Me, at 7: I Looooove Root Beer My Snarky Little Brother: Yeah? Then Why Don't You Marry It?

What hicks we were!
Little did I know that what he suggested was possible.!

Earlier this month, a professor at Santa Monica College led students in an ‘EcoSexual Sextravaganza’ in which participants ‘married the ocean.’
Amber Katherine, a philosophy professor who helped organize the May 14 event, explained to Campus Reform that the purpose of the “wedding” was to bring about a deeper love for the planet through “ecocentric passion and even lust.”
The ceremony began with ... a former SMC student, proclaiming to those gathered at Santa Monica Beach that “today we stand upon this holy earth and in this sacred space to witness the rite of matrimony between the sea and us all.”
Next, leaders of the event distributed rings to the students, announcing “with this ring, I bestow upon the sea the treasures of my mind heart and hands—as well as my body and soul. With the power vested in us, we now pronounce you ‘married to the sea.’”

Oh. Or would that have been a mixed marriage? I mean, the body is what? about 60% water? But alas, no root beer at all...

A mug like that.....? Forget that mug and find another, One of your own kind, Stick to your own kind!

Sometimes, You Just Don't Know Against Whom To Root

Wealthy, conservative, wishes-he-were-still-closeted activist does battle against How-Is-Two-People-having-Sex-In-What-They-Think-Is-Private-NOT-Newsworthy? media outlet.
Former compared elite universities to the pre-Reformation Catholic Church.

“You have this priestly class of professors who aren’t doing a whole lot of work, supported by a system dedicated to convincing people to buy indulgences and amass enormous debt for the dubious salvation that a diploma represents.”

But the latter, Gawker is.... well, Gawker.

I think I'll just concentrate on a journey where the path to Virtue and Rectitude is better marked - who gets my vote in the 2016 Presidential Election.

The Evolution of Words

Of course English is a living language, definitions of pre-existing words may multiply as need arises.

"Stylist" was not, I suppose, a recognized profession until recent decades, and so "style", as a verb, could have meant, variously, to "call oneself" or to arrange things to look attractive.

Now "style, v.", can mean "to remind a client that even after she has put on pants or a skirt her ensemble isn't really complete until she adds a shirt or something."

"Empower" and "dignity" seem similarly to have.... grown, as words.

I think we may have Thelma and Louise to thank for some of that.
Wasn't it the "transformative violence" of that film that sanctioned women acting as stupid and irresponsible as some men always have in accord with the terms of a patr- living life on their own terms rather than those of a patriarchal society?

And what is driving off a cliff if not "death with dignity"?

As long as it's done in a cool car.
In a beater mini-van it would just be sad...

"An Ashley By Any Other Name"

I won't bore you with a map of the wormhole down which... no, one falls down rabbit holes, right? wormholes are more a matter of falling through, I think.... there. I've done it again.
Start over.
I won't go into how I ended up here, (thank you, Time Suck Yclept Interwebz), but because several young couples in my family are going through the minefield of whatever shall we name junior? and all the juniors so far have been girls, I found it arresting.
Large family, names have good and fairly immediate associations, but also, of course, unpleasant one; names are taken or over-taken; names create awkward monograms; names have too few or too many syllables for euphony; names sound too indicative of one nationality or another, (sometimes one appropriately enough claimed); names are oocky.
(That last is an actual, quoted appraisal of one suggestion.)
Add in some specific familial... I won't say requirements, but no one has defied certain expectations for generations... customs having to do with eldest offspring being named after a parent and bequests of purely sentimental value being given along with the name.
And smart aleck relatives who favor vaguely insulting or gross nicknames for pets and children.

Absent, yes, I will say sadly absent, from the negotiations is any thought of honoring ancestors, (other than in that one instance mentioned,) or the Faith.
This saddens me.
No thought of patronal saints, or looking to the liturgical calendar.

And with the resurgence of "old-fashioned" names for girls, (flowers, or Old Testament heroines,) there has been no trendy rise of virtue names, has there?
Well, I suppose modesty and constancy are no longer considered virtues, and "Purity" would just be tempting fate...

But there is an irony to the above linked piece from 1985, to a degree that would probably shock the author were she alive - she wondered why "pink" children, girls, were being given names that "mask their gender."
If only she had known! By 2016 we would have been past such creaky notions, that the options for an infant's gender were binary! What, only "boys" and "girls"?
What an antiquated notion!
Not only are there dozens of conceivable genders, being "fluid" in ones gender is a gender in and of itself!

But perhaps most important of all, masculinity or femininity is hardly something parents, or even medical personnel can tell, or would dare to assume just from looking at the little, squalling, red thing.

Brave New Relativistic World that has such creatures beings in it, we can't call them "creatures" because that would imply something or Someone created them, and that surely can't be right...

Austin Ivereigh on "The Letter"

The arguments for allowing abortion under very limited circumstances are precisely the same as for allowing abortion under broad circumstances. Legalising abortion out of compassion for the mother’s pain — which is what motivates Professor Beattie — implies, at once, rendering the unborn life a lesser being. First the law strips it of rights, then it is able to be killed.
Once the law declares that the baby of a woman who has been raped, or a disabled baby, is not a life worth defending or saving, it crosses that threshold.If the law does not declare that life worth living under those circumstances, it cannot logically declare it worth living under other circumstances. A life is recognised as such in law, or it is not.Even without religion to teach us that every life, however conceived, is a reflection of the divine, legally and philosophically this has always been an either-or question.

Nails it.
But Eccles still has the best line.

Herod was pro-life, since he only killed people under 2 years of age.

Because Religious Freedom Means Performing Whatever Rituals You Want, Just as Long As You Don't Actually BELIEVE Any of the Things You Profess, Much Less ACT As If You Did

And no, you can't just live and let live and help those whom you cannot in good conscience advise to continue on the path they have set themselves find someone who can advise them.

You must either allow us to rub your nose in it or be driven from any active role in society.
A student was

dismissed from a master’s program in counseling at the university after his advisor claimed that it was unethical for him to decline to counsel same-sex couples and refer them to another counselor instead....
was almost finished with his degree in the program...when he sought to fulfill the degree program’s internship requirements,... at the Springfield Marriage and Family Institute. The university had approved the Christian-based counseling agency as an internship site.
[The student] asked his internship supervisor at the institute to speak to his class about Christian counseling, with the approval his instructor. ...
During the presentation, the counselor answered questions about the institute’s treatment of homosexual clients. It counsels these clients on an individual basis, but prefers to refer same-sex couples for relationship counseling to counselors whose religious views would better fit that purpose.
[Another] student complained to [the student's] faculty advisor... 
the faculty advisor ordered him to stop attending the institute and told the institute it was no longer a proper place for an internship. The university later stripped the internship hours from [the masters student's] record....
When [he] sought another internship, his advisor required him to meet certain suitability standards. The advisor later wrote to department officials and claimed that it appeared the student had not renounced his religious views and his support for the institute.

"Cause There's No Such Thing As a Slippery Slope, Chicken Little!"

Yeah, mixing metaphors, but here you are.

Norwegian bishop has said the country’s clergy will no longer officiate at civil weddings, after the predominant Lutheran Church’s governing synod voted to conduct gay marriages in Norway.
Bishop Bernt Eidsvig of Oslo told Catholic News Service that he would have to seek permission from the Vatican, saying: “It’s clear we must distinguish our own Church marriages from others.
“This is a matter of liturgy, so it doesn’t necessarily reflect broader change in our society’s moral values. But politicians may now get aggressive toward churches who resist these weddings, so the best option is for us to stop conducting marriages on the state’s behalf.”

No, no, nobody's trying to force you to do anything, we just want freedom to be who we want to be - nothing to do with you, really....

Equal Rights, Equal Healthcare, and a Modest Proposal

I admit, I'd never read this before, (h/t to Lifesite CORRECTION, h/t to Catholic World Report,) - the Affordable Healthcare Act? Life is not that long!!!!

Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities Proposed Rule

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act

[seriously, 1557 sections?]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a proposed rule to advance health equity and reduce disparities in health care. The proposed rule, Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities, will assist some of the populations that have been most vulnerable to discrimination and will help provide those populations equal access to health care and health coverage....individuals cannot be subject to discrimination based on their race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability....

I have a cunning plan!

The proposed rule requires that women have equal access to the health care they receive and the insurance they obtain. Moreover, the rule makes clear that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity. For example -

• Individuals cannot be denied health care or health coverage based on their sex, including their gender identity.
• Individuals must be treated consistent with their gender identity, including in access to facilities.
• Sex-specific health care cannot be denied or limited just because the person seeking such services identifies as belonging to another gender. For example, a provider may not deny an individual treatment for ovarian cancer, based on the individual’s identification as a transgender man, where the treatment is medically indicated.

Don't you think every pro-life guy you know should trot on over to the nearest Planned Parenthood and ask for a pregnancy test? Demand one! And maybe insist on being given an abortion? after all, it's zir* body. Ze* should say that ze's been doing the backstroke in the gender fluidity pool and today woke up feeling all womanish.
Com'on, it'll be fun.
-----------------------
I should make plain, unlike many who are pro-life, I was in favor of healthcare reform. But I thought it should have gone much further than it did, I think socialized medicine is the only civilized set-up. The trouble is, we didn't get healthcare reform, we got health INSURANCE reform, it still costs a bloody fortune and it's still making the medical establishment, the insurance establishment and the pharmaceutical establishment filthy rich with the scams they have set up amongst themselves.
And the way the whole thing fell out, it made clear, it made it undeniable, the fetishization of abortion and contraception that sends tingles up the spine in certain quarters of what used to be called with some justification, the liberal movement.
Let's be honest, there are plenty of common and necessary heathcare services and drugs that are not required to be covered under ALL plans, (adult eye exams? foot care? weightloss surgery?) but contraceptives, some of which are abortefacient, was a hill the Obama administration was willing to die on - despite the knowledge that compromising on that would have allowed them to form a coalition with the USCCB which would have guaranteed success. But nope, they were going to punish those whose very refusal to embrace skankdom themselves feels, even without a word being spoken**, like such a reproach to those who revel in it  - they were going to insist that those puritanical types pay for it. Because make no mistake, this was never about healthcare, it was about silencing, driving from the public square those who don't espouse the notion that the only wrong or unhealthy sexual activity or attitude is continence.
Your body's working as it was intended? Great, you can get drugs that will stop that!
Oh, your body's NOT working as intended, you're infertile? Nope, probably not gonna give you any help with that...
----------------
* Not making this up. Anyone else worried that irony and satire are becoming redundnat?
** I, of course, am not such a one - I'm always ready to speak, or type a word. And "skankdom" is a pejorative that applies at least as much to men (whatever their "gender," she added sarcastically,) as to women. What can I say, I think sluts should be ashamed...

"The Danish Girl"

Thanks to "For Your Consideration" dvds, I have watched a number of newish movies with Himself, of late, movies which I would have probably seen later when they were free, or never. (I don't think I'm violating an terms of their possession if I watch them with him.)
Generally, after I view or read a piece of work like this, I go back to see what reviews, "experts," etc., had to say about it.

I've read that it is a piece of transgender activist "propaganda," that some involved in its creation see themselves now as adding their voices to the acceptance of transgenderism....

Frankly, I was surprised by the refreshingly un-PC pov of The Danish Girl.

To me, it seems to present, in very sympathetic terms, the life of a delusional man, and they way his life was constricted, and ultimately ended by the mental illness from whihc he suffered.

What the intentions of its creators' were, I can not say, but that is what I "got" from it.

Eddie Redmayne gave a very detailed, but more technically proficient than moving portrait of Einar Wegener. (I should say up front that I go in to this with a bit of hostility to Redmayne, because I think he has an Oscar that belonged to Michael Keaton. Not his fault, so I'm sure I'll forgive him eventually, as I will Tom Hanks for having the Oscar that by all rights was Anthony Hopkins' for Remains of the Day.)

On the other hand, that may have been intentional, and appropriate, because except in rare cases of congenital sexual ambiguity, men suffering from such delusions can, at best, aspire to a kind of "technical proficiency" in their pretense, rather than anything real. Overacting is always easier than being, hence, the caricatures of femininity presented by so many drag queens and trans-gender "women."

Alicia Vikander is the soul of the movie.
It is a love story, and her character is the one who provides actual love, (though even she fails at the real test of the lover - wishing, and acting for, the good of the beloved. Much harder than enabling, perhaps?)
Regardless of the truth of the story, in this film of an apparently highly fictionalized novelization of a truish story of an attractive madman, her portrayal of the wife who loved him through and despite his descant into insanity was wonderful.
Her husband's delusion, his betrayal, his pitiful learning to play a part, (as if ones gender is a matter of gesture and posture!) his lies, his truly insulting - to an actual woman - notion of womanhood, and finally, his absurd attempt to have organs implanted in order to bear children at an age when pregnancy and childbirth would have been improbably for an actual woman - the clear-eyed love she exuded was tragic, beautiful and riveting. (I understand that actual Gerda, for all that gender idealogues want her to be a lesbian icon, finally gave up and married another man while her damaged husband was still alive.)

"Well who the hell are WE to say people should be prevented from blowing thier brains out?!??" asks the New York Times

Or wait, they didn't.
Or actually came out in support of suicide prevention.
Except when they aren't.
But by "they", I don't mean "they" because there's the paper, (LOL! do they even have any readers of "paper" anymore?) and then there's the "Editorial Board."
Which speaks for the paper, right?
Although, of course, in the pages of the Op-Ed, they may give space to other viewpoints.
Except when they point blank refuse to.
Because a multiplicity of opinions can be countenanced, should actually be encouraged.
Except when it can't because anyone who disagrees is a poopyhead.

Got it?

So.
If stricter gun control will help prevent suicides, than civilized people have no choice but to support it. ("But we should try to save as many people as possible.")
You know, because that's an absolute value, keeping distraught people from offing themselves.
Unless we approve of the means said distraught people have chosen.
Then we're in favor of it, (a "governor should sign into law a bill that would allow some terminally ill patients to hasten their death.")

One might be forgiven for suspecting that it's only guns to which the New York Times Editorial Board objects, that they hold guns to be objectively evil, but find suicide morally neutral.
At least, that's the only logical defense I can find for rationalizing the two different stances.

And I say this as a supporter of stricter gun control, who hates what the NRA, at least currently, stands for, and who despises the cowardice of its congressminions..

"The Ways of True Love": Rome Conference in October Addresses Pastoral Needs of Homosexuals

This is interesting and good news.

Courage International and Ignatius Press announce their first Rome conference to address the pastoral needs of men and women who experience homosexual tendencies. Living the Truth in Love is a conference and resource event which will be held October 2, just before the start of the Ordinary Synod on the Family, at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas ("The Angelicum").
The theme of the conference will be "The Ways of True Love—Pastoral Approaches to Welcome and Accompany those Living with Homosexual Tendencies."....
Conference organizers intend the event and its resources to help those responsible for pastoral ministry to better understand each of these dimensions and to be better equipped to welcome and accompany men and women with homosexual tendencies, and ultimately to help them find the fullness of joy in their journey with and to Christ. 
Father Paul Check, executive director of Courage International, explains that the Living the Truth in Love conference distinguishes itself from other conferences by offering a fuller and more precise understanding of the human person. "Through his Church, Christ invites everyone to the abundant life (Jn 10:10). He offers his mercy ('neither do I condemn you'), and then he calls us to conversion of heart ('now go and sin no more'), and he gives us the grace to make this possible. In the Gospel, Jesus not only offers his compassion but he also calls us to conversion because he knows we will only be truly joyful and fulfilled when we live as he created us to be."
"So many of the current approaches to homosexuality... seem to limit themselves to 'acceptance' without recognizing Jesus' call to conversion. And they defend a 'right' to sexual intimacy, but they do not acknowledge God's design for marriage to which Jesus himself refers in Matthew 19." 

It's open to anyone, and will be, one presumes mostly if not entirely in English?

I have looked around for it a tiny bit, but can't find any reference to it, which may mean I'm making it up completely, but I think I remember seeing a television show when I was very little, perhaps one of those anthologies? because none of the faces in my memory are familiar from any other context.
Anyway, black and white, drama, an adult babysitter accidentally kills a small child who, as he is put to bed, begs for a blankie, or pillow, or stuffed animal or something, that he and she have been told he is not to have.

But he wanted it so badly!

Of course, the point was he had a life-threatening allergy. (It stuck with me because I had allergies, so of course at some level it terrified me, but in a fun, monster-movie way, since mine were dermatological, and never life threatening.)

But it has always informed my knowledge, again, even when I was a small child, that just because someone "wants" something, it is not "mean" to keep it from them or criticize their pursuit of it.

Chastity is not a punishment.

Let me say that again, CHASTITY IS NOT A PUNISHMENT.

I was thinking of that yesterday listening on the radio to a writer named Dawn Eden, speaking of the days when she embraced "outercourse."

Off-topic, she said, if I heard correctly that she is now a vowed celibate?
I'm curious about that, and how non-Catholic react to the knowledge.
The world insists on conflating celibacy and chastity, and will, no doubt continue to do so.

The conference's disputation of the so-called "right" to sexual intimacy is, I think, a very important point, the absence of any such right lost on many today.
In fact, the fought with tooth and nail insistence of such a "right" by the world has led to insane contortions of logic, (never mind the other kind,) as people try to reconcile, for instance, under-aged girls and boys "right" to sex, with the necessity of preventing the EXPLOITATION THAT IS A DIRECT RESULT OF THEIR CHAMPIONING OF THIS PURPORTED "RIGHT."

Go ahead, plaster over your guilt with lots of words, and nonsense, and moving subjects as far from verbs as possible, [emphasis below supplied.]

Article 2
The right to participation for
all persons, regardless of sex,
sexuality or gender
All persons are entitled to an environment that enables
active, free and meaningful participation in and
contribution to the civil, economic, social, cultural and
political aspects of human life at local, national, regional
and international levels, through the development of
which human rights and fundamental freedoms can be
realized.
• All persons are entitled to participate in the development
and implementation of policies that determine their
welfare, including their sexual and reproductive health,
without formal or informal barriers such as marriage
qualifications, conditions related to HIV status, or
discriminatory gender norms, stereotypes and prejudices
that exclude or restrict the participation of persons
based on ideas of gender and sexual propriety.
• Young people, who are frequently excluded, shall have
the right to be participants and protagonists in processes
of change in their societies.

I wonder, would, say, your Grandma feeling ashamed of your behavior count as an "informal" barrier?
But speaking of nonsense, there are those who of course claim Grandma's is the shameful attiutde:

The idea of a sweet-talking carnivore enchanting, then devouring a gullible, aging caretaker only to gain access to a child’s bed speaks to the culturally-assumed pedo-sexual tendencies of men-at-large, but to note that and go no further, I merely subscribe to the common consensus that folk stories function best as didactic, cautionary tools for young readers unwise to the ways of the world, and exist chiefly to cater to the moral needs of children.  I prefer, instead, to question why Western society instituted a children’s literature genre for this purpose in the first place, and, at the risk of undercutting the moral effectiveness of these tales, to reevaluate what society considers to be morally reprehensible:  Do the Wolf’s tendencies to eroticize innocence denote a universal sexual evil American society pledges to eradicate even if it means castrating every last man who cops to a sexual preoccupation with youth, or is the object of the Wolf’s desire strictly forbidden only to the extent mainstream society refuses to grant children sexual autonomy?

But he wanted it so badly!

"No One Should Have To Compromise Her Beliefs" and the Case for Incest

Reading the "morning briefing" of the NotReally Catholic Rundown, followed a link to a story wherein a woman whose office it is, as lay reader, (not "lector, LA Times, no matter what most Catholic say,) to read the petitions as requested by members of the congregation.
And one of them, she just could not, in good conscience, so the priest found a work-around, helped her to rephrase it in a way that didn't violate her sensibilities.
'Cause you know, freedom of conscience.

The petition, you see, was praying for, um.... religious freedom. You know, at a time when another woman had gone to jail rather than violate her conscience.
And the woman reading the Oddly Specific General Intercession just couldn't say words that might be seen to support the other woman.

Obviously obligations incurred in a civil service job are not the same as obligations incurred in service to the Almighty Triune God, and I'm not really faulting either woman here.

Because that's not really why, having followed the link, I bothered to read the article, that was because I had misunderstood a caption on the photo that headed it.

"[Mrs. X] kisses [Little Boy Y] in East Los Angeles. [Y] is the son of one of her two lesbian daughters. [X] will be travelling to Philadelphia for Pope Francis’ World Meeting of Families."

I thought it said "the son of her two lesbian daughters."

And I had thought, why not?
If, as Stephan Kampowski writes in Catholic World Report, society is trying to define "marriage" down to an association with no other reason for being than "the will of the partners," why shouldn't two sisters marry, and adopt, (or outsource, or engineer,) a child?

And what's it to any government, federal or state, to officially recognize marriages?

" The question is why any given union should be socially recognized as such. Are their reasons for it apart from the will of the partners? If the bond is socially recognized, then society would need to have a say in it. What interest would society have in recognizing a union, in giving it a certain status, and in endowing it with certain privileges? Married couples, who publically assume the state of matrimony also assume the munus, or office, of serving life in and through their relationship. Therefore their union evidently has social relevance: it is through marriage that a society is renewed; its new members are born and raised here, which is also the reason for the public interest of keeping this union stable."

Why not incest?

As it happens, I don't get along well enough with any of my sisters to live together happily as wife and wife, so it's a good thing Himself came along to rescue me from aged spinsterhood.

But I digress.
If the Church comes to recognize the "value" of homosexual unions, thus becoming more or less neutral on them, (you could say, "decriminalizing" as opposed to "legalizing," a distinction I've never quite gotten in the recreational marijuana rumpus,) why not of incestuous unions?
Such arrangements could also offer the stability of the public bond, deep affection,responsibility for children, (either from a previous "bond" or, as above, adopt, outsource or engineer,) and the ability to overcome trials, that is, mutual assistance to the point of sacrifice.
Arguments often take the form of reductio ad absurdum, but I think real life is rapidly descending into reductio ad dementiam.

"Of course I accepted the brains...." Pt 2

More devotees of the patron saint sinner of pragmatism.
After all, those hearts and kidneys would just go to waste otherwise, (or be used to heat buildings?)

a kidney from an aborted child [was grown] inside a rat. It was transplanted by scientists hoping to grow enough organs someday to end the donor shortage. At the end of the video you will see a heart from an aborted child surgically transplanted into a rat.
[A company named Ganogen did this with the]  goal ... to save lives by providing organs for transplants to the thousands of patients on the transplant waiting lists including human babies with severe or fatal in utero diseases. That is, they are trying to grow the organs from unwanted and healthy aborted babies to transplant into wanted but unhealthy babies. [emphasis supplied]
[Ganogen has] found an immeasurably profound resource in aborted fetuses for experimentation and utility. In their own words, “Real human organs are not artificial.” (They know the human fetus is truly human. You do not have to be a medical student to grasp the obvious.)...
Biologists are well aware that they have not begun to discover all the mysteries of life. As the three young men of Ganogen acknowledged, “There are hundreds if not thousands of proteins and cytokines yet to be discovered, not to mention the highly intricate communication and interplay between the millions of cells within a human organ.”
So to them, it is not only ethical to use these aborted children’s bodies, it would be unethical not to use them and to waste them instead. ..
For them, the ethical question is simple and settled. Because abortion is legal, abortion is ethical. Because abortion is ethical, using the bodies of the aborted children to save the lives of other children is ethical, even responsible, even laudable. They have tapped into a resource (of human lives that do not matter) and are using that resource to save lives (that do matter).

How To Boil a Frog

Amnesty International has adopted a proposal calling for the decriminalization of the sex trade, to promote "human rights" and "equal protection" for sex workers.

This proposal instead gives amnesty to pimps, brothel owners and sex buyers by recognizing everyone in sex work as “consenting adults.” Men and women in the vulnerable position of selling their bodies for sex should be offered services and solutions to provide them with safe alternatives.

But as Cindy McCain, the chairman of the Human Trafficking Advisory Council of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, continues in the Washington Post -

The proposal instead legalizes their exploitation. Amnesty International says that people who engage in sex work often do so because they have been marginalized and have limited choices. The decision to sell one’s body for sex made in the absence of better circumstances is not a human right. A buyer or trafficker who takes advantage of someone’s lack of choice for their own financial or sexual gain is an exploiter of human rights and should be criminalized.

Sex work and sex trafficking cannot reasonably be separated. Sex work fuels the demand for commercial sex, which is the indisputable driving force behind the sex-trafficking industry. Supply will always meet demand, and in this equation, supply is too often vulnerable men and women, and, at its very worst, children. Under the group’s proposal, sex traffickers and brothel owners could operate with immunity for facilitating what they say is consensual sex work. Protections should not be afforded to those who prey on a person’s vulnerability or lack of basic needs. Decriminalizing sex work would put those in the sex industry, and vulnerable populations around the world, in greater danger by giving no authority to go after those who exploit others for personal profit

It's not as if society's refusal to name virtually any sexual activity at all, no matter how loathsome, as indecent hasn't set us one this path.
I'm guessing that was the reason for the NYTimes op-ed piece by the lap dancer - it was published by way of greasing the skids for this newest outrage.
And we're accustomed to outrages, so really what is a little more?
Gradualism can be useful, huh? Soon, nothing will make us jump out of the pot.

I missed the piece in the Times to which Catholic World Report refers here-

The new policy would also theoretically encourage better health care for women in prostitution and reduce the stigma involved with the industry.
Preceding Amnesty's decision, the New York Times published a piece on the slippery slope of the sex industry – calling it a vague, gray area, especially when it comes to its decriminalization.
“Can we really draw a bright line between a person who has casual sex, in private, with various lovers, and a person who has sex in private, with various short-term and long-term lovers, from whom she accepts monetary support?” the piece asks, arguing that private, consensual acts – whatever they may be – have a right to be protected.

The Paper of Record

It should be obvious that all the kvetching I do about the New York Times is proof of all the reading I do in the New York Times, so that yes, I do depend on it a lot, it is of authentic vlaue to me.

That is not to deny that it can be advocacy journalism at its very worst. (Of course its funniest moments are when its writers are trying desperately to be both advocates/partisans and news providers/truth tellers and the two role are irreconcilably in conflict with each other and it is obvious to everyone but them.)

Anyway, am I the only one who boggled at its Op-ed page's offering a platform to a struggling worker alerting the Times readership to the oppression of the capitalists under whom she struggles?

Oh, wait I misspoke, she and her sisters are not under anyone, they're kinda on top of them, you know - because they are giving lap dances.

And I was also somewhat taken aback by the diction of the front page piece about the AirBnB user assaulted by his hostess who, I think they put it, was "born male" but "lives as a woman."

PC to the last, the Times insisted on using feminine pronouns for the rapist, despite his obviously having male genitalia, and said rapist's contention that his victim was cool with everything until buyer's remorse set in over their "consensual" sex, because, you know the victim was prejudiced against "women" with penes. (Yeah, I did it, I used those scare quotes...)

Oh, those transphobic travellers, they make things so difficult for the real victims.

(Has the Times in the past had sympathy for parents who don't think boys pretending to be girls using the girls' restroom is fair to actual girls? or for women complaining about men who dress as women using the women's locker rooms at gyms? Why, no. No, they haven't. Because, well, you know... "the real victims here.")

Seriously? "Violated" Their "Privacy"?

We already knew - they have no shame, no sense of decency.

But, as we can see here, we can just leave it at, they have no sense. Period.

Planned Parenthood,

in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota sent out a letter to news outlets warning them that airing the sting videos can lead to a violation of patient privacy, according to KVLY-TV in North Dakota.
The Center for Medical Progress ...
has used footage obtained through deceit and unlawful behavior,... footage yet to come is expected to represent an extreme violation of patient privacy by including footage of post-abortion fetal tissue ...
When your network decides whether to consider this story newsworthy, or whether to use any of this footage at all, we urge you to keep this in mind: The extremists who entered Planned Parenthood labs under false pretenses violated research protocol, and, worse, violated the privacy of patients involved. Those patients' privacy should not be further violated by having this footage shared by the media.

Whose privacy, exactly?
Does someone who donates her own tissue, (say, a tumor, or blood, or some other blob of cells,) to be used for research have an expectation that it won't be seen by ... strangers?
How specific, exactly are the authorizations PP gets from women upon whom they perform abortions?

Do those performing or facilitating research, (whether medical, cosmetic pharmaceutical or journalistic,) know the name or anything else of the owner of  patient who provided that tiny liver, or brain, or hand they are observing?

Again, I ask, whose privacy? who's being violated?

Godfather.... erm, Godmother... Godparent?

The selection by parents of godparents has become a very debased procedure in the Church in this country, as far as I can observe.
In what I take, (from movies and tv,) to be the Anglican/British understanding, godparents are chosen as a way to honor ones friend or relative, and insure the receipt of sterling baby mugs, so really, the more the merrier, let's get some swag!
And that is the way far too many Catholics look on the proceedings in this country.
Is the father who seeks to rope his baptised Catholic but now vaguely agnostic drinking buddy into the role, or the Mom who asks her best friend, oh, really, you're Jewish? at much remove from the poor souls in this story, when it gets right down to it?

Alex Salinas is 21 years old. [S]He was assigned [observed to be] female at birth, but is now living as his authentic self as a man. [S]He is a "firm believer" and wants to be a godparent at his her nephew's baptism but the diocese of Cadiz and Ceuta is standing in his her way. According to them, [s]he is not a "suitable" person because of the life [s]he leads, a life not "congruent with faith.”
However, they do not find their argument to be discriminatory.The diocese says that. in responding to the petition they received from Salinas to be a godparent at the baptism, the priest maintained a "cordial conversation" with him [her], indicating that [s]he must fulfill the requisites stated in the Code of Canon Law which requires that any godfather or godmother at a baptism "be Catholic, be confirmed, have received the holy sacrament of the Eucharist and, at the same time, live a life congruent with faith and the mission they are assuming."
The statement insists that in the "long chat that protected the feelings of the applicant, the priest encouraged him [her] to live congruently with faith" and that, despite not being a godparent at the baptism, [s] he could participate in some way as a "spiritual godparent," and able to encourage and help his her nephew in his life of faith....

"To the church, I am still a woman, even though my documents of identification have changed," explained Alex Salinas, who wants the diocese to reconsider their decision, which [s]he took "as a kick in the stomach" because he is a "firm believer."
Salinas, who since February of last year has had the I.D. of a man and is on a waiting list for a gender confirmation surgery, [well, there's some Newspeak, for you, "gender CONFIRMATION surgery"?] does not understand the Church's refusal ...
The young man, who identifies as Catholic, said at first the parish of San Fernando de Cadiz did not object to him being a godparent in the religious ceremony.

However, upon asking the diocese for documentation for the baptism, the parish told him he could not carry out the role.
The young [wo]man then appealed to other parishes in the town, but found all of them greeted him [her] with the same response.

"Identifies as" is rapidly becoming the most over-used and finally, meaningless phrase in the language.
Is a person who does not believe what the Church says, or do as the Church asks, or follow what the Church teaches, really "Catholic" in any meaningful sense, regardless of how he "identifies"?

I now identify as someone in want of another cup of coffee, so I shall make an end to this....

"Who Should Be Allowed to Compete as a Female Athlete?"

Well, apparently, anyone who claims to be female.
EARLY ENOUGH.

Yes, it seems that there was an unrealistic and unreasonable physiological standard created, and the solution to that unfair practice, instead of, oh, I dunno, common sense? chromosomes and genitalia? no, it ought to be whatever the athlete "felt," himself to be at a youngish age.
So now, you see, there really IS a reason, (at least among those skilled in athletics,) for children being pressed into a decision, into taking life-altering stands, while still, well, children, an acceptance, of... what?

Anti-Abortion Advocates May* Have Misspoken....

.... Planned Parenthood may* not have "sold" body parts.
They may* only have been "fiscally rewarded."

By, you know, partners, who urged them to,

Join the StemExpress partner program that fiscally rewards clinics for contributing to the advancement of life-saving research – with a solution that is easy to incorporate into your clinic practices.

Who is StemExpress, you ask?

StemExpress is a multi-million dollar company that supplies human blood, tissue products, primary cells and other clinical specimens to biomedical researchers around the world to fuel regenerative medicine and translational research. Founded in 2010, we offer the largest variety of raw material in the industry, as well as fresh, fixed and cryopreserved human primary cells.
Our Products and Services StemExpress is the only company of its kind to both procure tissues and isolate cells for researchers’ individual needs in its own labs. Our human tissue products range from fetal to adult and healthy to diseased, and we also collect bone marrow and leukapheresis for isolation. In our state-of-the-art laboratory, we isolate and culture primary human somatic, progenitor and stem cells. Using the most up-to-date technology, we guarantee every sample delivers the purity, viability and quality your investigators need. StemExpress is also a Contract Research Organization (CRO) and provides biopharmaceutical development, biologic assay development, commercialization, preclinical research, clinical research, and clinical trials management.

*Why do I say "may"?
Because this little mom-and-pop group has standards.

Our Promise Protecting the privacy of our researchers and donors is always the highest priority at StemExpress.

But they NEED it...

... to advance the cause of medicine!

 

 They're just being wasted, otherwise.