Sunday, April 11, 2010

DID SOMEONE SAY PATRIARCHY?


new york tmes
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Worlds Without Women

Published: April 10, 2010
WASHINGTON
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Maureen Dowd

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Times Topics: Roman Catholic Church

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When I was in Saudi Arabia, I had tea and sweets with a group of educated and sophisticated young professional women.
I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women’s rights were strangled, an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men’s club than a modern nation. They told me, somewhat defensively, that the kingdom was moving at its own pace, glacial as that seemed to outsiders.
How could such spirited women, smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination?
I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.
I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men’s club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity.
I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world.
I, too, rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals, blind to the benefits of welcoming women’s brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity.
To circumscribe women, Saudi Arabia took Islam’s moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Muhammad; the Catholic Church took its moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Jesus. In the New Testament, Jesus is surrounded by strong women and never advocates that any woman — whether she’s his mother or a prostitute — be treated as a second-class citizen.
Negating women is at the heart of the church’s hideous — and criminal — indifference to the welfare of boys and girls in its priests’ care. Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek’s cover story about the danger of continuing to marginalize women in a disgraced church that has Mary at the center of its founding story:
“In the Roman Catholic corporation, the senior executives live and work, as they have for a thousand years, eschewing not just marriage, but intimacy with women ... not to mention any chance to familiarize themselves with the earthy, primal messiness of families and children.” No wonder that, having closed themselves off from women and everything maternal, they treated children as collateral damage, a necessary sacrifice to save face for Mother Church.
And the sins of the fathers just keep coming. On Friday, The Associated Press broke the latest story pointing the finger of blame directly at Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, quoting from a letter written in Latin in which he resisted pleas to defrock a California priest who had sexually molested children.
As the longtime Vatican enforcer, the archconservative Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — moved avidly to persecute dissenters. But with molesters, he was plodding and even merciful.
As the A.P. reported, the Oakland diocese recommended defrocking Father Stephen Kiesle in 1981. The priest had pleaded no contest and was sentenced to three years’ probation in 1978 in a case in which he was accused of tying up and molesting two boys in a church rectory.
In 1982, the Oakland diocese got what it termed a “rather curt” response from the Vatican. It wasn’t until 1985 that “God’s Rottweiler” finally got around to addressing the California bishop’s concern. He sent his letter urging the diocese to give the 38-year-old pedophile “as much paternal care as possible” and to consider “his young age.” Ratzinger should have been more alarmed by the young age of the priest’s victims; that’s what maternal care would have entailed.
As in so many other cases, the primary concern seemed to be shielding the church from scandal. Chillingly, outrageously, the future pope told the Oakland bishop to consider the “good of the universal church” before granting the priest’s own request to give up the collar — even though the bishop had advised Rome that the scandal would likely be greater if the priest were not punished.
While the Vatican sat on the case — asking the diocese to resubmit the files, saying they might have been lost — Kiesle volunteered as a youth minister at a church north of Oakland. The A.P. also reported that even after the priest was finally defrocked in 1987, he continued to volunteer with children in the Oakland diocese; repeated warnings to church officials were ignored.
The Vatican must realize that the church’s belligerent, resentful and paranoid response to the global scandal is not working because it now says it will cooperate with secular justice systems and that the pope will have more meetings with victims. It is too little, too late.
The church that through the ages taught me and other children right from wrong did not know right from wrong when it came to children. Crimes were swept under the rectory rug, and molesters were protected to molest again for the “good of the universal church.” And that is bad, very bad — a mortal sin.
The church has had theological schisms. This is an emotional schism. The pope is morally compromised. Take it from a sister.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

EXAMPLES OF THE SOCIOPATHY OF SOME of THE LEFT BRAIN/ PATRIARCHAL POWERS THAT BE


Daily links to top stories in the news about environmental health.
Up to 250,000 Gulf War veterans have 'unexplained medical symptoms'. As many as 250,000 veterans of the first Gulf War "have persistent unexplained medical symptoms" whose cause may never be found, although genetic testing and functional brain imaging may eventually shed some light on the problem. Washington Post [Registration Required] 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/09/AR2010040904712.html

Helena Chemical Co. wins suit against community activist. On Wednesday, a jury found a southern New Mexico activist guilty of defamation and harassment against a chemical company that he and 22 community members had sued, alleging that the company’s emissions were sickening local children. New Mexico Independent, New Mexico.
http://newmexicoindependent.com/51155/helena-chemical-company-wins-case-against-community-activist

Last four Upper Big Branch miners found dead. Four miners unaccounted for since a massive underground explosion Monday were found dead early this morning, pushing the death toll at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine to 29 and making it the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in 40 years. Charleston Gazette, West Virginia.
http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/201004090857

Massey ignored ventilation citations in months before blast. In the months before the deadly explosion at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine, company officials were engaged in major disputes with state and federal regulators over serious ventilation problems at the sprawling underground mine. Charleston Gazette, West Virginia.
http://wvgazette.com/News/201004090772

Mines avoid crackdowns by challenging safety citations. A surge in the number of challenges to mine safety citations has clogged a federal appeals process, allowing 32 coal mines to avoid tougher enforcement measures last year, government safety officials said Friday. Washington Post [Registration Required] 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/09/AR2010040905653.html

Massey’s Blankenship fought regulators, town, maid. Don Blankenship, chief executive officer of Massey Energy Co., has fought with mine regulators, unions, residents of his town and even his personal maid. He has personally gone into mines to persuade workers to abandon union organizing efforts. Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601108&sid=aSOuh0fn.YnU

WALL STREET TAKES THE CAKE


MOTHER JONES
April 9, 2010


THIS WEEK IN THE BLOGOSPHERE
Back Already, Wall Street? That Was Quick.
Guess what? Wall Street is back on top!
Over the past year public attention has mostly focused on CEO pay in the financial sector, but a few days ago the Wall Street Journal reported that this was, in essence, just a feint. The top guys may have taken very public pay cuts, but they can afford to take one for the team now and again. Underneath all the PR, though, it was a banner year:
Leading firms paid out $140 billion in compensation and benefits, the highest number in history, based on a final tally of the pay disclosures at 38 financial-services firms. That figure […] represented an increase from $123 billion earned by financial professionals in 2008 and $137 billion in 2007.
You might well wonder, what with the rest of the country mired in a historic recession, why Wall Street is doing so well. The answer is pretty simple: The government bailed them out and they're now back to their usual tricks: making huge profits based on highly leveraged investments. Except now it's even easier. Interest rates are so low that even an incompetent banker could hardly help but make money these days.
In one sense, this was inevitable. We didn't have much choice but to rescue the banking sector, after all. Like water or gas or electricity, it's just too vital to the rest of the economy to allow it to fail. And if you want to make banks more solvent, that means letting them earn a lot of money.
But make no mistake: That money is the result of deliberate government policy, and without it Wall Street would still be on its knees gasping for breath. It's one thing to decide that this is in no one's best interest and we need to nurse them back to health via robust earnings. It's quite another to see those earnings used not to build up bigger capital cushions, but to provide huge paydays for the industry that caused the recession in the first place.