Reading this article. . .
http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/cbc-article.aspx?cp-documentid=24037654
I just find it interesting that Bob Rae argues that Canada should extend "our" Canadian laws to third world countries, I suppose minus P.E.I. and any Canadian who isn't a big fan of abortion. If the G8 were to lump abortion in with contraception under the "birth control" banner, would it pay for sex sellection abortions as well? Because that seems to be a norm in the third world. At what point are we imposing our values on a culture and not just money? I think it's one thing to keep abortion legal where it is already legal in Canada; the genie is already out of the bottle. It may be another thing to allocate funds overseas for abortion unless the goal is to thin out the herd. I can see many Canadians just leaving the third world off the scope and figuring the more abortions the better over there. Reminds me of the MacLean and MacLean song, a choir prayer, "Keep it over there, Lord, keep it over there
Famine and diseases, keep them over there."
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
scandals and Easter
Happy Easter. If you are very retro, I suppose Happy Ester.
I don't know about scandals. I hear about them, read about them, but come away knowing nothing. There is the "church cover-up" of child sexual abuse by priests, which gets a lot of press. But not much about the other end of it. This is not to put any responsibily on the head of any victim or victim's parent. I can't put responsibility there, because it already IS there. If you have been abused, report it TO THE POLICE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You press charges, give whatever testimony you can, and see what happens. The church, or whatever institution an abuser belongs to, can't "cover-up" that. In fact, it'll likely hit the press without much filtration - from police report pretty much to the headline - so you are likely to get lots of satisfaction as the alleged abuser is pretty much tried and convicted in the court of public opinion ASAP. You can argue that gee, if priests were married they wouldn't be diddlers, which I don't know to be a fact. Aren't there married pedophiles? Aren't there hockey coaches and trainers and babysitters who are like that? I don't know how it is all on the head of the church. Yes, they ordained someone who turned out to be unfit. For that they bear some responsibility. But this business of cover-up? Versus what? I'm not sure publication of names of people who were accused merely in WHISPER CAMPAIGNS and NOT CHARGED by POLICE is something an organiation has any obligatin to do. If they have reason to believe someone on their staff is a pervert, moving them on to another community may be terrible and irresponsible. But WHAT reason do they have to turn someone over to the police if they haven't witnessed anything. It still must be a conflict between accused and victim. Why should the church be the middle-man? The parents presumably are also involved, so why can't THEY press charges or speak to police? If I were a Bishop and what I'm told is that a priest in my area has been accused of wrongdoing, I would ask why the wrongdoing isn't reported to the police if it so clearly happened. How is the Bishop, let alone the Vatican, involved in the conversation at that level except if a priest can't show up for work because he is being interviewed by police or behind bars? Anyway, I just think there are sharks who smell blood and want the church to go down one way or another. One picket says, "It is time for God to step down," which is either ironic or delusional. I'm not sure.
I don't know about celebrity scandals either. I recall a proonged story about an action-movie star who was "accused" by a fan of having a gay interlude. No names, because this movie star has been bashed enough. He responded with a defamation suit and won. The fan moped that he would never watch that star's movies again. Poor baby. I say accusation because the wrongdoing on the part of the star would be infidelity to his wife and lying to his wife. The accusation of a gay tryst actually says nothing concrete about the actor but tells us something about the accuser:
The accuser in this case is one of two things, either a liar or a backstabber. If he is telling the truth, he is recklessly jeopardising the career and fortune of someone who did him no harm and with whom he was intimate. Even though the shadow cast by this kind of scandal remains, the actor still has a degree of box office draw and respect. Even if the accusation were true, he would still be cool. But the would-be fan creating the scandal would still be a scumbag. Even if gossip and scandal come from ostensibly liberal sources, I think they are inherently catty and conservative in the worst way and it still is another version of the tall poppy syndrom - cutting someone down for being outstanding.
I don't know if these issues are well-served in the sound-byte culture. Too many levels. Too many granedes lobbed into a crowd by people with hidden agendas. If a priest compares the strain of churc scandal to the strain of anti-Semetism, of COURSE that is going to be a big story. I would have compared it more to the way TTC workers feel the day after subway and bus fares go up or the day after a striked that messes up thousands of lives to ensure the workers get better than merely twice our wages and three times the benefits but something absurdly more. I think the Pope could have slapped the scandals of the church down a long time ago. The abuse story is front and center, but we are still talking about a church with more mundane mess-ups on its plate. They went out of the way around 2005 to suggest girls should not be encouraged to be altar servers. Well, I used to work as a Sacristan in a church between the ages of 12 and 17 and told a girl to suit up as often as a boy, and one can hand wine to the priest as well as the other. The old boys' club is the problem. But as for who "covers-up" a scandal, I don't know if it's anyone but the victim. Some of them waited until 20 years passed before they went to police and got closure. Had they and/or their parents gone straight to police, instead of imagining there was some sort of internal policing, maybe there would be earlier publicity and fewer abuses. If a teacher abuses a student, would they and the parently merely go to the Principal? Or would they speak to police? I don't know.
I don't know about scandals. I hear about them, read about them, but come away knowing nothing. There is the "church cover-up" of child sexual abuse by priests, which gets a lot of press. But not much about the other end of it. This is not to put any responsibily on the head of any victim or victim's parent. I can't put responsibility there, because it already IS there. If you have been abused, report it TO THE POLICE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You press charges, give whatever testimony you can, and see what happens. The church, or whatever institution an abuser belongs to, can't "cover-up" that. In fact, it'll likely hit the press without much filtration - from police report pretty much to the headline - so you are likely to get lots of satisfaction as the alleged abuser is pretty much tried and convicted in the court of public opinion ASAP. You can argue that gee, if priests were married they wouldn't be diddlers, which I don't know to be a fact. Aren't there married pedophiles? Aren't there hockey coaches and trainers and babysitters who are like that? I don't know how it is all on the head of the church. Yes, they ordained someone who turned out to be unfit. For that they bear some responsibility. But this business of cover-up? Versus what? I'm not sure publication of names of people who were accused merely in WHISPER CAMPAIGNS and NOT CHARGED by POLICE is something an organiation has any obligatin to do. If they have reason to believe someone on their staff is a pervert, moving them on to another community may be terrible and irresponsible. But WHAT reason do they have to turn someone over to the police if they haven't witnessed anything. It still must be a conflict between accused and victim. Why should the church be the middle-man? The parents presumably are also involved, so why can't THEY press charges or speak to police? If I were a Bishop and what I'm told is that a priest in my area has been accused of wrongdoing, I would ask why the wrongdoing isn't reported to the police if it so clearly happened. How is the Bishop, let alone the Vatican, involved in the conversation at that level except if a priest can't show up for work because he is being interviewed by police or behind bars? Anyway, I just think there are sharks who smell blood and want the church to go down one way or another. One picket says, "It is time for God to step down," which is either ironic or delusional. I'm not sure.
I don't know about celebrity scandals either. I recall a proonged story about an action-movie star who was "accused" by a fan of having a gay interlude. No names, because this movie star has been bashed enough. He responded with a defamation suit and won. The fan moped that he would never watch that star's movies again. Poor baby. I say accusation because the wrongdoing on the part of the star would be infidelity to his wife and lying to his wife. The accusation of a gay tryst actually says nothing concrete about the actor but tells us something about the accuser:
The accuser in this case is one of two things, either a liar or a backstabber. If he is telling the truth, he is recklessly jeopardising the career and fortune of someone who did him no harm and with whom he was intimate. Even though the shadow cast by this kind of scandal remains, the actor still has a degree of box office draw and respect. Even if the accusation were true, he would still be cool. But the would-be fan creating the scandal would still be a scumbag. Even if gossip and scandal come from ostensibly liberal sources, I think they are inherently catty and conservative in the worst way and it still is another version of the tall poppy syndrom - cutting someone down for being outstanding.
I don't know if these issues are well-served in the sound-byte culture. Too many levels. Too many granedes lobbed into a crowd by people with hidden agendas. If a priest compares the strain of churc scandal to the strain of anti-Semetism, of COURSE that is going to be a big story. I would have compared it more to the way TTC workers feel the day after subway and bus fares go up or the day after a striked that messes up thousands of lives to ensure the workers get better than merely twice our wages and three times the benefits but something absurdly more. I think the Pope could have slapped the scandals of the church down a long time ago. The abuse story is front and center, but we are still talking about a church with more mundane mess-ups on its plate. They went out of the way around 2005 to suggest girls should not be encouraged to be altar servers. Well, I used to work as a Sacristan in a church between the ages of 12 and 17 and told a girl to suit up as often as a boy, and one can hand wine to the priest as well as the other. The old boys' club is the problem. But as for who "covers-up" a scandal, I don't know if it's anyone but the victim. Some of them waited until 20 years passed before they went to police and got closure. Had they and/or their parents gone straight to police, instead of imagining there was some sort of internal policing, maybe there would be earlier publicity and fewer abuses. If a teacher abuses a student, would they and the parently merely go to the Principal? Or would they speak to police? I don't know.
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