Blogworthies XII

Because The Blog from the Core simply can't cover everything.

Noteworthy entries @ The Mighty Barrister; Discriminations; Mere Comments; little green footballs; Oh, That Liberal Media! GetReligion; Dust in the Light; Off the Record; Hoystory.com; Oh, That Liberal Media! (again), Envoy Encore, and Thrown Back.

Up For Discussion @ The Mighty Barrister (emphasis in original):

.... I can't speak for the numbers; I don't practice family law, and I have no personal knowledge as to the numbers. However, my impression is that women do initiate the bulk of marital separation and divorce.

Why?

I don't know. I suppose that many do so for marital infidelities (on both sides), fear, violence, and so on. I only know that it seems that women are more likely to initiate the legal proceedings — I don't know which side most often initiates the underlying problems that (eventually) lead to the legal proceedings.

The point of the article (to me, at least) is that government policies provide not just a safety net for failed marriages; in fact, they provide an alternative to marriage. In other words, these policies provide an incentive for failure....

The Emperor's New Clothes @ Discriminations:

In an article in today’s Washington Post, Jim VandeHei describes how the top management of Kerry’s campaign, all current or former Kennedy operatives, is planning to assist Kerry “to sell himself anew to voters as a 21st-century centrist Democrat, a muscular hawk on national defense and deficits.”

As an exercise in power political gymnastics (not to say contortions), this will be fun to watch....

Looking for Friends in the Universe @ Mere Comments:

.... I was thinking this morning about the people who seem very much to want to find life on other planets and indeed to have an essentially religious faith in their existence. I wonder if the secularists among them, having removed God from the cosmos, simply don’t like the idea of man being alone in the universe.

Aliens seem to me a very poor substitute for God, but if they won’t have God, what other possible friend from outside this world could they have, but creatures from other planets? The Christian would say that we are made to look for a Friend outside — St. Augustine’s “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee” is one of the ways this has been said — and if we won’t look for a Friend we will look for friends to take his place....

Peaceful Religion Watch @ little green footballs:

The ranting was slightly more apocalyptic and xenophobically paranoid than usual last Friday in the spiritual centers of Islam, all broadcast live over Arab television to millions of viewers....

WaPo Admits Bias @ Oh, That Liberal Media (emphasis in original):

The Washington Post's ombudsman, Michael Getler, admits the paper engaged in a little subjective phrasing in Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus' story about the now-famous Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) from August 6, 2001: ....

Air America: Burning churches in the village of Middle America @ GetReligion:

Veteran media critic David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times forced himself to listen to a full cycle of Air America the other day and he decided that the big news is how the liberal talk-radio franchise handles — religion. Well, that and sex. You may have noticed, however, that issues of sexual morality often play a major role in religion news reports these days.

Shaw said that he expected "my fellow liberals" to offer up huge doses of "paranoia and conspiratorial idiocy to match the conservative paranoia and conspiratorial idiocy that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and their ilk have used to turn talk radio into a powerful forum that liberals now blame for every social and political malady this side of tooth decay."

But what caught Shaw off guard was that Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, Randi Rhodes (shown with Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla.) and the other Air America stars seem so anxious to run away all listeners who do not already agree with them....

Actual Goodness and Inactual Bigotry @ Dust in the Light:

Michael Williams put something so well that it demands quotation. The boldface is his:

Many of the problems with our government arise from well-meaning people who reject the quaint notion of morality. They just can't encourage people to behave morally, so they chip, chip, chip away at the tiny freedoms that make immorality dangerous. They want to prove that the benefits of goodness can be separated from actual goodness. But they're wrong, and the result of their belief is the ridiculous, contradictory mess we've got now.

It's a bit like treating the symptoms; the disease will eventually manifest in a more dangerous form that is untreatable. Having not thought it through, I have to put this vaguely, but it may be that Michael's diagnosis points to the central difference between libertarians and small-government conservatives....

The Catholic Candidate from Massachusetts @ Off the Record:

The ironic comment from Amy Welborn.

She's referring, of course, to the other day's confab between John Kerry and Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, in light of the news that Senator Kerry, this year's Catholic presidential candidate, has just unleashed ads ATTACKING President Bush's pro-life stand, and pledging himself to guard the sacred "Freedom of Choice."

Apparently, even the bishops are increasingly feeling embarrassed over this situation — and we all know how bad a Situation has to get before they feel moved to begin to consider that they might have to start thinking about begining to do something about it. Presently, there's a Committee of Bishops working on this. Shortly — five or six years from now — I expect to see, on the USCCB website, a link to a site where I can order copies of "Always Our Candidates," a document/group study guide package on Pro-Choice Catholic politicians addressed to Faithful Catholics, exhorting them to adopt an understanding posture, affirming that these pro-choice Catholic pols do indeed belong to us, that nothing we've done has caused them to be pro-choice, and that the Catholic Tradition provides oodles of wisdom to help us through our disappointment... page after page of the anesthetizing prose of the consecrated bureaucracy.

Maybe it was the anchovies in last night's pizza, but I had a dream. An angel directed me to the website of the Diocese of Ostergothenburg, MN, where a link was provided to a pastoral letter of the Ordinary, Bishop Klaus Blitzkrieg, titled, 'PERSONALLY OPPOSED, BUT: A Monstrous Position.' Here's what the Bishop had to say: ....

Gorelick "testifies" @ Hoystory.com:

Instead of sitting before the 9/11 commission to be grilled on what she knows of how the Justice Department dealt with counterterrorism operations in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, commissioner Jamie Gorelick pens an op-ed piece in Sunday's Washington Post....

The unexamined life: worth living? @ Oh, That Liberal Media!

Julia Black, a 34-year-old British filmmaker, has created a controversial documentary which explores differences in perspective towards her recent pregnancy, which she chose to continue, and the one she had chosen to terminate when she was 21.

The author of the article, Peter Ross, exposes a rather telling insouciance midway through the piece....

Insist on the Genuine Article: Accept No Substitutes @ Envoy Encore:

I've encountered it many times. It usually comes from cradle Catholics who are absolutely blown away to find out that there are actually people out there that claim that Catholics are not Christians. They figure that as long as you believe in Jesus, it just doesn't matter what Christian sect you are part of. I have a friend who was trying to come into the Church against his families wishes, and when he visited a Priest he was told that as long as his family was attending a Christian church he shouldn't complain. I guess he figured one was as good as another.

More often than not, what we call ecumenism is really just compromise and concession. We take down our crucifixes and statues so that our Protestant brethren will feel more comfortable in our Parishes. We hide our rosaries and tuck that Miraculous Medal under our shirts so that they are not offended. We teach an entire year of RCIA without discussing Mary or the Real Presence or the Saints. Eeek, no. We might frighten them away. If any of the controversial stuff comes up in class we assure them they don't have to believe that stuff. (oh yeah, I've heard it!) We try to make our Catholic faith look like everyone else's so that we can be accepted into the post-Reformation "Christian Community."

Meanwhile, when Patrick, Carl or I go somewhere to speak, we are bombarded with questions during and afterward about how to bring sons and daughters and old friends back into the Church that have left for some other sect. They ask us how this could happen? How could they just up and leave the faith they were raised in? Many of these people are brokenhearted and represent a family torn apart by religious bigotry. They are in serious need of information and support....

Why We Have The Kerry Problem @ Thrown Back:

Is demonstrated neatly in this FoxNews.com article from Monday.

It is not enough for Senator Kerry to flaunt Church teaching on abortion by swearing everlasting fealty to Moloch, defending Partial-Birth Abortion, and voting against the "Born-Alive Infants" act. It is not enough for Kerry to have a 100% pro-abort rating with NARAL and NOW.

No, Senator Kerry goes beyond that to distort Catholic teaching, asserting a non-existent "freedom of conscience" which supposedly allows him to be a "good Catholic" while thumbing his nose at Church teaching.

Last week I suggested that one could charitably consider Kerry "befuddled and confused" in his understanding of Church teaching on abortion and his reponsibility as a legislator. But the fact is, Kerry and other Catholic politicians have been challenged on this account, and have been publicly corrected, and he persists in holding on to his erroneous and destructive position. It is becoming increasingly and rapidly impossible to avoid the conclusion that Kerry is obstinately and manifestly persisting in grave error, is challenging the teaching authority of the bishops, and is attempting to align himself and those in agreement with him as obedient to some sort of alternative magisterium....

See also Blogworthies XI and Blogworthies XIII.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 04/24/04 08:55:33 PM
Categorized as Blogworthies.