News Clips: December 2006 Archives
I knew it. 
Another "image of Mary" in a random form, this time a tree stump, of all things. People, this is just too much.
I can't even make out the image. Can you?
A majority of Americans believe in angels (overall, 81%), though apparently a non-trivial number of Catholics do not. (The Protestants beat us in that department.) Gotta love these percentages of people who believe something totally contrary to the essence of the faith they profess.
Also, the article says: "91 percent of whites believed in Santa as a child; 72 percent of minorities did. One quarter of those now living in households with incomes under $25,000 did not believe in Santa."
A doctor claims he has 
A parish which has a simple cross as its altar cross will finally get a corpus to go with it, thanks to an anonymous but generous benefactor.
A 2002 directive from the Holy See mandates that altar crosses have a corpus. The parish therefore had to adapt its simple cross to one meeting the directive.
The design is unusual as the cross was not at all designed to hold a corpus. For one thing, it is in the shape of a plus sign. The corpus will therefore float over the cross.
Replicas of the corpus will be sold to raise money for ministries.
Two leftists in Italy's ruling coalition on Wednesday outraged fellow lawmakers by placing four dolls representing homosexual couples near the baby Jesus in the official nativity scene in parliament.
A study by the ultra-liberal Guttmacher Institute claims that 9 out of 10 people have had premarital sex, including older generations born in the 1940s. The study was based on interviews with 38,000 people, mostly women. They claim the study demonstrates that people were no more chaste in decades past than today.
Naturally they are using the numbers to oppose the government's abstinence-based programs. Of course this is like opposing efforts to get people to cut down or eliminate cholesterol, sugar, caffeine, salt, fat, and everything else simply because people already eat way too much of these things. The number of people who have not practiced consistent abstinence does not have any impact on the value of promoting abstinence.
While I have no doubt a lot went on over the years that would surprise us, I personally would consider the study suspect, since it seems they had a goal in mind in conducting it. Plus they are simply not objective enough to be credible to the world at large. The Guttmacher Institute is notorious for their promotion of libertine sexual values. But this will be talked about and will become part of the national dialogue, so it's worth being aware of.
This article
To some today, clean humor can seem like a breath of fresh air in a world choked with noxious humor. I for one almost refuse to go to comedy clubs (at least not without doing some research) because the assumption out there is that they are going to rely on raunchy humor. While I think it's true raunchy humor is no longer edgy, I think that's been true for the last ten years or longer. Maybe people are just getting sick of it. I think the commend about vulgar language supporting weak humor is a true one. Bill Cosby once said that it is extremely hard to do clean humor.
In any case, I am glad to see this trend and can only hope that it will continue.
Jack Kevorkian is due to be paroled in June. He has promised not to assist a suicide when he gets out. He is reportedly in poor health.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport deftly crushed its critics when the Chabad-Lubavitch group asked for a menorah to join the Christmas trees and threatened a lawsuit when they didn't get their way. The airport's response? Remove the Christmas trees! This focused public anger on the Chabad group, which beat a hasty retreat, licking its wounds with its tail between its legs. Then the trees returned. (Here is a Christian media view of the situation.)
Some have (perhaps justly) criticized their airport. They sure trumped the Chabad group though! Personally I see nothing wrong with asking for a menorah, but then to threaten a lawsuit (idly, as it turns out) is a bit much. I am not sure of the legal status of Christmas trees — the article cited only a case involving a joint display of tree and menorah — but I'm almost certain they are considered strictly secular. (There is a White House Christmas tree, so that would seem to confirm that.)
The airport's argument was that if you display one religion's symbols, you have to display all of them, and they weren't up for that. Like anyone else I expect they wanted a simple holiday decoration without getting dragged into a constitutional crisis.
Well, I hope Chabad has a Happy Hanukkah anyway.
A Romanian priest intends to fine couples who are not virgins. Not clear whether he's Catholic or Orthodox.
Roman archaeologists have identified the tomb of St. Paul.
Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney has caused some consternation by his letter to the Log Cabin Republicans (a gay group) boasting he'll do more than Senator Edward Kennedy to advance gay rights. This will have a significant impact on his presidential bid.
I was there at a rally at the Mass. State House a month or so ago supporting a vote on the same-sex marriage amendment. He was there to support us (see photo), and did so convincingly. But it was clear as the other speakers spoke and received applause that he did not participate in that he is not 100% on the side of those who support traditional morality on this issue. He does support our right to vote on this amendment; but on the other hand, every patriot ought to, as our state constitution requires it. As Patrick Henry said, "I don't agree with a word you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." So it would not be inconsistent for Romney to champion this amendment vote but be a full supporter of gay rights. (Though to be sure, apparently he has expressly opposed same-sex marriage itself.)
He will have a tough row to hoe. If he continues to talk out of both sides of his mouth he'll alienate both ends of the spectrum. But, having done that, will he win with the middle? Way too early to tell.
The Vatican has officially backed Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz' (Lincoln, NE) 1996 excommunication of members of Call to Action, a notorious dissident group.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, reported said in his November 24th letter that Call to Action is "causing damage to the Church of Christ," and that the disciplinary action was properly taken. (You've got to marvel at the hubris of CTA, who appealed the excommunication.)
The letter went on to say that "the activities of 'Call to Action' in the course of these years are in contrast with the Catholic Faith due to views and positions held which are unacceptable from a doctrinal and disciplinary standpoint. . . . Thus to be a member of this Association or to support it, is irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic Faith."
Amen to that!
... like a company Polo shirt.
Heck the last four companies I've worked for have given me a Polo shirt just for being an employee. That's 80 years in Wal-Mart time.
A not-insignificant number of companies grant full retirement after 20 years (e.g., the military).
Someone is asleep at the switch!
Notice that the years-of-service awards start at 20 years. I wonder what you get after working 40 years, a Wal-Mart duffel bag? Maybe they'll splurge and offer free cremation at the 60-year level (your estate certainly won't be able to afford it).
This reminds me of those small "incentive" bonuses companies hand out to reward good performance. I frankly find them an insult. After all the deductions you're down to something eminently negligible.
Of course, someone has to pay for all those "Always" low prices ...
Have you heard of the Darwin Awards? They are awards given (typically posthumously) to those who do their best to advance evolution by taking themselves out of the gene pool. You win a Darwin award by (accidentally) killing yourself (or castrating/emasculating yourself) in a stupid but spectacular and newsworthy fashion. Here is a new Darwin Award I got from one of their newsletters:
FAITH AS A FLOTATION DEVICE
Confirmed Darwin Award
(August 2006, Libreville, Gabon) In August, a congregation's 35-year old pastor insisted one could literally walk on water, if only one had enough faith. Big and bold was his speech. He extolled the heavenly power possessed by a faithful man with such force that he may well have convinced himself.
Whether or not he believed in his heart, his sermons left room for only shame should he leave his own faith untested. Thus, the pastor set out to walk across a major estuary, the path of a 20-minute ferry ride. But the man could not swim.
Lacking the miraculous powers of David Copperfield, let alone holy Jesus Christ, this ill-fated cleric found only a Darwin Award at the end of his final path.
Reference: http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2006-02.html
Leave it to Norway.
The University of Oslo has set up a museum exhibit on animal homosexuality. Perhaps it's not the kind of stuff people like us particularly want to hear, but it's important as an illustration of arguments not to make against homosexuality. Case in point, "Animals don't do it, so we shouldn't either", or possibly "Homosexual acts are unnatural" (though when qualified in certain ways, that's a valid argument). There is no sense in advancing arguments that are less than solid; we look bad if we're proven wrong, and it could confirm the other person even further in their wrong belief.
Similar to this is the argument that homosexuality is acquired, therefore we can say that it's a moral choice. You spend a lot of effort nowadays fighting the increasingly prevalent idea that homosexuality is inborn when in point of fact there is no reason to suppose that something that is inborn can't be abnormal or tend toward immorality (consider the partial genetic origins of alcoholism).
When this thing about homosexual animals comes up, my response is that we are to act as humans, not animals; animals also kill with impunity, doesn't mean we should. We don't take cues from animals on how to behave morally.
Without getting into details, the argument that homosexuality is "against nature", as typically presented, is really less about whether it occurs in nature and more about the fact that it acts contrary to the natural purpose of reproductive organs with respect to reproduction. Now note that I am not saying this is a bulletproof argument; it has its own perils. My point is that when people argue the "unnatural" argument, they are referring not to the behavior of animals (nature) but to the nature of the act.
