How to create a false impression

Before I begin, I just want to say that I did not vote for Rob Ford for mayor, and I would not vote to re-elect him.  I do not think he is a good mayor.  But, having said that, I am weary of the incessant attacks upon Ford, lead by the Toronto Star, which has taken to printing any complaint about Ford, no matter how trivial or unfounded, in the hope of getting something to stick.  Today, for instance, there was this:

Catholic school board investigating Rob Ford’s ‘inaccurate’ Sun News interview

That's the online title.  The print version has a more forceful title:  "Ford slammed for 'demeaning' school remarks."

“We’d be better off without him as the football coach if he continues to speak this way,” the co-chair of the Don Bosco parent council said.

That's the lead in and the thesis of this article.  What could all this be about?

Mayor Rob Ford has angered teachers and parents at the Etobicoke high school where he coaches football — and prompted an investigation by the Catholic school board — with comments the teachers say depicted the school in a “demeaning way that was filled with untruths.”

Oh no! Sounds bad.  What did he say?

The board’s review of Ford’s interview with Sun News last week comes in response to an anonymous letter sent to senior board officials by a “significant” number of teachers at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School.

Um... is anyone else a little confused here?  Is the letter anonymous or was it sent by a significant number of teachers?  How can it be both?  What is significant?  Is one? or is ten a more significant number?  Why doesn't the article say?  If they are refuting someone's inaccuracies, should they not replace them with their own accuracies, as opposed to, say, innuendo?

In the letter, signed “The Don Bosco Staff,” the teachers said Ford’s words were “disgusting” and “no reflection of the real Don Bosco.”

So it was signed by the Don Bosco Staff, or someone claiming to be the Don Bosco Staff.  They have found Ford's words to be 'disgusting', which poses a bit of a problem.  Disgust is an emotion, not a thought.  One can argue and defend oneself against facts, or against logic.  There is no argument against an emotion.  So, Ford has failed to reflect the "real Don Bosco."  So what is the real Don Bosco?  Let's see what the next paragraph has to say.

The Don Bosco parent council was so perturbed by Ford’s comments that it is calling a special meeting to decide how to respond, said co-chair Teresa Bridport.

Nope.  No real Don Bosco here.  Just more feelings- 'perturbed"- to pile onto the disgust.  The impression- and I use that word advisedly, as the article so far has only given emotions and impressions, not facts- is that Ford must have done something heinous to have offended so many people.  But what was it?

Ford, Bridport said, conveyed the false impression that Don Bosco is an unsafe and gang-infested place whose only redeeming feature is football. In fact, she said, the school is a thriving and improving institution with a dedicated faculty, motivated students, and other attractive extracurriculars.

Back to impressions.  Ford has conveyed a false one.  But where are his actual words?  Did he actually in fact say any such thing?

“I still believe his heart is in the right place. And I’ve said that before. It’s just that he does not know how to speak. He does not know how to communicate in a positive light. The way that he’s talking makes it look like all the kids at Don Bosco would be in the gutter if it wasn’t for him and his football program. And that’s not true,” said Bridport, who has two children at the school.

I completely agree with the assessment of Ford in the third and fourth sentence.  I have often been embarrassed by his pronouncements.  I have the 'impression' that the book he read on public speaking contained the two instructions: "1: Open Mouth.  2: Insert Foot."  But that's my impression.  The impression of the person speaking here is that Ford has given a bad 'impression' of the school while trying to convey a good impression of himself, of Ford the saviour.  If he has done that, I would like to see it.  Why have they not quoted Ford yet?  All they are doing is piling up negative comments about something he said, so that by the time we actually get to a quotation, the reader will already have formed an opinion on what it says.

“

It’s such a negative thing, what he’s saying, and it’s so untrue. For him to say that unless they play football their life is shot is so untrue. So untrue. We appreciate that he volunteers at the school; we appreciate the time he puts in for the football program. But not if he’s going to speak the way he’s speaking. We’d be better off without him as the football coach if he continues to speak this way. . . This has to stop.”

Board spokesperson John Yan said the interview contained “a number of inaccuracies,” which he would not specifically identify. (emphasis mine) In general, Yan said, “the interview is an inaccurate portrayal of the community.”

"We share the same concerns expressed by the Don Bosco community,” Yan said. “We really don’t have any comment at this time. We’re taking all their concerns under advisement, and we’re seeing what appropriate actions, if any, we may take.”

If this statement is so inaccurate, why are they not addressing the inaccuracies instead of dealing with impressions?  When I think someone is wrong, I will state chapter and verse where I believe them to be wrong.  What these people are saying is that the big bad nasty Ford hurt all their feelings, and as I said before:  Ford may be able to argue against their facts or their logic or their interpretations, but he cannot defend himself against feelings.

Before he became the coach at Don Bosco, Ford was told he was no longer welcome as the coach at North York’s Newtonbrook Secondary after a 2001 confrontation with a player. His spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Fascinating, but what does it have to do with the case at hand?  Merely more mudslinging.  Another unspecific charge to be attached onto the other unspecified charges in order to create an impression.  Apparently for the Star, impressions are the only reality worth bothering about.

Ford made his contested statements in a conversation with Sun News early-morning host David Menzies, who lavished praise on Ford for his work with the Don Bosco team. Don Bosco, located at Islington Ave. and Dixon Rd., is home to many low-income students, and Ford has said frequently that football helps players avoid crime and keep their grades high.

Finally, with that, we get to the crux of the matter.  We actually start to get a few quotes from Ford himself, and possibly judge for ourselves whether or not what the Star said he said was in his actual  words.

Speaking to Menzies, Ford said members of the team “just wouldn’t go to school” and would have “no reason to go to school” if not for football.

“You can’t tell them to get an education. But I use the football as a carrot. I said: If you don’t go to school, and you’re (not) passing, you don’t play football. Oh, they’ll do backflips to play football,” Ford said.

Ford also called the football players “smart,” hard-working and financially prudent. But he said many players “come from gangs” and have “broken homes.”

He spoke of bailing players out of jail. He referred to Don Bosco as a “tough school” in a “tough area.” And he agreed with Menzies’ suggestion that some former or current members of the team would be in jail or dead if he had not launched the team.

"I truly believe that,” Ford said. “A lot of kids have said that to me. A lot of parents have said that to me.”

Since they have spent so much time and energy vilifying Ford, I would guess that they would also take the time to cherry pick their quotations to set Ford in the worst possible light. These few words here are what has caused that "impression".  This is the very worst of what Ford said. This is what the school is upset about.  A guy who runs a football program for a school in a tough neighbourhood says his program is working and helping the kids.  Now back to our regularly scheduled outrage.

The teachers’ letter said: “There is a sense of outrage in our school community in regards to his continued detrimental messages. Once again his comments depict our school in a very negative light. It is exasperating since we have been spending so much volunteer time and energy on community outreach to demonstrate the commitment, the excellent programs and the successes of our student body. Again, much of this good will and good work has been lost with his most recent media interview.”

More hurt feelings.  Perhaps Ford could have made a token gesture, saying that his program is one several designed to help the students, or put his laudable volunteer work in the context of one of many laudable volunteer groups in this school aimed at helping the students.  But that doesn't seem to be in Ford's makeup, and he was answering questions about his program, so I can't blame him for that.

However, not everyone is against him.

In a 2008 interview with Menzies for a National Post article, a former Don Bosco player who had received a NCAA scholarship, Jerome Miller, said “Rob Ford has been able to take a lot of kids off the street.” The mother of another player told the Globe and Mail last year that the media would be “reporting on the body on the street” without the football program.

So Ford's comments are therefore accurate.  He has said that some students and some parents have told him as much as is reported here.  But that doesn't seem to matter.

Some Don Bosco students, parents and staff, however, have bristled at Ford’s portrayal of students as would-be criminals. Some teachers were unhappy when Ford said, during a high-profile controversy about the team’s use of a private TTC bus, that “very few people can control these kids.” His brother, Councillor Doug Ford, drew private criticism for saying players “look up in the stands and they don’t see a father, they don’t see a mother, they see Rob Ford standing there and supporting them.”

Again, we are back to hurt feelings.  The article is arguing that Ford hurt some feelings by telling lies about the school, and what I am getting here is the possibility that he hurt even more feelings by saying some truths people did not want to hear.  If what he has said was a lie, where is the proof that he lied?

It is not clear how many teachers endorse the anonymous letter. Rene Jansen in de Wal, president of the Toronto secondary unit of the Catholic teachers’ union, said the letter “was broadly supported by the staff.”

Anonymous letters "broadly" supported.  How is a vagary supposed to refute an inaccuracy?

Don Bosco’s students and staff have made a concerted effort to repair the school’s reputation. In April, three busloads of supporters attended a board meeting to ask for trustees’ help in eliminating the spread of negative messages about the school, which they said has improved markedly in recent years under principal Ugo Rossi.

In October, students and teachers invited reporters to a “Give Your School a Hug Day” intended to bring attention to the Don Bosco’s positive attributes. Student Nicholas Thompson, 16, who gave a speech about stereotypes, said black students at the school are portrayed unfairly. “It’s just like, ‘We’re bad, we’re thieves, we’re criminals, we’re just sports stars,’” he told the Star.

Now race is in the mix?  Not that Ford said anything about black students, but not that it matters.  We are dealing with impressions and feelings.  If a black student feels the mayor is being unfair to black students, then that feeling must be aired, viewed, and recognized as concrete reality.

Said Bridport: “Many of the teachers spend many hours volunteering for the leadership program; taking the kids on trips; there’s a group of kids going to Europe on March break, my daughter’s going to Boston in April. So, lots of teachers that put in extra hours to help with things that are not football. And I think people forget that. Although football is wonderful for the people who play it, that’s not what our school is all about. We’re about a lot more.”

True, the school is about more than a football program, but what does that have to do with Ford's interview?  As I said, Ford could have put his program in the context of being one of many programs at the school, but he didn't. He was giving an interview about one of his passions, and mentioned little else. But that doesn't matter.  The false impressions created are not about what Ford said, seeing as, as near as we may tell from this article, his words were factually accurate, but over what he did not say. 

The Star is actively engaging in creating a false impression of its own.  Its report is factually accurate.  Ford did say some things, and people were offended at what he did and did not say, or seemed to say, or something.  The Star even reports briefly that accusers who believe Ford's statements were inaccurate cannot actually point out the inaccuracies, and furthermore that there are those who have confirmed Ford's remarks as accurate.  But the bulk of the piece is about hurt feelings, and top heavy with accusations of Ford's misleading statements, to the point that the over all impression is that Ford must have said and done something wrong, even though that wrongdoing is not stated and is nowhere to be found in the article.  What a filthy, deceitful rag this paper is.

As I said, I share a common purpose with this paper: I would prefer Ford to be out of office.  But I would prefer to do it it without lies, prevarications.,  and false impressions.  The job of the paper is to report truth and facts so that people may make an informed opinion, not skew the facts into the view the paper wants them to have. I did not vote for Ford, but many people did.  No one voted for the Star to be our representative and our voice, or our former of opinion.  If I am to be ruled, I prefer to be ruled by one who has been elected, not by one who has appointed themself the task of being my ruler for my own good, and who decides what I need to know, and how I should think about it.

Cenozoic Park, Here We Come!

First, scientist discuss the possibility of bringing mammoths back to life.  Now, Someone is discussing the possibility of bringing back Neanderthals.

To be fair, Professor Church was quoted in two interviews: one in which he is all gung ho about the possibility of cloning a Neanderthal, and another in which he says he was misquoted about being ebullient over the possibility of cloning a Neanderthal, and then proceeds to be ebullient over the possibility of cloning a Neanderthal, only not at this exact moment.  Got that? good.

Now what, you may ask, are the benefits to humanity that we should pursue this course of action?  Church lists several possibilities, each one qualified with "mights" and "may be" and "possible that".  He suspects that resurrecting their genome will create greater genetic diversity amongst humans (so now we would have to mate with Neanderthals) possibly preventing future plagues.  On the other hand, other scientists point out that Neanderthals have not been exposed to modern diseases, so maybe not so much.

Then there is this peculiar possibility:

He told German magazine Der Spiegel: ‘Neanderthals might think differently than we do. They could even be more intelligent than us.

‘When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet, it’s conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial.’

In between the "might", "could even be" and "it is conceivable", Prof. Church is putting forward the idea that Neanderthals could help us with the space program.   ummm...

Seriously?

I used to read about the Neanderthals, because, you've got to admit, they're kind of cool.  I checked up on some more recent sources before writing this little post, to see if our knowledge of them has radically changed.  Some ways, but not others.  What I read in the past, and what I read now, generally focuses on two aspects of the Neanderthals.  One, their brains were bigger than ours.  Two: so were their muscles.  These guys were immensely strong.  Now, given these two attributes, upon which did they depend for survival?  There is a lot of evidence that they depended on brute force over brains.  Their tools, for instance, barely changed over the entirety of their existence.  One tribe lived next to a river full of fish, but their garbage shows they did not touch the fish for food, but instead hunted large animals with weapons that meant they had to get up close and personal.  Not surprisingly, broken bones are very common among Neanderthal remains.  The long and the short of it is:  If you are hoping for Neanderthals to help  us off the planet, you'd better clone a lot of them, so they can toss us.

But let's say they really can use that big brain they have,  Is it really a good idea to bring back a people who are naturally far stronger than us, potentially smarter than us, teach them everything we know so they actually can be smarter than us, and then hope they love us? 

Once again, scientists are so busy wondering whether or not they can do something, they don't stop and think whether or not they should.

You can have a Model T in any colour, as long as it's black.

Not that there's anything wrong with us being free to choose only one thing.  No sirree Bob.  Take a look.

In the news recently, the Newman centre on the University of Toronto main campus started a Courage group as a way of supporting Gay men who wished to live according to the Catholic faith (i.e. celibate). This was condemned in the news as being an attempt to force Catholicism down people's throats and trying to turn gay men straight.  In other news, about a week later, a "sexual education centre" at the same campus announced they had just reached a deal with a swingers club that would allow them to offer U of T students a discount.  This was applauded in the newspapers as a brave step forward into the new... whatever it is we're stepping in.  The university is applauding itself for being tolerant of everything... except for chastity.

Speaking of "anything but chastity" but in otherwise absolutely unrelated news, a newspaper in Britain published an article by an Australian psychologist on the effects of our hypersexualized culture on young girls.  The short of it:  It is destroying them inside and out by forcing them to accept sexual roles they are emotionally unprepared for, and by also making them think that extreme sexual behaviour is healthy and normal.  This article is a lonely voice perhaps signalling that we are moving from the "What could it hurt?" phase of our society and into the "How was I supposed to know phase?" One curious note in the article comes when the psychologist admits that he is not talking about boys at this time because he addressed that years ago.  the implication is that boys are now a write-off.

Speaking of boys and the "how was I supposed to know" phase: studies indicate that the changes forced by feminists on the education system for the last forty years or so has lead to decreased education scores among boys.  The feminists sought to make the education system more fair by removing areas in which boys tended to excel- rote learning, science, and competition- and replaced it with fields where the girls excelled- all in the name of fairness, of course.  Now the boys are lagging behind, which apparently shows that women were better all the time, at least when given a leg up over the boys.  Well done.   

ht Vox Cantoris, Redneck.

Today's Earth Shattering Non News Story!

NHL goes back into action tonight! 

Among my co-workers there s mainly a sense of relief that they may finally go back to watching hockey and watching as the Leafs fail to make the playoffs again.  I am among those who could not care less.  Actually, previously I could not care less.  I now wish them ill.  Why? Because I live in Toronto.

The latest strike/lockout on the whole was millionaires arguing with billionaires to see who gets more money out of the poor fans.  In the Leafs' case, however, we have the most profitable team in Hockey, and one of the most profitable in all sports, despite the fact that they stink and regularly fail to make it to the playoffs.  No wait: it's because they regularly fail to make the playoffs.  The arena is always sold out, and has been for decades, no matter how bad the team is.  Any other team in the league would be playing to an empty arena, but not the Leafs.  Ownership has cottoned on to this, and realized years ago that they could hire a bunch of mediocre players at a cut rate, and make more money than if they actually made an effort to put a viable team on the ice.  Case in point: Wayne Gretzky wanted to end his career playing for the Leafs.  He offered to play for them at less than half the pay he was asking from any other club, about three million.  The GM ran to the owner, Steve Stavros, all excited that he could get the Greatest Player Ever, who was still a top player even then, for a song.  Stavros asked: "How many tickets can Gretzky sell?" The answer was none, because the arena would be sold out whether the team had Gretzky or not.  So Gretzky was passed over. 

They have poured even more contempt on their fans since then.  Now roughly seventy per cent of the seats in the ACC are sold to corporations, who hand them out on promotions or perks.  Fans are left to fight for the remaining few seats and are charged a premium.  For example, for me to take Elder and Younger out to a game, (leaving Puff and Frodo at home) would cost somewhere in the region of five hundred dollars. That is money I don't have.  But the Leafs think it is worth that much for me or someone like me to go and see them get blown away year in, year out.  And the players think they deserve their pay to go out and suck, night in, night out, when a line made out of snow white and any five of the seven dwarves would be an improvement.

They will not get one cent of my money.  I will not even watch their games on tv, in case I inadvertently bump their ratings, and increase their advertising revenues.  I hope there are more fans out there who think as I do, and the NHL millionaires and billionaires club starts to feel the hurt.  They've earned it.

Abortive, rooting hog/Unlick'd bear found?

British Archaelogists have found a skeleton that may be Richard III's, or perhaps Jimmy Hoffa's, under a parking lot in Leicester.

The Richard III society is thrilled, although it is unlikely that this will exonerate him for the murder of the two young princes.

The nerd revolution continues

As time goes on, I think we will see more of this sort of thing:  A fifteen year old wins the local science fair by coming up with a new test for cancer that is much faster, more accurate and cheaper than the current standard tests, and he did most of his research on Google. h/t Mark Shea.  This kid in his bedroom with a laptop figured out something PhD's in huge labs and large research budgets never did.

I am serious that I believe more things like this are coming.  As James Burke pointed out, often the solution to a problem in one field has already been found in another.  The Internet allows the connections to be sought faster and more easily than ever before, and the kids today are the ones most likely to be able to find them.  My generation may have invented the net, but we are visitors to it.  These kids are its true natives, it is their home and its language their mother tongue.  This is not an unmixed blessing, to be certain, but they will use it and do things our gneration never dreamed possible, and sometimes the results are wonderful.

The Internet: It's more than just porn.

Why Canadians Should Not Comment Out Loud On American Politics

Apart from the fact that Americans talk about their own politics enough for three USA's, and there is therefore no reason for us to add to the discourse/background noise,  there is also the problem of revealing our hopeless stupidity.  A case in point:  today, while discussing the Colorado shootings, one of my coworkers stated that the lack of any talk about gun control clearly displays that both Romney and Obama are owned by the NRA.  I repeat: according to him, Obama is owned by the NRA. 

Seriously.

You may now wipe your coffee or coke off your screen and keyboard.

For what it's worth, I told him he was delusional.

Toronto has a new auxiliary bishop.

The Pope has named Msgr Wayne Kirkpatrick of the Diocese of St Catherines as auxiliary bishop of Toronto.  My reactions are as follow:

1. who?
2. Welcome.
3. Pray for the man.  Being stuck trying to herd this bunch of cats is not for the weak.

About point 1: anyone know anything about this guy?

The kids are alright

One final post about Britain's Got Talent, which seems to be the flagship and most successful version of the brand: the winners were Ashley and Pudsy, a trained dog act; second place, Jonathan Antoine and Charlotte Jaconelli, about whom  have written a few times; third place, Only Boys Aloud, a Welsh vocal choir, about whom I have written once. The amazing thing about all these acts is that the oldest among them is nineteen, with the exception of the choir director and Pudsy, should you calculate his age in dog years.  These are all kids. 

Sometimes, when I see things like this, the future doesn't appear quite so dark.

When condemnation is free advertising.

There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is, of course, quite a different thing.  -Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

I was thinking of this quotation the other day when I read this post of LarryD's in which he discussed two movies coming out this summer, one of which, entitled The Perfect Family, gives a view of the Church which would qualify as a parody, except the producers seem to mean it to be straight up.

The plot of “The Perfect Family” is predictable and formulaic. A “devout Catholic” woman, played by Kathleen Turner, is nominated for the “Catholic Woman of the Year” award by her parish. But her “non-traditional”family – a husband who is a recovering alcoholic, a lesbian daughter about to get married to another woman, and a son having an affair – hinders her from attaining that award, which she covets.

Throughout the movie, Turner’s character attempts to “clean up” her family in order to win that award and undercut a rival at the parish. At the end of the movie, she comes to “accept” her family for who they are.

The implication of the movie is obvious: Catholics who dare to follow the teachings of the Church are brainwashed fools who care nothing for the happiness of others.

Sounds remarkably like my family, actually.  Has anyone ever had a parish in which they nominated and awarded someone the title "Catholic Woman of the Year"?  I mean, I've been going to church forty plus years, and I don't recall any parish I've ever heard of coming up with such a thing.  But apparently, this is what Hollywood thinks of us.

(Incidentally, if there were such an award, a woman in circumstances such as Turner's would have been more likely to win, not less, as a woman who is sticking to and living the Faith in trying circumstances.  Their picture of "a perfect family" owes more to Martha Stewart than to the Catholic Church.)

So, when confronted with nonsense such as this, what should we do?  If we were to go off half cocked and launch a series of tirades against this movie, or take out ads in newspapers condemning the movie, like Bill Donohue of the Catholic League does routinely, and will probably do for this movie, that would amount to giving the movie a ton of free advertising.  In my opinion, the movie sounds like a preaching movie, one where telling a story is abandoned in favour of spreading a message, and those almost always bomb at the box office, unless someone wastes time and money condemning it and giving it a boost in the arm with a ton of free advertising.  For myself, I would say answer any questions, address any lies.  But, on the whole, the only people who will like this movie are those who are inclined to agree with it already, and their minds are already made up.  Let the movie go in silence, as much as possible, give it little notice, and let it die the death it deserves at the box office.

Oh no! They're getting rid of the penny!

What will I do?  Half my savings are in pennies!  I carefully hoard the things until I have about twenty bucks worth, then cash them in at the bank, because that's the only place that will take the things.  They're perfect for savings, as they are completely unusable money.

But more than this, think of what the loss will mean for the English language.  When I give my grandchildren a piece of my hard earned wisdom through cliches such as: "A penny saved is a penny earned", they will just stare at me blankly.  I will be even more out of touch than ever before. The term "penny pincher" will likewise be meaningless, and "nickel pincher" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

A wise man speaks only of what he knows...

  ...and then there are newspapers, reporters, and the people who comment on their "stories".

Rosie Dimanno, a reporter for the Toronto Star, is currently employed to write about anything she decides to write about.  She is, more or less, a well paid and well read blogger.  Seeing as she writes on virtually any subject, she has a following which believes she is well versed on virtually any subject.  She appears to believe it herself, otherwise she would not regularly present ignorance as knowledge. 

Take this piece, for instance.  For no reason whatsoever she writes about Pope Benedict, opining that he cannot resign and claims, repeatedly, that Benedict's hands are dirty in the abuse scandal.  Why this piece?  Why today?  What has happened, that this would be 'news'?  In short, nothing.  Yet it sits prominently on page two, and is the lead piece in the on-line edition.  At best, it reports doings from 1982, and a meeting that happened last week.  It is printed the day before the weekend that Thomas Collins, Toronto's archbishop, is to be elevated to the rank of cardinal, and a few days after some damning reports on the handling of sex abuse in the Boy Scouts.  Let us treat that as a mere coincidence.  Let's take a closer look at this piece, or parts of it.  It starts with a big photo of the Pope, and the headline "Scandal, Silence, Killing the Church."

Dictators, who tend not to die peacefully in their beds, are among the few on this planet who can claim a job for life.

Great opening line.  You get to call the Pope a Dictator in the opening line.  Get your thesis down, show your colours.  Yes, the Pope is an absolute monarch.  But why say that, when Dictator is just as good.  The same logic would make all the kings and queeens of England, for example, dictators.  Semantics?  Perhaps, perhaps not. 

But wait!  The Pope is no mere dictator.

And then there’s the pope

No challenge to his authority, no Catholic Spring, no curia putsch allowed there; can’t be dislodged for reasons of poor health, psychological trauma or colossally bad judgment in ministering to the world’s nearly 2 billion faithful.

There's the difference:  At least you can shoot a dictator, or least he will eventually face a revolution resulting in his violent death.  What a pity that won't happen here. so the Pope would not "die peacefully  in (his) bed."

Also notice no evidence or specifics given for the claim of "poor health, psychological trauma or colossally bad judgment in ministering to the world’s nearly 2 billion faithful."  Just a suggestion made for the moment.  Calls up the image of the last years of JP II's reign.

Moving on, she gives a brief history of the last time a pope resigned, and then drops this pearl:

While popes are not technically “infallible’’ — a misconception of nuance; they’re only “error-free’’ when performing in their official capacity to promulgate dogma on faith and morals — they can’t be given the sack for getting it spectacularly wrong because, in those matters that most directly affect us, they’re unimpeachably right. Got it?

Er, no.  Apparently, "fact checker" at the Star is very definition of low stress job.  Five minutes of search on the web would have given her a better definition and a more thorough understanding of Papal infallibility.

Understanding arcane intricacies of canon law is as challenging as that whole Father-Son-Holy Ghost trinity thing,-

mmmm-kay.  Moving on.

 which is why most Catholics simply take it on faith. Faith, however, has never in modern memory been so fragile, so at risk, as under Benedict XVI, with alarming numbers abandoning the Church, at least in the West.

Benedict may be indubitably pious and unmatched as a scholar-pope but, on his watch, the Catholic Church has sunk into a morass of unprecedented scandal. The latest crisis — explosive documents obtained by an Italian investigative TV show in what’s been dubbed “Vatileaks’’ — arises from a three-way private correspondence, which included the pope, with an archbishop who blew the whistle on what he saw as a web of corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the Vatican, an alert that got the poor man transferred, from deputy governor of Vatican City to Vatican ambassador in Washington. The rippling accusations encompass everything from awarding of tenders for work to inside-connected contractors at ridiculously inflated prices to yet more questions being asked about the Vatican bank, 30 years after its predecessor (Banco Ambrosiano) collapsed amidst lurid allegations about money-laundering, freemasons, the Mafia and the mysterious death of its chairman — “God’s banker,” Roberto Calvi.

Notice lack of detail. The Church is in scandal, mired in scandal, but she isn't writing about any,  She has simply brought this up for effect.  Benedict may be good in one place, she admits, but she then piles upon the implication of massive scandal, but gives no details.  this paragraph is structured to create the effect of an ineffective Pope, not up to the task.  This is just for effect, to set the ground for the real problem.

At its most suspect core, however, the Vatican has been unable to contain or adequately address the ever-expanding grotesquerie of predator priests and lay practitioners sexually abusing children

Now the heart of the matter.  But, I say again, why is she writing this?  Is there a new scandal brewing? Something to justify the use of the phrasse "ever-expanding grotesquerie"?

To be fair, most of the tawdry abuse that has come to light in recent years occurred during the papacy of Pope John Paul II. For all his charisma and political courage, John Paul never confronted the pedophilia rot among his clergy, the Church more concerned with protecting its reputation than protecting children.

Nothing new, just old stuff.  Her facts are a bit off.  The scandals that came to light during JP II's long tenure were often decades old by the time they came to light.  Did he take sufficient action?  I would argue not, but "never confronted" is a falsehood.  But hey, why tell one lie, when you can tell more?

But, in his quarter-century as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — disciplinarian-in-chief — Benedict, or Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as he then was — was directly responsible for dealing with priests who violated their oaths. Instead, known perpetrators were quietly moved around parishes and, on too many occasions, continued to commit sordid crimes.

I wish I could do a better defense of then Cardinal Ratzinger, but all I can say is that Ratzinger's involvement was debatable.  One of the few cases of his involvement that came to light merely showed a letter he wrote instructing the diocese that was beginning the process of laicizing a priest to cross all their t's and dot their i's in their investigation.   

She then outlines some scandals and their costs.

The most notorious sexual abuse scandals erupted in the U.S. — Kansas City (lawsuits with 47 plaintiffs settled to the tune of $10 million), Philadelphia (a grand jury in 2005 found credible accusations of abuse by 63 priests whose activities had been covered up by the church), Boston (Cardinal Bernard Law forced to resign after a judge-ordered release of diocesan documents revealed a priest accused of molesting more than 130 boys over 30 years had been transferred among half a dozen parishes) – Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and, most damaging to the current pontiff, his native Germany.

 Nothing new.  She then goes to Ratzinger's time as an archbishop.

As Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Ratzinger approved the transfer of a priest, Rev. Peter Hullerman, who’d sexually abused boys. Hullerman received psychiatric treatment, returned quickly to pastoral work with children and continued ministering to youth even after being convicted of molesting boys in 1982. Not until 2010, after new accusations of sexual abuse emerged, was Hullerman suspended from his priestly duties.

After stating that many bishops did nothing, she quickly goes over the fact that Ratzinger did in fact do something- he sent the priest for treatment.  The date of this is important- 1982, around the time the scandals first began to appear.  As hollow as it may be for the victims, Ratzinger did what was thought to be right at the time:  He sent the predator to counselling, and gave him another parish after told the predator no longer posed a threat.  No one knew, yet, that there was no cure.  But none of that matters to Rosie.

Pope Benedict’s hands are dirty. And it doesn’t count for much that, belatedly, he issued an apology to all victims of abuse by priests, or that, in 2010, the Vatican posted guidelines on its website directing officials to follow civil laws compelling the reporting of crimes to authorities if required by local laws.

The italics are interesting.  Apparently these lines draw incredulity, or outrage, that the Church is an international institution that is bound to follow the laws of the nations where it is practiced. 

Grand juries, district attorneys and government commissions (as in Ireland) have done all the heavy lifting for the Church, with some national associations of bishops (the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Australia and others) unilaterally adopting strong anti-abuse policies. Left to its own devices, the Vatican would probably have dithered for, oh, another couple of centuries.

"oh, another couple of centuries."  She then goes on to say something the Church has done, "left to its own devices".

The Vatican has formulated “guidelines’’ for the reporting of abuse by clerics, noting that the phenomenon is not only an offence punishable by church law but also “a crime prosecuted by civil law.” Procedures described as “clear and coordinated,” entailing coordination with law enforcement authorities, are to be released later this year.

So they are coming out with guidelines, again, for their bishops.  Anything else?

Last week, the Jesuit Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome hosted a landmark international symposium on clerical sex abuse, with attendance by representatives of 110 bishops’ conferences and 30 religious orders. Canada’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who heads the Vatican’s office for bishops, presided over a vigil service of repentance in which he and several other bishops pleaded for forgiveness for what Ouellet called the “evil” in the church.

That “evil” has reportedly cost the church $2 billion in lawsuit settlements.

At the conference, “Toward Healing and Renewal,” the Vatican’s top sex abuse investigator — Monsignor Charles Scicluna, promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — said in his formal address: “The Catholic Church knows well that whenever one of its ministers, whether bishop, priest or deacon, or lay pastoral agent, sexually abuses a minor, a tragic wound is inflicted on the community; subordinated as it is by the indescribably repugnant damage done to a child.”

Stunningly, Scicluna warned against the culture of “omerta” — the Italian word for the Mafia’s code of silence — in handling sexual abuse claims of minors by clergy.

“Other enemies of the truth are the deliberate denial of known facts and the misplaced concern that the good name of the institution should somehow enjoy absolute priority to the detriment of disclosure.”

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Scicluna added: “It is a crime in canon law to show malicious or fraudulent negligence in the exercise of one’s duty.”

So it is a problem they are working on.   They are using unusually forceful language and appear to mean business,  Not that it matters.  They are all still dirty.  Rosie says so.

But canon law has not been changed to reflect the scourge of abuse by clergy, and there’s no indication it will be.

After quoting a statement about how canon law demands action against pedophilia, she claims canon law to be insufficient.  She keeps returning to question of canon law, only to show her knowledge of canon law is exactly nothing.

And only one actual victim was invited to speak at the symposium. Little wonder victims’ groups dismissed the symposium as window dressing. They’ve demanded genuine accountability, want the Vatican to release the names and open up the files on all known molesters. One group last September even filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court, urging it to investigate and prosecute Pope Benedict, as well as three top Vatican officials, for crimes against humanity — abetting and covering up the sexual assault of children by priests. There’s zero chance of the Court taking up that cause.

I don't know why they had but one victim speak at the symposium.  If the purpose of the symposium was mere PR and appearances, then they blundered badly.  As for the group that filed against Benedict, she fails to mention someone else filed against Benedict, and the case was just thrown out yesterday. 

I’ll say it again: Benedict’s hands are dirty.

Can’t even slide him out of the picture gracefully as a pope emeritus, no matter how doddering he gets, no matter how complicit he might be proven to have been in the concealing of predator priests.

"he might be proven", but he hasn't, and the few attempts have failed.  This is like photos of UFOs.  A thousand photos of flying hubcaps do not prove the existence of flying saucers.  Claiming his hands are dirty, and saying he might be proven, proves nothing.  Too bad we can't just shoot him and be done with it, right?

Benedict turns 85 in April. He’ll die a pope. But, for many of us, he will have been predeceased by his church.

Nice parting shot.  What she says here is true, and more's the pity.  People are leaving the Church, which she calls "his" church, over the scandal.  Rosie herself has left the Church a long time ago, over what I do not know.  The Toronto Star could have covered news about Archbishop Collins being promoted into the college of Cardinals, the fourth time this has happened in Toronto and the 16th time in Canada, and what that means to local Catholics, but why do that when you can have a fallen away Catholic write a hit piece on the Church, rehashing old stories and lies? 

As it turns out, they did have a little bit about Collins, but it was, of all things and places, a photo in the Sports pages.

Now this, I like.

3.5 Time Outs Tuesday

1

Dead, gone, buried, forgotten- manhood, that is.  The stories of the Costa Concordia show that clearly enough.  Best quote from the news stories:

In the words of one newspaper account, “An Australian mother and her young daughter have described being pushed aside by hysterical men as they tried to board lifeboats.” If the men of the Titanic had lived to read such a thing, they would have recoiled in shame. The Titanic’s crew surely would have thought the hysterics deserved to be shot on sight — and would have volunteered to perform the service.

2

Tied to the first post, there is now a debate as to what killed manhood, or chivalry, as it is often called.  The usual suspects are the feminists.  Fair enough, but the attacks and insults they heaped upon men and their values only goes so far.  A woman may insult a man, but he need not abandon his values because of it.  No, in the end, chivalry's death was a suicide.  It is unmanly to say otherwise.

3

Watch this violinist react to a cell phone, if you have not seen this already.



3.5

G.K Chesterton quotation for today, and possibly tomorrow:

“It is an old story that, while we may need somebody like Dominic to convert the heathen to Christianity, we are in even greater need of somebody like Francis, to convert the Christians to Christianity.”

I suspected something like this would happen eventually...

...but, apparently, I was among the few.

Lifesite News has an interesting story up.  Planned Parenthood is actually celebrating Tom Tebow's story, and claim it exemplifies "the health care environment that Planned Parenthood promotes — a world in which women and families are supported in the medical decisions they make for themselves and their families without government interference,"

The reaction from the Pro-life side has been, generally, outrage.  Tebow has been their poster boy for prolife, and now he has been co-opted by the pro choice lobby to strike a blow against the pro life lobby.  For the Pro-choice lobby to claim Tebow is actually on their side has the pro-lifers crying foul.

The pro-life side has long accused the pro-choice side of of only approving the choice to abort.  The pro-choice side has now responded by saying they do respect a woman's right to choose life, and have claimed the current biggest symbol of the prolife side as their own.  If this was a game of chess, they have taken a pawn. 

I say a game rather than a debate.  A debate has rules.  One can challenge the honesty and veracity of a statement.  One uses rhetoric and logic to score points and sway the audience. There are almost no public debates any more, not in politics, not here. What is happening here is jargon, cant, euphemism and the repetition of slogans. In our world, slogans trump truth. One side shouts the other down.  A move is made, then countered. A game, perhaps, but one with no rules, no endgame, and huge stakes:  life itself on one side, billions of dollars on the other. 

I am not a good chess player, but I do understand a little of the strategy involved.  A weak player will make a move, and hope the other guy doesn't realize what is happening, and fails to respond.  A strong player will make their moves in such a way that the other player is forced to make the moves the stong player wants them to.  A fool makes a move and expects no response at all.

So Planned Parenthood has done what Pro-lifers has always said it didn't: pay honour to a woman's right to choose life.  They have countered a prolife move with one of their own.  To say:  "hey, that's not fair!" or start calling them liars and deceivers or otherwise calling them names for them doing exactly what we said they wouldn't do is not a really good move.  A better move may be to say: "'without government interference'? You mean, like getting hundreds of millions of dollars from the government sort of interference?"  Or some other move.  Make it a good one.  And do understand that, eventually, they will make a response.

3.5 time outs Tuesday

LarryD started this. I thought I'd give this a shot, just this once.

1

My first (and possibly only) Sheavalanche has drawn to a close.  I had over four hundred hits in one day last week.  At one point, according to the stats, I had more hits in one hour than my daily average. I have had other spikes in bygone years.  A few times I have had hundreds of hits because of comments and links I have left in comboxes at Fr Z and NLM.  I stopped doing that, because it felt dishonest to use them to boost my stats.  I also had a huge hit spike - I believe it was bigger than when Shea linked to me- when Augustinus over at The Cafeteria is Closed linked to an article I wrote on Gather Us In.  

2

In Celebrity News:  Last week, the world was shocked at the news that Bryan Ferry, 66, lead singer of the band Roxy Music, had married a thirty year old woman, whom had previously dated his son.  Debate ranged aver whether it was creepier that he had broken the rock star/younger wife age rule (the youngest you are supposed to go is half your age plus one, which would have been thirty four in this case) or that his son had also dated her, and thus has most likely had sex with his step mom.

Really, who'd a thunk a man who sang a love song to a blow up doll would do something creepy?  Sing it man!  "I blew up your body/ But you blew my mind!"

3.

In Canadian Government News, there is... nothing.  Frankly, I love it when the government does squat.

3.5

One of the things I am not looking forward to in having Frodo is the prospect of being stuck watching more children's shows on television.  What happened to the good old days of cartoon critters dropping anvils and dynamite on each other?  Hacking up each other faces with razor blades?  That was hilarious!  These days, cartoons are such pallid, white bread, can't we all be nice to each other, and spoiled kids with understanding, patient parents, or kids with big heads and big eyes who speak like every little thing is the MOST. EXCITING. THING. EVER.  I'm looking at you, Dora and Diego.  And, from another show, I'm still waiting to see an episode entitled Caillou Gets a Whuppin'.

That's it for today.  Tomorrow I hope to do another post on the home altar.

This is cool, and a little scary

Scientists are set to clone a woolly mammoth within the next ten years.

Is this to be embraced as another step in the pursuit of knowledge, or something to be avoided before we find ourselves trapped in a control room while previously extinct species learn to unlock and open doors with their prehensile trunks?

The last line of the article is telling: "For better or worse it seems the controversial question, “should we?” has taken a backseat to its straightforward sibling, “can we?”"

Yeah, that'll work

Checking my blog list this morning I see that three important and well read blogs are reporting about creation of a new commission on Liturgical Art (including architecture) and Sacred Music.  All three blogs are giving thanks for the creation of, and expect great things (or at least things) from, this new commission.  They, like I, hope this will mean the end of modern art masterpiece churches and a return to a more traditional Catholic art and architecture.  After all, all those other commissions have worked so very well in reining in liturgical abuse, wayward bishops, and the like.

"They shall reap what they sow."

A sobering article about Christians in Muslim countries. Emphasis added.  h/t John C. Wright.

The forgotten Christians of the East

On Sunday night, Egyptian Copts staged what was supposed to be a peaceful vigil at Egypt's state television headquarters in Cairo. The 1,000 Christians represented the ancient Christian community of some 8 million whose presence in Egypt predates the establishment of Islam by several centuries. They gathered in Cairo to protest the recent burning of two churches by Islamic mobs and the rapid escalation of state-supported violent attacks on Christians by Muslim groups since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February.

According to Coptic sources, the protesters Sunday night were beset by Islamic attackers who were rapidly backed up by military forces. Between 19 and 40 Copts were killed by soldiers and Muslim attackers. They were run over by military vehicles, beaten, shot and dragged through the streets of Cairo.

State television Sunday night reported only that three soldiers had been killed. According to al-Ahram Online, the military attacked the studios of al-Hurra television on Sunday night to block its broadcast of information on the military assault on the Copts.

Apparently the attempt to control information about what happened worked. Monday's news reports about the violence gave little indication of the identity of the dead or wounded. They certainly left untold the story of what actually happened in Cairo on Sunday night.

In a not unrelated event, Lebanon's Maronite Catholic Patriarch Bechara Rai caused a storm two weeks ago. During an official visit to Paris, Rai warned French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the fall of the Assad regime in Syria could be a disaster for Christians in Syria and throughout the region. Today the Western-backed Syrian opposition is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Rai cautioned that the overthrow of President Bashar Assad could lead to civil war and the establishment of an Islamic regime.

In Iraq, the Iranian and Syrian-sponsored insurgency that followed the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in 2003 fomented a bloody jihad against Iraq's Christian population. This month marks the anniversary of last year's massacre of 58 Christian worshippers in a Catholic church in Baghdad. A decade ago there were 800,000 Christians in Iraq. Today there are 150,000.

Under the Shah of Iran, Iran's Christians were more or less free to practice their religion.

Today, they are subject to the whims of Islamic overlords who know no law other than Islamic supremacism.

Take the plight of Yousef Nadarkhani, an evangelical Protestant preacher who was arrested two years ago, tried and sentenced to death for apostasy and refusal to disavow his Christian faith. There is no law against apostasy in Iran, but no matter. Ayatollah Khomeini opposed apostasy. And so does Islamic law.

Once Nadarkhani's story was publicized in the West the Iranians changed their course.

Now they have reportedly abandoned the apostasy charge and are sentencing Nadarkhani to death for rape. The fact that he was never charged or convicted of rape is neither here nor there.

Palestinian Christians have similarly suffered under their popularly elected governments.

When the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, Christians made up 80 percent of Bethlehem's population. Today they comprise less than 20% of the population.

Since Hamas "liberated" Gaza in 2007, the area's ancient Christian minority has been under constant attack. With only 3,000 members, Gaza's Christian community has seen its churches, convents, book stores and libraries burned by Hamas members and their allies. Its members have been killed and assaulted. While Hamas has pledged to protect the Christians of Gaza, no one has been arrested for anti-Christian violence.

JUST AS the Jews of the Islamic world were forcibly removed from their ancient communities by the Arab rulers with the establishment of Israel in 1948, so Christians have been persecuted and driven out of their homes. Populist Islamic and Arab regimes have used Islamic religious supremacism and Arab racial chauvinism against Christians as rallying cries to their subjects. These calls have in turn led to the decimation of the Christian populations of the Arab and Islamic world.

For instance, at the time of Lebanese independence from France in 1946 the majority of Lebanese were Christians. Today less than 30% of Lebanese are Christians. In Turkey, the Christian population has dwindled from 2 million at the end of World War I to less than 100,000 today. In Syria, at the time of independence Christians made up nearly half of the population. Today 4% of Syrians are Christian. In Jordan half a century ago 18% of the population was Christian. Today 2% of Jordanians are Christian.

Christians are prohibited from practicing Christianity in Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, the Christian population is being systematically destroyed by regime-supported Islamic groups. Church burnings, forced conversions, rape, murder, kidnap and legal persecution of Pakistani Christians has become a daily occurrence.

Sadly for the Christians of the Islamic world, their cause is not being championed either by Western governments or by Western Christians. Rather than condition French support for the Syrian opposition on its leaders' commitment to religious freedom for all in a post-Assad Syria, the French Foreign Ministry reacted with anger to Rai's warning of what is liable to befall Syria's Christians in the event President Bashar Assad and his regime are overthrown. The Foreign Ministry published a statement claiming it was "surprised and disappointed," by Rai's statement.

The Obama administration was even less sympathetic. Rai is now travelling through the US and Latin America on a three week visit to émigré Maronite communities. The existence of these communities is a direct result of Arab and Islamic persecution of Lebanese Maronite Christians.

Rai's visit to the US was supposed to begin with a visit to Washington and meetings with senior administration officials including President Barack Obama. Yet, following his statement in Paris, the administration cancelled all of its scheduled meetings with him. That is, rather than consider the dangers that Rai warned about and use US influence to increase the power of Christians and Kurds and other minorities in any post- Assad Syrian government, the Obama administration decided to blackball Rai for pointing out the dangers.

Aside from Evangelical Protestants, most Western churches are similarly uninterested in defending the rights of their co-religionists in the Islamic world. Most mainline Protestant churches, from the Anglican Church and its US and international branches to the Methodists, Baptists, Mennonite and other churches have organized no sustained efforts to protect or defend the rights of Christians in the Muslim world.

Instead, over the past decade these churches and their related international bodies have made repeated efforts to attack the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population has increased in the past 60 years - Israel.

As for the Vatican, in the five years since Pope Benedict XVI laid down the gauntlet at his speech in Regensburg and challenged the Muslim world to act with reason and tolerance it its dealing with other religions, the Vatican has abandoned this principled stand. A true discourse of equals has been replaced by supplication to Islam in the name of ecumenical understanding. Last year Benedict hosted a Synod on Christians in the Middle East that made no mention of the persecution of Christians by Islamic and populist forces and regimes. Instead, Israel was singled out for criticism.

The Vatican's outreach has extended to Iran where it sent a representative to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's faux counter terror conference. As Giulio Meotti wrote this week in Ynet, whereas all the EU ambassadors walked out of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denying speech at the UN's second Durban conference in Geneva in 2009, the Vatican's ambassador remained in his seat. The Vatican has embraced leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the Middle East.

It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution and decimation of Christian communities in the Muslim world. As Sunday's events in Egypt and other daily anti-Christian attacks by Muslims against Christians throughout the region show, their behavior is not appeasing anyone. What is clear enough is that they shall reap what they sow.

Unelected Canadian Judge Claims To Be In Tune With The Feelings Of The People

This is sickening.

A women strangles her newborn infant and throws the body of her baby over the fence into the neighbour's yard.  Her conviction for murder is overturned and she is instead convicted of the lesser crime of infanticide and is given a suspended sentence of a mere three years.

Here's the words of the judge's decision: "while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support."  She goes on to say:  "Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant's death, especially at the hands of the infant's mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother."

she, who never has and need never stand for election, claims to know the feelings of the people well enough to use those feelings as a justification for her decision.  She rules not on facts, but on feelings.  Here, judge, is a fact about my feelings:  I do not grieve for the mother, beyond grieving that she will not spend a single day behind bars. You have just set a precedent that allows teenagers in trouble to kill innocent infants without fear of any repercussions.  You have de facto de-criminalized infanticide. 

Holy Cow! Did you see that flying pig go by?

Ht New Liturgical Movement

The CBC did a report on the Gregorian Chant colloquium in Halifax, and it was not a hatchet job.  Never thought I would see that.

I can't embed, but here's the link.

They were positive on the music, but they did not mention its place in religion or religious ceremonies.  In fact, they call it the 'sounds of a bygone era', as though they were reporting on an autopsy.  That could be why they were so positive.

That pig is suddenly looking more mundane.