferred to supervise the Kindergarten at Our Lord of the Barely Beating Heart Church. In the name and to the glory of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
Father Sarducci, at Communist Martyrs High is asking for a transfer. He has been unable to cope with the high rate of pregnancy among the girls at the school, and in fact some of the parents are suggesting that he bears some responsibility in the matter. As you know, we have managed to hold off paternity testing on First Amendment grounds. We are recommending that he take over duties as gym instructor and wrestling coach at the School of the Weeping Virgin Female Academy, a post in which he has expressed a great deal of interest. May God’s work bear fruit through him in his new endeavors.
The Cardinal of Los Angeles has asked us to find a place for Father Scalia, who recently completed his probation in California. Luckily, he had his little troubles (for which he has made a full and sincere Act of Contrition) before the sex offender registration law was passed there. Father Scalia prefers to work with teenage boys, so I am recommending that he work here with me at the Seven Sacred Wounds and the Crown of Thorn Rehablitation Center. As you know, I am also fond of teenagers, and can likely be of assistance in helping the good father learn a little discretion, if you take my meaning. In Jesus name may our work be blessed.
I sincerely hope that these suggestions meet with your favor. May I add that I look forward to receiving some of your favors when next we meet.
It’s fairly obvious that this sort of thing is entitled to constitutional protection. You can see he’s talking about God all the way through. What does it matter that the Church’s argument would essentially give it carte blanche to assign priests to where the pickings are good or the questions are few? We liberals believe that there should be a wall of seperation between Church and State, and so does the Catholic Church, particularly when the wall is between the law and the Church’s money and/or its reputation. It follows that there should be no consequences if the Church enables a little harmless child molestation, since in doing so it is by definition doing God’s work.
Afterword: In all seriousness, the Church’s argument would appear to preclude even criminal investigations into these matters, or at least preclude any requirement that the Church provide any information with respect to such an investigation. If this information is constitutionally privileged in some instances, it is privileged in all.
Snow Leopard installed successfully on my Mac. So far so good, except the alleged quick install time (supposedly 15 minutes) is a fiction. It took almost an hour on both my computer and my wife’s. Everything seems to work fine, with the single exception of my blog editing software, which I will have to stop using until it’s updated. I wrote the company an email and received a reply within 20 minutes, to the effect that they expect to update soon. That sort of response is pretty impressive.
The Mail program is supposed to work seamlessly with Microsoft Exchange 2007. It didn’t work for me, but I suspect that’s because my firm is probably running Microsoft Exchange 1993 or something.
As advertised, nothing terribly exciting. We’ll see if there is really a speed enhancement. Hard to tell so far.
A mini concert somewhat suggested by Teddy Kennedy’s passing. I think for a lot of us who lived through the turbulent sixties, his death brings back memories of former years and former Kennedys.
First choice is obvious I guess. Dion singing Abraham, Martin and John. I guess now Teddy’s on that hill, though we can be thankful he didn’t die young.
There was another video of Dion from back in the 60s, but someone spliced in a picture of Jefferson Davis in part of the tape, so I nixed that one. I guess you can say the song is a bit maudlin, but there’s nothing wrong with maudlin once in a while. When I was searching youtube for a good version of this song I also happened upon two interesting audio only (and therefore ineligible for posting) versions, one my Moms Mabley. The other is by Marvin Gaye. What a sweet voice the man had. Well worth searching out, if you’re interested.
This next song needs some explanation, since it has no explicit connection to Kennedys or politics, but I remember (at least I think I remember) seeing it performed on television back in 1968 or so, accompanied by images of the train carrying RFK’s body to Washington from New York. It evokes some of the sense of despair, the “empty and achin'” that the twin deaths of MLK and RFK engendered.
Another from Simon and Garfunkel, sans Simon this time.
This is the best version I could find, the second best is a studio rehearsal version for a special, perhaps the same show I remember, that Simon and Garfunkel were to do sponsored by AT&T. The story is here:
A week before the show was due on the air, they showed the film to Bell, who rejected it completely. It was out of the question. They strongly objected to a sequence with Robert and John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, using Bridge over Troubled Water as background. According to Paul, their objection was on the grounds that: “They were all Democrats. There’s no Republicans in there. And we said, “Is that what you get? How about that they were all assassinated””
Well, they’re still all Democrats, and Teddy can claim to have been a bridge for a lot of folks.
It has been said (Shakespeare again, naturally) that “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them”. But which applies to Teddy Kennedy? Born to a political family and practically fated to a life in politics, thrust to the forefront by the violent deaths of three older brothers, he ultimately achieved greatness on his own by his tireless dedication to the principles for which he stood, and which he vigorously defended, through good times and bad, throughout his political career.
He was imperfect, like every other human being, but no one can deny that throughout his life this son of privilege, stood with the weak, the oppressed, the forgotten, and the common man and woman (compare a certain other son of privilege who shall remain unnamed). This country would have been an infinitely better place had there been more Teddy Kennedys in the Senate.
It’s a sad fact of life that we want what we cannot have and fail to appreciate what we have. My generation grew up on Kennedys. We idolized and, after his death, practically sanctified JFK, still wonder what could have been had Bobby not been killed, but have tended to take Teddy for granted. Yet was there any other person in public life that so consistently stood up for liberal principles, no matter which way the prevailing political winds were blowing. Would his brothers, had they lived, have stood the test of time so well?
He had his faults, but now that his life has run its course, we can say without question that his audit stands well to the good. In 1980 he gave the speech of this life, and the final paragraphs can surely stand as his epitaph:
And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:
“I am a part of all that I have met
To [Tho] much is taken, much abides
That which we are, we are —
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”…
For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.
With him gone, the Senate looks even more like a collection of political pygmies. Warts and all, he towered above them. As the Bard said: He was a man, take him for all in all, [we] shall not look upon his like again.