Coke And A Smile

Curtsy: Faith & Family

Everybody Yell

NoKo has two of our journalists.

The Country's In The Very Best Of Hands

Stubby Kaye & Peter Palmer 'splain it all in song.

Curtsy: ninme's tweets

Update: same tune, worse choreography from Iowahawk:


So we'd better get right with God, and Stubby Kaye can help you with that, too:

The One Imitates il Duce

Yesterday American Digest accused the administration of wanting to lose the Afghan war. But perhaps it's the outcome of World War II they're actually going to change.

GM CEO resigns at Obama's behest? As Mr. W points out,

It was National Socialist policy not to directly nationalize businesses but to replace business leaders with govt. puppet administrators.

He can change the name to “rescue plan,” “industrial policy,” or “progressive government,” but the thing itself is as disastrous under its new name as it was 75 years ago under its old one.

And We Do Mean *Adult* Stem Cells

You just can't do this with embryos.

Trying To Lose Afghanistan?

Some people think Obama is. At American Digest:

Richard at The Belmont Club is taking a hard look at the Obama Effort in Afghanistan and wondering if the President realizes what he's getting himself into. I think he does.

I think he realizes what his needs are in Afghanistan. What he needs to do is end a war in an American defeat while being seen as "trying for a victory." To do that he has to engineer an American defeat. Iraq is already, in the public mind at least, in the win column. So how do we engineer an American defeat? It is simplicity itself. You begin, not with a "surge" but a ripple.

Hmm. It's been unclear to me for some time that Afghanistan was going to look like a Just War in hindsight. What is Gen. Petraeus saying?

New Green Habits

We enjoyed Earth Hour so much last night, we decided to observe it every evening from midnight to 6 am. Also from 2-3pm when we can get away with it.

Reagan Never Napped

For your "stuff you know that isn't so" files, re President Reagan:

Whatever you gave him to read, he read. (“You” a top staffer.) You had to be careful what you handed him to read — he took it as an assignment. Even though he was president (and you were a staffer).

Reagan was an incredibly hard-working man. He studied, wrote, and spoke endlessly in his career. No wonder he accomplished so much.

And yet there was this image, cultivated in the press, that he was lazy. And Reagan, strangely enough, enjoyed playing along. He’d quip, “They say hard work never killed anybody, but I say, ‘Why risk it?’” And Reagan, as it happened, never napped — never, ever napped. Nothing wrong with napping. He just never did it. But there was this myth that he did. So he’d just play along.

During some particularly difficult time, for the nation or the world, he said, “It’s cost me many a sleepless afternoon.”

We'll Teach You How To Count To Kajillion For Free

"The good news" from The Ryskind Sketchbook

I'm only just getting around to commenting on the President's prime-time presser Tuesday night. Contrary to most Conservative commentary I've seen or heard this week, I thought he did well. Most of the responses from my side of commentary I find cheap.

• "The press didn't cover Bush's conferences in prime time." Well, they did at first. After 8 years it got old. This is the new guy and everything he does is interesting at least until we get to know him. "
• "It's all about him, he can't stand to be without a camera, he's still in campaign mode." For the love of pete, Bush traveled constantly to defend the war and get his budgets passed --and he was very effective. As to the tv, Conservatives just spent at least two years complaining that Bush didn't do enough to explain and defend his policies to the people. We prize Reagan as "The Great Communicator" and admire him for talking over the press directly to the American people. Why should Obama not do the same? What's offensive about his press appearances is what he says in them --his policies-- not that they occur (well, except for the Tonight Show; I don't think a sitting president belongs on joke show. I don't even like it that candidates for President go on).
• "At least the press for once asked him tough questions." No, they didn't. They asked stupid gotcha questions ("How come it took you 3 days to get "outraged" about AIG bonuses?") Oh, lordy: that's criticism? Not one reporter questioned a single premise of anything Obama asserted, and it's precisely his premises that are wrong. Within the limited circle of his own reasoning his answers were impressive. As far as I can tell the toughest question Obama's ever been asked was posed by Jay Leno insisting Congress had no right to target individual citizens with tax policy.
• Moreover, we learned that he's going to back down on a lot of his spending and particularly on cap and trade. The markets shot up. On his terms, he had a very good week and is on a roll. I don't hear a lot of radio these days, but when I listen running errands I hear no one knowledgable about the bills being proposed, very little serious criticism or engagement. Just teleprompter jokes and gaffe exploitation and whining about the unfair treatment. It's very old, very bitter, and frightening, because we're going to lose our liberty if the opposition doesn't get serious. It's going to take some homework, fellows.
  

Questions I wish had been asked:

• (This one is Ryskind's) You say our healthcare system is broken because we pay more for it than any other nation. Yet we are paying more for our educational system than anyone else in the world too, and your response to that is to propose new spending, despite the fact that in study after study, "no positive correlation between spending and student performance has been found." Moreover, several of your assertions are false: The high school dropout rate has fallen by 1/3 in the last 30 years–not increased; 8th grade math scores have risen to 9th from a low of 28th place in 1995, not dropped; we trail #1 ranked Norway for bachelor's degrees by a mere percentage point. How can you possibly justify additional spending for education when the nation has no more money to spend and there is no reason to think more money will make the slightest difference in student achievement?
• The other Western nations nationalized health care years ago and they're worse off than we are in terms of looming inability to pay for retiring baby boomers. How can you possibly hope to ameliorate the cost of the Medicare & Medicaid entitlements, which we already cannot afford, by giving everyone in the country a medical entitlement too?
• You're proud of your experience as a community organizer, and have encouraged young people to work in their home communities. Do you support Congresswoman DeLauro's proposal to create a Food Safety Administration that would in essence break the back of small farms, farmer's markets, and the raw milk and local foods movements? (And if so, will the First Lady's organic garden comply with the new rules?) Do you support Congressman Waxman's legislation to use the Consumer Product Safety Commission to shut down many home craft businesses? Why are you reducing the tax credit for charitable organizations, reducing the ability of community-based organizations to raise money for local efforts? Aren't all those moves aimed at destroying not only individual initiative, but the ability of communities to act on their own behalf?
  

Another UN Human Rights Triumph

That august body passed a resolution proclaiming it blasphemy to criticize human rights violations in Muslim countries. Who will rid us of this meddlesome body? Abe Greenwald writes:

The UN’s defining role is as enabler of repression and prejudice. Whether protecting Sudanese butchers on behalf of Chinese autocrats, or Iranian theocrats on behalf of Russian autocrats, the UN has inverted the definition of human rights with stunning finality. One can argue about the restorative ideological pendulum that swings inside the United States. But the UN only moves in one direction –anti-Western– by small steps and great leaps.

At least the UN is incompetent and cowardly, so nothing may come of this.

"Earth Hour" is Smart Business

So many companies participating in "Earth Hour" --the hour when we're supposed to turn out our lights and off our appliances to raise awareness about climate change.

Mariott's turning the lights out at its hotels. And here's a list of buildings participating in New York City alone:

Landmarks in NYC that will hit the lights on the 28th include: Empire State Building, Citigroup Center, Coca-Cola Billboard in Times Square, New York Life, Time Warner Center, The New York Public Library, 7 World Trade Center and the other Silverstein Properties buildings, The Helmsley Building and other Monday Properties buildings, and the Grand Hyatt New York.

You'll pardon me if I suspect environmentalism isn't all that's at work.

Imagine being the CFO of an enormous office building or hotel chain and being able to deprive your tenants and customers of an hour's worth of power without their being able to complain. (I'm guessing no one's rent/bills will be pro-rated). Kaching! Nothin' but net.

This is like 10 years ago when hotels started placing those little "save the planet"/ "help us to be good corporate citizens" signs in the washrooms asking you to please admire their thoughtfulness in not wanting to give you fresh towels (although they're available should you be selfish enough to insist). That this would also cut their water bills and allow them to hire fewer people for the laundry room had nothing to do with it I'm sure. Marketing genius.

Competitive Enterprise Institute proposes a simultaneous alternative to earth hour: human achievement hour.


Whatever. It's all good business. We will in fact be turning off the lights at 8:30 or thereabouts. But we'll have the DVD player on: it's movie night.

Update: (Curtsy Tim Blair) For some businesses, at least, Earth Hour is unsafe, not to mention expensive and with potential legal problems :

The first concern is security cameras. If they turn off, say, a lobby's lighting, they've essentially lost their security system as well, as their cameras can no longer see what is going on inside. If their remote cameras go down, the building owners I spoke with said they would need to hire additional security guards to ensure the safety of their assets and those of their tenants. Then there are technical issues in actually blacking out a building.
Buildings often have multiple breakers as well as battery-powered emergency lighting for the hallways and stairs of exit corridors. In the case of their buildings, they say the wiring for this backup lighting would have to be manually unplugged from their battery packs in order to be turned off.

For their office park of roughly half a dozen buildings in a commercial district that is largely deserted at night, they figure they would need to hire several additional security guards and several technicians to orchestrate anything approaching a near instantaneous blackout of all buildings. Because all such personnel are union employees, they would all have to be paid for a minimum of four hours.

"We're probably talking about a $5000 to $10,000 additional labour event for perhaps $100 in electricity savings," one of the building owners said.

Update: from Mock Barack w/ curtsy to American Digest:

This Is Just Lovely

The Anchoress has been singing my hymns the past few days, and this post of hers is just lovely: 32 days of love beats an abortion.

I have argued many times that by welcoming new life into the world - regardless of how “perfect” that life is - we are allowing Love to come into the world, anew. And if God is Love, then it seems to follow that the “completely new” love that occurs between a parent and child - in utero and even more intensely ex utero - is God’s means of manifesting his “ever ancient, ever new” love - to make it real and knowable, touchable, breathable, kissable and grieve-able in the world.

Considered thusly, it is not surprising that those who would “subdue” God would also be enthusiastic about subduing new life - of judging how much life there should be, and of what quality...

Then she muses on nationalized health care and tells us the story of baby Faith, critically ill, but beautiful and a joy to her mother 32 days after doctors assured her mother she could not survive birth:

If this child does not live another day, she has the odds. Her life, and the love she and her mother share - a love that did not exist before her conception but now will never end - will have forever defeated the evil one.

And:

We are rapidly putting limits on liberty in America. The ultimate liberty is to be able to choose life - whether the life is your own or someone else’s.

¡Allahu Akbar, Olé!

Hezbollah's using Mexican drug cartel routes to smuggle people into the U.S.

"Ex-nuns" and "ex-priests" used to do a brisk business in "exposing" Catholicism to anti-Catholic bigots. This little bill advertises a Long Island rally against Catholics, around the time Gov. Al Smith was running for President.

It strikes me that such people now prefer to stay within the Church to work their mischief. Did you see this piece on the new Know-Nothings (New-Nothings?) at NRO yesterday?

It's a good article, and I'm glad it makes the larger point that individual liberty is under assault. (I get prickly when Catholics cooperate in making the truth seem like merely an interest group.)

Cat-Belling For The 21st Century

Life-vests for polar bears.

ADDI Concepts has taken wildlife preservation literally by designing a life-vest for displaced polar bears struggling to stay afloat as their homes sink into the sea.

You put it on him.


Curtsy: American Digest

Where've You Been The Past Century?

Capitulating to the powers that be, American Digest starts tweeting, remarks:

Room for improvement. We need to get so fast we don't know what we're saying.

Um....

Adventures In Coarseness

Sorry for the trio of gross stories. It is a Friday in Lent, however, so we can try to atone for some of these atrocities.

They intend to advertise abortion clinics on tv in the UK.

Television ads for abortions will be allowed for the first time under the biggest shake-up of advertising rules for 50 years to be announced today.

The president of the agency responsible says:

The UK advertising codes are widely recognised for setting a high bar for social responsibility. Our priority is to ensure that the rules remain relevant for the future so consumers can continue to enjoy and trust the ads they see...

Which would be why the rules for advertising computer games to children are being tightened.

No One With A Conscience Need Apply

Here's an editorial from the New England Journal of Medicine arguing that anyone unwilling to do whatever "Science" can do is unfit for the medical profession. Doctors must be "selfless," you see, and moral scruples are the height of selfishness.

Conscientious objection makes sense with conscription, but it is worrisome when professionals who freely chose their field parse care and withhold information that patients need. As the gatekeepers to medicine, physicians and other health care providers have an obligation to choose specialties that are not moral minefields for them. Qualms about abortion, sterilization, and birth control? Do not practice women's health. Believe that the human body should be buried intact? Do not become a transplant surgeon. Morally opposed to pain medication because your religious beliefs demand suffering at the end of life? Do not train to be an intensivist. Conscience is a burden that belongs to the individual professional; patients should not have to shoulder it.

What about my right as a patient not to have to shoulder the burden of wondering if my doctor will respect my views and fight for my life or the life of my child rather than imposing his own "quality of life" and "futile care" theories upon me? Debate about ethical problems is to be shut down, and the health care market monopolized by one kind of doctor appealing to one kind of patient?

The NEJM is seriously proposing to turn over the entire field of medicine to people who vow up front there is nothing they would not do?

"Never again," we cry. But the "N" is silent.

Curtsy: Secondhand Smoke

No Animals Will Be Harmed

Unless experiments on humans fail. The European Commission is proposing a directive that labs must use embryos for experimentation in order to spare animals. Not only is this a naked power grab, denying to EU member states the right to make their own decisions about what's ethically appropriate, it's gross:

An accompanying EC report explains that the policies will mean that in any tests involving prenatal development, human embryonic stem cells must be used before animals. "The establishment of human embryonic stem cells in 1998 raised hopes in many research areas, including the development of alternatives to animal experiments," the report says. It recommends human embryonic research as a "powerful alternative to animal tests."

"Never again," we cry. But the "N" is silent.

McCain At His Best

Highlights in writing here. Looking for a transcript, but here's the vid.

My Firstborn Should Have Been Called...Daniel

Is it wrong for a married woman to have a crush on a man for his ability to paraphrase Cato the Elder before the European Parliament? Pactio olisipiensis censenda est!

Curtsy: Hermeneutic of Continuity

And a nod to ninme, too (it's not stealing, it's an homage)

Not Really A Fan

Why do I have the impression this woman does not actually follow college football?


Curtsy: American Digest

I Am 16, Going On 17, Now I Can Get Plan B

In a blistering ruling, Judge Edward Korman denounced the politicization of the FDA under George W. Bush that led to that agency's restricting the over-the-counter use of the "Plan B" abortifacient to women 18 and older. Freeing women everywhere from the insufferable arbitrary rulings of politics, he ordered the FDA to make Plan B available OTC to...

17-yr-olds.

Damn those Bushies!

We'll just ignore for the present the fact that Plan B's being approved by the FDA at all was the triumph of politics over medicine, and the further fact that Plan B's manufacturer has never studied its effects in adolescents, so the judge has just volunteered 17-yr-olds in his state as guinea pigs. Why would we care about that? It's only women.

Can We Hire Him For The GOP?

Everyone else posted it, and I like to go along. I thought he was going to get lost in the ship in the squall analogy, but he sailed along with it and then landed it admirably.

Your Garden Journal Must Be Filled Out In Triplicate

My obession with home-grown tomatoes takes on the frisson of danger this season, as Rosa DeLauro and 40 co-sponsors in the Congress act to federally regulate farmers' markets and backyard garden patches. (Don't tell Michelle!)

Under the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, we'll have a new Food Safety Administration to wrest authority for intrastate commerce from the states (in spite of the Constitution's explicit ban on any such act --see Article I, Section 8 & the 10th amendment). The proposed FSA would have broad powers to spot-inspect food establishments and "food production facilities" (the latter being so broadly defined as to include small farms and yards).

Be careful to whom you send your extra zucchini:

FSA is charged with establishing a national traceability system that requires farmers to keep records that enable FSA to track “the history, use, and location of an item of food” [Section 210(c)].

Natural News reports some other delights of the bill:

- Designating FSA as sole regulator of food safety rather than the individual states, including granting FSA the power to implement and administer a "national system for regular unannounced inspection of food establishments" under its own terms.
- Reclassifying all farms as "food production facilities", ensuring they come under the regulatory and inspection protocols of FSA as well as enforcing compliance with whatever FSA deems as appropriate food safety requirements.
- Requiring farmers to comply with FSA-established "minimum standards" for farming practices, including requiring them to establish Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans and other written documentation as determined and mandated by FSA.
- Granting FSA the power to arrogate "preventative process controls to reduce adulteration of food" as it deems fit.
- Instituting FSA as food safety law enforcement, allowing it to assess civil penalties and fines for violation of any and all FSA safety laws up to $1 million for each violation. Collected fines would become unappropriated slush funds to be used however FSA deems fit in order to "carry out enforcement activities under the food safety law."

Crunchy-cons, vegans, "sustainable farmers," Local Food and Slow Food movement devotees --and lovers of tomatoes-- unite! They're about to take away your farmers markets and raw milk --and my veggie patch. I plan to fight the power by planting more and leaving bags of vegetables anonymously on politicians' doorsteps.

I like the philosophy of this person:

if they outlaw home-grown tomatoes, only outlaws will have home-grown tomatoes! But since we’ll also be eating healthier we’ll be able to easily knock down our scurvy- and ricketts-afflicted enemies.

RC2, Outlaw. I like the sound of that.

Curtsy to Brett McS, which raises a question. If the govt. is so transparent, why did I learn of the threat to my tomatoes from someone in Oz?

God Waited

John William Waterhouse

Annunciation
"Hail, space for the uncontained God" From the Agathistos Hymn, Greece, VIc

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

* * *

Aren't there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

* * *

She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child --but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, "How can this be?"
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel's reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power --
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love--

but who was God.

--Denise Levertov

Fun With Photos

Curtsy: K-Lo

Actually We Aren't Leaving Debt To Our Grandchildren

...because we aren't having any.

The U.N. projects that world population could begin declining as early 2040. Those worried about global warming and other environmental threats might view this prospect as an unmitigated good. But lost in most discussions of the subject is the rapid population aging that accompanies declining birthrates.

Under what the U.N. considers the most likely scenario, more than half of all remaining growth comes from a 1.2 billion increase in the number of old people, while the worldwide supply of children will begin falling within 15 years. With fewer workers to support each elder, the world economy might have to run just that much faster, and consume that much more resources, or else living standards will fall.

In the USA, where nearly one-fifth of Baby Boomers never had children, the hardship of vanishing retirement savings will be compounded by the strains on both formal and informal care-giving networks caused by the spread of childlessness. A pet will keep you company in old age, but it is unlikely to be of use in helping you navigate the health care system or in keeping predatory reverse mortgage brokers at bay.

Even countries in which women have few career choices are not immune from the spreading birth dearth and resulting age wave. Under the grip of militant Islamic clerisy, Iran has seen its population of children implode. Accordingly, Iran's population is now aging at a rate nearly three times that of Western Europe. Maybe the middle aging of the Middle East will bring a mellower tone to the region, but middle age will pass swiftly to old age. China, with its one-family-one-child policy, is on a similar course, becoming a 4-2-1 society in which each child supports two parents and four grandparents.

The most depressing part of the article is the comments. I'm not sure if this fellow can even read:

Bravo and high Hosannas! The world is overpopulated and need less, far less humans.

And then:

I'm glad to hear this. This planet can't handle the number of people we have on it now. A 50% decrease would be best in the long run

What is the ideal number of persons? And how do we know?

And my particular favorite:

Does anybody think that India would not be a more pleasant place with fewer people? Haiti? Bangladesh?

Yes, because then white people wouldn't have to see anything unpleasant when we eco-tour there!

And:

Only the most backward, immature societies continue to believe that slash and burn, of environment and other tribes is a birthright. We can, and must enter a new era where quality of life, not survival at any price , is the moral imperative.

Wonder what quality of life the gentleman expects to have when he can't retire and there are no social welfare programs because one young person cannot support two (and often more thanks to divorce and alternative lifestyles!) parents and multiple grand and step-grandparents? Enjoy your doubled-over-with-arthritis-no-one-to-help-me declining years, sir. As you languish in the state run facility with no young doctors in it --or out on the street-- rest assured someone will wistfully opine the world would be ever so much more pleasant without you.

Bishop Won't Attend Notre Dame Commencement

Bishop D'Arcy of Ft.Wayne-South Bend won't be attending the Obama commencement at Notre Dame. He's released a very good statement. He doesn't agree with me that Mrs. Glendon should decline her Laetare medal --but clearly from this she offered to do so, so good for her. Here's his statement as it appears on the diocesan website (March 24, 2009 or here for future reference.) and here's the meatiest part:

After much prayer, I have decided not to attend the graduation. I wish no disrespect to our president, I pray for him and wish him well. I have always revered the Office of the Presidency. But a bishop must teach the Catholic faith “in season and out of season,” and he teaches not only by his words — but by his actions.

My decision is not an attack on anyone, but is in defense of the truth about human life.

I have in mind also the statement of the U.S. Catholic Bishops in 2004. “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” Indeed, the measure of any Catholic institution is not only what it stands for, but also what it will not stand for.

I have spoken with Professor Mary Ann Glendon, who is to receive the Laetare Medal. I have known her for many years and hold her in high esteem. We are both teachers, but in different ways. I have encouraged her to accept this award and take the opportunity such an award gives her to teach.

Even as I continue to ponder in prayer these events, which many have found shocking, so must Notre Dame. Indeed, as a Catholic University, Notre Dame must ask itself, if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth.

Hail, Emperor Obama & First Lord Geithner

The Obama administration is asking for the power to seize companies and rewrite contracts whenever it feels like it.

“We need resolution authority to go in and be able to change contracts, be able to change the business model, unwind what doesn’t work,” Gibbs said on CNN in one of several morning television interviews aimed at promoting the administration proposal. ” . . . This is the exact type of authority that will allow us to deal with the problems in AIG . . . that will address the systemic risk without having to put [a failing firm] in bankruptcy.”

If contracts mean nothing, we are subjects and not free men.

Yay For Black Adder

Rowan Atkinson's standing up against a cunning plan to stifle free speech in Great Britain.

Atkinson, who has led criticism of "hate speech" laws in previous years, criticized such laws in general: "The last thing that any academic, or cleric, or practitioner in creative writing wants to hear, is of police officers walking round with a tool box bulging with sanctions against speech and expression that 'could be useful one day'," he said.

The remark is occasioned by an effort to remove a conscience clause from a ban on homophobia.

The Government is expected to delete a free speech protection added last year to rein in the law against "incitement to homophobic hatred," which carries a maximum seven-year jail sentence. The protection reads: "For the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred."

Perhaps for these people the Renaissance was something that happened to other people.

You Go First

Britain must cut its population by half if it is to survive according to a chief advisor of Gordon Brown.

JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.

Porritt’s call will come at this week’s annual conference of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), of which he is patron.

The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the country wants to feed itself sustainably.

Apparently the Brits must not only return to the Victorian era with respect to population, but to an even earlier period as regards economic theory (I thought Malthus had been entirely discredited, but everything old is new again):

Many experts believe that, since Europeans and Americans have such a lopsided impact on the environment, the world would benefit more from reducing their populations than by making cuts in developing countries.

This is part of the thinking behind the OPT’s call for Britain to cut population to 30m — roughly what it was in late Victorian times.

Mr. Porritt has a wife and two daughters. Tim Blair asks: who survives?

Mrs. Glendon Should Refuse

I just read an item in a respected journal in which a father whose younger son will graduate from Notre Dame in May denounces ND's intent to confer a doctor of law degree on President Obama in no uncertain terms. The gentleman goes on to expose the weakness and perfidy of the school's president with an anecdote from a few years back when an older son was at the school.

Excuse me for asking --I want to put it as gently as possible since I know neither the gentleman nor his circumstances-- but why did he send his youngest son, knowing from experience what the school was like and was likely to be in the future under such leadership? Does he imagine his tuition payments were not a vote in favor of more of the same?

It's all well for us to wring our hands as I've been doing these past days, but how has Notre Dame gotten away with these sorts of antics my entire adult life if not because of Catholic parents who prefer their kids' professional advancement to Catholic witness --i.e. have been perfectly willing to pay exhorbitant tuitions for the privilege of making the same Faustian bargain we now deride in the university administration? (Are we not being conformed to the world and not Christ if we prefer a prestigious degree to the good of giving our money to a faithful institution?)

It's all very well to scream at Fr. Jenkins, but the ND administration is what it is because generations of Catholic parents, alumni & trustees have not seriously cared that it became so. They sign petitions and write letters of protest now and again, yes; no doubt they anguish over current betrayals. But if any notable number of Catholics had ever voted with their feet, the school would have righted itself long ago.

Notre Dame hopes to buy Catholic acquiescence by giving Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon its Laetare medal on the same day it honors the President. Were I in her shoes I'd decline it. What can such a medal mean in such a context?

Fidelity imposes tough choices sometimes.

Related: Bill McGurn (who's an alum, I believe) on how ND helped build the abortion orthodoxy of the Democratic Party. So when will we decide sending our kids to Notre Dame is cooperating with evil?

Update: Clearly she consulted with the bishop whether to decline.

Tutu True

Rare is the day I concur with Bishop Tutu, but.... He's backing out of a South African peace conference because South Africa is banning the Dalai Lama from entering the country. (Who bans the Dalai Lama from a peace conference?)

We are shamelessly succumbing to Chinese pressure," Archbishop Tutu was quoted as telling the Sunday Independent. "I feel deeply distressed and ashamed."

He's staying home. So's FW deKlerk, so that's 3 of the 4 main conference guests down.

South Africa claims it's not Chinese pressure that made 'em do it, it's that they don't want the World Cup to have to compete for headlines. Yes, dears.

It Just Amuses Me

Nothing to do with anything.

Where Have I Heard This Argument Before?

Fr. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, 'splains how granting an honorary law degree to a man using all his power to remove the protection of law from an entire class of citizens is the pro-life thing to do. It's not capitulation, it's engagement.

We are not ignoring the critical issue of the protection of life. On the contrary, we invited him because we care so much about those issues, and we hope for this to be the basis of an engagement with him," Jenkins said.

"You cannot change the world if you shun the people you want to persuade, and if you cannot persuade them, show respect for them and listen to them," he said.

That's what you say when you invite someone to a debate, not when you invite him to receive an award and hold him up as worthy of your graduates' emulation.

I seem to have heard this argument before, however. Remember when Lee Bollinger defended having Mahmoud Abombnjihad speak at Columbia? Of course, the President of the United States is not the President of Iran, but Obama's refusal to defend the most basic human right ought to be odious to Notre Dame.

There are other differences, of course: Columbia did not confer an honorary degree, and Bollinger's "welcome" was blistering. Somehow I doubt Jenkins' welcome for the President will even mention any policy differences.

Update: Ralph McInerney doesn't mince words! He wonders who could licitly celebrate the commencement mass:

That someone who procures or advocates abortion thereby excludes himself from communion with the Church has been clear doctrine all along, and increasingly bishops have found the courage to tell those Catholic politicians who are the great enablers of abortion legislation that they cannot receive Holy Communion. Is it any worse to celebrate such a politician as Barack Obama? So where does that put ND President Father Jenkins? He can hardly say Mass without receiving the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, so doubtless he will recuse himself and have someone else say the Mass. But to whom will he go? All his cohorts must come under the same cloud as he.

Notre Dame suffers from the

truly vulgar lust to be welcomed into secular society.

But the good news is, now there's an excuse to skip the ceremony. Commencements are deadly dull.

Condoms Are My Religion

Jeffrey Kuhner: Cult of the condom.

You'll recall the delicate ladies of the press got the vapors from B16's suggesting that condoms wouldn't cure AIDS. This in spite of epidemiological evidence. And "Science" as in Science magazine (curtsy to GDE for that link).

condoms are not the solution for one simple reason: Their use encourages reckless sexual activity, a major source of the pandemic.

They can break and tear and are not perfectly impenetrable to the HIV virus in any case, so to the extent they encourage sex outside of marriage, they're making the problem worse.

AIDS is metastasizing across Africa because too many people have no regard for their bodies, and are willing to engage in deadly behavior. All the condoms in the world will not change this dysfunctional culture. Only a spiritual revival - one that is being led by the Catholic Church - can ultimately alter hearts, minds and actions.

See there? The Church cares about your body more than the cult of the body does.

You don't have to go to Africa to prove this point, by the way. My home town illustrates things rather well. Guess how many condoms the DC government distributed last year?

Really, guess. The answer's here in invisible ink, scroll over it: Over 1.5 million. (Population: 591,833.)

That's on a par with previous years, yet from 2006-7 AIDS infection in our fair city rose 22%. 1 in 20 black men in the city are infected. It's decimating black neighborhoods.

Which, by the way, is sort of the point. The same Margaret Sanger who said this:

“Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches,” said Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. “I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tyranny of Christianity no less than capitalism.”

was equally eager for the racially inferior to die out.

So why must we insist against evidence that condoms are a cure-all?

It is the cult of the condom, and it does not tolerate any other gods.

Competence & Responsibility Are Evil

East Bridgewater Savings Bank has no delinquent loans, no foreclosures, healthy assets and is making a profit.

And the government is having none of it. Slapping the bank with a low rating, it insists the bank should be lending to borrowers unworthy of credit. And should have a website.

Considering his bank is doing well in tanking industry and even the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund is in trouble after paying for an upswing in bank failures, Petrucelli told the Boston Business Journal that the negative rating caught him by surprise.

Emphasis mine: Hel-lo! The FDIC's insurance fund isn't sound but it's harassing a solvent bank?

Remember the grasshopper and the ant? In the new American version, not only does the grasshopper fiddle the summer away taking no precautions for the future, he's also the mayor of Bug Town and passes a law forcing the ant not to be diligent either. More and more I see our problems not as policy issues but ones of character.

You Can't Believe In The Most Basic Things You Read In The Papers

It's just a little line in one of those "digest" columns papers run on weekends. It's nothing. But...

Last and certainly not least, March 22 is also special for one Oliver North — who began two days of tough testimony before Congress during the Iran-Contra trials exactly 20 years ago, in that long lost year of 1989.

So writers and editors at the Washington Times think the Iran-Contra hearings took place during the Bush administration?

It was July. 1987. And he testified for three days. No idea what this author could be thinking of --nor why "google" wasn't consulted.

Potpourri of Popery, Swoon In Cameroon Edition

The world's press corps needed smelling salts after Benedict's in-flight press conference, at which he suggested condoms wouldn't cure AIDS. Haven't seen any major coverage since, so reporters must all be knocked out still.

Himself has been outdoing himself in Cameroon & Angola nonetheless. And drawing big excited crowds. So excited that two people were killed and 18 injured by trampling at a youth rally in Lwanda. (How awful!)

Here's the March 15 Angelus, at which B16 told us what he hoped to accomplish on this apostolic voyage. All the addresses are being compiled here, but here are my favorites, interspersed with photos. (Great slide show here, but start at the back and move forward to see them chronologically.)

Here are the President & First Lady of Cameroon, Paul & Chantal Biya, greeting His Holiness at the airport when he landed. He told them he came to bring a word of comfort and hope to suffering Africa and praised Cameroon for defending the unborn and setting an example of working for peace. I love the First Lady's hat.

And hair!

I love the talk he gave to his bishops in Cameroon, where 25% of the population is Catholic. We can guess at the kinds of temptations they might be facing by what he says (there's a big emphasis on fraternal solidarity and correspondence between words and deeds), but it's a beautiful portrait of the episcopacy on its own. I liked this graf on a bishop's care for his priests:

The quality of the bond uniting you with the priests, your principal and irreplaceable co-workers, is of the greatest importance. If they see in their Bishop a father and a brother who loves them, listens to them and offers them comfort in their trials, who devotes particular attention to their human and material needs, they are encouraged to carry out their ministry whole-heartedly, worthily and fruitfully. The words and example of their Bishop have a key role in inspiring them to give their spiritual and sacramental life a central place in their ministry, spurring them on to discover and to live ever more deeply the particular role of the shepherd as, first and foremost, a man of prayer. The spiritual and sacramental life is an extraordinary treasure, given to us for ourselves and for the good of the people entrusted to us. I urge you, then, to be especially vigilant regarding the faithfulness of priests and consecrated persons to the commitments made at their ordination or entry into religious life, so that they persevere in their vocation, for the greater holiness of the Church and the glory of God. The authenticity of their witness requires that there be no dichotomy between what they teach and the way they live each day.

He likewise did a lovely reflection for priests and religious on the site of Mother of Apostles Church, the first church in Cameroon.

What is important is not to be a useless servant, but rather a “faithful and wise servant”. The pairing of the two adjectives is not by chance. It suggests that understanding without fidelity, and fidelity without wisdom, are insufficient. One quality alone, without the other, would not enable us to assume fully the responsibility which God entrusts to us.

One of his main goals on this journey was to advance understanding with Muslims. Here he is at his meeting with Muslim leaders, where he delivered this address.

REUTERS/Osservatore Romano/ Pool

Naturally he returned once more to the theme he always insists on, and especially with Muslims: the necessity of Reason. He seems here to add another element I've not seen in his addresses to Muslims before --perhaps to appeal to their heightened sense of the "otherness" of God? It's the appeal to beauty (which is also a typical Ratzingerian theme, it's just new in this context I think).

My friends, I believe a particularly urgent task of religion today is to unveil the vast potential of human reason, which is itself God’s gift and which is elevated by revelation and faith. Belief in the one God, far from stunting our capacity to understand ourselves and the world, broadens it. Far from setting us against the world, it commits us to it. We are called to help others see the subtle traces and mysterious presence of God in the world which he has marvellously created and continually sustains with his ineffable and all-embracing love. Although his infinite glory can never be directly grasped by our finite minds in this life, we nonetheless catch glimpses of it in the beauty that surrounds us. When men and women allow the magnificent order of the world and the splendour of human dignity to illumine their minds, they discover that what is “reasonable” extends far beyond what mathematics can calculate, logic can deduce and scientific experimentation can demonstrate; it includes the goodness and innate attractiveness of upright and ethical living made known to us in the very language of creation.

Marvelous!

It's been hot. There are lots of pix of the pope mopping his brow and I saw a story today saying he looked tired and moved slowly in the humidity. Crowded events have been marred by faintings, in spite of the snacks available.

AP Photo/Andrew Medichini

AP Photo/Andrew Medichini

The photos above are of people waiting for the open air mass with the people of Cameroon on the feast of St. Joseph. The homily is a wonderful tribute to Joseph, and also an exhortation to the people to defend family life and not be swept up in materialistic solutions to the problems of poverty. He's so cute:

I begin by wishing a very happy feast day to all those who, like myself, have received the grace of bearing this beautiful name, and I ask Saint Joseph to grant them his special protection in guiding them towards the Lord Jesus Christ all the days of their life.

The first reading of the day's mass was Nathan telling David that the Lord would raise him up an heir with an everlasting throne. The Pope draws from this a lesson for parents:

We thus come to realize that one of mankind’s most cherished desires – seeing the fruits of one’s labours – is not always granted by God. I think of those among you who are mothers and fathers of families. Parents quite rightly desire to give the best of themselves to their children, and they want to see them achieve success. Yet make no mistake about what this “success” entails: what God asks David to do is to place his trust in him. David himself will not see his heir who will have a throne “firm for ever” (2 Sam 7:16), for this heir, announced under the veil of prophecy, is Jesus. David puts his trust in God. In the same way, Joseph trusts God when he hears his messenger, the Angel, say to him: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her” (Mt 1:20). Throughout all of history, Joseph is the man who gives God the greatest display of trust, even in the face of such astonishing news. Dear fathers and mothers here today, do you have trust in God who has called you to be the fathers and mothers of his adopted children? Do you accept that he is counting on you to pass on to your children the human and spiritual values that you yourselves have received and which will prepare them to live with love and respect for his holy name?

He asks them to resist the tyranny of materialism:

God alone will give you, dear married couples, the strength to raise your family as he wants. Ask it of him! God loves to be asked for what he wishes to give. Ask him for the grace of a true and ever more faithful love patterned after his own. As the Psalm magnificently puts it: his “love is established for ever, his loyalty will stand as long as the heavens” (Ps 88:3).

There's really too much richness in the text to address here, but the close is marvelous, too:

If discouragement overwhelms you, think of the faith of Joseph; if anxiety has its grip on you, think of the hope of Joseph, that descendant of Abraham who hoped against hope; if exasperation or hatred seizes you, think of the love of Joseph, who was the first man to set eyes on the human face of God in the person of the Infant conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Let us praise and thank Christ for having drawn so close to us, and for giving us Joseph as an example and model of love for him. Dear brothers and sisters, I want to say to you once more from the bottom of my heart: like Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary into your home, that is to say do not be afraid to love the Church.

AP Photo/Andrew Medichini

Here he is outside a clinic where he met with the sick. Of course it's Lent, so he spoke with them of the mystery of suffering and how Mary & the women ministered to Christ. The next part is elegant:

History tells us, then, that an African, a son of your continent, took part, at the price of his own suffering, in the infinite suffering of the one who ransomed all men, including his executioners. Simon of Cyrene could not have known that it was his Saviour who stood there before him. He was “drafted in” to assist him (cf. Mk 15:21); he was constrained, forced to do so. It is hard to accept to carry someone else’s cross. Only after the resurrection could he have understood what he had done. Brothers and sisters, it is the same for each of us: in the depths of our anguish, of our own rebellion, Christ offers us his loving presence even if we find it hard to understand that he is at our side. Only the Lord’s final victory will reveal for us the definitive meaning of our trials.

Can it not be said that every African is in some sense a member of the family of Simon of Cyrene? Every African who suffers, indeed every person who suffers, helps Christ to carry his Cross and climbs with him the path to Golgotha in order one day to rise again with him. When we see the infamy to which Jesus was subjected, when we contemplate his face on the Cross, when we recognize his appalling suffering, we can glimpse, through faith, the radiant face of the Risen Lord who tells us that suffering and sickness will not have the last word in our human lives. I pray, dear brothers and sisters, that you will be able to recognize yourselves in “Simon of Cyrene”. I pray, dear brothers and sisters who are sick, that many of you will encounter a Simon at your bedside.

The presenting reason for being in Cameroon was the publication of the working document for the upcoming African Synod, so here's that.

REUTERS/Osservatore Romano/POOL

There was a fun ceremony bidding him farewell, complete with pygmy dancers. Then it was off to Angola.

Where they were all ears.

AP Photo/Themba Hadebe

And wore matching skirts and slings. And were generally excited to see him.

AP Photo/Andrew Medichini

There he addressed civil authorities. He's pretty gentle in the way he puts it, but it's an unmistakable plea for honesty and the purging of corruption --corruption being the true scourge of Africa:

There is also the example of those honest teachers, medical workers, and civil servants who, on meagre wages, serve their communities with integrity and compassion, and there are countless others who selflessly undertake voluntary work at the service of the most needy. May God bless them abundantly! May their charity multiply! Angola knows that the time has come for Africa to be the Continent of Hope! All upright human conduct is hope in action. Our actions are never indifferent before God. Nor are they indifferent for the unfolding of history. Friends, armed with integrity, magnanimity and compassion, you can transform this continent, freeing your people from the scourges of greed, violence and unrest and leading them along the path marked with the principles indispensable to every modern civic democracy: respect and promotion of human rights, transparent governance, an independent judiciary, a free press, a civil service of integrity, a properly functioning network of schools and hospitals, and – most pressing – a determination born from the conversion of hearts to excise corruption once and for all.

Of course he asks them to resist Western imperialism in the form of destruction of the family:

Friends, I wish to say that my visit to Cameroon and to Angola has stirred within me that profound human delight at being among families. Indeed I think that those who come from other continents can learn afresh from Africa that “the family is the foundation on which the social edifice is built” (Ecclesia in Africa, 80). Yet the strains upon families, as we all know, are many indeed: anxiety and ignominy caused by poverty, unemployment, disease and displacement, to mention but a few. Particularly disturbing is the crushing yoke of discrimination that women and girls so often endure, not to mention the unspeakable practice of sexual violence and exploitation which causes such humiliation and trauma. I must also mention a further area of grave concern: the policies of those who, claiming to improve the “social edifice”, threaten its very foundations. How bitter the irony of those who promote abortion as a form of “maternal” healthcare! How disconcerting the claim that the termination of life is a matter of reproductive health (cf. Maputo Protocol, art. 14)!

He addressed Angolan bishops, too, emphasizing the family once more (the family comes up in every African address), but the speech is also notable for its differences with the address to the bishops of Cameroon. Here he talks more about influencing culture.

He had a meeting with new movements (In Angola! Isn't that exciting? Who knew there were any?), and the topic was the promotion of women. It's a lovely address, defending woman on a continent where she's not very respected:

since the dignity of women is equal to that of men, no one today should doubt that women have "a full right to become actively involved in all areas of public life, and this right must be affirmed and guaranteed, also, where necessary, through appropriate legislation.

I thought this was an interesting remark, however:

a woman's personal sense of dignity is not primarily the result of juridically defined rights, but rather the direct consequence of the material and spiritual care she receives in the bosom of the family.

In other words, women are never going to find self-esteem in a culture where the family is in chaos, because our innate sense of our dignity is something bestowed by parents, and there are simply limits to what the law can do for you absent that platform. If the family is dysfunctional, God has to step into the gap, not government.

He celebrated mass for the movements, too. Here's the homily.

Then this wonderful address at a youth rally (this is the one where, horrifyingly, some folks were trampled in the excitement --the pope offered mass for them this morning) It made me cry. Go read it.

Tomorrow he comes home.

Potpourri
Other stuff did happen in the Catholic world this week, but as this is a lengthy post, I'm going to ignore it all for the time being.

The Complacency of Notre Dame

Chaput the Great delivered himself of a stemwinder at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. Returning to his theme that the culture in which we find ourselves today is in part due to the complacency of Catholics --and particularly is fruit of poor Catholic formation from the 7os-- he said:

We need to stop over-counting our numbers, our influence, our institutions and our resources, because they’re not real. We can’t talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we’ve allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other, to ourselves and to God by claiming to ‘personally oppose’ some homicidal evil -- but then allowing it to be legal at the same time.”

It's been true for some time, of course, but we have absolutely up-to-date evidence that the premier Catholic University in the country, eg, is not in fact Catholic. The President's been invited to give the commencement address and will be given an honorary degree. Let's ponder precisely what the erstwhile Catholic administration means to honor in conferring such an award.

In the comments of various blogposts I've seen a fair number of "shamefuls!" but I've seen the predictable defense that well, after all, he's the President and he's not Catholic and it's not as if the Republican party shares the Catholic view of social issues.

To which I respond: well, it's not as if the President invited himself, they lobbied for him. And if they think they made the cut of schools he'd visit for any reason other than that he intends to use the appearance to further undermine Catholic attachment to the so-called social issues, they're nuts.

Let us ask ourselves as well precisely what this erstwhile Catholic administration thinks it's honoring by conferring that honorary law degree on the man whose first act of foreign policy is to fund the abortion of brown people overseas; who makes us all complicit in embryo destruction no matter what we think of it; who moves to attack conscience protections for medical professionals who don't want to collude in abortion; and who has promised to sign a bill soon to be introduced that will nullify 35 years of hard-won consensus on a whole host of measures from parental consent for abortion to protecting infants born alive. Is it his power to enact unjust laws they are honoring? Or just raw power?

Archbishop Chaput puts it rather well:

Some Catholics in both political parties are deeply troubled by these issues. But too many Catholics just don’t really care. That’s the truth of it. If they cared, our political environment would be different. If 65 million Catholics really cared about their faith and cared about what it teaches, neither political party could ignore what we believe about justice for the poor, or the homeless, or immigrants, or the unborn child. If 65 million American Catholics really understood their faith, we wouldn’t need to waste each other’s time arguing about whether the legalized killing of an unborn child is somehow ‘balanced out’ or excused by three other good social policies.

There's a petition of protest to Notre Dame's president, but at this point there is nothing that can undo the message Notre Dame just sent the world with respect to the truth of natural law that life begins at conception and the decree of our bishops that

The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.

"We don't care."

Where Excellent Shorthand Can Take You

Positively the most delightful obituary I've ever read. Winston Churchill's confidential assistant Patrick Kinna passed away March 14 at the age of 95. I'd never heard this before:

At Christmas 1941, while Churchill was staying at the White House, Kinna was summoned to take dictation by the prime minister, who was soaking in his bathtub, planning the speech he would make to Congress on Boxing Day. Finding the muse, Churchill stomped in and out of the tub, evading the ministrations of a valet with a bath-towel. As the prime minister paced the room "completely starkers", Kinna recalled, there was a knock on the door and Churchill went to open it. It was Roosevelt in his wheelchair. Mortified at finding his guest with nothing on, the president prepared to make his excuses, but was prevented by Churchill. "Oh no, no, Mr President," he said. "As you can see, I have nothing to hide from you."

He sort of fell into intelligence work because of excellent clerical skills, which led him to adventures: preventing the Duke of Windsor from ever taking a paper home, lest it fall into the hands of Wallis Simpson; shredding documents in Paris against the encroaching Germans; hitchhiking to safety; become Churchill's man and...well, RTWT.

Investigate ACORN!

Demands John Conyers? I am confused.

The President, meanwhile, wants ACORN to "help" with the Census.

Article One Of The Constitution, Anyone?

Gross.
Ignore for a moment the specific policies. Just note the utter abdication of Congress' own constitutional role.

Not to mention, bills of attainder and ex post facto laws are expressly prohibited by the Constitution, so that 90% tax on AIG bonuses is bogus. Krauthammer has more on that. I don't know if anyone noticed it thanks to the Special Olympics remark, but Jay Leno was concerned about the constitutionality of going after AIG bonuses, too. Good on 'im for that.

Only Some?

Some Catholics Disappointed In Obama.

Pay For Your Own Wounds, GI Joe

"Trial Balloon" from The Ryskind Sketchbook

At least this particular bubble seems to have burst rather quickly.

You saw it there first: a little shout out to Ryskind, by the way, now that the First Teleprompter meme seems to be catching on.

A Tragic Lack Of Television

The laundry beckoned, so I did what I often do in that instance: found something else to do.

Specifically, I asked my kids 20 questions about their perceptions of me as part of an exercise my cousin sent.

"What Your Kids Think About You" is basically a Facebook timewaster, but I thought I might learn something from some of the questions. Some of the answers are funny (there is broad munchkin agreement that "Something Mom is not good at" is "serving dessert"). Some moistened my eyes a bit (how they know they're loved, why they're proud of me).

But their answers to the all-important question, "If your mom were a cartoon character, which one would she be?" are simply shameful.

7-yr-old: Dot in The Tick
5-yr-old: Carmelita in the Tick
10-yr-old: Natasha in Bullwinkle, just kidding, American Maid in the Tick
12-yr-old: Arthur from the Tick

Not Wonder Woman? I'd have accepted Wilma Rubble, Jane Jetson, Yosemite Sam, Yogi Bear or even Daisy Duck. Alas, the Tick is all they know.

This is what comes of restricting tv, people. That, and allowing Sarcastic Uncle to be the chief supplier of DVDs.

Benedict XVI Is Smarter Than Conventional Wisdom

Outrageous papal quotation of the week. In response to a question from a French reporter, Pope Benedict XVI said condoms won't cure AIDS.

I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome with advertising slogans. If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem. The solution can only come through a twofold commitment: firstly, the humanization of sexuality, in other words a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another; and secondly, true friendship, above all with those who are suffering, a readiness - even through personal sacrifice - to be present with those who suffer. And these are the factors that help and bring visible progress.

Therefore, I would say that our double effort is to renew the human person internally, to give spiritual and human strength to a way of behaving that is just towards our own body and the other person’s body; and this capacity of suffering with those who suffer, to remain present in trying situations.

I believe that this is the first response [to AIDS] and that this is what the Church does, and thus, she offers a great and important contribution. And we are grateful to those that do this.

Cue the usual anti-Catholic bigots denouncing this rational and humane statement as backwards and malicious. An academic calls for the Pope's impeachment in WaPo. Bonnie Erbe calls the pope "horrifically ignorant." Yadda-yadda. Lookee here though, Smartie-pantses. The head of Harvard's AIDS Prevention Research Project just said:

We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.

Even folks who support condom use believe that behavior change rather than condom distribution is the key to AIDS prevention. Even Planned Parenthood's research arm acknowledges this --the only African countries to reduce infection rates are those promoting behavior change through ABC programs: Abstain, Be monogamous, Condoms --with the former two being much more important than the latter.

"He Deserves My Silence"

Bush has no intention of talking about Obama. ninme has an amusing Bush anecdote at the end of this post.

March To Madness

Creative Minority Report has an alternative tournament if you're not into basketball. I was amused by the concept, and am even moreso by the first round winners.

Yet Rich Still Has A Column

I can't bear to link to Frank Rich, so take it from Deal Hudson that Himself has just declared in a column that the culture warriors have been laid off.

Rich describes post-Obama America as a place where economic worries have made "instrusive and divisive moral scolds" a concern of our affluent past.

Riiiiiight.