Random Thoughts

This can’t be what Peter had in mind

I am not a Catholic. I don’t think that precludes me from having any insight into the Catholic church though. As a Protestant having sent two daughters through six years each of Catholic school, and engaged in a total of nine years worth of commensurate reading and discussions, I have learned more than the average non-Catholic typically knows about that religion.

That being said, I just don’t get the way the Catholic Church is handling sexual abuse committed by priests. Or rather failing to handle it. I just don’t get it.

I don’t get why the current Pope wouldn’t defrock a priest who committed repeated acts of sodomy on young boys. I don’t get his rationale. Call me confused; it seems to me that the abuse of a child mandates a millstone around the neck approach if anything does.

But I’m not a Catholic, so maybe there’s some mysterious intangible element to the priesthood that innately absolves them of responsibility for in-your-face repeated sins.

When I read stories like this in the Onion,

VATICAN CITY—Calling the behavior shameful, sinful, and much more frequent than the Vatican was comfortable with, Pope Benedict XVI vowed this week to bring the widespread pedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church down to a more manageable level.

Addressing thousands gathered at St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday, the pontiff offered his “most humble apologies” to abuse victims, and pledged to reduce the total number of molestations by 60 percent over the next five years.

and I see videos like this on YouTube,

I figure there is a clear reason this kind of satire is being directed at the Church, and it’s because the Church is failing to deal adequately with a profoundly disturbing problem. It seems to me that the Catholic Church has reached the point where Jonathan Swift would be saying, if you don’t want to deal with the problem of starvation in a rational manner, perhaps you ought to consider eating the babies. Or in this case, using “Priest Off.”

There simply is no excuse for this. It’s right up there with the historic abuses of the Catholic Church. At least when they sold indulgences, people weren’t literally getting screwed.

There are a number of deeply faithful Catholic bloggers out there, and I have been wondering what they made of this situation. How are they dealing with the abject failure of their leadership to protect children?

The Anchoress seems to be urging patience toward the Pope, while Mark Shea at Inside Catholic blames the media for creating a “feeding frenzy” upon the Pope.

Allison at Why I am Catholic reminds us that the Church needs prayer.

And Greg at the Deacon’s Bench points out that statistically priests probably don’t commit sexual abuse of children more than any other segment of the population.

I’m not a Catholic. I don’t have the same veneration for the Pope or any Church leader below him that a Catholic does. I don’t particularly blame him, nor do I absolve him; I figure every human being is responsible for their own sins. I do know though that this entire situation, including the way Catholics are responding to it, doesn’t make me want to become a Catholic.

If I was a Catholic, I’d be demanding action. After all, it is their Church.

Take their keys, please

When I first got my driver’s license at age 16, my dad told me, “Driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege.” I told my teens the same thing when they got their licenses. Why then do we think that once we’ve gotten a license, barring any run-ins with the law, that license ought to be ours until the day we die?

Why do we let people who are clearly past the age where they can drive safely continue to do so until someone–and invariably it’s not them, it’s some helpless passerby–dies?

I’ve long thought that there ought to be annual mandatory drivers tests for everyone over 70 years old.

Elderly woman gets 9 months in church crash

SANTA ANA – A 75-year-old woman who fatally ran over an 89-year- old woman in a church parking lot and left the scene was sentenced Friday to nine months in jail, with the possibility of home confinement.Ana Maria Torres fatally struck Jessie Pound on Aug. 26, 2007, as Torres drove out of the parking lot of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Placentia. Pound was walking to her church, Placentia Presbyterian Church, 849 N. Bradford Ave. The two churches share a parking lot.

Although witnesses said they could hear Pound’s head being crushed as it was run over, Torres left the scene and drove to a family function in Corona.

In a non-jury bench trial last month, Orange County Superior Court Judge David A. Thompson found Torres guilty of felony hit and run causing death, misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter by unlawful act with gross negligence, and providing false information to a police officer, along with a sentencing enhancement for causing great bodily injury.

At Friday’s sentencing, Torres continued to proclaim her innocence, prompting the judge to say he didn’t see any “true remorse.”

…Deputy District Attorney Jason Baez said he did not seek the maximum sentence of four years in prison because of her age, but still recommended jail time because Torres “repeatedly lied” to authorities as they investigated Pound’s death.Baez said Torres lied to police about which Mass she attended that morning and initially claimed she walked to church, even though Pound’s DNA was found on a piece of her slacks that were found under Torres’ 1991 Mercury Cougar, Baez said.

Speaking in Spanish, Torres claimed on Friday that she was manhandled by a police officer and that he refused to give her her medicine while she was in custody.

“I am not guilty, the guilty one is outside,” Torres said through the court’s translator. She pointed to her arm, “Look at this,” as if pointing to a scar or injury, “When he pull me out of the car he told me, ‘Killer. I’m going to incarcerate you.’

…Torres’ statement took her defense attorney, Gary Pohlson, by surprise, but he argued that it was further proof that she did not know she ran over Pound.“To a certain degree it’s extremely hard to talk right now because I didn’t expect her to say that,” Pohlson said. “But I’m glad she did because I truly believe she does not believe she did this crime.”

Thompson was not impressed.

“At the end of the day she’s not remorseful,” Thompson said. “She denies her actions and it’s not credible given the nature of the evidence presented.”

Anna Marie Torres

There’s something horribly ironic about an elderly woman lying about where she attended mass after killing someone in the church parking lot. Do you suppose she confessed that before the next mass? Either she’s truly an awful person, or she’s so mentally enfeebled by age that she really is incapable of recognizing what she did. Either way, she ought to have had her license and car keys removed long before she ever encountered Jessie Pound.

We really need to get people like this off the road before they run someone over.

God’s partner in matters of life and death

This morning I took Youngest Son to his new middle school for the first time. Dropped him off, watched him walk confidently away. The sun was shining in a cloudless blue sky (it’s SoCal and this is normal August weather). I was feeling pretty good about the day.

I got home, checked my email and found that I’d sold another of Youngest Daughter’s last semester textbooks on half.com. Wonderful system, half.com; I’ve saved literally hundreds of dollars each semester in textbook costs and resold most of the books I’ve bought. The day was really looking good.

Then I read this:

In a morning conference call with about 1000 rabbis from across the nation, Obama asked for aid: “I am going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform,” the President told the group, according to Rabbi Jack Moline, who tweeted his way through the phoner.

“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama went on to say, according to Moline’s real-time stream.

Well there went my happy morning. On a certain level the arrogance of Obama’s statement engenders cynical laughter. So, if he’s “God’s partner in matters of life and death,” did God have a vote when it came to Obama’s support of Planned Parenthood, and his refusal to vote against partial birth abortion? Just wondering.

God’s partner in matters of life and death…

Far more than laughter though, Obama’s declaration of partnership with God in “matters of life and death” makes me feel rather ill. That deep-in-the-pit-of-the-stomach something-is-horribly-wrong-here sort of ill. There is no end to the man’s profound arrogance, no limit to the power he presumes, even to take on equality with God in “matters of life and death.” He’s not Jesus Christ, he thinks he’s more powerful than Jesus Christ. Christ himself “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” Servanthood eludes this particular public servant though, and Obama calls himself God’s own partner in determining mortality.

At least this clarifies one persistent question about Obamacare: Obama thinks matters of life and death ought to be in the hands of the government. And that speaks volumes about the murky mystery that is his health care reform plan.

For further consideration:

Victor Davis Hansen explains the rather creepy and sudden invocation of religion in the health care debate (H/T The Anchoress).

Neo-Neocon provides an eloquent and thorough examination of the problem with health care reform:

These are some of the very basic problems with any health care reform bill:

(1) Good health care is extremely expensive, and cutting costs will always mean denial of benefits. And even if the rhetoric says that only the unnecessary fat will be cut, medicine is not a good enough science that we can tell in advance what’s a necessary test or procedure and what is not.

(2) People logically assume that insuring everyone will have to cost more money, and they also know that there’s no magic way to get that money. People are also aware that government estimates of the cost of programs are usually underestimates, sometimes by a large factor.

(3) People are especially wary of government control over this particular aspect of their lives because it is so personal and so vital at the same time.

(4) Government-run enterprises are generally distrusted, and considered inefficient and intrusive. People know that from past and present experience.

(5) In this country there is still a widely-held philosophical strain of belief in personal initiative and responsibility rather than nanny-statism. This is in contrast to the belief system of European populations, and so it’s no surprise that European governments have encountered far less resistance to government involvement in health care than is found in this country.

Therefore it’s no surprise that the US has failed to pass universal health care so far, and especially a public option. And it’s also no surprise that there’s been a great deal lot of opposition to Obamacare, since the basic problems presented by the five points above have been compounded by the fact that the rhetoric of those pushing the bill has been entirely unconvincing in its attempts at reassurance.

And Richard Bean sums up the underlying problem with Obama’s entire approach to health care:

This fantasy–that the government will take away all our worries and pay for everything–is the result of years of the entitlement mentality that is sponsored by liberalism. It takes only a few glances at history to see where socialism leads. The shiny allure of handing over your life to be paid for by others has never led a society to greatness or goodness. It has led to a decay in morality, productivity, responsibility, and most importantly a decay in freedom.

Scottish values

There are many reasons why Scotland never has been and never will be a world power. Why it was rolled over by England. Why it–despite persistent calls for Scottish independence–is of no substantive worth in terms of global politics.

This is one big reason:

The release from prison Thursday of the only person ever convicted in the 1988 bombing that killed 270 people aboard a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland angered and outraged victims’ relatives, who said they were left feeling wronged again.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released Thursday after serving eight years of a life sentence in a Scottish prison. Scottish officials said the former Libyan intelligence officer’s prostate cancer was advancing and that they were bound by Scottish values to release him. He was recently given only months to live.

“Scottish values?” What the heck would those be, I wonder. Apparently making sure that a mass murderer has a comfortable death at home is “Scottish values.” Apparently “Scottish values” come down firmly on the side of a convicted felon who gave no comfort nor mercy to 270 innocent travelers. Apparently Scottish values include trampling on the law that demanded a life sentence for the murderer, figuring that 8 years served was enough. That would be about ten and a half days served for each murdered passenger.

Cohen and other relatives said they believe he was released so world leaders could appease Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi because access to his nation’s oil is so important….The Times of London reported that al-Megrahi was to return to Libya in Gadhafi’s jet — something else the victims’ families saw as an affront.

Gadhafi will be visiting New York in September, where he will address the UN immediately after Obama. We can look forward to the photo op of the two men smiling and shaking hands like old friends. Nobody is as cordial to dictators and thugs as the current US President.

Obama and good buddy Hugo Chavez

“Twenty years later, this is the last sad chapter where government leaders have no moral backbone,” said Bert Ammerman of River Vale, whose brother Tom was killed on the flight.

Certainly Scottish leaders have no moral backbone. I suppose in that way they’re no different than any other politicians.

Obama was bold enough to call al-Megrahi’s release “a mistake.” Mr. President, putting a tablespoon rather than a teaspoon of salt in the stew is a “mistake.” Letting a convicted murderer go scot-free (pun totally intended) is a disgusting travesty of justice.

In other news…

The MSM is determined to brush off concerns about Obamacare. Gateway Pundit offers startling insight into the mentality behind end of life care and the Obama health care plan. When they say “You don’t need to worry,” that’s when you ought to really start worrying.

The creator of the Obama Joker posters is 2009′s answer to Cool Hand Luke. H/T Brutally Honest.

And this ought to be mandatory reading for anyone even remotely curious about the whole Cash for Clunkers program. H/T Flopping Aces.

Moral Relativism in the Classroom

Last night I encountered my very first genuine authentic really truly straighforward moral relativist.

It was quite fascinating. And it affirmed for me why it’s been a Good Idea to spend considerable effort and money over the years to provide a private school education for my children.

Imagine if you will the setting of our encounter: A university classroom, filled with 25 adults ranging from under age 21 to well past age 40. Their one thing in common is that all are attempting to become credentialed California school teachers.

The class is entitled “Social and Cultural Foundations of Education.” The professor is an elderly gentleman with a PhD and more years of academic experience than I’ve been alive.

Last night’s initial discussion topic was “A teacher’s character is more important than a teacher’s technique. Yes or no?” Using several texts and a Power Point presentation, the professor engaged the class in a discussion of character and authority as it relates to teaching. Being as we’re in California, and multiculturalism/diversity is a huge issue, eventually we were talking about how to handle students who come to our classrooms with cultural baggage that is unacceptable in the US (treating women as inferior, for example).

And that’s when the moral relativist–I’ll call her “Daisy”–entered the discussion with this statement:

“Who are we to decide what’s ‘moral’ or ‘right’ and what’s not?”

Her tone was decidedly aggressive; she clearly had a firm opinion to express.

The professor smiled in that “Oh good, I’m going to make an example of you” manner that invariably tells me it would be wisest not to respond to whatever he says next.

He asked, “Well, there are moral absolutes, aren’t there?”

Daisy’s tone became more pugnacious. “Only what the law defines, and who are we to say that our laws are right for everyone? Who are we to impose them on the rest of the world?”

“So you don’t think there are any stituations, any behaviors, that are simply always wrong?”

“Only if they’re against the law. Apart from the law, no. There are no moral absolutes apart from the law. And our laws only apply here.”

“Well, Daisy, what about rape? The violation of another person? Wouldn’t that be a moral absolute, absolutely wrong?” The professor’s smile widened, thinking he had her trapped.

Daisy didn’t miss a beat. “It depends on the laws of the country. In some places it wouldn’t be wrong. If it’s acceptable in another country, that’s their choice.”

The professor’s mouth came very close to literally dropping open, his smile gone in an instant. “Well…we’re clearly not going to agree on this,” he said slowly. The class as a whole was silent for a long moment, then a few voices murmured various things including “That’s anarchy,” and “How can you ever support something like rape?” The professor intervened calmly with “Daisy’s viewpoint leads into the question of what the purpose of public education is.”

We began to discuss that topic, though the students were slower to respond to one another, and a general sense of discomfort prevailed for the remaining 20 minutes of class.

After class, I approached the moral relativist, a thin, plain young woman in her 20s wearing a rumpled t-shirt, jeans and no makeup. I said pleasantly, “I couldn’t see who was speaking earlier. Are you Daisy?” She looked warily at me and said “Yes. Everyone probably hates me now.” She laughed bitterly.

For a split second I wanted to respond, “That wouldn’t be ‘wrong,’ would it? Not if it’s our cultural norm to hate someone like you.”

But I bit my tongue and smiled gently and said instead, “No. You’re entitled to your opinion.”

Of course, it’s not that simple. Her moral relativism is going to be foisted on the next generation. God help the students she will have in her tender care.

Of Sullys and Sulemans

Not blogging much right now, for several reasons. I’m finding politics, the economy and anything to do with California government and the Federal government extremely depressing. Really depressing. I mean, the last thing I want to do is read a dozen more stories about it, much less follow two dozen links to even more stories about it. It sucks, and it’s not going to get better any time soon. So writing about it seems both abysmally depressing and rather redundant.

And 3-D life has been pretty time consuming. I’m busy working on a piece of fiction that I’ve set aside for far too long. Youngest Son has had several massive school projects and my own university homework has filled in the few gaps remaining. I haven’t had much time to read up on anything that’s not related to those three areas. So yeah, no politics from me today, unless something unexpected and unpredicted happens. Hey, it’s still America, anything is possible.

When time permits, I’ll post my thoughts on the sociopathy of Octomom, and what sort of future her spawn can expect under her tender care. She embodies the narcissism that led us to where we are politically and economically as a country. It’s a stark contrast to the best America offers.

…Sully and Suleman, the pilot and “Octomom,” the two great stories that are twinned with the era. Sully, the airline captain who saved 155 lives by landing that plane just right—level wings, nose up, tail down, plant that baby, get everyone out, get them counted, and then, at night, wonder what you could have done better. You know the reaction of the people of our country to Chesley B. Sullenberger III: They shake their heads, and tears come to their eyes. He is cool, modest, competent, tough in the good way. He’s the only one who doesn’t applaud Sully. He was just doing his job.

This is why people are so moved: We’re still making Sullys. We’re still making those mythic Americans, those steely-eyed rocket men. Like Alan Shepard in the Mercury rocket: “Come on and light this candle.”

But Sully, 58, Air Force Academy ’73, was shaped and formed by the old America, and educated in an ethos in which a certain style of manhood—of personhood—was held high.

What we fear we’re making more of these days is Nadya Suleman. The dizzy, selfish, self-dramatizing 33-year-old mother who had six small children and then a week ago eight more because, well, she always wanted a big family. “Suley” doubletalks with the best of them, she doubletalks with profound ease. She is like Blago without the charm. She had needs and took proactive steps to meet them, and those who don’t approve are limited, which must be sad for them. She leaves anchorwomen slack-jawed: How do you rough up a woman who’s still lactating? She seems aware of their predicament.

Any great nation would worry at closed-up shops and a professional governing class that doesn’t have a clue what to do. But a great nation that fears, deep down, that it may be becoming more Suley than Sully—that nation will enter a true depression.

I know we’re still creating Sullys.

Eldest Son received this morning the assignment he requested from the USAF; they’re making him a navigator as he’d hoped. He’ll be attending the USAF Academy this summer for some specific training. Upon graduating from university next year, he’ll enter the Air Force, and God willing, he’ll have the career he’s dreamed of since childhood.

I hope in whatever path his career takes him, Eldest Son never has to deal with a flock of geese and an engineless plane full of passengers. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever though, that Eldest Son’s character is being shaped by forces similar in some ways to those which shaped Sully’s, and his personal standards, his ethics, are equally high.

My late father was a navigator in the US Navy. That my baby boy would grow up to do something similar is both poignant and ironic.

I wish my father was here to talk about it with me.

Eldest Son with other members of his flight.

My family is far, far from perfect, but we have not turned out any Sulemans.

One doesn’t have to look far to find the source of that particular narcissistic evil. And yes, I do think she’s evil. More on that later.

When we fail to recognize what Nadya Suleman truly is, what she is doing (and it’s far more than reckless reproduction; that’s simply a tool she’s using), then we risk not just enabling her, but producing more like her. And that would be depressing indeed.