Pelosi gives us a stupid to cherish

Strong emotional reactions fade over time, even outrage. And as they fade, politicians' attempts to maintain them for their political advantage become more strained until eventually they say, or sometimes do, something laughably stupid. This is usually a pretty reliable sign that the reaction has run its course, and the political and economic concerns of everyday citizens have mostly returned to where they were prior to the event.

Life as we know it didn't end with Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. So we now return you to your regularly scheduled existential angst.

Except that every now and again, in the painful effort to keep the rage at white heat, a politician will let fly a very special kind of stupid. A stupid that, if you could take a picture of it, would be a "Kodak moment". We actually had a couple this last week; dishonorable mention goes to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who demoted Associate Justice Clarence Thomas from token black man to just another white man on the Supreme Court bench. There may be African-Americans who think Thomas is an "Oreo", but that's not for any white man to say ... not out loud, not in front of cameras, and especially not a Senate Majority Leader. (Note: I have a lot of respect for AJ Thomas; he's much more than AJ Antonin Scalia's "mini-me".)

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is no stranger to stupid under pressure. The brightest gem in her personal collection is, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it." (Mediaite has tried to defend the statement as taken relentlessly out of context. But the fact of the matter is, PPACA was and still is available on the Net in its entirety for anyone to read "away from the fog of controversy", so anyone could have discovered how awesome it wasn't before it was passed into law. Sorry, no cigar.) She's also let fly the occasional puzzler in the effort to reconcile her public stances on certain topics with her self-identified Catholicism, though none of "Pope Pelosi's" pronouncements on these matters have been endearingly dumb.

Catholic Stand: Pessimism, Optimism, Hope and Change

Over my lifetime, I have been called many things, some of which are printable. Within the last six years’ worth of blogging, I’ve had a little mud slung at me, which if nothing else proves I can occasionally write well enough to provoke a reaction, and maybe even a thought, in those who disagree with me. However, of all the tags with which I’ve been yclept, the most puzzling is that of pessimist.

I don’t say it’s puzzling because I see only good in the world and can’t understand how someone would believe I think otherwise. If I tried to make such an assertion I would be a blatant liar. Rather, it’s puzzling because, even as an ad hominem attack, it’s pretty insubstantial. It implies that every fault I see with modern society would disappear if only I take a course of antidepressants and listen to some Zig Ziglar talks. Not only is the road to Hell paved with good intentions, you can have some really pleasant experiences along the way. It’s much easier to get there if you don’t pay attention to which direction the road is going.

Catholics, you may have been told, are a “both-and” people. It’s difficult to put us into either one of any set of binary categories (liberal/conservative, rational/emotional, positive/negative) because you’re bound to trip over aspects that belong to the other of the pair. The Catholic mind is also more attuned to truth expressed as paradox. When you can grasp the idea of Christ holding his own body in his hands at the Last Supper, you can more easily see the truth in expressions such as “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” or, as in di Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo: “In order for things to stay the same, some things have got to change.”

So, it is with optimism and pessimism. Logically, the glass can’t be half-full without being half-empty at the same time; to find the silver lining in the dark cloud, you must first acknowledge that the cloud is dark. But to recognize that there are demons in the world is not necessarily to forget that there are also angels.

Read the rest at Catholic Stand!

Judge walks back anti-SCOTUS tirade, decides he needs to STFU for awhile

This news piece comes from Breitbart:

Remember Richard Kopf, the senior United States district judge in Nebraska [he's from my home state; I'm embarrassed] who was so upset by the Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case? He was the judge who blogged, “the Court is now causing more harm (division) to our democracy than good by deciding hot button cases that the Court has the power to avoid. As the kids say, it is time for the Court to stfu.” [Link to blog added by me.—ASL]

Now Richard isn't so sure that was the right thing to do. [Do tell?] He blogged Monday afternoon that a lawyer cautioned him about his profanity-laced and vulgar blogging, which includes a post he wrote in March titled "On being a dirty old man and how young women lawyers dress," in which he warned female lawyers not to wear clothes that would trigger him to look down their blouses or up their skirts. ...

Got a news flash for you, Dick: The divisions were present long before Burwell v. Hobby Lobby hit SCOTUS' docket. If you're just now noticing them, don't blame SCOTUS; blame your own inattention.

Kopf has written, "I am going to give this letter serious consideration. It comes from someone I respect and whose judgment I trust. It also reminds me that, as a physician might say, I should always strive 'first to do no harm.' Blogging will be light while I figure this out." Yeah, go ahead and lock that barn door; maybe the horses can unlock it when they return.

Ask Tony: Can you address a bishop as "Father"?

Writes a very dear friend of mine:

I have a regularly scheduling in-home massage client who is a "prominent" Catholic priest. When his secretary originally set up his appointments with me, she referred to him as Father , so that is how I've always addressed him. As we've gone along, we've had a few casual conversations. Within those conversations, I've addressed him as simply "Father", without the last name attached. He didn't seem offended at the familiarity. At my last visit, in one of these casual conversations, he discovered that, while I have a deeply rooted relationship with God, I am not Catholic. He seemed very surprised, almost shocked. I know that in his position he works with many people who are non-Catholics. I wondered what would cause this reaction. I thought that perhaps it is improper for me to address him in such a casual way or to refer to him as "Father". My intent was to reference his position and authority by addressing him as his title (as in "Mr. President", "Governor", "Doctor", etc). I don't want to offend him (if indeed I did). If it is improper for me to address him that way, what would be the better thing for me to use?

My answer: If you were introduced to him as "Father", then by all means address him as "Father" unless he himself objects to it. I take it by her comment that he "didn't seem offended at the familiarity" that he's probably a little higher up the ecclesial food chain — perhaps a monsignor? or the archbishop? Doesn't matter; the American hierarchy tends to be a pretty casual bunch. One blogger told me that, at one conference or another, he snuck outside for a cigarette and found himself in conversation with a cardinal who was also getting his nicotine fix. (As an "out" group, we smokers have a kind of instant cameraderie.) 

At any rate, calling him "Father" is more respectful than calling him by his first name alone, or calling him "Mister So-and-so". I know that there is some social pressure to get immediately chummy with every one we meet by calling them by their first name, even by their nickname. In fact, I usually know when someone has called me that I don't want to talk to — a salesman, a bill collector, a political pollster — because they inevitably call me "Anthony". And in my various inbound customer-service roles, my bosses have insisted we address customers by their first names even though I know from personal experience that it can be a customer irritant. So when a customer snaps back, "You don't know me well enough to call me '______'," I can relate all too well.

Salon discovers Pope is Catholic; outrage porn ensues

Photo credit: AP/Alessandra Tarantino.

Pope Francis’ new clothes: Why his progressive image is white smoke and mirrors

Don't buy his populist rhetoric. The new pope is every bit the sexist homophobe as his predecessors

Anna March, The Weeklings

THE IMAGE OF Pope Francis is that he is a breath of fresh air, more progressive on social issues than his predecessor and a kinder, gentler pope. But when the facts are examined, you see that he is none of these things. There is an enormous disconnect between who the pope really is in terms of his policies and his public relations image, as crafted by the Vatican’s PR man, previously with Fox News. [That's right, blame the Vatican PR flack, not the hundreds of reporters and bloggers who put the "progressive Pope" filter in place before the PR flack even knew who the new Pope was.] The current PR mission is all about reversing the incredible decline in fundraising under the last pope from the U.S. Catholic Church in particular. Pope Francis has made any number of statements that seem to indicate change and progress that are not reflected in policy. In fact, in the wake of such comments from Pope Francis, the Vatican often makes a point to explicitly state that no church policy has changed. ...

There's really no point in reading any further into March's meltdown in Salon; it's as predictable as outrage porn gets. Four-fifths of the media world outside the Catholic bubble don't have a firm grasp on religion, let alone Catholicism; the image persists that the Pope is a dictator who can translate his every caprice into dogma, without reference to Scripture or the apostolic tradition. Witness March's references to "church policy", as if Catholic doctrine were no more than the personal tastes of the current management ... as if the Catholic Church's government were analogous to that of the Presbyterian Church USA.

Anna March, Get. Over. Yourself. You and the other progressive talking heads have only yourselves — you, not the Sala Stampa — to blame for your expectations of change in doctrine — that's right, "doctrine", not "policy". I and other Catholic writers said when he was elected that it wasn't gonna happen, that his papacy would a change of style from Benedict XVI but not a change of substance. We said that Francis shared the same theological positions as Benedict; but just as you ignored Benedict when he said things that didn't fit the "God's Rottweiler" paradigm, you ignored Francis when he said things that didn't fit the "progressive Pope" paradigm.

So now you've got a moment of clarity ... and you blame your delusion on the Vatican press office? As a fund-raising effort? Puh-leeze! Don't put all your ignorance on display in one post; save some for others. You and your progressive allies did it to yourselves.

More outrage porn from right-wing Obama-haters

Perhaps you've seen this short video clip flying around the Internet. The version posted here was uploaded to YouTube by "Dual Gamma"; I originally ran across it on Facebook as a share from "The New Republic of Texas". Here it is:

This is a blatantly dishonest piece of agitprop. It takes a couple of key phrases out of the context of Obama's full speech and makes him appear to say something that, on his dumbest, most incompetent day, he would still never say in the public eye. And I say this as someone who voted against Obama twice!

Here's the transcript of the speech, with the clip excerpts in bold:

"We must not allow the angry rhetoric to co-opt us into a culture of hate"

From San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone's address at the March for Marriage, Washington, DC, June 19, 2014 (all emphases mine):

Let us, then, take our cue from the best our predecessors in faith have inspired, and not humanity’s frequent failings and sins. Like them, we now in our own time need to proclaim and live the truth with charity and compassion as it applies to us today: the truth of a united family based on the union of the children’s father and mother in marriage as the foundational good of society. Every child comes from a man and a woman, and has a right, a natural human right, to know and be known by, to love and be loved by, their own mother and father. This is the great public good that marriage is oriented towards and protects. The question is then: does society need an institution that unites children to the mothers and fathers who bring them into the world, or doesn’t it? If it does, that institution is marriage – nothing else provides this basic good to children.

Yes, this is a foundational truth, and one to which we must witness by lives lived in conformity to it, and which we must proclaim with love. Love for those millions of loving single mothers and fathers who struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives and succeed in creating loving homes for their children – they need and deserve our love, affirmation and support. Love for the husband struggling with fidelity, for the woman who feels abandoned and pressured into abortion, for the teenager struggling to believe in the heroic vision of love that makes sense of chastity, for the single person who cannot find a mate, for the childless couple trying to cope with infertility, for the wife who finds herself nursing a sick husband in her marriage bed, for the young person trying to navigate through sexual identity issues and may feel alienated from the Church because of it, maybe even because of the sort of treatment received from those who profess to be believers. To all of you, I say: know that you are a child of God, that you are called to heroic love and that with God’s help you can do it, that we love you and want to support you in living your God-given call.

Liars lying about a "right to lie" and who's lying

Here is your irony supplement for the day:

During his last failed run for the House in 2010, former Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) claimed that Obamacare doesn't allow any federal funding of abortion. Well, there are provisions in PPACA that allow the government to fund abortions (see below), so Susan B. Anthony List tried to put up billboards calling BS on his statement. Driehaus threatened the billboard company with a lawsuit, and filed a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission asserting that SBA List was in violation of the state's "false statement" law. Per Jack Park of Legal Insurrection:

The Commission found probable cause to think Driehaus was right and scheduled a hearing. That probable cause determination turned Driehaus loose to pursue discovery, which he did intrusively, noticing depositions of SBA List employees and others and asking for not just evidence supporting SBA List’s interpretation of the Affordable Care act but also for its "communications with allied organizations, political party committees, and Members of Congress and their staffs."

SBA List filed suit against the state, claiming the statute violates the First Amendment. When Driehaus lost the election, he dropped his complaint and filed a defamation suit, claiming SBA List had caused him "loss of livelihood". SBA List, however, pressed on with their suit. Since the claim had been dropped, the Sixth Circuit judge, Timothy Black, ruled that there was no longer a cause or controversy. Black also refused a motion for a summary judgment in the defamation case; when he later dismissed the case, he confessed that he "could not see the forest for the trees".

On Monday, SCOTUS unanimously reversed Black's decision, holding that "the threat of future enforcement" of the Ohio "false statement" law "is substantial." Wrote AJ Clarence Thomas, "There is a history of past enforcement against petitioners. Past enforcement against the same conduct is good evidence that the threat of enforcement is not '"chimerical."' The credibility of that threat is bolstered by the fact that a complaint may be filed with the State Commission by 'any person,' not just a prosecutor or agency."

San Francisco archbishop dissents from Pope Pelosi—UPDATED

Either Abp. Salvatore Cordileone or Neal McDonough
has been hired to play him on TV. (© CNS)

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone broke into open dissent from Pope Nancy Pelosi, writing in an open letter that the upcoming march in Washington sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage is "not anti-LGBT", and that he would be attending despite her description of the event as "venom masquerading as virtue". 

The archbishop is a featured speaker at the event, along with former presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. Several Bay area pro-SSM supporters, including SF mayor Ed Lee, California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, New Ways Ministry liar Francis DeBernardo and dismissed Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois, also sent a letter to +Cordileone urging him not to attend.

The problem, according to SFGate.com, is not so much with the march as it is with what organizations are backing it. The Southern Political Libeling Center has tagged the Family Research Council, one of the backing organizations, as a "antigay hate group"; a petition created by a group calling itself Faithful America asserts that FRC "blamed gay marriage for the recent shootings at Isla Vista". (Okay, I'd have to see a press release from FRC saying that, not just a second-hand news post; it smells like BS to me.) 

+Cordileone's letter doesn't go into point-by-point refutation — wisely, I believe, because that would have distracted from the point of the letter itself; however, it did rebut the claim that NOM had "connect[ed] homosexuality with pedophilia and incest." Furthermore, the letter points out:

It gives me assurance that we share a common disdain for harsh and hateful rhetoric. It must be pointed out, though, that there is plenty of offensive rhetoric which flows in the opposite direction. In fact, for those who support the conjugal understanding of marriage, the attacks have not stopped at rhetoric. Simply for taking a stand for marriage as it has been understood in every human society for millennia, people have lost their jobs, lost their livelihoods, and have suffered other types of retribution, including physical violence.

The social invisibility of homelessness

I spent some time trying to track down a quote by G. K. Chesterton. Having failed, I'll simply paraphrase it: "Only in England do we engage in the humorous pastime of jailing the homeless for not troubling to sleep in their own beds."

In America, we don't jail the homeless. That would deprive us of space we need to incarcerate accused criminals. But they are an eyesore, so we plant concrete spikes here and there to prevent them from sleeping someplace where people might see them and think badly of us. Oh, there are a few places they're planted because sleeping there might be dangerous — at least, more dangerous than is usual for them — but there are others where they're planted because they're more attractive than the human detritus who would otherwise occupy the space. 

Oh, and we make it illegal to water down the effectiveness of government programs by being thoughtful and generous. 'Murka! ("Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom does not consist of doing what we want but of having the right to do what we ought."—St. John Paul II.)

In the late Douglas Adams' novel Life, the Universe and Everything, the protagonist and his companions travel in a spaceship which, for reasons that become even more bizarre as they're explained, resembles "an upended Italian bistro". However, while the ship is resting on the pitch at Lord's Cricket Grounds in London, almost nobody notices it. It's not physically invisible; there's no "cloaking device" à la Star Trek that bends background light around the ship. Rather, it's socially invisible; it has an "SEP field" which plays upon the human tendency to ignore disturbing and incongruous sights.

"SEP" stands for "Somebody Else's Problem". Like homelessness.