Rolling Stone Reporter Not Noted For Her Journalistic Rigor Strikes Again, But That's Not My Question

A "journalist" who's been down this road before apparently helped whip up outrage about a innocent man accused of rape.
But, you know, it was a chance to get in some licks on an institution that stands against everything much of what Rolling Stone is for, so what difference did it make if it was all a lie, and if men went to jail while the liar made a financial killing, and had their reputations ruined, and died in prison?

What difference?

It served its purpose.

It's a horrible, horrible, ugly, ugly story, and it's pretty completely covered in the linked Newsweek article, but I am left with one very off topic question.

How is a 67-year-old man suffering from heart disease handcuffed to a hospital bed, kept under armed guard, and possibly "denied a ... lifesaving heart operation"; when we are a society so solicitous of the welfare of our prison population that their elective sex-change operations are covered?

Maybe Pennsylvania is backward....
(Yes, I'm aware that that is not a trans-sexual, much less a prison inmate, but rather than marvelous Sean Bean. Or is it Seane Beane? or Swhawn Bhawn? Anyway, it's a joke. Just because it isn't funny doesn't mean it's not a joke.)

Guns, Babies, Free Speech and Mandated Speech Contrary To the Speakers Interests and/or Beliefs

California, the cradle of a free-speech movement back in the day, has a law that pro-life crisis pregnancy centers must prominently post a sign in 48 point type on a sheet the size of letterhead, not just reminding women that abortions are legal, but telling them how to find an abortionist at little or no cost.

I wonder what the reaction of those who favor this mandated speech would be if "gun-free zones" were required by law to post in a similar manner reminding people of their second amendment rights, and informing them where to go to purchase a pistol, apply for a license, do a little target practice, and, where legal, get themselves a concealed carry permit.

As it happens, I am far right on the issue of the private murder of the unborn, and far left on the issue of keeping weapons out of the hands of those on terrorist watchlists, toddlers whose caregiver's IQs are in the middling double digits, and loners who aren't playing with a full deck.

I am just non-plussed by the complete lack of principles that are brought to bear on so many contentious issues, the inconsistency.

But back to the crisis pregnancy centers, if I were they, I'd comply with the law, and make the dang sign REALLY prominent and eye-catching, by using a larger font, and framing the notice with images  of the "products of abortion" such as the Planned Parenthood "sting" videos gave us, with neon arrows pointing to them, comme ça:

California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to Abortions for eligible women. 

 

You know, Abortions Like This!!!!

"It's a Large World, After All! It's a..."

I have thought more than once lately, that I need to remember that not every Catholic lives in the south east of the United States, and my experiences are not universal, and what seems obvious or essential to American Catholics may not be so at all for Catholics in other parts of the world - the 4 year annulment process in Argentina? the polygamy situation in Africa? crony capitalism in the former communist bloc or in Latin America?

Not everything is about you, 

America, stop being so self-centered!

And some journalists and pundits who ought to know better take issue with Pope Francis's view of world affairs because he, obviously, sees things from a different point from us 'Muricans, not taking into account that, hey, we Americans are not necessarily more objective, (and if there is any nation given to the surprise when other parts of the world do things differently, isn't that us? don't tell me you've never seen someone trying to get coffee in a Chinese restaurant, I shan't believe you.)
Now, I'm not letting him off the hook entirely, while I think the statement from some Synod father or other about letting some doctrines be decided upon regionally is... what's the word? oh, yeah, CRACKED OUT.... there is something to be said for knowing your audience.
We've all met people who suffer from scrupulosity around whom no criticism must be uttered, because they, to whom said criticism does not apply, will be the only ones who take it to heart, and they, in fixing what was not in them broken, will go off the deep end and be covered with Crazy Glue.
And sometimes lack of specificity is just laziness - more than once I've been in a cast that during notes was told volume was a problem, and when questioned as to when and who was not loud enough a director just said, everything, generally.
Then next night in notes, inevitably someone is scolded, you're too loud now, you were fine before, you weren't who I meant.
Well, then.....?

But anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah...
If there were more proof needed that the nation from which cometh this Pope is not like unto ours, read this:

Two judges in Argentina have given a pedophile a reduced sentence because his 6-year-old victim had already been sexually abused and showed “homosexual tendencies”....

Court papers show that judges ... reduced the sentence of soccer club coach Mario Tolosa who in 2010 was charged with raping the unnamed boy. Tolosa’s sentence was reduced from six years to 38 months because the boy was used to such abuse from his father....

The two judges have a long record of reducing sentences for sexual and gender-based crimes. In the past, they have justified a pastor’s rape of two teenage girls because they belonged to a lower economic class, lowered the sentence of a man who raped his daughter because she gave contradictory statements in court and reduced the sentence of a man who murdered his wife from 17 years to 10 because the woman’s attitude was “almost provocative”.

Wow. A woman dared to be "almost provocative."
Wonder what the murderer would have done had she be actually provocative...

When did "civil liberties" stop....

.... meaning "my right to do things without government interference" and become "my right to have the government interfere to make you do things I want you to do" instead?

And did the ACLU rewrite its charter to reflect this?

"Standing up for what you believe is right" =/= "standing up for your rights," or at least it didn't use to.

After the repeal of prohibition was anyone convinced that he had a right to alcoholic beverages such that places did not serve it should be compelled to do so?
Does the right to bear arms compel anyone to sell them?
Does freedom of the press require that a newspaper publish every jackhat's letter to the editor manifesto?

Or has bleeding your adversaries with continuous meritless lawsuits become a noble practice?

Trinity Health Corporations, one of the largest Catholic health care operations in America, is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union over its refusal to provide women with abortion services at their medical facilities.  ....
The health group adheres to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ ethical and religious protocol for medical practice, which includes the refusal to perform abortions and tubal ligations within their hospitals.
These directives for Catholic health services from the USCCB have been consistently followed by Trinity Health Corporation hospitals, which also cover various other medical issues from palliative care to birth control.
The ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan are suing Trinity Health over allegations that pregnant women are being denied "emergency health care" - specifically abortions - when they seek care at their hospitals. The ACLU is also underscoring Trinity Health’s refusal to perform operations such as tubal ligations on pregnant women because of the medical directives they follow.....
The ACLU has long opposed Catholic hospitals operating according to Catholic teaching. The ACLU and the group the MergerWatch Project co-authored a 2013 report that claimed the growth of Catholic hospitals was a “miscarriage of medicine.”
The report says the ACLU’s work in this area is supported by the “generous support” of two anonymous donors as well as the Arcus Foundation, the Herb Block Foundation, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Scherman Foundation. [emphasis supplied, I just thought it might be a good idea to note who is funding the attacks on Catholic practice.]

Frankincense.... of CRANKincense?

I thought this was a little far-fetched:

Church incense could become illegal [in the United Kingdom] as an “unintended consequence” of the new Psychoactive Substances Bill, which aims to outlaw all forms of “legal highs”. 
The Bill, which will make it a criminal offence to sell “any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect”, has attracted considerable criticism. One problem, according to Professor Les Iversen, chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, is the inability to prove psychoactivity in a court of law, “which is pretty fundamental to a Bill that seeks to ban psychoactive substances”.
Two ecclesiastical bodies have expressed concern “that use of incense in worship would be an unwitting casualty of the new legislation”. The Association of English Cathedrals said last week “that the term ‘psychoactive substances’ in the Psychoactive Substances Bill can be interpreted so broadly that it risks criminalising the use of incense in cathedrals, churches and other places of worship as, we assume, an unintended consequence of the Bill’s drafting”.

I thought someone was really makin' a stretch, no one, (at least, no one who isn't already stoned,) is gonna claim incense get you high....

But not so, according to no less an authority than Scientific American.

Burning incense has accompanied religious ceremonies since ancient times. Its fragrant presence may be more than symbolic, however—a May 20 study in the FASEB journal suggests that a chemical commonly found in incense may elevate mood.
Raphael Mechoulam of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his col­leagues injected mice with incensole acetate, a component of the resin of the Boswellia plant. This resin, better known as frankincense, is an ingredient in Middle Eastern incense. The chemical reduced anxiety and depressive symptoms in the mice. In the anxiety test, for example, injected animals were less fearful of open spaces as compared with mice that were given a placebo.

And we know that if a law can be interpreted stupidly, it's pretty much guaranteed that it will be.

Which is why, if you are going to make a law, or change a law or tell someone about a law... for pete's sake do it right? word it with some precision?
Not namin' any names, Uncle George....

If Only the Establishment Clause's Power Could Be Used For Good and Not Evil?

Well lookie, lookie. They can!
(Seriously, I have always thought that - even when I was a kid and didn't, AFAIK, have a single Satanist, Muslim, Wiccan, Hindu or Buddhist among my acquaintance, I wondered if the people who were still fighting the lost cause of "prayer in school" had considered how they would react if their children happened to be in the class of a devout person not of the Judeo-Christian persuasion who led the children in a prayer of which the parents might not approve.)
(I didn't put it like that, don't think I knew the phrase "Judeo-Christian heritage," my thought were actually more along the lines of, wow, what if Mrs. Abercrombie was a pagan and we prayed to Minerva? That would be cool!)
In a society that sometimes seems to be doing its damnedest, (word chosen with care,) to silence certain religious voices in public debate, it is nothing short of bizarre that anyone would seek to deny the expression and action -- perhaps that should read "expression IN action"? -- of a non-religious entity's voice.

Have we not all the right to act in accordance with our morals and ethics, whatever their source, to try to create a society that is moral and ethical, as we define those things?
Not necessarily to prevail, but certainly to call upon them in making our decisions as to what promotes the common good?

A federal judge on Monday sided with an anti-abortion group in its challenge of a key birth control provision of the Obama administration's health care overhaul.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Richard Leon adds to the legal debate surrounding the law's requirement that contraceptives for women be included among a range of cost-free, preventive benefits offered to employees.
The 29-page opinion held that March for Life could be exempt from the requirement, known as the contraceptive mandate, even though it is a non-religious organization that opposes abortion on ethical grounds rather than religious ones.
March for Life, which holds annual anti-abortion marches in Washington, was founded in 1973 following the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade opinion that established the legal right to abortion. The organization contends that life begins at conception and opposes coverage in its health insurance plans for methods of contraception that it likens to abortion.

So legally you can be "not religious, but spiritual", (even if the hearer of such a statement is "not honest, but interested.")
Speaking of being interesting - I wonder how many of the individuals who make up that "non-religious entity" are very religious indeed. I'll bet a high percentage.
(Me, I often if not usually interpret"spiritual but not religious" to mean "I know what I really ought to do, but I prefer to do what I really want to do, and besides, I like to sleep in." Especially since most of the people from whom I happen to have heard it over the years are in professions in which any idiot knew you couldn't really do much of anything if you didn't, whaddya call it? .... oh, yeah,  practice.)

Why You Should Never Hesitate to Simply Explain Why Someone Else's Opinion is Wrong, and Why I Should Wait...

.... and read a bit more before I form an opinion.

Equality law in Northern Ireland is being used to destroy individual freedom, a leading Catholic barrister has said.
Following a legal ruling in Northern Ireland, in which a judge ruled that a bakery run by Christians discriminated against a gay customer by refusing to bake a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan, Neil Addison wrote on his personal blog: “The case will undoubtedly be appealed but what does emerge from it is the complete intolerance of the “equality” industry and the way in which equality law is being used to destroy individual freedom including the freedom of a bakery company to decide what products it wants to make.”

Fair 'nuff.

Neil Addison said that it was surprising that the judge ruled that the bakery had discriminated on the grounds of sexual orientation.  

Yes, as even I, in my ignorance thought.
But ah ha!

He said: “Northern Ireland is unique in the UK for in making discrimination on the grounds of political opinion explicitly unlawful and this arises from the long history of sectarian division in Northern Ireland where religion, nationality and political opinion were so often synonymous with British/Unionist/Protestant identity facing Irish/Republican/Catholic identity.

And that makes sense.
And I think I might even approve of such a law, although previously I would have said, heck yeah, if a local church didn't want to rent their fellowship hall to a white supremacist group that was anti-immigrant, and not supported such a law.
But I can see how trying to put an end to discrimination against persons on account of their political opinions is a value that might require nurtuing in northern Ireland.
HOWEVER.... I still feel that forcing a merchant to to sell someone cake, and forcing a merchant to sell someone a specific cake AND BEING REQUIRED TO WRITE ON THAT CAKE SOMETHING THAT VIOLATED ONES BELIEFS are two very different matters.
That's just me.
But I am always open to hear why I am wrong.

For instance, could someone explain nicely why the specter of polygamy is a "red herring" in the  campaign against allowing people to marry those of their own sex?
So far the most cogent reasoning I have found is, ".... because it's different, that's why! It's apples and oranges," whihc has left me unconvinced.

"Ostentatious"? Well, That Wouldn't Do, Now, Would It?

It seems that the court in a little town in France has decreed that a statue of St John Paul be removed from a town square.

At the unveiling ceremony for the statue in 2006, Ploermel's Mayor Paul Anselin described John Paul II as "a giant of the 20th Century who participated in the fall of the Iron Curtain".
But opponents applied to French courts for the removal of the statue, claiming it violates French law on the separation of church and state.

I don't actually find this all that troubling.
You want "troubling"?

A 15-year-old Muslim girl has been banned from class twice for wearing a long black skirt seen as too openly religious for secular France...
The girl was stopped from going to class earlier this month by the headteacher who reportedly felt the long skirt “conspicuously” showed religious affiliation, which is banned in schools by France’s strict secularity laws.
“The girl was not excluded, she was asked to come back with a neutral outfit and it seems her father did not want the student to come back to school,” local education official Patrice Dutot told AFP on Tuesday.
He admitted that the student always removed her veil before entering school premises in the north-eastern town of Charleville-Mezieres, as is specifically stipulated by law.

As I understand it, a Christian girl or an atheist girl would have been permitted to wear fashion of that length and fit.
(And perhaps a boy would have been allowed? I don't know where France is running in the Crazy Stakes.)
But back to the original topic.

According to the court, the dimensions of the statue and its placement are “ostentatious” in  character.

And we all know how refined and tasteful, how opposed to ostentation the French are, how they lionize subtlety... 

Like the vitality of Schrödinger's cat ...

In a society that has jettisoned recourse to common sense as a means to settle matters, all takes on reality are, it seems, up for grabs.
All actions, particularly those involving sexual consent, can simultaneously be thought of as right and wrong.

The world says, clearly, loudly, repeatedly, that it is wrong to discourage any sexual urge -- except of course when it isn't.
This is regardless of the age, marital connection to, gender, prior acquaintance, blood relation, other commitments, oh heck, species of the object of that sexual urge.
Except, of course when those things do matter, and should be regarded.
 
An elderly politician may go on trial for having engaged in sexual activity with his beloved and loving wife, who had Alzheimer's and was in a nursing home.
A poster in the combox at the linked article says that though he has often stated, "I would not wish a burden similar to mine on my worst enemy....I ‘d be tempted to reconsider that kindness for" those who seem responsible for pushing this malicious prosecution, and I'm tempted to agree.
A more complete treatment of the case is at Bloomberg.
My volunteer activities in the "memory wing" of a nursing home don't give me any particular insight into this situation, but they do provide me with experience of drastic differences in dementia patients' levels of autonomy, of self-actuation and motivation, and more to the point, the drastic differences a single person may present, from week to week, even from moment to moment.
I imagine that, yes, this man from time to time offered attentions that were unwelcome at that particular moment, or that were welcome a split second earlier and no longer were.
But of course, so did the nurses, and the daughters, the and the CNAs, (and probably ministers,) - their attentions would have been of hygiene, beverages and therapy,(and probably prayer and the Blessed Sacrament,) rather than of affection.
But common sense, people!
That people colluded to deprive this old man of his wife and yes, this old woman of her husband, is just cruel.

Oh, one last thing, an opinion forged from one too many personal experiences - any family member who does NOT, as this poor man was said to, have "difficulty following parameters set by [a nursing home or hospital] staff" isn't paying attention.

And probably doesn't deserve to be called "family.".

"Troubling Consequences"

The possibility of sex – selective abortion in the UK was exposed in a Daily Telegraph investigation in which two doctors were filmed agreeing to carry out terminations because the unborn babies were girls. Police investigated, but the Crown Prosecution Service later refused to bring charges against them, saying that it was not in the public interest.

 

I know, I know, how could it be, really?

Because, um, consequences.

MPs are likely to vote against attempts to outlaw abortion on grounds of gender after Labour warned that it will have "troubling consequences". ..

She said that the move could inadvertently outlaw abortion in cases where there are "gender specific abnormalities".

In a letter to MPs, she also warned that the amendment has the potential to undermine Britain's abortion laws

You know, like reminding people that there are some reasons to kill a baby that even WE  think are, you know.... not good.
You see it's ALREADY  illegal. So we don't need to say it again. And we won't prosecuate anyone because, it's ALREADY  illega --  wait, that reasoning doesn't work. Let's see, how can we make sense of this....?

And we'd better, because I where the UK treads, there tread we....
Because sometimes, you simply MUST have a boy.

What else can you do if the estate's entailed?