Department of Fair Dos

I'm no admirer of the Koch brothers, but, as I go about my Clinical Pastoral Training, I regularly see the good results of the donations of David Koch. Say what you will about his political views, these gifts are saving lives.

From across the gulf of ideological disagreement, I salute him for his philanthropy.

Now if he'd just give up politics...

"Rosa Parks didn't really need to sit where she did."

Seriously, these guys are why we can't have nice things, like civil society:

The owner of a Beaumont, Tex. gun shop on Tuesday explained why his employee was wearing a banana suit and an AK-47 to promote the store's grand opening this weekend.

"To help people know where the new spot is, we stuck a costume mask on him, pointing a sign toward the store. He happened to be open-carrying. It's not uncommon in Beaumont for people to be doing that," Derek Poe told TPM, explaining that multiple businesses in the area promote their stores with sign holders.

Poe, who owns Golden Triangle Tactical, added that the employee wore the banana suit to make himself look less threatening while carrying an AK-47.

"And the banana suit was so he would look less alarming," he said.

The employee was cited by police Saturday for soliciting near a roadway without a permit.

"He was legally open-carrying, so they couldn't pin that on him," Poe said. "What the police have been doing is selective enforcement. It's a form of harassment, intimidation tactics used by Beaumont PD. They didn't even know what he did wrong. They were down there, one of the police officer's going through her phone and her code book trying to find something to pin on him because you can open carry in Texas."

Poe also defended his employee's choice to open carry, invoking a civil rights hero in the process.

"There's necessarily no reason to open carry," he said. "Rosa Parks didn't really need to sit where she did."

Yeah, because not being able to openly brandish automatic weaponry everywhere is totes like segregation, man!

The purpose of his little antic? Don't say I didn't warn you; I did. As Poe is quoted in the article, "I understand where some are coming from -- afraid of it. Here they're not used to it. That's what the whole reason for the Liberty movement, the open carry law is for, it gets people used to it and desensitizes them to seeing firearms."

Every space is gun space!

Edited to Add: Folks, contrary to Mr. Poe's practice, this is not to be taken as a primer:

"By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them"

When the Anglican Wars began, The Congregation of Anglicans in North America ("CANA"), a self-described "missionary district sponsored by the largest and most vibrant province of the Anglican Communion, the Church of Nigeria which at c.19 million members accounts for about 25% of the membership of the entire Anglican Communion," formed as an attempted replacement to the Episcopal Church, or, as they put it, "a building block and an incubator that works to build up the Anglican Church in North America as the provincial structure for orthodox Anglicanism in North America within the next several years." That "province," the "Anglican Church in North America", is self-described as "an emerging Province in the global Anglican Communion," and acknowledges that is is comprised of parishes and dioceses that have purported to "disaffiliate from the established provinces in North America and seek episcopal oversight and spiritual care from Anglican Provinces and leaders in other parts of the world, including the primates and churches of Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South America and Uganda." According to ACNA, "CANA is a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America, a missionary jurisdiction of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)."

Got that? Many of those who have split off from the Episcopal Church in the wake of the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson are either directly under the jurisdiction of the Church of Nigeria, or in communion with it.

No doubt they are exultant today, to see their spiritual leaders' vision come to pass:

Since Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, signed a harsh law criminalizing homosexuality throughout the country last month, arrests of gay people have multiplied, advocates have been forced to go underground, some people fearful of the law have sought asylum overseas and news media demands for a crackdown have flourished.

Gay sex has been illegal in Nigeria since British colonial rule, but convictions were rare in the south and only occasional in the mostly Muslim north. The new law bans same-sex marriage and goes significantly further, prescribing 10 years in prison for those who “directly or indirectly” make a “public show” of same-sex relationships. It also punishes anyone who participates in gay clubs and organizations, or who simply supports them, leading to broad international criticism of the sweep of the law.

“This draconian new law makes an already-bad situation much worse,” the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said in a statement. “It purports to ban same-sex marriage ceremonies but in reality does much more,” she added. “Rarely have I seen a piece of legislation that in so few paragraphs directly violates so many basic, universal human rights.”

***

Rights advocates say they have recorded arrests in multiple Nigerian states, but the country’s north has experienced the toughest crackdown. Mr. Jonathan’s national ban has redoubled the zeal against gay people here and elsewhere, according to officials and residents in Bauchi, where Shariah law prevails and green-uniformed Hisbah, or Islamic police officers, search for what is considered immoral under Islam.

“It’s reawakened interest in communities to ‘sanitize,’ more or less, to talk about ‘moral sanitization,’ ” Dorothy Aken’Ova, executive director of Nigeria’s International Center for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights, said of the law. “Where it was quiet before, it’s gotten people thinking, ‘Who is behaving in a manner that may be gay?’ It’s driven people into the closet.”

Officials here in Bauchi say they want to root out, imprison and punish gays. Local lawyers are reluctant to represent them. Bail was refused to the gay people already jailed because it was “in the best interests of the accused,” said the chief prosecutor, Dawood Mohammed. In the streets, furious citizens say they are ready to take the law into their own hands to combat homosexuality.

Peter Akinola, who was Archbishop of Nigeria at the time of the split, has long supported this law. The current Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, not only supported the law's passage, but has been quoted as saying that "those not in support of the bill are like the biblical duo, Adam and Eve who questioned God for asking them not to eat the fruits from the Garden of Eden."

So congratulations, ACNA and CANA! You own this:

The young man cried out as he was being whipped on the courtroom bench. The bailiff’s leather whip struck him 20 times, and when it was over, the man’s side and back were covered with bruises.

Still, the large crowd outside was disappointed, the judge recalled: The penalty for gay sex under local Islamic law is death by stoning.

“He is supposed to be killed,” the judge, Nuhu Idris Mohammed, said, praising his own leniency on judgment day last month at the Shariah court here. The bailiff demonstrated the technique he used: whip at shoulder level, then forcefully down.

The mood is unforgiving in this north Nigeria metropolis, where nine others accused of being gay by the Islamic police are behind the central prison’s high walls. Stones and bottles rained down on them outside the court two weeks ago, residents and officials said; some in the mob even wanted to set the courtroom ablaze, witnesses said.

I hope you're proud.

The Argumentum Excrementum Taurorem

Now, I've been keeping out of Bridgeghazi, as the cognoscenti are calling the ongoing kerfuffle regarding the politically motivated lane closures beaching up George Washington Bridge traffic into the town of Fort Lee, and the corollary matters that have come out since. Facts are still being developed, these are highly controverted allegations of behavior that may involve criminal behavior, and it's unwise to get ahead of the facts.

But this is simply ridiculous:

"The memo from Gov. Chris Christie's office attacking former appointee David Wildstein's credibility landed with a thud. It was a striking and deeply personal broadside coming from a chief executive of a state, and even his allies called it a mistake," Politico reports.

"But one important person hadn't seen the missive ahead of time: the governor himself."

"Christie's aides did not run the document - which took the extraordinary step of highlighting incidents from Wildstein's high school days - by the governor before they sent it out, according to two people familiar with the matter. Instead, someone tucked the high school lines into a daily briefing email to the governor's supporters, and blasted it out earlier than planned. Another round of unflattering news coverage ensued."

Forgive me, but this is, in philosophical sense of the word, bullshit.

Let's recap. A week ago, when it became clear that David Wildstein was not going to fall on his sword for Governor Christie, an e-mail was leaked by Christie's office:

Christie Email

Now, remember, Christie and Wildstein went to high school together, although Christie has sought to minimize their connection. Also, Wildstein's job at the Port Authority was created for him, "with Christie's blessing," to safeguard Christie's political interests.

So, the current story is that e-mail, using Christie's shared past with Wildstein to garner ammunition to attack Wildstein, was sent out without Christie's knowledge or participation. Because, apparently, everyone on Christie's staff is an expert on his high school classmates.

Also, the story eerily echoes Christie's claim that Bridget Kelly, whose e-mail triggered the lane closures, did so without his knowledge, and concealed her involvement from him.

The fact that Christie waited a week before leaking the new claim that he knew nothing--nothing!--about the leaked e-mail (the e-mail was not criminal, mind you, just deeply stupid), makes it that much less credible. But, really, the story also requires one to believe that Christie is surrounded by staffers willing to make the same mistake Kelly is alleged by Christie to have made--to have struck out against a political foe in a way that triggered blow-back, without consulting him. It requires Christie to be hapless, out-of-touch, not in control of his own staff, who nonetheless have a thorough grounding in the politics of Christie's high school days.

The UN and the Catholic Church

The United Nations's Committee on the Rights of the Child has released a report responding to the Vatican's own report of its compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child; noting that the Holy See took six years to respond, it made some pertinent recommendations, as summarized and excerpted by the Washington Post:

AMEND CHURCH LAW

The Vatican should bring its Canon Law in line with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the Holy See ratified in 1990, “in particular those (laws) relating to children’s rights to be protected against discrimination, violence and all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.” This includes any obligation for victims of crimes or those aware of them to remain silent.

___

PUT CHILDREN BEFORE THE CHURCH

The panel said that “in dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse, the Holy See has consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the Church and the protection of the perpetrators above children’s best interests.” It said church officials had in many cases blamed the victims or their families, sought to discredit and in some cases humiliated them.

___

END IMPUNITY

Despite the Vatican’s commitment to “hold inviolable the dignity and entire person of every child,” the panel expressed its “deepest concern about child sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic churches who operate under the authority of the Holy See, with clerics having been involved in the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children worldwide.” It added: “The Committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators.”

___

STOP IMPEDING INVESTIGATIONS

The panel urged the Vatican to stop the transfer of abusers and suspected abusers, a practice it said had been documented on numerous occasions and which amounted to covering up the crimes. A Vatican commission created last year should investigate “all cases of child sexual abuse as well as the conduct of the Catholic hierarchy in dealing with them.” In doing so, it should consider bringing in independent human rights groups, publish the outcome of the investigations and allow its archives to be accessed by law enforcement authorities investigating alleged perpetrators and those who may have covered for them.

___

REMOVE PERPETRATORS

It called on the Vatican to “immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers from assignment and refer the matter to the relevant law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution purposes.”

On behalf of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sr. Mary Ann Walsh has responded:

Sexual abuse of a minor is a sin and a crime and no organization can become complacent about addressing it. The Catholic Church has certainly done more than any other international organization to face the problem and it will continue to lead in doing so.

In the United States, the number of cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy has plummeted. This is in no small part due to the fact that millions of Catholic children have been instructed on safe environments and tens of thousands of adults who work with them in the church have gone through background checks and safe environment education. In 2012, for example, dioceses and religious institutes conducted background checks on 99 percent of clerics, 97 percent of educators, 95 percent of employees, and 96 percent of volunteers. Every diocese has a victim assistance coordinator who assists those who have been abused and a safe environment coordinator who works to prevent abuse from occurring again.

The Vatican also has shown resolve in addressing the issue. Pope John Paul II changed the age of maturity in church law so more abuse cases could be prosecuted. Pope Benedict called on every bishops’conference in the world to develop policies. Pope Francis recently announced a commission to strengthen the church’s handling of sexual abuse.

Sr. Walsh makes some fair points about improvements in background checks and training--as detailed in Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: A Decade of Crisis, 2002-2012 (Plante & McChesney, eds.) at 195-244, serious and commendable work has been done in these areas.

But where Sister Walsh seems to me to be in error is claiming that the Church's efforts at incident reduction entitle it describe itself as "continu[ing] to lead in" facing the problem. Because she does not at all engage with the fact that the Church has, as the UN Report correctly describes, systematically impeded investigations by secular law enforcement in multiple nations, over at least a generation.

In my 2012 article Command and Coercion (the link goes to the 2011 working paper; the published article is more polished, and more up to date, as well as less polemical in tone), I detailed the extensive history of the Church thwarting law enforcements, building on investigative reports throughout the United States, as well as in other nations, such as Ireland, as detailed in the Murphy and Cloyne Reports. Many of these reports were quite recent, and a wavelet of stories demonstrating members of the hierarchy disparaging news accounts of previously unreported instances as "petty gossip" or media bias against the Church took place in 2010.

Since the publication of "Command and Coercion," in fact, in 2013, the Archdiocese of Newark was confronted with revelations that a priest who had been convicted go abusive behavior had obtained a reversal due to trial court error, and had avoided re-trial by a plea agreement designed to prevent further offenses to which the Archdiocese was a a signatory, had violated that plea agreement. (The Archdiocese's canonical court had previously ignored the confession and the guilty plea, and cleared the offending priest). The Archdiocese's response to the story about the plea violations was to falsely characterize the terms of the agreement, and deny any infraction had taken place; the Catholic League, backing this story up, claimed a nefarious plot to "sunder" the Archbishop. Less then a week later, the Archdiocese acknowledged the plea agreement had been violated, and disclaimed knowledge of the acts it had defended scant days before. Later, when accepting the resignation of his Vicar-General, Archbishop Myers, like Sister Walsh, approvingly cited the Dallas Charter and compliance with it, and ignored his own office's efforts to defend Fugee and misrepresent the legal and factual history.

Archbishop Myers remains in office, as of this writing; in October 2013, he addressed the Canon Law Society of America, stating:

Clearly our Church and many other groups and individuals in our Society must be appalled at the sexual abuse crisis which has come to light in recent decades. The members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have admitted mistakes and apologized sincerely for the suffering of far too many victims, as have individual bishops in specific cases. Our best apology is effective action to care for victims and to work to ensure that such evil actions never again occur. This calls for widespread and regular education and screening, but also proper penalties for perpetrators.

Archbishop Myers spoke as if the Fugee matter had never taken place, and did not address the need to cooperate with secular law enforcement.

Perhaps the Archbishop means it this time, and has learned from the Fugee affair. But his address reads as the words of one who believes that the matter lies within, as before, the special jurisdiction of canon law, first and foremost--the very belief the origins of which I traced in "Command and Coercion."

Sister Walsh's defense of the USCCB's record is somewhat less than reassuring in view of her failure to address this continuing culture of clerical immunity, the lack of consequences for those in the hierarchy who perpetuate it, and, especially, in her reliance upon internal canon and procedures and not secular law.

The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Ethan T. Katt, who is by any definition a beauty (see above) is also all over the map when it comes to whom he crushes on. He has spent years trying to seduce Betty the Prayer Kitten (The Blog Mascot), has long tried to corral Elspeth, much less gallantly (don't feel too bad for her; she heath the tar out of him when he doesn't take a hint.)

But his walks on the wild side--like with the late, lamented, Jake, the dog of two of our good friends. Through the door they would stare at each other, eyes locked in mutual fascination and admiration. Now, so too with Popplethwaite, the tomcat outside--Ethan is, quite simply, absolutely unpredictable in whom he will fall for.

Interestingly, it ain't us--he is the only one of our cats who comes close to fitting the stereotype of the aloof, distant cat. Not quite, though; he's more like Lord Grantham with Bates--polite, superior, but a tinge of affection withal.

Just as well, I suppose. All his loves are foredoomed….

Snow Daze!

You have to admit, the snow falling in New York is a beautiful thing.

Even though I've been shoveling snow way longer than I've been playing in it, I still react to the snow with a child's glee. I remember my father building a snow bear one year, and a snow dinosaur the next, a winter when I was in law school, and the snow was so heavy that all the public transportation was closed, and I sort of sued through the magically silent streets to meet friends in the upper seventies from 114th Street.

On days like this, the City can be what O. Henry famously called it: Baghdad on the Hudson, an appellation when that poor, war-torn city connoted not horror but the magic of Burton's Arabian Nights.

Maybe we're all a little the worse for wear, but still: "The heart grows older, but never, ever learns. The memories shoulder, the soul always yearns…."



(Photo by Anglocat)