Catholics Hit a New Low

We've known Catholic leaders, mostly Priests, have abused children and students and not for just years, which would be horrible enough, not just decades--even more frightening--but for hundreds of years. Centuries. Catholic leaders have been abusing, sexually abusing children of the Church and for centuries.

It's a fact.

Stunning and unforgivable as all that is, it's a documented fact.

And it's across not just a nation.

Not just nations.

Not just a continent.

But across continents.

Across the world.

And again, for centuries.

It should be unbelievable.

Sadly, very, very sadly, it's not unbelievable.

Far from it.

Now, the impossible has happened.

It's gotten worse.

Much worse.

They've outdone themselves. There's another new discovery, this week.

Pope admits clerical abuse of nuns including sexual slavery

It is stunning the continuing revelations that seem to take place within this Church. 

You wouldn't think you could outdo abusing children. But they've done it.

Here's hoping there are no further revelations out there from these people (no pun intended).

Hopefully this is the last, worst thing they'll have to also admit to.

At what point, Catholics, are you going to say "Enough!"

At what point are you people going to rein these people in?

The American Worker Doesn't Know What He Doesn't Have---But Could

Wil Wheaton:

I was at work today for Labour Day and on TV was Good Morning America. The theme was celebrating the American worker and their accomplishments. I’ll tell you how it went down.

Kelly put on her glasses, smile wide, and pulled out a piece of paper which she read from. The paper was from an article (which I have issues with, but I will leave alone for now) by ABC news. Kelly proceeded only to read the opening of it, which reads: ‘Americans work more than anyone in the industrialized world. More than the English, more than the French, way more than the Germans or Norwegians. Even, recently, more than the Japanese. And Americans take less vacation, work longer days, and retire later, too.’

And everyone cheered.

And they kept cheering when Kelly put her paper down and smiled at everyone. (not continuing with the rest of the article which suggests that this may in fact be a problem).

And I just couldn’t BELIEVE that anyone was cheering. America. AMERICA you work more than the French, who are entitled by law to have 5 weeks off a year for vacation and can not work more than 35 hours per week. You work more than Norway, who average 33 hours per week and 44,000 dollars a year. Germany, where AGAIN, we see a shorter work week and better pay! And all of these countries have health care and better pay and free/affordable education!

WHY ARE YOU CHEERING?

I have a different interpretation of this information: the American worker is the most taken advantage of worker in the industrialized world. It’s plain and simple. You work long hours and get horrible pay. You take multiple jobs and work and work and work just to get by. Unions are disappearing, jobs are always looking for part timers and all you are doing is giving up your time for less money, less vacation, less safety and stability and less education than anyone else on the list.

Celebrate Labour day. Celebrate the accomplishments of the common worker, but don’t let these people trick you into thinking you should celebrate the theft of your time and energy, or the fruits of your labour.

They are using you. Stop cheering.

(via wilwheaton)

America, You're In a Bad Relationship. And You're Being Abused

Yes, America, Americans, we seem to be co-dependent just now. We seem to be drawn to a person, a man who is decidedly not good for us.  And he really is abusing us.

Donald Trump and his past, his recorded past, on audiotape and video, both, have shown him to be, once again, sexist, misogynist, racist and a whole array of ugly, negative aspects. These are his traits, this is his character.

Yet, here we are and he's still, still one of the two top candidates for the highest government office in the nation and the most powerful position in the entire world.

Things he's said and done so far, in the last 2 years, no one could have ever gotten away with. He just keeps plodding along, going forward.  People are still behind him, however dwindling but there they still are.

At one point, we all know he famously said he "...could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters."

We all laughed, at the time, and just thought him crazy but now, honestly, there seems to be more than a little bit of truth to it.

32 Worst Things Donald Trump 

Has Ever Said

Social media reacts to Trump's explicit remarks 

about women

An Abbreviated List of Every Bonkers Thing 

Donald Trump Has Done

This one came out last May, for pity's sake.

7 Disqualifying Things Donald Trump 

Has Done in the Past 48 Hours

Yet, with all that, with all we've seen and heard from Mr. Trump, he's still in the race and we're still in this relationship.

Donald Trump is not who we should be. He's not "the better angels of our nature" and far from it. Quite the opposite is true, it seems clear. 

So how can we get out of this ugly, abusive relationship?

Can we text him it's over?

KCUR Throws Softballs for the New Bishop and The Catholic Church

The local NPR station, KCUR interviewed the new Catholic Bishop, James Johnston today and what a disappointment.

Leading The Flock: Bishop Johnston 

KCUR

Coming at this time, when the local Catholic Diocese is just off a rather large child abuse sex scandal, the Bishop--and worse, the Church--got off easy, very easy. All the Bishop got for an hour were the easiest of, as I said in the title, "softball" questions. There was no "holding their feet to the fire", holding the Bishop and the Church accountable that, first, the sexual abuse of children in their care ever occurred and then, worse, that it was covered up. And it was covered up for years and years, at that.

The interview began hopefully enough with a recording of Catholics in an actual mass at the local Church of the Immaculate Conception, reading the written words of some of the now-adults who had been abused by the Priests here in this Diocese.

But from there, it was lost.

It was as though these children weren't ever abused, sexually abused.

Forget that the previous Bishop had been found guilty in a local, civil court, "LET'S MOVE ON!"

From there, the interviewer, Brian Ellison, immediately went into questions about the Bishop himself, where he came from, what his background and family life were like, etc.

Students? Children? Sexually abused??   FUGGEDABOUDIT!

Adults? In the Church? Covering up for the sexual abusers??   WE OUTTA' HEAH.

I can't imagine a more touchy-feely interview and conversation, given that so many children were, again, abused and sexually abused and by Catholic Church Priests and then covered up by some and ignored by others, all in the Catholic Church.

And sure, I understand that there has to be some "niceness", some respect to the guest but we're talking the sexual abuse of children here. It isn't over. Bishop Finn may have finally been foisted, however reluctantly, out of his position in and with the Church and Bishop Johnston  is now in his place but for the people who were sexually abused, rest assured, it is not over.

The biggest question, I think, that needs to be both asked and answered and then held to, would be "What provisions have been made within the Church and within this Diocese to make sure sexual abuse of a child and worse, of children, never occurs again?"

It's true partly because this sexual abuse occurred at all but it's especially true because this is far, far from the first time these kinds of sexual abuse cases have occurred in the Catholic Church. Far from it.

Sexual abuse has occurred in Catholic Churches and schools and Dioceses, as the world knows, in not just areas, not just states of the US, but all across the US, all across Europe and, in fact, the world.  And it's happened over not just years or part of a century but FOR CENTURIES. Literally for centuries. They don't like to talk about that or have you know it or think about it.

At what point does the Catholic Church learn? At what point do the Bishops and Priests and leaders in the Church learn from these abuses and put policies in place so they never occur again? (Reminds me of an old joke.  Q:  How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?  A:  CHANGE??)

Next was the question:  "How are you going to clean up the mess he's (Bishop Finn has) left?"

For his answer, the new Bishop gave an extremely vague and, I'm sure, intentionally warm and fuzzy answer about there being lots of people in the area who care and who have "a desire to make a difference."

That was it.

They then brought on one Kathleen Chastain, Victim Services Coordinator of the Church.

And for that, I say we have to pause right there.

Note:  This is a church. This is a Catholic Church. It's supposed to be about Jesus and Jesus Christ and love and everything good and they have to have a Victim Services Coordinator, Offices of Child and Youth Protection.

Does that not say something right there?

What other church organization, self-professed Christian or otherwise, has to have a Victim Services Coordinator, let alone Offices of Child and Youth Protection?   (Those Catholics can sure do hierarchy and bureaucracy, can't they? Like no one else, governments included).

So Mr. Ellison asked Ms. Chastain how long her position has been around. Ms. Chastain answered that "...there has always been a Victim Advocate..."

Holy Mary, Mother of God.

That tells you how long the problem has been going on right there, folks. THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A VICTIM ADVOCATE.  But you think they'd maybe let Priests marry or something, to solve the problem?

NAAAAHHHH.  Again, FUGGEDABOUDIT.

Forget that, apparently and even obviously, the "Victim Advocate" has little or no power or effect whatever or the problem wouldn't keep not just occurring in the Church but recurring.

What amazes me is that more Catholics aren't embarrassed by child sexual abuse in the Church.

The other thing that amazes me is that Catholics stay in the pews, they stay in the Church, even given all these, again, recurring sexual abuse cases of children.     CHILDREN.

Ms. Chastain said her job "is to provide support for those suffering from abuse by the hands of the Church"--her words, not mine--"and then to provide outreach."   She described "outreach" as  "a more pro-active approach like the healing services we provide...". This is masses dealing with this issue of child sexual abuse.

Can you imagine that? Think about it. Can you imagine going to Church, ostensibly to be a better person, maybe to hear about God and Jesus and God's love and everything good and then HAVING TO SIT THROUGH AN ALMOST ONE HOUR MASS, kind of confessing THE CHURCH'S SINS, the Priests and Bishops sins and then going home? How screwed up is your Church if it's asking for forgiveness? And then, how screwed up is your Church when it has to ask the people for forgiveness again and again and again, in different locations, all round your nation, all around the world and for centuries?  And you're still attending?  You're still giving them money?

OH HELL NO.

Mr. Ellison asked Ms. Chastain if the local Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese ever put an actual figure on the number of people sexually abused here.

The answer?   No.

Oh, heck, no because that would mean, a) you care and b) you intend to own up to your problems and faults and make restitution. The Catholic Church and their leaders will have none of that. They've already paid out millions upon millions of Church offerings from people in the pews. The last thing they want to do is maybe "come clean", at long last, and risk paying out yet more money.  "Run along, run along. There's nothing to see here."

Ms. Chastain actually said "I don't know if there's any way we could put a number to that." That is, put a number on the actual childen---again, children---who were sexually abused in this Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese.

Isn't that a beauty?

The one question I wanted to hear both asked and answered was and still is---What, precisely, reforms and hard rules have been put down to make certain this never, ever happens again?

It was never asked.

For anyone who's ever been a Catholic and exposed to what they do, this is all pretty stunning because the one thing they make you do and say, week after week, in their Catholic Mass, is that we are "not worthy."

Jesus (said ironically and for effect).  That's rich.  They have sexual abuse scandals of children in their own care, from state to state to state and nation to nation, continent to continent, over decades and even centuries and they have the people in the pews, the followers, say they're "not worthy."  Irony and hypocrisy doesn't get any heavier or thicker than that.

Then Mr. Ellison compliments Ms. Chastain and so, by default, the Church by saying she and the Church deserve credit for being so forthcoming "about how things were not addressed in the past."

That's pretty clueless right there.  So they're talking "honestly and openly about how things were not addressed in the past."  Big deal.  WHAT, PRECISELY, ARE YOU DOING TO MAKE SURE THIS DOESN'T, THAT THIS NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN?

Then Mr. Ellison asks when this change took place.

Wow.  That so totally does not matter. The only three things that matter are holding people accountable that let this happen to begin, the tending to the abused and then MAKING SURE IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN. Who gives a freak when this change, this new supposed honestly took place? That's irrelevant. Again, it's a softball, pointless, unnecessary question.

Mr. Ellison came close, close, to holding the new Bishop and the Church accountable, a little over halfway through when he pointed out that SNAP said the Church's services about these episodes were only, in effect, "window dressing" (my words) and for outward consumption, that they weren't real contrition or solutions. The Bishop quickly diverted the question by saying he was sincerely sorry and that if anyone doubted it, he couldn't stop them.

Well I'm glad he cleared that up.

"We're done here."

Mr. Ellison asked just what a Bishop does all day.  Man, that is some hard-hitting question, right there. This entire conversation was dripping with, again, irony and hypocrisy on the part of the Catholic Church.

From there, it went on to questions from the callers and to "looking to the future", according to Mr. Ellison. The first caller, a Catholic, he said, tried to pin the Bishop down on the Bishops in the Church, through the Council of Bishops (see? more of that wonderful Catholic bureaucracy) holding individual Bishops accountable for their actions. It came close to the issues but that was as good as it got.

Look, I love NPR and KCUR but this interview went off the rails from the start and ended that way. It was weak and soft and empty. At the end, I'm surprised all three of them, the interviewer, the Bishop and the "Vitcim Advocate" didn't all get up, hold each other and sing "Kumbaya."

I'm just glad that Bishop Finn and now Bishop Johnston and all the Catholic leaders, nationwide and worldwide, were all able to sweep all this child sexual abuse stuff under the rug and move on.

Aren't you?

Links:

Missouri bishop to succeed Bishop Finn in Kansas City-St. Joseph

Left hanging in the wake of Bishop Finn's ouster

Francis appoints new bishop for scandal-rocked US diocese

Kansas City diocese holds service for sexual abuse healing

Catholic bishop apologizes for 'betrayal' of sexual abuse

Kansas City bishop found guilty in priest child abuse case

Kansas City Bishop Convicted of Shielding Pedophile Priest

The United States of America?

It hurts, of course, that there's any truth to this:

So much Catholic news popping up lately

Really, the stories are hitting all over--mostly good ones, for the people and children.

First there was this in The New York Times Sunday from op/ed columnist Frank Bruni:

The Church's Errant Shepherds

Mr. Bruni rightly points out that yet more extremely damaging but sadly predictable documents are coming out from the Catholic Church on their sex scandals, this time, from Milwaukee:

BOSTON, Philadelphia, Los Angeles. The archdioceses change but the overarching story line doesn’t, and last week Milwaukee had a turn in the spotlight, with the release of roughly 6,000 pages of records detailing decades of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests there, a sweeping, searing encyclopedia of crime and insufficient punishment.

The one thing that has to be kept in mind foremost at all times are the children and their families that are hurt and affected, just as SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, always insists.

Behind that, however, are the many millions of dollars spent on covering up the Catholic Church's transgressions because, in the first place, the sexual abuse of their students occurs and then the Church compounds the gravity of the situation by covering it up, time and again, and trying to protect the priests that commit these acts, instead of protecting those same children, both the ones already abused and the ones who might be, in the future.

The article goes on:

"...over the last few decades we’ve watched an organization that claims a special moral authority in the world pursue many of the same legal and public-relations strategies — shuttling around money, looking for loopholes, tarring accusers, massaging the truth — that are employed by organizations devoted to nothing more than the bottom line.
      

In San Diego, diocesan leaders who filed for bankruptcy were rebuked by a judge for misrepresenting the local church’s financial situation to parishioners being asked to help pay for sex-abuse settlements.

      

In St. Louis church leaders claimed not to be liable for an abusive priest because while he had gotten to know a victim on church property, the abuse itself happened elsewhere."

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where it gets REALLY good, at least for Kansas Citians and what we've been exposed to and seen in the last few decades:

       

In Kansas City, Mo., Rebecca Randles, a lawyer who has represented abuse victims, says that the church floods the courtroom with attorneys who in turn drown her in paperwork. In one case, she recently told me, “the motion-to-dismiss pile is higher than my head — I’m 5-foot-4.”

And, for me, the clincher, since Bishop Finn still holds his office, even though he was found guilty in a court of law:

      

Also in Kansas City, Bishop Robert Finn still inhabits his post as the head of the diocese despite his conviction last September for failing to report a priest suspected of child sexual abuse to the police. This is how the church is in fact unlike a corporation. It coddles its own at the expense of its image.

Can you say "Travesty of justice"?

It's beyond disgusting, besides being deeply, deeply immoral and out and out ugly and wrong, in so many ways.

Yet these are the people who are supposed to be "Godly" and moral. 

And they still don't "get it."

 Finally, at least today, there's the breaking news this week you may already have seen:

Diocese settles suit alleging abuse by priest led to suicide

KC Diocese Settles Sex Abuse Death Case On Trial Eve

And of course, this is both good and bad news. There wouldn't be anything good about it at all but the Church is being held accountable yet one more time, if only financially, for transgressions of their male hierarch (read: priests).

Once again, we all have to ask--Catholic, non-Catholic, all of us--when does this end?  When do these people learn? When will there stop being if not any physical or sexual abuse acts and reports of Catholic children and students, at least far less?  And then, when will they begin truly not covering up for the abusive priests and transferring them to other parts of the country or world?

Five decades ago would have been too soon.

The excuses by them and for them, by others, have to stop.

The abuse must end.

Here's your "Catholic Education" for you

So many of us don't know our history:

Catholic Church enslaved 30,000 Irish women in Magdalene Laundries until 1996

From the article:

The Irish Prime Minister gave a partial apology today for the government’s role in a 74-year scandal in which, a new official government report says, over 10,000 women were forced to work without pay at commercial laundries called Magdalene Laundries, operated by the Catholic Church for “crimes” as small as not paying a train ticket.

Wikipedia notes that the estimate of the number of women who were used as forced slave labor by the Catholic Church in Ireland alone goes as high as 30,000 over the entire time the Magdalene laundries were in operation.

The last Magdalene laundry closed in 1996.

Women were locked in, couldn’t leave Magdalene Laundries for months, sometimes years

The women were locked in and not permitted to leave.  And if they tried to get away, the cops would catch them and bring them back. They were quite literally Catholic slave labor working for the government and even Guinness, which would pay the laundries for the women’s slave labor.

Half of the girls enslaved in these Catholic Church prisons were under the age of 23.  The youngest entrant was 9 years old.

Singer Sinead O’Connor was perhaps the most famous Magdalene Laundry slave

Singer Sinead O’Connor was forced to work in a Magdalene Laundry in Dublin:

When I was a young girl, my mother — an abusive, less-than-perfect parent — encouraged me to shoplift. After being caught once too often, I spent 18 months in An Grianán Training Centre, an institution in Dublin for girls with behavioral problems, at the recommendation of a social worker. An Grianán was one of the now-infamous church-sponsored “Magdalene laundries,” which housed pregnant teenagers and uncooperative young women. We worked in the basement, washing priests’ clothes in sinks with cold water and bars of soap. We studied math and typing. We had limited contact with our families. We earned no wages. One of the nuns, at least, was kind to me and gave me my first guitar.

This, however, is, for me, the most difficult to believe and hardest to forgive them for:

No apology from the Catholic Church

Absent from any of the media reports on the scandal that I could find was an apology from the Catholic Church which operated the Magdalene laundries and made handsome profits from contracts with government and hotels.  Oh, found one. It seems the Catholic Church blew the women off.  I know, you’re as surprised as I am:

Victims of the child sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Irish Catholic Church have received an apology and compensation, but no one has taken responsibility for what happened in the laundries. Cardinal Sean Brady, the most senior Catholic cleric in Ireland, met with Justice for Magdalenes in 2010. He said “by today’s standards much of what happened at that time is difficult to comprehend” but that it was a matter for the religious orders who ran the laundries to deal with. The religious orders have declined to meet the women.

The Irish Cardinal wasn’t interested in hearing from people who were hurt and abused — if not sexually, certainly physically and mentally, by the Catholic Church.  And it’s not the Catholic Church’s fault. 

 Where have we heard that story before?

The laundries were run by nuns, many of whom treated the women sent to work there as slaves:

Senator McAleese’s inquiry found that half of the girls and women put to work in the laundries were under the age of 23 and 40%, more than 4,000, spent more than a year incarcerated.

Fifteen percent spent more than five years in the laundries while the average stay was calculated at seven months.

The youngest death on record was 15, and the oldest 95, the report found.

The Irish state is also implicated in the scandal because the police would take women to the asylums after arresting them for trivial offenses and would return runaways.

The story of the Magdalene laundries shows what happens when an institution — in this case the church and the government — is considered beyond criticism. It probably isn’t a coincidence that the last of the laundries closed in 1996, shortly after the first wave of the Catholic pedophile priest scandals hit Ireland.

Let me reiterate that for a moment.  The Catholic Church had slaves as late as 1996.

There is more to the article, too. There are women's brief accounts of what was done to them. It would be worth our time to go the the original article so we all know more of what happened. 

The world needs to know what happened, we need to never forget and we need to make sure things remotely like this are ended and that they're not repeated, of course, ever.

American History and why we need a Black History Month

 

That's why.

On why I rail against the abusers in the Catholic Church

This is an example of why:

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

--Elie Wiesel, from his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, in 1986

Link: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-acceptance.html

In case you've never seen and read this letter

Text of ex-slave's letter to his former master (on Yahoo! News last evening):

The famed letter written by an ex-slave in response to his former master's request that he return to the plantation, soon after the end of the Civil War. Different versions of the letter bear various spellings of the writer's name.

Dayton, Ohio,August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir:

I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable.

Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy — the folks call her Mrs. Anderson — and the children — Milly, Jane, and Grundy — go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated.

Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to.

Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

Ladies and gentlemen, the Catholic Church

From the news last evening: U.S. priests accused in 700 sex cases in 2011: report. Forget, for now, conveniently, the Crusades and Inquisitions of the last 600 years and all the people tortured and/or killed by the Catholic Church. Let's focus, instead, right this moment, on the current state of the Catholic Church. In 2011 alone, 700 claims of abuse were put up before our courts in one nation--the US--alone. First, imagine how many more cases there are out there that weren't reported. Statistically, it's estimated that the people who do file charges are only 10% of those actually committed. Second, imagine what's out there in the rest of the world. It's long since time that the Catholics in the pews stood up and said they won't take this any longer, that they won't tolerate any further abuse. Link to original post: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/11/u-s-priests-accused-in-700-sex-cases-in-2011-report/#.T4Y4Z35as0g.facebook

Rose Brooks bigger Oscar night...

A much more important, local show was going on across town for our own Rose Brooks with Kristen Chenoweth hosting their big, annual fundraiser for them.

Hopefully it was a huge, huge, very successful and fun evening for all involved. The Rose Brooks Center does such terrific, helpful, important work. Here's hoping.

The world gone mad

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has pointed out--rightly, it seems--that Bishop Finn and the local Catholic Diocese may challenge US pornography laws in their defense of Shawn Ratigan and the Bishop. Talk about a world gone mad. The Catholic Church, going against the nation's pornography laws, all so they can try to defend a former priest who, it is known, took terribly inappropriate pictures of young and very young children in local Parishes he worked for and then stored those on his computers. All this was revealed in a brif article in the Kansas City Star Friday (see link below). It's bad enough yet another in a long line of Catholic priests has abused his positionn and exploited childern who were entrusted to him. It's yet another bizarre twist to think that this church organization would fight the nation's pornography laws that were designed to protect all our citizens, but especially the children, and instead, that this church would fight to tear those laws down, all so it could save itself and one of its priests and the church's hierarchy. A topsy-turvy world gone mad. It makes me nearly nauseous. Links: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/11/3271959/mark-morris-digesting-the-legal.html; http://www.snapnetwork.org/_bishop_to_challenge_us_child_porn_laws_snap_responds

Kansas City Diocese headlines in big Catholic news

There is a cureent events humorist, one Yonah Ward Grossman, whom I follow on Facebook who also happens to have a photoblog. A recent entry highlights some Catholic Church "wins", in spite of the fact that the Catholics involved end up "losing". The Kansas City mention: "In Kansas City, Mo., our old friend Robert W. Finn cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid a second round of criminal charges and possible jail time in connection with his cover-up of priest Shawn Rattigan’s unholy habit of taking photographs of prepubescent girls’ private parts which he stored on the Church’s computer. Bishop Finn will have to report weekly to said prosecutor to detail every suspicious episode involving abuse of a child in his diocese for the next 5-years, although Bishop Finn had already agreed to do this in writing, but failed, leaving his shutterbug priest to abuse more children after the photographs were discovered. So far bishops of Catholic diocese have cut deals to avoid similar prosecution in Manchester, N.H., Phoenix, Az, Santa Rosa, Ca, and Boston, Mass." The good news? We got yet more coverage of the travesty that is this local situation. The bad news? These people will, likely, get away with their further sexual abuse of the children in their own churches they were to be guiding, mentoring and teaching--children that should have been protected by these "leaders". Link: http://www.ywgrossman.com/photoblog/?p=2165

What chutzpah

You might have seen this in the news in the last 24 hours:

Defiant lottery winner still uses food stamps

Here's another loophole they need to close.

Thank goodness it's Michigan.

Missouri legislators to Missouri voters: Stuff yer vote

Yeah, thanks for that, Missouri legislators.

Sure, we voted last Fall and said we didn't want there to be "puppy mills" and puppy mill operators abusing dogs and animals regarding Proposition B but you, in your inifinite wisdom--far wiser than us, clearly--say forget all that and that you know better:

Missouri Senate endorses repeal of dog breeding law

JEFFERSON CITY | The Missouri Senate has endorsed legislation repealing many parts of a dog-breeding law passed by voters last November.


A bill given first-round approval Tuesday would lift a limit of 50 dogs per breeder, which is scheduled to take effect later this year with the rest of the new law. It also would roll back provisions regulating water bowls and living conditions for dogs.


Voters had approved Proposition B with 52 percent of the vote.


But some senators said the initiative could drive good dog breeders out of business by forcing them to make costly renovations and reducing their sales.

Well, yeah, that and the fact that these breeders give our legislators money so hey, who are we to get in the way, right?

I just hope media will be there to continue to tell us what our legislators are doing for (to?) us since our voting and opinions clearly don't matter.

Or if they do, at least they matter far less than our legislators.

I hope none of them ever come 'round and try to tell us how important it is we vote.  I don't know if I'd want to scream or choke 'em.

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/03/08/2709006/missouri-senate-endorses-repeal.html

You don't know all you need to know about the Catholic sexual and physical abuse

I'd love to copy and paste the entire entry from After Downing Street today but I won't. It's long and it would be tedious.

What I will do is tell you you owe it to yourself, particularly if you're Catholic, to go to the following link and read the entire column today, telling of just some of the broad history of the sexual and physical abuse the Catholic Church has been inflicting on its members, for decades at least:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/51277

Maybe one day soon we can all be protected against hate crimes

Have you heard that the hate crimes bill is coming before Congress again?

I hope you'll join me in sending a message to Congress: we can't wait any longer for a federal law to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans from violent hate crimes. Take action at:

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/hate_crimes

Ordinary people are living in fear for their safety and their lives every day, in small towns and big cities. Hate crimes against LGBT people are on the rise, but the federal government has no direct authority to investigate, prosecute or help local law enforcement crack down.

We can't let this continue. We can't let friends and neighbors become targets for violence simply because of who they are.

Congress passed the hate crimes bill in 2007, but because of George Bush's veto threat, it never became law. And now, right-wing extremists are once again making outrageous claims that the bill would criminalize preachers, end free speech, and so on.

Will you help make sure their lies aren't the only things members of Congress are hearing about this bill? Please click below to send a note urging Congress to pass the Matthew Shepard Act.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/hate_crimes

Thanks for your help, regardless.

What your government is doing in your name

From Slate Magazine, just now:


A Timeline to Bush Government Torture

Newly public evidence sheds greater light on Bush officials' efforts to develop brutal interrogation techniques for the war on terror.
By Mark Benjamin

Jun. 18, 2008 | For years now, the Bush White House has claimed that the United States does not conduct torture. Prisoner abuse at places like Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, it has asserted, was an aberration -- the work of a few "bad apples" on the night shift. When the CIA used "enhanced" interrogation techniques such as waterboarding (simulated drowning), the abuse, according to Bush officials, did not add up to torture.

But as more and more documents from inside the Bush government come to light, it is increasingly clear that the administration sought from early on to implement interrogation techniques whose basis was torture. Soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon and the CIA began an orchestrated effort to tap expertise from the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape school, for use in the interrogation of terrorist suspects. The U.S. military's SERE training is designed to inoculate elite soldiers, sailors and airmen to torture, in the event of their capture, by an enemy that would violate the Geneva Conventions. Those service members are subjected to forced nudity, stress positions, hooding, slapping, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and, yes, in some cases, waterboarding.

SERE training has nothing to do with effective interrogation, according to military experts. Trained interrogators don't work in the program. Skilled, experienced interrogators, in fact, say that only a fool would think that the training could somehow be reverse-engineered into effective interrogation techniques.

But that's exactly what the Bush government sought to do. As the plan rolled forward, military and law enforcement officials consistently sent up red flags that the SERE-based interrogation program wasn't just wrongheaded, it was probably illegal.

On Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee conducted a hearing on the evolution of abusive interrogations under the Bush administration. Through a series of memos and documents released by the committee, some old and some new, the following timeline has now been established. Committee chairman Carl Levin, the senior Democrat from Michigan, discussed this timeline at length in his opening statement.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

July 2002 -- Richard Shiffrin, a deputy general counsel in the Department of Defense, called Lt. Col. Daniel Baumgartner Jr. from the military's SERE school. Shiffrin wanted information on SERE training techniques. Baumgartner testified on Tuesday that during this period, he received similar requests from the Defense Intelligence Agency and "another agency" he declined to name.

July 25 and 26, 2002 -- Baumgartner responded to the Pentagon request by sending two memos to the Pentagon's general counsel's office describing SERE training techniques. The memos discuss (among other things) sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, stress positions, waterboarding, slapping, sensory overload and diet manipulation. The hearing on Tuesday did not go into what information was sent to the DIA or the "other agency."

Aug. 1, 2002 -- The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel sent memos to Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, about the definition of torture. It sent another memo to the CIA. The memo to Gonzales defined torture as pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." The CIA memo remains classified.

Week of Sept. 16, 2002 -- Interrogators from Guantánamo Bay traveled to the SERE school at Fort Bragg, N.C., for training by SERE staff.

Sept. 25, 2002 -- David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's counsel; acting CIA general counsel John Rizzo, Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes; and Michael Chertoff, then head of the Criminal Division at the Justice Department; all traveled to Guantánamo. They attended briefings on "intel techniques," according to a military after-action report.

Oct. 2, 2002 -- Jonathan Fredman, chief counsel to the CIA's counterterrorism center, went to Guantánamo. While there, Fredman discussed with military officials a classified memo on aggressive interrogation techniques prepared by a psychologist and psychiatrist who had attended SERE training at Fort Bragg, according to minutes from the meeting. In attendance was Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, a staff judge advocate at Guantánamo. Fredman explained that for the CIA, the Justice Department had to approve the use of "significantly harsh" techniques. He also agreed to show the military officials a copy of a CIA request regarding the use of those methods, so the military officials could see what such a request looks like. Among other things, military officials asked if the CIA used waterboarding, as taught through SERE. "If a well trained individual is used to perform this technique it can feel like you are drowning," Fredman replied, according to the minutes. "The lymphatic system will react as if you're suffocating, but your body will not cease to function. It is very effective to identify phobias and use them, i.e.; insects, snakes, claustrophobia." The meeting minutes also show a discussion about hiding detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Oct. 11, 2002 -- Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, who was in charge of Guantánamo, sent a memo to his superiors at U.S. Southern Command requesting approval of the use of three categories of increasingly brutal interrogation techniques. They included stress positions, exploitation of phobias, forced nudity, hooding, isolation, sensory deprivation, exposure to cold, and waterboarding. Attached was a memo from Beaver, justifying the legality of the techniques.

Oct. 25, 2002 -- U.S. Southern Command Cmdr. Gen. James Hill forwarded the request to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Early November 2002 -- Push-back: In a series of scathing memos, alarmed military officials from all four services raised questions about the legality and effectiveness of the techniques under consideration. The Air Force cited "serious concerns regarding the legality" of the techniques. The chief of the Army's international law division said some of the techniques, like stress positions and sensory deprivation, "cross the line of 'humane' treatment.'" He added that the techniques "may violate the torture statute." The Navy called for further legal review. The Marine Corps wrote that the techniques "arguably violate federal law."

Nov. 23, 2002 -- The interrogation of a prisoner named Mohammed al-Khatani began at Guantánamo. The list of SERE-based indignities visited upon Khatani is long. Among them: Khatani was forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, was accused of being a homosexual, was forced to wear women's underwear and to perform "dog tricks" on a leash. He received 18-to-20-hour interrogations during 48 of 54 days. (Last month, the Convening Authority for military commissions "dismissed without prejudice" the charges against al-Khatani.)

Nov. 27, 2002 -- Despite the concerns raised by military leaders, Haynes, the Pentagon general counsel, sent a memo to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recommending approval of all but three of the techniques requested for use at Guantánamo by Dunlavey. Among the things Haynes recommended for approval: stress positions, forced nudity, use of dogs and sensory deprivation.

Dec. 2, 2002 -- Rumsfeld approved Haynes' memo authorizing the harsh techniques for Guantánamo. He added a now infamous handwritten note about forcing prisoners to stand for long periods: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?" A copy of the memo signed by Rumsfeld was sent from Guantánamo to Afghanistan.

Early December 2002 -- Senior staff at Guantánamo drafted standard operating procedures for using SERE techniques during interrogations. According to the procedures, SERE training techniques "can be used to break real detainees during interrogation." That included slapping, stripping, stress positions and hooding.

Dec. 17, 2002 -- Push-back: FBI officials balked at the Guantánamo standard operating procedure, writing in a memo that law enforcement officials "object to these aggressive interrogation techniques."

Dec. 20, 2002 -- Push-back: Alberto Mora, then general counsel of the Navy, meets with Haynes, the Pentagon general counsel. Mora strongly objects to the techniques approved by Rumsfeld for Guantánamo. A memo describing the meeting shows Mora told Haynes that the techniques approved by Rumsfeld "could rise to the level of torture."

Dec. 30, 2002 -- Two instructors from the Navy SERE program arrive at Guantánamo. The next day, they school 24 members of the interrogation staff about slapping and stress positions.

January 2003 -- The officer in charge of the intelligence section at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan viewed a PowerPoint presentation on the techniques approved by Rumsfeld on Dec. 2, 2002.

Jan. 9, 2003 -- Push-back: Mora met with Haynes again and objected to the interrogation techniques.

Jan. 15, 2003 -- Push-back: Mora urged Haynes to rescind the interrogation techniques authorized at Guantánamo. Mora said that if the abuse were not rolled back, he would sign a memo declaring that some of the more aggressive techniques approved by Rumsfeld "were violative of domestic and international legal norms." Rumsfeld rescinded his Dec. 2, 2002, memo authorizing harsh interrogation techniques.

Jan. 15, 2003 -- Rumsfeld established a "working group" to develop interrogation techniques to replace his Dec. 2, 2002, memorandum he had rescinded under pressure from Mora.

Jan. 24, 2003 -- A military attorney in Afghanistan produced an interrogation memo, which remains classified. A military report later divulged that the memo included some techniques approved by Rumsfeld on Dec. 2, 2002, including the use of dogs and forced nudity.

March 14, 2003 -- John Yoo, from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, drafted a memo on interrogations claiming that anti-torture law would not apply to some interrogations. Rumsfeld's working group has been widely criticized for disregarding the input of military attorneys such as Mora, and following Yoo's guidance.

Early 2003 -- Special Mission Unit forces in Iraq developed interrogation protocol based on techniques in use in Afghanistan. Interrogations included yelling, loud music, light control, exposure to heat and cold, sleep deprivation, stress positions and use of dogs for intimidation. The interrogation officer in charge of Abu Ghraib obtained a copy of the Special Mission Unit policy and submitted it to her command as proposed policy for use by conventional U.S. forces in Iraq.

April 16, 2003 -- Based on his working group's recommendations, Rumsfeld approved another list of interrogation techniques for use at Guantánamo. It authorized dietary manipulation, environmental manipulation and sleep "adjustment." It also said other techniques might be approved on request.

Aug. 13, 2003 -- Rumsfeld approved an interrogation program for a specific prisoner at Guantánamo, Mohamedou Ould Slahi. Documents from the plan remain classified. A Department of Defense inspector general report cites an FBI agent who saw a draft of the plan. The agent said it was similar to the plan for Khatani.

September 2003 -- SERE instructors are deployed to Iraq to assist interrogators, in response to a request from commander of the Special Mission Unit Task Force.

Sept. 14, 2003 -- Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, in charge of U.S. forces in Iraq, issued a standard operating procedure for interrogation that authorized stress positions, environmental manipulation, sleep management and use of dogs.

April 2004 -- Prisoner abuse by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib comes to light and becomes a worldwide scandal. Pictures showed forced nudity, stress positions, hooding, sexual humiliation and other SERE-based techniques.

-- By Mark Benjamin