The American Religion: The Test of Blasphemy

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Some people make the vain assertion that Communism (of the Marxist-Leninist variety) is not a religion. As a student of religion, I couldn't fail to see the religious zealotry in the reaction of an accusation of blasphemy upon referring to Marx as "Uncle Karl." Where can we find acts of blasphemy in the American religion? Is flag burning an act of blasphemy?

During the catastrophe of the past decade, the people at an Internet site sold bumper stickers with an inverted flag. To gung-ho Bush worshipers, such an act of political expression may have seemed blasphemous. Did the Tea Partiers who now fly their flags inverted do so back in the day? Are they true believers in the American faith, or are they just in it for the money?

An American soldier recounted her experience in Iraq observing a woman and her infant lying dead by the side of the road. Such an atrocity cannot be seen as anything but the unfortunate consequences of Saddam Hussein's policy of deceiving people into thinking he still had an arsenal of weapons similar to the ones American soldiers employed during the previous century. If the fault of the dead baby were placed on the shoulders of American cowardice and delusion, that would be an act of blasphemy.

Do you have any experience of being accused of blasphemy, whether by a faithful American, a worshipful Marxist, or a zealous Bushite? If not, what are you doing wrong?

Sexual Abstinence, Sex Ed and the Public Interest

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks to ddstory , I was reminded that its sexual issues week.   I've always been really interested in the issue of sex education in the public school because it's an interesting intersection point between issues of public health and interest and privacy and personal morality.  So allow me to recycle, with minor editing,  some comments I made last year in response to news stories about the pope and condom usage.

As a simple matter of morality I'm disinclined to teach my children that the only prerequisite for sex is taking measures to protect oneself from STDs and pregnancy.  I think parents, at least this parent, want their children to recognize the intimacy of sex and teach them that there are reasons other than fear of STDs and pregnancy to not engage in it casually.  But even setting that aside, as aware as I am of the high infection rates for genital herpes and HPV, not to mention AIDS/HIV, I'm much less inclined to teach my kids, "hey, just use a rubber and everything will be okay". I'm much more likely to strongly urge them, simply in terms of risks to health, to minimize sexual activity until they're with a partner about whose past they're very clear and with whom there is a strong commitment (to lower the likelihood of misrepresentation of sexual history).  At this level, I guess I'm agreeing with the pope, condoms don't offer adequate protection and if the choice is between abstinence and using a condom, the safer choice is abstinence and I want my kids to understand that.  The risk-benefit analysis is fairly conclusive here, to my mind.  So, when teaching my kids, I promote and will continue to promote abstinence, while, of course, ensuring they have the facts about pregnancy, STDs and the avoidance of both.  And in light of STD and birth rate data, I'm also sympathetic to the advocacy of abstinence as a public health policy, but possibly parting ways with the pope in also believing that this should be accompanied by clearly presented facts about birth control, STD protection and STDs and access to such protection.  To put the public health policy comment in starker terms, I do think that school sex ed programs should be very clear that sexual abstinence is the safest and ergo likely the optimal option in most situations.   But I think that the biggest problem here is that we've created a false dilemma, I see no contradiction in advocating abstinence while ensuring that protection is clearly explained and accessible.   (Similarly, I intend to strongly discourage alcohol abuse while also making it clear to my kids that they can always call home for a ride if inebriated, without fear of retribution or punishment.)

Questions:
a) Does preparing adolescents for sex increase the likelihood they'll engage in it?
b) Do STD infection rates make you strongly inclined to discourage your (possibly hypothetical) kids from engaging in casual sex even if protected?  (Do they make you strongly disinclined to engage in casual sex?)
c) Should the public interest and public health concerns trump parental rights to shielding kids from sex ed content?

UPDATE: To clarify (c), I'm wondering not only if you think there should be sex ed in public schools but whether parents should be allowed to have their kids pulled out of class when such lessons occur.  (That is now the case, for example, in my kids' schools, parents can have their child sent to the library during the sex-ed lessons.)

I love Tony Hayward!

[readherring.livejournal.com]

I have mad, cuddly love for Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP.

I love Tony Hayward because he is so transparently out of touch, and is too self-absorbed to care. That comes across in his "Three's no one that wants this over more than I do" statement and his publicly lavish expendatures during this crisis. A more spin-savvy CEO would have kept his thoughts and behaviors under wraps, but not Tony. He lets it all hang out.

I love Tony Hayward because he is more of the CEO norm than he is the exception. The CEOs that I have encountered in my life have all been egotistical, driven by personal gain, and fairly out of touch because they couldn't be arsed to stay in touch. Tony's behavior doesn't surprise me at all. One of my former CEOs showed up the day after a redundancy (in American English, that's a layoff) in a brand new $100,000 BMW. Another regularly published his gripes about employees in our informal internal newsletter. Yet another has the top floor of his building covered with framed pictures of himself, and has made yachting an essential part of his job duties. But that's OK - their jobs aren't to life the life of an ascetic. Their jobs are to give a general direction to their companies, and to make sure that cash keeps flowing. They are not responsible for the public good.

I love Tony Hayward because he reminds us at a time when some conservatives are treating government like it is the cancer on society, that big business is the cancer that infects both government and society. Sure - not all businesses are bad, and not all government is good, but at least a democratic government is ultimately beholden to the people. Even if 90-95% of the time that government stuffs itself with pork-filled shenanigans, there is a point where things go critical and the people find actions intolerable. Then that government must change its ways. The only way a big business can be kept in check like that is throught the intervention of government. Our government, which has a beautiful system of checks and balances for most powers, was created before overreaching corporations became a major political concern. Tony reminds us why we need to push our government to keep business under reasonable checks.

I love Tony Hayward because of the way he's run BP. No, no I don't. When he became CEO, he made it very clear that he didn't give a rat's ass about the environment or developing new energies for the future. His goal was to suck as much money out of the Earth as quickly as possible, then worry about consequences later. Well, now it's later. If I ever met Tony Haward, I'd throw him under a bus.

Obama sues Arizona

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

Just when you think the Obama administration disregard for the rule of law couldn't get any worse it sets the bar that much lower.

The government contends that the Arizona law violates the supremacy clause of the Constitution, a legal theory that says federal laws override state laws. It is already illegal under federal law to be in the country illegally, but Arizona is the first state to make it a state crime and add its own punishment and enforcement tactics.

Gosh, in the same way that states pursuing bank robbers usurps the federal laws against bank robbery?

Obama & Co. also seem blissfully unaware that there are dozens of state laws against activities that are illegal at the federal level. Are they going to argue that all of them are invalid?

Obama and holder are giving the Constitution the middle finger and violating the rights of states that are clearly defined in the Constitution as well as ignoring the duties and limitations of the federal government contained in that document.

Do Obama and Holder really think they can pull off something so egregiously anti-American?

I'd love to see counter-suits from states that recognize the federalism defined by the Constitution and which object to the callous disregard for the rule of law being perpetrated by the Obama administration.

It will be amusing to see how many people who claimed that Bush was "shredding the Constitution" stand up and object to a real raping of the rule of law.

So is this the lowest Obama and Holder can go or will we see worse by November?

ETA: court decisions and DOJ analysis. If you read carefully there's an out for Obama to play: declare that immigration laws are not being enforced at the federal level so states cannot enforce them either. It's a move that would satisfy the extremists on his side but pretty much cause a political tsunami against Democrats who continued to support Obama.

Speaking of abstinence - Catholic priest embezzles 1.5 million from parish and hired gay escorts

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Rev. Kevin J. Gray, 64

Father Kevin J. Gray is under arrest in Connecticut for embezzling $1.3M from his parish, money he allegedly spent on luxury vacations and lavishly appointed rentboys. Rev. Kevin J. Gray, 64, was charged today with first-degree larceny. Police said he used church funds to pay for hotels, restaurant meals, clothing and male escorts. Gray turned himself in to authorities this morning and is scheduled to be arraigned in Waterbury Superior Court today. Gray was placed on medical leave by Hartford Archbishop Henry J. Mansell on April 15.

In March of this year, Gray presided over 40 couples (photo below) as they renewed their opposite marriage vows in a ceremony created by the Hartford Archdiocese's anti-gay Family Life Office. In January, the Hartford Archdiocese endorsed the anti-gay Manhattan Declaration, which calls on Christians to disobey all LGBT rights laws. The Hartford Archdiocese has also denounced same-sex marriage in DC and in April they claimed that out of all child molestation cases, "less than two per cent [are committed], allegedly, by Catholic clergy," therefore the problem is "societal" and not theirs.*

What's not mentioned in this article, Sacred Heart parish, where Fr. Gray pastored, is an extremely poor parish in a poor city. But what ironically sent up a red flag up was Gray's theft of the "cathedraticum" (which is the annual assessment made by the archdiocese of each parish to support central operations). Poorer parishes tend to be more easily victimized by their priests because of the inherent culture, with fewer safeguards (e.g. qualified personnel on parish councils to review the books, etc) to prevent such skimming.



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* If anyone is interested in losing their lunch: check out the entire document here. It makes New York archbishop Timothy Dolan's defense of Pope Benedict look tame which Matt Tiabbi correctly stated was a "incredibly pompous and self-pitying rant [and] is some of the most depraved horseshit I’ve ever seen on the Internet, which is saying a lot. But I almost couldn’t believe my eyes as I read through Dolan’s retort and it dawned on me that he was actually going to use the “We weren’t the only child molesters!” excuse. Dolan must have very roomy man-robes, because it seems to me you’d need a set of balls like two moons of Jupiter to say such a thing in public and expect it to fly."