Man of Leisure

"Irrational Exuberance" redux

I'm not saying this just to hate on algore, but I'm afraid that the announcement that the former Veep is sharing the Nobel Peace Prize will bury an important story from yesterday: a UK judge declared An Inconvenient Truth to be a politically-motivated film, thus precluding its being shown in schools without balanced disclaimers.

Also hidden in the Peace Prize news was one other self-evident award: the Nobel Prize for Sycophancy, awarded to... the Nobel Prize Committee.

The Anti-Defamation League Defames Pope Benedict XVI

On NPR this morning, normally-excellent Sylvia Poggoli filed a report about Pope Benedict XVI's decision to allow widespread celebration once again of the "Latin Rite" Mass (the 1962 Missal). In the middle of the report was a quotation from a representative of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League which claimed that some of the rite's Good Friday prayers calling for the conversion of the Jews would reopen anti-Semitic feelings among Catholics:

Jewish leaders were particularly hurt that the return of the Latin mass will bring back a Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of Jews.

Abe Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said it is a step backward after four decades of Catholic-Jewish reconciliation.

It still talks about the blindness of the Jews, the need to convert them in order to make them whole. It goes so contrary to John Paul. Why go back to painful, insensitive, insulting words?" said Foxman.

However, apparently neither Ms. Poggoli nor Mr. Foxman of the ADL have actually read the document in question. In his Motu Proprio, Pope Benedict XVI allows the celebration of the 1962 Missal on any day of the year EXCEPT during the Easter Triduum - which is Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Here are the paragraphs in question from an unofficial translation of Summorum Pontificum:

"Art. 2: ...In Masses celebrated without the people, each Catholic priest of the Latin rite, whether secular or regular, may use the Roman Missal published by Bl. Pope John XXIII in 1962, or the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970, and may do so on any day with the exception of the Easter Triduum.

"...Art. 4: Celebrations of Mass as mentioned above in art. 2 may - observing all the norms of law - also be attended by faithful who, of their own free will, ask to be admitted."

One is free to speculate that Pope Benedict actually anticipated such a response from the Jewish community, and instituted the limitation in order to assuage such fears. A reading of the actual document (and its accompanying letter to the bishops) would've revealed the care that went into his decision.

Tags: catholic, news, npr, pope, benedict

Who Will Protect the Church from the State?

The New York State Court of Appeals is now telling churches what they can and cannot believe and support. The court upheld a New York law that forces employers to cover contraception, even if the employer is a religiously-affiliated organization that is morally opposed to contraception. Specifically in this ruling, the court found that religious schools and social-service organizations are not exempt from the law, if they do not serve primarily people of their own religion.

This ruling was supported by the ACLU. That's right! When faced with a clear First Amendment case where the state was interfering with the church, the ACLU decided that they'd like to see churches and believers forced to violate their own First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and religion. Way to fail in your raison-d'étre, ACL-osers!

Embryos, Shaving, and Planting

Over on Newsvine, I've been involved in a dialogue regarding the president's veto of embryonic stem-cell research. I wanted to share this response that I posted there, for fear that it will get lost - Newsvine has a low signal-to-noise ratio:

"Indecent" writes:

"If I shave off a few cells from the palm of my hand, you don't call that "human". And they're being- quite literally - thrown away if not used for research. Instead of culturing in a petri dish in the hopes that good things will come from it, they'll be placed in a biomedical hazard dumpster."

A key difference is that if you shave a few cells from the palm of your hand, you neither die, nor are you mutilated or otherwise hampered in your normal course of human development. When the embryos in question have cells "shaved off", research shows that these two courses of action take place, both of which would be unacceptable if the embryo had been born. But because it doesn't have a birth certificate, it's somehow easier to ignore.

The second point you make, that these embryos would otherwise be thrown away, is actually not a legitimate reason to destroy them by subjecting them to scientific inquiry. The only humane method is to implant them into willing mothers' wombs and let them naturally live out their course (hopefully to birth, but I acknowledge that not all embryos naturally make it to full term). This is humane because it does not intentionally destroy them, nor condemn them to death in the name of "science".

The fact that we have such a large collection of frozen embryos awaiting implantation is a systemic result of the horrible scourge which is the "test-tube baby" industry. Multiple embryos have to be created to ensure viability within the mother's womb. The necessary result of this is that perhaps one birth will be celebrated, but also many lives should be mourned because the scientists who enabled the birth also had to destroy (or leave in limbo) dozens of "extra" embryos as well. This doesn't even begin to touch upon the concept of "selective embryonic reduction" once the implantation has taken place...

In accordance with my respect for life, I am against in-vitro fertilization because it puts our society into exactly this quandary: infertile couples want children, but they don't want to deal with the "excess" that is also created in order to ensure their fertility. If we as a society outlaw this practice, then we don't have to continue to debate this horrific result.

technorati tags:prolife, abortion, stemcell, politics

DJ Ted Stevens - A Series of Tubes

Please do not miss this. You will be sad if you do.

Internet is dead. Long live the Intertubes!

Senator Ted Stevens' (R-AK) ranting has given us a new way to refer to the interwebs: Intertubes!

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially...

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

So then, there it is: the Internet is officially the Intertubes. Here's the definition that I submitted to Urban Dictionary:

"Intertubes, n. A series of tubes that move information around the world via computer."

As a side note, it's amazing how many morons there are out there. Perform a Google blog search on the word "intertube", and you'll find 769 entries, 768 of which are using "intertube" when they should be using "inner tube". Stunning.

What exactly IS "Rocket Scientry"?

I was watching a spot of the C-SPAN this afternoon (the Cable/Satellite Public Affairs Network), and caught a speech by Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska, 1968-80), as he announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election. His ideas included direct democracy of some undisclosed sort involving Internet. When he was asked about how he will ensure that all Americans can participate in spite of many not having Internet, he brilliantly responded, "It's not rocket scientry!"

Sounds like he takes his speaking skills from George W.

You can read a WaPo column about the press conference here. Unfortunately, the columnist didn't include the Bushesque quotation, so you'll have to watch the archived clip from C-SPAN. The precise quote begins at 19:10 into the conference:
rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/e041706_gravel.rm (cut and paste this into your RealPlayer address box).

Dave and Oprah: A Remarkable Rehabilitation!

I've just finished watching The Late Show, where David Letterman welcomed Oprah Winfrey as his guest for the first time in 16 years. Now while I'm a huge Letterman fan, I always had the sneaking suspicion that the "feud" that kept Oprah from guesting on the Late Show had more to do with Dave and his caustic humour than anything on Oprah's side of the equation. It is pleasing to see the hatchet buried, and Dave couldn't have been more gentlemanly in the process.

Oprah Winfrey is doing great things with her popularity and her riches - one might say she is "magnanimous" - literally "great souled". I am especially appreciative of her Book Club, which has not only inspired millions to take up everyday reading of serious literature, but she has also brought some classics into American homes, especially Anna Karenina (link to discussion guide by the Great Books Foundation) by Leo Tolstoy, as well as works by John Steinbeck and Gabriel Maria Márquez. (Side note: Is it mere coincidence that the Oprah Empire shares the same home base as the Great Books Foundation, Chicago?)

Dave, as I mentioned, was quite a gentleman last night, asking Oprah to explain her childhood inspiration to charity, as well as her latest venture in South Africa to start a school for girls who would otherwise not have an opportunity for education. He got in a few good comedy bits before Oprah came on stage, including a great bit in the monologue: "Oprah thinks she's here to see Spamalot. And we had to give her a Pontiac." But most telling was Dave's pointing out that she had nothing to gain by appearing on his show - "It's not like things are going to really go her way after this!"

Oprah told Dave that she herself began to see him change and "soften" when his son Harry was born two years ago. I must say, I have seen the same, and it's charming to see him become less caustic and more reflective on occasion.

I predict that this warming relationship between Dave and Oprah will have a great impact on Dave's popularity. In my opinion, David Letterman is the funniest man on television, as well as a great comic inspiration to me, so I'm darn happy that he's beginning to make a comeback against that no-talent ass clown Jay Leno. Cheers to Oprah for rehabilitating my boy!

technorati tags: comedy, letterman, media, radio/tv/film, tv, oprah, great books program, culture

The Sins of the Father

The NYT has a little item about my favorite grocery store, New Seasons Market, pulling Rockstar energy drink because it was created by the son of reactionary radio talk-show host Michael Savage (original Oregonian newspaper article here).

This seems to me to be a rather odd reason to pull a product. It's not like the can says anything at all about politics, nor even mentions Mr. Savage.

Here's the text of a note I sent to the president of New Seasons Market:

I'm really flummoxed by your decision to pull Rockstar energy drink from the shelves. Can you point me to anything on the label (or anywhere else) that promotes views that you don't agree with?

Punishing a company for its president's father's political views is just plain silly. The only mention of Mr. Wiener's father on the Rockstar official website is his role as an herbalist, which is an undisputed fact.

I'm a huge fan of your store, and though I don't buy or consume Rockstar, I am just totally blown away by this extremely public action that simply doesn't make sense - neither ethical nor business. Are you going to explore the parental politics of the company president for every product that you stock?

A dime for your conscience?

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania has a campaign called "Pledge-A-Picket", where in they are soliciting donations for each pro-life protester that appears in front of their Locust Street abortuary. They carefully note that the minimum is $0.10 per protester. <irony>So at least we now have an idea of how much Planned Parenthood values conscience.</irony>

It's refreshing to see that Planned Parenthood hasn't strayed from the values of their founder, Margaret Sanger. She advocated forced sterilization of the "unfit, irresponsible and reckless," among whom she included those "whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers." She further contended that "there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped."

From placing a value on entire classes of people (unfit as a group), to placing a value on individual consciences ($0.10 each), Planned Parenthood continues the tradition of denying the inherent dignity of the human person.