April 19, 2005
"I don't think any other country has such a high voter turnout," Cuban President Fidel Castro said in a televised address after Diaz presented the results.
Cuba consistently defends its system as democratic, but critics of Castro's government argue that tight state control, a heavy police presence and neighborhood-watch groups that report on their neighbors prevent any real political freedom.
Though it is not obligatory to vote, pressure to participate is high. Municipal and national elections always have a high turnout.
The municipal elections, dubbed "the most democratic in the world" by Castro after he voted Sunday, take place every 2 1/2 years. The turnout in the last municipal elections was reported to be 95.75 percent.
Under Cuba's one-party system, municipal, provincial and national representatives are elected by citizens on a local level. Anyone can be nominated to these posts, including nonmembers of the island's ruling communist party — the only one recognized in Cuba's constitution.
So when it comes right down to it, the dictator allows a modicum of freedom and the people exercise it. But in the end, this freedom amounts to nothing, because the only legal party wields the real power.
Posted by: Greg at
12:14 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 269 words, total size 2 kb.
"I don't think any other country has such a high voter turnout," Cuban President Fidel Castro said in a televised address after Diaz presented the results.
Cuba consistently defends its system as democratic, but critics of Castro's government argue that tight state control, a heavy police presence and neighborhood-watch groups that report on their neighbors prevent any real political freedom.
Though it is not obligatory to vote, pressure to participate is high. Municipal and national elections always have a high turnout.
The municipal elections, dubbed "the most democratic in the world" by Castro after he voted Sunday, take place every 2 1/2 years. The turnout in the last municipal elections was reported to be 95.75 percent.
Under Cuba's one-party system, municipal, provincial and national representatives are elected by citizens on a local level. Anyone can be nominated to these posts, including nonmembers of the island's ruling communist party — the only one recognized in Cuba's constitution.
So when it comes right down to it, the dictator allows a modicum of freedom and the people exercise it. But in the end, this freedom amounts to nothing, because the only legal party wields the real power.
Posted by: Greg at
12:14 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 277 words, total size 2 kb.
A pro-affirmative action group says some voters were tricked into signing a petition they thought would protect affirmative action when the initiative would actually hurt those programs. The group filed a challenge with state election officials Monday afternoon in an attempt to block a proposed constitutional amendment targeting the November 2006 election."People were deceived," said Luke Massie, chairman of Operation King's Dream, a campaign affiliated with the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (BAMN). "There is an overwhelming pattern of fraud specifically with black voters, but it extends beyond black voters to white and suburban voters."
The group backing the proposal — the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative — successfully defended the wording of its petition in state courts last year. The next fight could be certifying enough of the 508,000 signatures of Michigan voters collected in its petition drive.
The group must have at least 317,757 valid signatures of Michigan voters to qualify for the ballot. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative executive director Jennifer Gratz said she was confident her group has enough signatures to make the ballot, and that the claims made by BAMN and Operation King's Dream were without merit.
Ultimately, the question is this – why are supporters of affirmative action so unwilling to let the people of the state of Michigan have a say on this matter of public importance. If their case for affirmative action is so strong, they won’t have any problem in defeating the MCRI. -- or is that the crux of the problem?
Posted by: Greg at
12:05 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 347 words, total size 2 kb.
A teenage Abebe Alenayehu watched Italian soldiers haul away Axum's revered obelisk nearly seven decades ago and never thought he would live to see its return.But if the weather cooperates, he will see the dream he shares with his nation come true Tuesday when a giant cargo plane returns the 82-foot monument's top section to this wind-swept town that was the seat of the ancient Axumite Kingdom.
"The memory still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth," Abebe said about the loss of a monument that Ethiopians consider the symbol of their nation. "Every day for the last 67 years I have thought about the obelisk."
The Italian Foreign Ministry said Monday that the two other pieces of the 176-ton obelisk should be back by the end of April. Lattanzi, the Italian company organizing the return, says no one has attempted to fly such a massive monument before.
Abebe, 81, vividly recalls the day the masterpiece of the Axum civilization was taken away and shipped to Rome.
"All the adults in the town were under curfew," he said. "But we played with the soldiers who gave us sweets and sugar. We didn't realize what was happening, but our parents were hiding their faces and crying."
The restoration of this ancient monument is a fitting end to the evils committed by Mussolini and his forces against the Ethiopian people during the occupation of their nation from 1936-1941. And it sounds like it will be even more of an engineering nightmare than its removal was in 1937.
Posted by: Greg at
12:01 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 306 words, total size 2 kb.
He was elected in only four ballots, which tells me that the Cardinals are pretty firmly united behind him. I also cannot help but suspect that this is the man who John Paul the Great would have chosen as his successor.
As I expected, Joseph Ratzinger did not choose to be called John Paul III. I had a funny feeling that Benedict would be the choice, and have said so repeatedly over the last few days. Many are linking him to the shy Pope Benedict XV, who tried so hard to end World War I. I think another model to consider would be Benedict XIV, who was concerned about the accommodation of Christian truth to the practices of non-Christian cultures.
I find the new pontiffÂ’s words to the faithful inspiring and appropriate. Pope Benedict, for all his gigantic intellect, remains a humble man of deep spirituality.
"Dear brothers and sisters, after our great pope, John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple, humble worker in God's vineyard.I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools, and I especially trust in your prayers.
In the joy of the resurrected Lord, trustful of his permanent help, we go ahead, sure that God will help, and Mary, his most beloved mother, stands on our side.
Thank you."
We shall see how this papacy will develop. Will he be a pope in the image of John Paul the Great? Or will he be something completely different?
Update: I commented on the London Times piece on Pope Benedict’s youth in Nazi Germany. His detractor’s are already making scurrilous comments about him in relation to his brief – and legally mandated – membership in the Hitler Youth and military service. The Jerusalem Post provides some excellent insight into the issue – and also the important work of this pope in his predecessor’s reconciliation with the Jewish faith.
Posted by: Greg at
11:00 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 343 words, total size 3 kb.
* * *
As a kid, I first heard the term “uniate” used to describe the Maronite Christians of Lebanon. Later, I heard the term describe Ukrainian Catholics. I didn’t understand what the term meant at the time, but later study – especially during my seminary years at Mundelein – brought me to a deep appreciation of those in the Catholic Church who follow the rituals of Eastern Christianity while being in union with Rome. By extension, I also learned to appreciate the rich spiritual history of the Orthodox churches of the East. To this day, I wonder if they might serve as a bridge between the two halves of Christianity split asunder in 1054.
Joseph P. Duggan raises the same issue in a column on the possibility (however unlikely) of the election of an Eastern Rite pope. Two cardinals in the current conclave are of the Eastern Rite leaders, not Latin Rite. It is not inconceivable – though highly improbable – that one of them could appear on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, clad in white. It would be a magnificent step towards full equality and respect for the Eastern Rites within the Catholic Church, and towards reunion between the oldest extant strains of Christianity. It would also be in keeping with one of Pope John Paul the Great’s fondest desires and most precious dreams.
John Paul visited numerous countries where the Orthodox Church is dominant and spoke of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as equals, expressing hope that Christianity once again may "breathe with both lungs." He implored Orthodox Christians to forgive and set aside the schisms of the second Christian millennium and take inspiration from the first millennium, when the Churches of East and West were united. John Paul's encyclical letter Ut Unum Sint ("That All May Be One,") offered a bold invitation to all Christians for their ideas on how the papacy might be transformed to be more effective in promoting Christian unity. Even before Pope John Paul, some four decades ago, Orthodox and Catholic prelates rescinded their mutual excommunications, and the churches recognize the full validity of one another's ordinations and sacraments.
Duggan, of course, notes that one of the great changes that would necessarily be wrought by such an election would be the rethinking of mandatory clerical celibacy. While forbidden in the Latin Rite (and in the United States by a wrong-headed papal decree sought by American bishops n the nineteenth century), the Eastern Rites ordain married men as priests. It is hard to imagine that a pope from among the non-Latin Catholics would long retain the mandatory celibacy that dates back a millennium. Priests would not be able to marry, but married men could become priests. Precedent exists for this in the early history of the Church, and in the special dispensation granted to some Anglican and Lutheran converts over the last couple of decades. When one considers that the church historically has had a father and son serve as popes (in the sixth century – St. Hormisdas, the 52nd Bishop of Rome, and St. Silverius, the 58th), not to mention the married Simon Peter who is reckoned the first, this would be a return to tradition rather than a departure from it.
The election of an Eastern Rite pontiff would be a significant step for the Catholic Church, one that reaffirms its catholicity every bit as much as the election of a Polish cardinal to that office did in 1978. Duggan envisions a pope celebrating a liturgy using the vestments and rituals of the Byzantine or Syriac Church. And yet, there is nothing to stop that from happening now – and a strong argument for encouraging the practice no matter who the next pope is. After all, a pope leads a church which claims the hallmark of catholicity – universality – and as such he is called to be a shepherd to those who worship in the styles of the East every bit as much as those whose rituals are those of the West. Such actions would serve as a healing gesture of fraternal love for Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. May we live to see the day when the seeds planted four decades ago by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem, seeds tenderly watered and nurtured by Pope John Paul the Great during his papacy, bring forth a harvest of unity for the glory of the Risen Savior.
Posted by: Greg at
05:30 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 814 words, total size 5 kb.
April 18, 2005
Posted by: Greg at
11:06 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 56 words, total size 1 kb.
Well, after spending time digging through tax records to prove that politicians were getting favorable tax treatment by appraisal districts, I guess we shouldn't be surprised to find that the other side did the same thing to Dan. But whereas Dan did his work publicly, they did theirs undercover and anonymously, dumping the information they found in the lap of a Houston Chronicle reporter who would write a story that favored the stealth-tax supporters.
As a host on his own radio station, Dan Patrick has crusaded against rising property taxes.Until this month, however, his taxes hadn't been rising as fast as everyone else's. It seems that Patrick, owner of homes in Katy and Montgomery, had homestead exemptions on both.
It wasn't his fault, really. As a professional slinger of zingers, he'd hardly leave himself open to something so easily verified on the Internet.
Which is how we checked out the anonymous phone tip. Sure enough, Patrick's home on Lake Conroe has a full homestead exemption, designed to lessen the tax burden on a primary residence. And his home in Katy also had a homestead break from the Katy Independent School District.
Until we made a couple of calls.
When Patrick transferred his homestead to Lake Conroe a few years ago, Montgomery and Fort Bend counties coordinated the removal of most of his Katy exemptions.
But Katy ISD straddles two counties and its school taxes are collected by Waller County. Montgomery didn't communicate with Waller, and Patrick didn't volunteer that he still had a KISD exemption because, he said, he didn't even notice.
Waller kept the exemption until contacted by the Chronicle. The county has billed him $595.
I left out the part of the story where the reporter gratuitously throws in Dan's real name (Dan Patrick is the professional name he has used in broadcasting in this city for around a quarter century), despite the fact that it did nothing to enhance the story. The sad thing is, Dan's real name may have been the only actual fact in the piece. According to his account over at Lone Star Times, it wasn't some reporter that prompted the change -- and Dan has the letters and paperwork to prove that he acted properly in this situation.
I made it very clear to Mr. Feldstein last week that I had done nothing wrong, that the facts of the matter are clear about my having done nothing wrong, and that he was being used by my political opponents in an attempt to harm me.Knowing all that, he chose to go ahead and write this article anyway.
Here are the facts, which I am prepared to document and attest to under oath, in the course of a legal proceeding:
* For many years I lived with my family in Katy, located in Fort Bend Co., and listed that home as my primary residence.
* During the period that my home in Katy was my primary residence, I always paid my Fort Bend Co. property taxes on time and in full.
* Only for purposes of paying Katy Independent School District taxes, my home in Katy was subject to appraisal and assessment by Waller Co.
* During the period that my home in Katy was my primary residence, I always paid my Waller Co. property taxes on time and in full.
* Because my home in Katy was my primary residence, I claimed and received a standard homestead exemption from both Fort Bend and Waller counties.
* For the past several years, I have also owned a second home on Lake Conroe in Montgomery Co.
* Because my second home on Lake Conroe was not my primary residence, I neither claimed nor received a homestead exemption for it.
* During this period, I always paid my Montgomery Co. property tax bill on time and in full.
* In 2003 my home on Lake Conroe became my primary residence.
* As required by law, I immediately notified the proper taxing authorities in both Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, dropping my homestead exemption from the former and reassigning it to the latter.
* In situations such as this, not only is it standard procedure for Fort Bend Co. to notify Waller Co. of any changes in homestead exemption status, they have a legal obligation to do so.
* Fort Bend Co. taxing authorities have confirmed for me, on multiple occasions, both verbally and in writing, that they– not I– were in error by not following standard procedures or meeting their legal obligation to notify Waller Co. of my change in homestead exemption status.
* My "dual homestead" exemptions were the result not of my actions, nor of my legal negligence, but of multiple bureaucratic errors that the bureaucracy itself acknowledges I was neither responsible for nor aware of.
* When my property tax bills of the last two years came for my home in Katy (which was now no longer my primary residence), I paid what the taxing authorities told me I owed.
* Because of mistakes and errors made not by me, but rather by three separate taxing bureaucracies, over the past two years I wasnÂ’t assessed approximately $500 in property taxes, out of a combined property tax bill for my home in Katy that totaled close to $20,000.
* In February of this year I received a letter from Fort Bend Co. taxing authorities notifying me of their failure to properly communicate with Waller Co., but including no statement as to the amount of back taxes I might owe as a result of their mistake.
* Also in February of this year I received a letter from Waller Co. taxing authorities notifying me of their failure to properly communicate with Fort Bend Co., but also not including any statement as to the amount of back taxes I might owe as a result of their mistake.
* Of my own volition, I contacted Fort Bend Co. taxing authorities and spoke with a supervisor, who was very professional, very helpful, and who made it clear to me that this mistake had been their fault, not mine.
* I asked the supervisor if I owed any back taxes as a result of their error, and she advised me that there would be a tax bill due of approximately $500 dollars.
* The supervisor informed me that there would be no penalty due if I paid the tax by May 1st, 2005, since this matter had not been the result of my error.
* I have that statement in writing, signed by the supervisor.
* When I informed the supervisor that I was selling that home, she suggested that I simply allow the taxing authorities to assess and collect that amount at closing.
* Despite having closed the sale of my former home in Katy at the beginning of this month (April), it doesnÂ’t appear that any taxing authority took the amount of back taxes I accrued as a result of their error.
* I am in the process of verifying that fact, so that I do not overpay my taxes.
* In fact, I still haven’t gotten an official statement, from any taxing jurisdiction, telling me exactly how much I owe them as a result of their mistake.Again, I want to be perfectly clear– I communicated to Dan Feldstein and the Houston Chronicle the substance of all of this information last week.
So it turns out that the appraisal authorities of three different taxing authorities screwed up his assessment and exemption -- and acknowledge it in writing. They made contact about the matter with him IN FEBRUARY, not last week, as the article implies. And Dan did exactly what most of us do when we receive that bill (if it isn't paid through a mortgage company) -- wrote the check and didn't go over the thing with fine-tooth comb. We assume that the agencies in charge have done their job correctly and sent us a bill for the correct amount. What's more, the total annual shortfall was around $200 a year over the last three years -- an almost insignificant amount on a tax bill that approaches $7000 annually. The short answer is that Dan did everything right, unless you believe that a taxpayer has an obligation to double-check the work of the taxing authorities for accuracy and competence.
Now Dan Feldstein seems miffed at something Dan Patrick said during the course of his interview.
"If you come after me, I'll come after you," he cheerily imparted to an inquiring reporter.
Well, Dan Patrick has an explanation for that as well.
I made that promise to Mr. Feldstein because as our interview went on it became clear to me that he was less interested in being fair than in smearing me– a suspicion borne out by the callous disregard for the truth evident in the article he finally produced.
Guess what -- when you are a reporter you usually are able to get away with writing a slanted hit-piece. Dan Patrick, on the other hand, has something that Dan Feldstein doesn't -- his own radio station where he talks about whatever he wants for two hours a day (wanna guess what today's topic was), a professionally maintained website that is reqad by many Houstonians where he can post a response that will be read, and an audience that will defend him. Were I Dan Feldstein, I would expect to be on the receiving end of a lot of heat over this attempted smear.
Posted by: Greg at
05:35 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 1677 words, total size 10 kb.
Black smoke streamed from the Sistine Chapel's chimney today to signal that cardinals failed to select a new pope in their first round of voting, held just hours after they began their historic task: finding a leader capable of building on John Paul II's spiritual energy while keeping modern rifts from tearing deeper into the church.Posted by: Greg at 04:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment"It seems white. ... No, no, it's black!" reported Vatican Radio as the first pale wisps slipped out from the narrow pipe and then quickly darkened.
As millions around the world watched on television, at least 40,000 people waited in St. Peter's Square with all eyes on the chimney, where smoke from the burned ballots would give the first word of the conclave: white meaning a new pontiff, black showing that the secret gathering will continue Tuesday.
In the last moments of twilight, the pilgrims began to point and gasp. "What is it? White? Black?" hundreds cried out. In a few seconds — at about 8:05 p.m. — it was clear the 115 cardinals from six continents could not find the two-thirds majority needed to elect the new leader for the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics. Only one vote was scheduled for today.
Few expected a quick decision. The cardinals have a staggering range of issues to juggle. In the West, they must deal with the fallout from priest sex-abuse scandals and a chronic shortage of priests and nuns. Elsewhere, the church is facing calls for sharper activism against poverty and an easing of its ban on condoms to help combat AIDS.
The next pontiff also must maintain the global ministry of John Paul, who took 104 international trips in his 26-year papacy and is already being hailed as a saint by many faithful
Post contains 383 words, total size 2 kb.
Now Senator Charles Schumer has responded to the charge with an epithet of his own. He has attacked Dr. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council with a particularly troubling charge.
The conservative group's president, Tony Perkins, "stepped over the line," Mr. Schumer said. "He said it's people of faith versus Democrats.""That is so un-American. The founding fathers put down their plows and took up muskets to combat views like that - that one faith or one view of faith should determine what our politics should be," Mr. Schumer said on the ABC News program "This Week."
Sorry, Senator, but your party has been relentlessly hostile to Christians and other believers over the last decade or so. In the wake of the recent election, your leadership even acknowledged that the Democrat Party has lost touch with typical Americans who believe in God and go to church. Why then is it “un-American†for Dr. Perkins to note the same trend?
Sorry, Senator, you stepped over the line by telling a religious leader that he is un-American for speaking out about his view of the great issues of our day. And dare I suggest that such an attempt to silence your religious Americans with such an epithet is, in and of itself, un-American.
Posted by: Greg at
04:18 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 308 words, total size 2 kb.
Now Senator Charles Schumer has responded to the charge with an epithet of his own. He has attacked Dr. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council with a particularly troubling charge.
The conservative group's president, Tony Perkins, "stepped over the line," Mr. Schumer said. "He said it's people of faith versus Democrats.""That is so un-American. The founding fathers put down their plows and took up muskets to combat views like that - that one faith or one view of faith should determine what our politics should be," Mr. Schumer said on the ABC News program "This Week."
Sorry, Senator, but your party has been relentlessly hostile to Christians and other believers over the last decade or so. In the wake of the recent election, your leadership even acknowledged that the Democrat Party has lost touch with typical Americans who believe in God and go to church. Why then is it “un-American” for Dr. Perkins to note the same trend?
Sorry, Senator, you stepped over the line by telling a religious leader that he is un-American for speaking out about his view of the great issues of our day. And dare I suggest that such an attempt to silence your religious Americans with such an epithet is, in and of itself, un-American.
Posted by: Greg at
04:18 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 313 words, total size 2 kb.
April 17, 2005
These 36 RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) must be removed from office. Each deserves to be challenged and defeated in the primary by a Republican committed to property tax reform -- or during the general election by a Democrat who is committed to it.
Who are the guilty RINOs?
1. Ray Allen (Grand Prairie - DFW)
2. Roy Blake (Nacogdoches)
3. Dan Branch (Dallas)
4. Carter Casteel (New Braunfels)
5. Warren Chisolm (Pampa - Amarillo)
6. Byron Cook (Corsicana)
7. Myra Crownover (Denton - DFW)
8. Dianne Delisi (Temple)
9. Mary Denny (Denton - DFW)
10. Joe Driver (Garland - DFW)
11. Charlie Geren (Ft. Worth)
12. Tony Goolsby (Dallas)
13. Bob Griggs (Ft. Worth)
14. Pat Haggerty (El Paso)
15. Rick Hardcastle (Vernon)
16. Linda Harper-Brown (Irving - DFW)
17. Will Harnett (Dallas)
18. Fred Hill (Richardson - DFW)
19. Bob Hunter (Abilene)
20. Delwin Jones (Lubbock)
21. Terry Keel (Austin)
22. Edmund Kuempel (Seguin)
23. Jodi Laubenberg (Parker - DFW)
24. Jerry Madden (Dallas)
25. Brian McCall (Plano - DFW)
26. Tommy Merritt (Longview)
27. Geanie Morrison (Victoria)
28. Anna Mowery (Ft. Worth)
29. Rob Orr (Burleson)
30. Elvira Reyna (Mesquite - DFW)
31. Todd Smith (Euless - DFW)
32. John Smithee (Amarillo)
33. Burt Solomons (Dallas)
34. David Swinford (Dumas)
35. Vicki Truitt (Keller - DFW)
36. Buddy West (Midland)
Let's get 'em, folks. That especially goes for you folks in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, since it seems that the bulk of this list is composed of your so-called Republican Representatives.
Posted by: Greg at
06:16 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 328 words, total size 2 kb.
My old blog began as an impulsive act. I wanted to put my tribute to Ronald Reagan out to the world, and so I wrote. I also wanted a place to express myself on issues of the day, since I was resolved to quit arguing over them with my wife, who is the very light of my life. And so I continued writing.
Blogging has expanded my horizons, made me thing about my views, and even changed my mind more than once. I'll avoid the cliche that "I've grown." I'll just say I've lived and thought, and experienced. I've made friends, made enemies, and had interesting conversations.. I'm glad that has happened.
Let's see how this site, now rather bare, evolves. let's see how this writer evolves, too. But expect to read more of the types of things you saw on the old site. Just expect to find them here instead.
Posted by: Greg at
06:06 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 211 words, total size 1 kb.
Four South Windsor high school students were sent home Friday after T-shirts they wore bearing anti-gay slogans caused disturbances, students and school officials said.The boys, who wore white T-shirts with the statement, "Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve," say their constitutional right to free speech was violated.
"We were just voicing our opinions," said Steven Vendetta, who made the T-shirts with his friends, Kyle Shinfield, David Grimaldi and another student who was not identified by the Journal Inquirer of Manchester. "We didn't tell other people to think what we're thinking. We just told them what we think."
Hold it here -- THE SHIRTS caused the disturbance? How did the articles of apparel cause a disturbance? It must have been the words on the shirts that were the problem, the message that they conveyed. But how did they cause a disruption? Obviously, they did not -- it must have been the response to the shirts.
Other students say they felt threatened by the shirts, which also quoted Bible verses pertaining to homosexuality."I didn't feel safe at this school today," said Diana Rosen, who is co-president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance.
You don't feel safe at school because of the words? They contained no threat. They expressed an opinion. Do you mean, Diana, that you feel unsafe when others are permitted to publicly disagree with you? How, pray tell (and I don't care if you are offended by my use of the word "pray") does the expression of an alternative religious, political, or social view make you unsafe? How do you expect to survive in American society, with its robust protection of free speech, if the expression of a contrary view reduces you to a tearful quivering mass of gelatin?
There is, of course more to the story, as this article makes clear.
Vendetta said the impetus for the T-shirts came earlier in the week, when students at the high school took part in the annual Day of Silence, a project orchestrated by the national Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network. On the Day of Silence, students across the country do not speak, as a reminder of the discrimination and harassment experienced by homosexuals.Students at the high school also wore signs showing their support for legislation that would recognize civil unions for same-sex couples in Connecticut, Vendetta said.
Vendetta and his friends, who oppose civil unions, wanted to make their feelings known.
"We felt if they could voice their opinions for it, we could voice our opinion against it," he said. "There is another side to this debate, and we're representing it."
So, after showing respect and tolerance for the views of the pro-homosexuality/pro-civil union students, who seem to have gone through the day unmolested, they decided to exercise the same rights, and expected the same courtesy. After all, the school clearly had created something of an open forum by allowing (perhaps promoting?) the earlier event. That made what these boys did fair game -- and it should have been expected.
Instead of tolerance, what the boys got from Ms. Rosen and her fellow students was something different. What they got from the administration was a threat of censorship, and the promise of a heckler's veto.
Almost immediately, the shirts drew comment and debate from other students, Vendetta said."I walked down the hall, and people were either cheering me on, yelling at me, or just sneering," he said. "It was the most intense experience."
Teachers brought the situation to the attention of high school Principal John DiIorio, who said Friday that the law protects students' freedom of speech, as long as that speech doesn't disrupt the educational process.
He told the boys they could continue to wear the shirts as long as they didn't become a distraction to others.
The students returned to class. But heated arguments and altercations ensued almost immediately, with some students becoming "very emotional," said student Sam Etter.
Rosen said that when she first saw the shirts, she "almost didn't believe it." She became very upset, crying and spending most of the day in administrators' and guidance counselor's offices. She also got into several arguments, she said.
"I saw a large crowd gathered during one of our lunch waves," said senior William "B.J." Haun. "A large debate was going on. It involved a lot of people. By the end of the day, everyone was talking about it and giving their two cents."
Eventually, DiIorio called the boys into the office and told them that other students were becoming "emotionally distraught," Shinfield said. He then asked the boys to remove the shirts. They refused and were sent home.
Gee, imagine that. The shirts promoted discussion. Where I come from, that is called learning, and perhaps even citizenship. Some of the discussions became heated and may have threatened to become physical. That should have resulted in the punishment of those who were fighting, not the censorship of the message. And poor, overly-sensitive Ms. Rosen seems to have spent the day lobbying for that censorship, when she was not confronting students and actively creating the disruption. Unfortunately, the spineless Principal DiIorio gave into those who wanted to make sure that the anti-homosexual/anti-civil union message was suppressed.
When all is said and done, I have three observations.
Steven Vendetta, Kyle Shinfield, David Grimaldi and unnamed friend, while the message on your shirts may have been a bit more juvenile than I would have liked, I applaud you for being willing to voice your beliefs even in the face of an administrator who was wishy-washy about protecting your civil rights. I wish there were more like you. I hope that you and your supporters continue to press for your rights to be respected -- and demand that either you be allowed to wear your shirts or that the Gay-Straight Alliance be shut down as incompatible with the policies of the school, which forbid free and open discussion of homosexuality.
Diana Rosen, you should be ashamed of yourself. If you had any principles, you would have been out there defending the rights of your classmates to voice their beliefs, even when (especially when) you disagree. You are more than willing to make use of the First Amendment when it suits your purposes, but your actions that day showed that you are a censor and a dictator at heart. And since you are head of the group that conducted the Day of Silence, I suggest that you do not plan on holding one again. You have supplied your opponents with the weapon they need to shut you down by asserting that your fear and emotional weakness are grounds for silencing those with whom you disagree. All they have to do now is claim that your group and its message frighten and anger them. You may as well disband the group now, because you have made it impossible for your message of "tolerance" to ever be taken seriously.
Principal DiIorio, you are a failure as an educator. You had the opportunity to teach citizenship and respect. What you taught was censorship. Your actions were fundamentally wrong, and betrayed the very values your school is supposed to be teaching. At the first sign of a problem, you should have been on the PA system reminding the students of the values contained in the First Amendment, their obligation to tolerate messages with which they disagree, and the school's obligation to protect the rights of every student. You didn't. Instead you let the situation get out of control, and then silenced the victims. What you have taught is that hurt feelings and offended ideologies matter more than the US Constitution. In other words, you have undermined one of the very things your school is responsible for teaching. More to the point, you would NEVER have shut down the Day of Silence because students were angry, offended or "scared" by the message it communicated. You are simply a PC weenie who set these boys up to take a fall. You have no legitimate place in education.
Posted by: Greg at
01:00 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1406 words, total size 9 kb.
The schedule for the Conclave will be as follows. All times are local time in Rome, which is GMT+2.
At 4.30 p.m. on Monday, the procession of cardinal electors will leave the Hall of Blessings for the Sistine Chapel. This ritual will be transmitted live on television.Once in the Sistine Chapel, all the cardinal electors will swear the oath. The cardinal dean will read the formula of the oath, after which each cardinal, stating his name and placing his hand on the Gospel, will pronounce the words: 'I promise, pledge and swear.' Over these days, there has been frequent talk of the bond of secrecy concerning the election of the Pope. However, I would like to reiterate that this is just part of the oath. First of all, an oath is made to observe the prescriptions of the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis; then another oath is made that - and I quote - 'whichever of us by divine disposition is elected Roman Pontiff will commit himself faithfully to carrying out the munus Petrinum of Pastor of the Universal Church.Â’
After the oath, the master of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff pronounces the 'extra omnes,' and all those who do not participate in the conclave leave the Sistine Chapel. Only the master of Liturgical Celebrations and Cardinal Tomas Spidlik remain for the meditation, once that has finished they too leave the Sistine Chapel.
During the conclave, the cardinals will have the following timetable:
At 7.30 a.m., the celebration or concelebration of Mass will take place in the Domus Sanctae
Marthae. By 9 a.m., they will be in the Sistine Chapel. There they will recite the Lauds of the Liturgy of the Hours and, immediately afterwards, voting will take place according to the prescribed ritual (two votes in the morning, and two votes in the afternoon). In the afternoon, voting will begin at 4 p.m. At the end of the second vote will be Vespers.
After the two votes of the morning and the two of the afternoon respectively, the ballots and any notes the cardinals have made will be burnt in a stove located inside the Sistine Chapel.
Purely as an indication then, the smoke signals could appear at around 12 noon and at about 7 p.m. (unless the new Pope is elected either in the first vote of the morning or the first vote of the afternoon, in which case the smoke signal will be earlier). In any case it is expected that, along with the white smoke, the bells of St Peter will sound to mark a successful election.
According to Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, after three days without the selection of a new pope there will be a day taken for prayer and reflection. The voting will resume for seven ballots, then break for another such period if no new pope has been elected. This pattern will continue until a new pope is chosen. After the 33rd or 34th ballot, the Cardinal Electors may choose to reduce the margin from the initial 2/3 vote to a simple majority, or may limit themselves to only the top two candidates (or, I presume, both).
The identity and regnal name of the new pontiff will not be announced to anyone outside of the Conclave until the new pope is brought out to the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square. There will be no special notification of the press, as was done when on the death of Pope John Paul II.
Posted by: Greg at
12:19 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 650 words, total size 4 kb.
THE wartime past of a leading German contender to succeed John Paul II may return to haunt him as cardinals begin voting in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to choose a new leader for 1 billion Catholics.Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets — including “the enforcer”, “the panzer cardinal” and “God’s rottweiler” — is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.
Although far short of the requisite two-thirds majority of the 115 votes, this would almost certainly give Ratzinger, 78 yesterday, an early lead in the voting. Liberals have yet to settle on a rival candidate who could come close to his tally.
Unknown to many members of the church, however, RatzingerÂ’s past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit.
Although there is no suggestion that he was involved in any atrocities, his service may be contrasted by opponents with the attitude of John Paul II, who took part in anti-Nazi theatre performances in his native Poland and in 1986 became the first pope to visit RomeÂ’s synagogue.
“John Paul was hugely appreciated for what he did for and with the Jewish people,” said Lord Janner, head of the Holocaust Education Trust, who is due to attend ceremonies today to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
“If they were to appoint someone who was on the other side in the war, he would start at a disadvantage, although it wouldn’t mean in the long run he wouldn’t be equally understanding of the concerns of the Jewish world.”
Now hold on for just a minute. The Ratzinger family was anti-Nazi, but the 14-year-old Josef Ratzinger was required by a 1941 law to be a member of the Hitler Youth until he could get an exemption because of his seminary studies -- all school children were. And yes, he served in an anti-aircraft battery, but he was drafted into that service at a time when the German Army was taking 15 & 16-year-olds and putting them on the front lines. Those who refused to serve were shot. Ratzinger himself deserted when he became aware of the slaughter of the Jews in the death camps, and was briefly held as in Allied POW camp.
You cannot make a Nazi or a war criminal out of a guy who was only six when Hitler came to power in 1933. It seems quite unreasonable to complain that a 16-year-old lacked the courage to place himself in mortal danger in the midst of the horrors that existed in wartime Nazi Germany. What is this really about?
It is about Ratzinger's theology, of course. He is one of the more conservative, orthodox wing of the College of Cardinals, and was the Pope's close associate and doctrinal point-man during much of John Paul II's pontificate. The two had been friends and colleagues since the Second Vatican Council, when they first met and worked together. Today they are frightened by the prospect of the man they have reviled for over two decades being mentioned prominently as a possible pope. And that is why some would do anything to keep him out of the Shoes of the Fisherman, even defame him and raise the spectre of Hitler and the Holocaust to tar a good and holy man.
His condemnations are legion — of women priests, married priests, dissident theologians and homosexuals, whom he has declared to be suffering from an “objective disorder”.He upset many Jews with a statement in 1987 that Jewish history and scripture reach fulfillment only in Christ — a position denounced by critics as “theological anti-semitism”. He made more enemies among other religions in 2000, when he signed a document, Dominus Jesus, in which he argued: “Only in the Catholic church is there eternal salvation”.
In other words, his detractors are gravely concerned that Ratzinger is the one thing they cannot tolerate -- a believing Catholic, loyal to the historic teachings of the Catholic Church, and cut from the same cloth as the Pope he worked with for nearly a quarter century.
By this time next week there will almost certainly be a new pope. And soon thereafter, I expect we will begin to hear the true story of what happened in the Conclave. The question is -- will it be a story of Ratzinger's ascent to the Chair of Saint peter, or of the making of some other pope, probably with his support?
Posted by: Greg at
09:24 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 796 words, total size 5 kb.
April 16, 2005
Just days before Roman Catholic cardinals select a new pope, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against an Argentine mentioned as a possible contender, accusing him of involvement in the 1976 kidnappings of two priests.
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio's spokesman today called the allegation "old slander."
The complaint filed in a Buenos Aires court Friday by human rights lawyer Marcelo Parrilli accused Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, of involvement in the kidnappings of two Jesuit priests by the military dictatorship, according to the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarin. The complaint does not specify Bergoglio's alleged involvement.
The priests were released after five months.
"This is old slander," the Rev. Guillermo Marco, Bergoglio's spokesman, told The Associated Press in Rome. "This is the week of slander."
Under Argentine law, an accusation can be filed with a very low threshold of evidence. The court later decides whether there is cause to investigate and file charges.
The Italian newspaper Corriere dell Sera called the accusations "an infamy fueled by Bergoglio's enemies," saying Saturday that far from participating in the kidnappings, the cardinal helped win the priests' freedom. It did not detail its sources.
The accusations against Bergoglio, 68, in the kidnappings of priests Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics are not new, being detailed in a recently published book by Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky.
Marco called Verbitsky "a gentleman of dubious fame who is advertising himself to sell a book," saying the journalist was "taking advantage of this moment."
So, do we have a man who cooperated in the kidnapping of a couple of priests under his authority? Or do we have an author who is seeking to sell his book by making the most of a sensational charge in it?
And will it make any difference for the humble Cardinal who is considered a bright light among Latin American contenders for the papacy?%
Posted by: Greg at
01:32 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 383 words, total size 3 kb.
Imagine your kids playing basketball on a court at a playground. Suddenly, another group of kids appears and demands that your children leave. Since your kids are not done with there game -- and were there first, -- they refuse. Now they haven't done anything unreasonable, have they?
The new arrivals leave in a huff -- and come back with about 30 kids, shouting racial slurs and engage in a physical assault upon your children. Certainly there is a crime -- and given the language used during the assault, it must be a hate crime, right?
Wrong -- not if the children who are brutally beaten are white and the little thugs are black.
Invoking the name “Martin Luther King” and screaming “Black Power!” a gang of up to 30 black teens attacked four white girls in Marine Park in what police are saying is not a bias crime.
The March 30 attack was a hot topic at state Senator Marty GoldenÂ’s recent public safety forum.
According to witnesses and parents of the victims, four young girls from St. EdmundÂ’s had the day off from school due to Easter recess. They were playing basketball during dismissal from nearby Marine Park Junior High School, when several Marine Park students demanded to use the court.
After adults intervened and asked them to wait their turn, the teens left - but returned in a pack of up to 30, both boys and girls, and stormed into the park.
Witnesses say the attackers were all black and called their victims “white crackers” during the bloody melee, which raged for almost 20 minutes.
“This is not being looked at as a bias crime,” NYPD Deputy Inspector Kevin McGinn said at the meeting.
Well why the hell not, Deputy Inspector McGinn? You have an unprovoked act of violence, prima facie evidence of racial animus, possible evidence of religious bias, and a violent attack by a mob on four little girls. What more do you need? Isn't an assault serious enough to cause the hospitalization of two victims by a mob shouting racial epithets sufficient to file such charges? Would their being beaten to death have been sufficient?
I mean, let's consider what happened in this vicious attack by a group of feral children (who have much more in common with a pack of wild dogs than the great civil rights leader whose name they invoked) attempting to maim or kill four little white girls who thought they had the right to play basketball on a public court in a public park.
“When I pulled my car up to the park, I witnessed a pandemonium I’ve never seen in my life,” said Debbie, a mother of one victim who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
Her daughter ran to the car, screaming, “They’re going to kill us,” Debbie recalled. My daughter was so scared and kids were running around like crazy.
Pursued by dozens of teens, some of the girls were “literally running into traffic to save their lives,” she said.
One girl made it as far as a nearby house, but was dragged by her hair back into the playground by a “wolf pack of children,” Debbie said.
The St. Edmund girls were bleeding and beaten to the point where they had cuts, scrapes, footprints and dirt all over them - and the attackers surrounded her car and started pounding on the windows as Debbie tried to herd the terrified children into her vehicle.
It seems to me that the reason the police and DA won't call this a bias crime is that the victims don't have a high enough melanin content to be subject to equal protection of the laws. You and I both know that we would be seeing a hate-crime prosecution if this were an attack by 30 white kids on a couple of little black girls. We'd have Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the New Black Panther Party out in the street crying "No Justice -- No Peace!" We would probably still be reading about riots if you failed to file hate-crime charges if the victims were black and the perps were white.
Al Sharpton got a state investigation into the fake assault on Tawana Brawley. The LA riots provoked a federal prosecution of the cops who beat Rodney King. Where are the state and federal investigations and prosecutions here, of a hate crime perpetrated against white children -- and the failure of the legal system in New York City to treat this crime with the seriousness it deserves.
Posted by: Greg at
04:26 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 784 words, total size 5 kb.
Now Sanchez is facing jail for violating the vry laws he swore to uphold.
Immigration Enforcement Agent Ramon M. Sanchez Jr., 41, was charged Tuesday with harboring an illegal alien. Sanchez married the woman, Flor Liliana Velasco Barrera, on Feb. 25 of this year. But as early as last November he knew she was a Mexican citizen who was not authorized to live or work in the United States, even though she had been in the country for the past four years, authorities said.
Sanchez, whose work involves transporting detainees and doing other support services for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, was arrested Monday and could face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, said a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Dude -- what were you thinking? You knew her immigration status, and you didn't report it. Not only that, you helped her stay here illegally. Were you not aware that both actions were crimes? Or did you, in your arrogance, think the law didn't apply to you?
Posted by: Greg at
04:14 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 235 words, total size 2 kb.
Frankly, the records of two of these judges is sufficient to show that the "extremist judges outside the mainstream" argument fails miserably.
It has been almost four years since President Bush nominated Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Since then the Senate has held two hearings, conducted many days of floor debate, analyzed Owen's judicial opinions down to the last comma and attempted four times to invoke cloture so that debate could finally be concluded and the Senate could take an up-or-down vote on her nomination.
Not only has Owen withstood this intensive examination, she has shown time and again that the American Bar Association got it right when it unanimously awarded her its highest possible rating. She was also reelected with 84 percent of the vote in 2000 and had the endorsement of every newspaper in Texas. Owen has earned the support of a clear majority of senators.
She is not alone. This July will mark almost two years since the president nominated Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Brown started life as the daughter of a sharecropper in the segregated South and through hard work and determination became the first African American woman to serve on California's highest court. In 2002 she was called upon by her colleagues to write the majority opinion more often than any other member of the California Supreme Court. She was retained with 76 percent of the vote in her last election. In short, Brown has shown herself to be unquestionably trustworthy, highly intelligent and well within the mainstream, and she has earned the enthusiastic support of a majority of the U.S. Senate.
There is no legitimate basis for calling either of these women unfit for the federal bench. Allowing a minority to block their confirmation is nothing short of tyranny. As the support they have received shows, neither one of them is unqualified or outside the mainstream -- unless the overwhelming majority of voters in both California and Texas are outside of that mainstream as well.
Posted by: Greg at
04:04 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 419 words, total size 3 kb.
The same thing is going on in Iraq, according to writer Austin Bay.
On April 2 and again on April 4, the terror gang led by al-Qaida's Iraq commander, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, launched "military-style attacks" on the Abu Ghraib prison complex in Baghdad. In the April 4 assault, U.S. forces took 44 casualties (most of them minor wounds). The terrorist gang, however, took 50 casualties, out of a force estimated at 60 gunmen.
On April 11, the gang attacked a Marine compound at Husaybah near the Syrian border. As I write, terrorist casualties are unconfirmed, but the assault flopped.
While bomb attacks on unarmed Iraqi civilians continue (particularly against Shiites), public opinion now matters in Iraq, and the thugs' public slaughters have killed too many Iraqi innocents. January's election dramatically lifted public morale and changed the media focus — suddenly, democracy looks possible, and an Arab Muslim democracy is al-Qaida's worst nightmare.
Hence the "Tet gamble." Bombs haven't cowed the Iraqi people — but perhaps the American people will lose heart and buckle if al-Qaida concocts a military surprise.
U.S. forces, however, are "hard targets" — unlike civilians standing in line to vote, U.S. troops shoot back. Since 9/11, al-Qaida has never won a military engagement at the platoon level (30 men) or higher. Coalition forward operating bases are heavily fortified.
Unfortunately for the American military, the press at home and the pro-terrorist Left are ready to paint every unsuccessful attack by the terrorists as an unmitigated failure of the US military. The terrorists do not have to win -- the ;eft-wing media and left-wing ideologues consider every assault on Americans (and innocent Iraqi citizens) to be a victory for the enemy by virtue of the fact that they still have the capability to make the attack. Under their logic, terrorist Eric Rudolph's cowardly bombing of abortion clinics was a victory for those of us opposed to abortion (it wasn't, as it betrayed our principles).
Looking at the bright side, we have the ability to defeat the terrorists in a war of attrition. The ultimate question is if the American and Iraqi peoples have the will.
Posted by: Greg at
03:37 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 429 words, total size 3 kb.
Calgary's police chief Jack Beaton has used a rare legal tactic to seize a computer from a private home that was believed to have been used to operate a website critical to Beaton and his senior managers.
Beaton obtained a civil court order this month to enter the home of a civilian police employee and seize the computer.
A sweeping gag order issued at the same time prevents anyone from talking about the case or reading documents related to it, which have been sealed.
So, let's consider the basic outline here.
A website criticizes government agency and its high officials.
The courts order the site taken down and the equipment used to engage in that free speech confiscated.
All comment on it is stifled by a gag order against the allegedly corrupt officials (who want the charges to go away) and the folks making the charges.
And local elected officials, for whom the police chief works, applaud the move.
However, Ald. Craig Burrows, who sits on the police commission, says Beaton acted properly.
"I think any time you go after the morale of a service or the morale of a city that takes pride in its service, the chief has a right to act," Burrows said.
"I'm afraid we live in a culture today where you can say anything you want about people, as negative as it is, and you don't think you can be held accountable. I think our chief is just basically ensuring that, moving forward, if you're going to say something that's going to affect the reputation of the service and officers, you have to have evidence to support that claim."
So, if you are going to make critical remarks, the government can shut you down, preventing you from presenting that evidence to the public. That effectively means that there is no right in Canada to criticize the government if the officials involved do not like the criticism.
Now you may wonder what sort of accusations were made on the website.
Messages on the site said it spoke for officers who had suffered under Beaton's "corrupt" administration.
It stated: "We are the police, the communications officers, the administration staff and other police service members and employees that either have been the victims of tyranny, politics, harassment, bullying, racism, constructive termination, etc., or we know someone who has."
Last fall, Beaton was quoted in the Calgary Herald as "vowing to take every measure necessary to get those behind the website."
He has also called the site "mean-spirited" and "in poor taste."
Four current or former police officers, who agreed to talk to the CBC about their concerns as long as their names weren't used, said promotions on the force are based on who you know, and that racist and sexist behaviour is tolerated.
Sounds to me like this was clearly raising issues of public concern about problems in a government agency. You know, the sort of things that citizens should be aware of and permitted to discuss freely in a democratic society. The failure of Canadian law to protect such a basic right is simply one more piece of evidence that our neighbor to the north has ceased to share fundamental values with the United States. When a public official is allowed to remain in office after making a public statement that he will "get" those who dare to criticize how he does his job by using the full police power of the government to suppress those criticisms, it is clear that the protection of fundamental rights no longer exists. What you have in such a case is an authoritarian system that feigns respect for civil liberties.
I'm curious -- where are all the liberals running websites that claim the Bush administration is oppressive and urging folks to flee to Canada? Why are they not speaking out against this atrocity?
Posted by: Greg at
02:43 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 698 words, total size 4 kb.
Now we have this case, in which a court is allowing the government to overrule the clear intent of an enemy of the United States.
A Cuban exile on a monthlong hunger strike protesting his detention as a suspected spy was in a hospital's inmate ward Friday after a judge cleared the way for U.S. officials to have a feeding tube inserted in him.
Juan Emilio Aboy was being held at Jackson Memorial Hospital's inmate ward, hospital spokeswoman Lorraine Nelson said Friday.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Paul Huck agreed with another judge's order to ``involuntarily administer nutrients'' to Aboy though a stomach or intravenous tube, and to restrain him if he attempts to remove it.
``Mr. Aboy is now completing his fourth week without eating. The decision to not eat was his choice. A court order was issued allowing the U.S. Public Health Service to take any necessary precautions in the interest of his health,'' said Nina Pruneda, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Miami.
So what we have here is a precedent that says you can kill the sick, but must intervene to stop a voluntary death.
Who says this country hasn't lost its way?
Posted by: Greg at
02:36 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 246 words, total size 2 kb.
I'll be changing the site name, the site address, the appearance of the page, the software being used, and even the handle I post under.
Why?
1) Blogger drives me nuts at times. They do a good job, but it runs so slow, and crashes often.
2) You never know -- I may not be the precinct chair in this precinct forever.
3) It's time for a change, and I'm nearly ready to make the move.
I'll tell you more later, when the move is ready.
Posted by: Greg at
02:23 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 107 words, total size 1 kb.
April 15, 2005
Eleven illegal aliens who were released by federal authorities after a traffic stop in Fairfax County on Sunday did not show up for immigration proceedings yesterday.
"None of them came back, and I think that the fact that these aliens failed to appear showed the challenges of immigration enforcement," said Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
Mr. Van Pelt said about 30 percent of illegal aliens who are ordered to appear for immigration proceedings fail to show up. Of those who do appear, about 85 percent become fugitives if a judge orders them to be deported.
"We know full well that the honor system doesn't work and it doesn't make our job any easier when we're trying to focus on violent criminal aliens and trying to thwart terrorism," he said.
THEN WHY THE HELL DO YOU USE IT? You know that many won't show and many others will skip out if they lose their case. You know they are not here legally. Don't release them -- hold them until the hearing and then load them onto a bus or plane and get them to the other side of the border.
Posted by: Greg at
05:30 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 233 words, total size 2 kb.
I came across a couple of great articles on the upcoming conclave, and another on the history of the current selection process that I think might interest folks.
1) Conclave History. Where did we get this process of selecting popes? At one time, the people of Rome selected their new bishop (remember -- besides being the head of the entire Catholic Church, the pope is first and foremost the local bishop of the city of Rome) by public acclamation. That is how Peter's successor, Linus, was selected. The selection of a new pope by the cardinals was an innovation of the 11th century. Even as late as 1903, the article points out, the papacy was a political plum, and the selection of a new pontiff was as much a matter of international politics as it was of religion.
And, of course, there have been scandals and outrageous acts by popes and papal candidates. The Middle Ages and Renaissance were particularly notorious for odd goings on.
Nineteen elections lasted more than a month and several dragged on for many months, even years. Other successions descended into violence.
Consider the reign of Pope Sergius III in the 10th century.
His faction seized the papacy through armed force, and he had his imprisoned predecessor, Pope Leo V, strangled to death.
Chroniclers of the age claimed that Sergius had a son with a 15-year-old girl - who was later elected Pope John XII by the nobles who had backed Sergius. John himself became a notorious debaucher who was deposed, struck back and deposed his successor, and supposedly died while in bed with a married woman.
Then there was Alexander VI, who won the papacy just before the Protestant Reformation by bribing cardinals and promising lucrative jobs. His subsequent reign was ``marked by nepotism, greed and unbridled sensuality,'' the Rev. Richard McBrien writes in ``Lives of the Popes.''
Thanks to Alexander, the cardinals who elected his successor included his illegitimate son, appointed a cardinal at age 18, and the brother of one of the pope's mistresses.
Perhaps the most bizarre succession involved the ``cadaver synod'' of 897.
So much did Pope Stephen VI hate his deceased predecessor, Pope Formosus, that Stephen had his minions dig up Formosus' corpse. The new pope then held a mock trial for the old one, stripped the corpse of its vestments, cut off the two fingers that bestowed papal blessings and threw the body into the Tiber.
The over-the-top display did Stephen no good. His enemies rebelled, imprisoned him and strangled him to death.
And we cannot forget the period of French control of the papacy at Avignon, nor the multiple popes and anti-popes of the Great Schism.
The modern papacy, freed of the temporal concerns that existed when the popes ruled the Papal States, is now much more a spiritual and moral force in the world. The unification of Italy may have been one of the best things that ever happened to the successors of St. Peter, and they now only needed to be concerned with running the Church.
2) The Importance Of Papal Language Skills. I'd have to say that John Paul II made the ability to speak in multiple languages critical for a successful papacy. He was multilingual, and even if his Italian was week in 1978 (or even a quarter century later), his ability to communicate with the people of Italy was important. Let's be honest -- if your entire country is located in downtown Rome and you are the city's bishop, you need to speak Italian.
'Pope John Paul's ability to speak other languages allowed him to make better contacts with world leaders such as Fidel Castro and [Augusto] Pinochet," said Marco Politi, coauthor of ''His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time."
''The ability to speak another language could make the next pope more effective."
The pope's biographers say that in addition to Polish, John Paul could converse in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin.
But beyond that, English and Spanish are the two major languages of the faithful. Being unable to communicate in those two languages (or at least one of them, initially) will weaken the new pope. And since John Paul II made international travel an important part of the papacy, that linguistic ability is very important. As I remember from Denver, the fact that the pope, not a translator, was speaking to us was very important to the young people there. We understood him, and he understood us.
Will linguistic ability help propel some candidate to the papacy? Probably not -- but it might be a factor for some, such as Cardinals Ivan Dias of India, Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, and Francis Arinze of Nigeria. They speak English, French, and Italian, as well as other languages.
3) A Black Pope? Personally, I don't see why not. While some are downplaying the possibility (perhaps as a means of safeguarding the candidacy of Cardinal Arinze or one of the other Africans), I don't know that it would be as big a handicap as some suggest. Africa is the growing Church today. Whereas a century ago the Irish and Americans were sending missionary priests to Africa to preach the Gospel, the opposite is happening today. Many dioceses have African priests working in them to help with the priest shortage. My seminary had 200 students, and about 15 of them came from Uganda, Tanzania, and Nigeria (I've heard about Cardinal Arinze for years) -- some of whom were here to stay, not to go home.
And Cardinal Arinze himself would be a good candidate. At age 72, he is young enough to be pope for a decade or so, but not so young as to stay a quarter century. And there is the fact that he has spent so much time working in the Vatican that he is practically a Roman.
The leading African candidate is Cardinal Francis Arinze, a 72-year-old Nigerian who has worked at the Vatican for more than 20 years, mostly as the pope's point man for Islamic relations.
While he is not the only African candidate, his combination of Vatican knowledge, theological conservatism, pastoral experience and deep spirituality makes him the favourite.
I would not be surprised to see a black hand bestowing the next papal blessing, though I will not be so bold as to make that a definitive prediction. It's just that the election of Cardinal Arinze would make a lot of sense, as the above quote indicates.
Enough for now. Pray for the holy Spirit to guide the Cardinals, an for the Cardinals to be open to the Spirit.
Posted by: Greg at
04:31 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 1131 words, total size 7 kb.
A woman bit off the tongue of her alleged rapist and then gave it to police as evidence, Free State police said on Friday.
Captain Veronica Ntepe said the 32-year-old woman from Mahlatswetsa, near Excelsior, was woken up on Thursday night when a man broke into her bedroom at around 11pm.
While allegedly raping the woman, the man forced his tongue into her mouth.
"This was the gravest mistake he made. The woman bit (off) the front part of his tongue," Ntepe said. The man immediately ran away.
The woman called the police and handed over the piece of tongue.
Police put out an alert for a man with a piece of his tongue missing.
A suspect was arrested on Friday afternoon.
Police have sent the tongue to the forensic science laboratory in Pretoria to test whether it belonged to the arrested man.
The 23-year-old man, from Mahlatswetsa, will face charges of rape and house-breaking in the Excelsior magistrate's court on Monday.
Too bad she couldn't have done more significan damage.
Posted by: Greg at
04:14 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 206 words, total size 1 kb.
April 14, 2005
We were told that lethal injection was humane and painless. Fine, I thought at the time, if that would deal with the issue of "humane treatment" for those squeamish about the administration of the appropriate penalty for some crimes, that is fine. Now it turns out that this method of execution may not be quite as painless as it was billed. I find myself singularly unmoved with compassion towards the condemned.
As many as four of every 10 prisoners put to death in the United States might receive inadequate anesthesia, causing them to remain conscious and experience blistering pain during a lethal injection.
Researchers in Florida and Virginia drew this conclusion after reviewing levels of anesthetic in the blood of 49 inmates after they were executed.
"I approached this as a physician," said the study's lead author, Dr. Leonidas Koniaris, chairman of surgical oncology at the University of Miami. "We were asking: Is there a possibility of awareness during an execution? Is there a large degree of pain and suffering associated with it? And I think the answer we found is yes."
Of the inmates studied in a report published by the British journal The Lancet, 43 percent had concentrations of anesthetic in their blood — as measured by medical examiners during autopsies — that would indicate consciousness rather than sedation during an execution.
Koniaris, who says he does not oppose the death penalty, thinks the study warrants a moratorium on executions until a publicly appointed panel can review whether some inmates remain conscious during lethal injection.
"If that's the case, as a society we need to step back and ask whether we want to torture these people or not," he said.
And I have to be honest – I don’t give a rat’s ass if they feel pain or not. I had no moral qualms about the gas chamber or the electric chair, and wouldn’t mind if the hangman’s noose or the firing squad were reintroduced. Hell, I would have no moral qualms about coating pedophiles and rapists with honey and staking them out over fire ant hills. While I’m not a native Texan, I have to agree with those who hold to the philosophy that “some folks just need killin’.” Generally speaking, though, I’m open to discussion about the method. And I am willing to discuss alternatives to the death penalty --life without parole beling the minimum.
But frankly, I have to disagree with the editorial from the Lancet that is quoted in the story.
The implications of an ineffective anesthetic are, in the words of a Lancet editorial accompanying the article, troubling: "It would be a cruel way to die: awake, paralyzed, unable to move, to breathe, while potassium burned through your veins."
And I should be morally outraged becauseÂ…?
I mean, itÂ’s not like these folks gave a whole lot of concern for the mental and physical anguish they inflicted upon their victims. You know, the raped and killed little girl after being abducted from her bed. The adolescent boy killed after being sodomized by a couple of NAMBLA members. The wife beaten to death by her abusive husband. The family murdered by robbers looking for a couple of bucks. I guess I donÂ’t have any more compassion for the killers than they did for their victims. Let them feel the utter helplessness and pain that they were more than willing to allow another human being to experience.
And then there is this gem from one of the studyÂ’s authors.
"It's now up to the corrections systems to show that, at the time of death, inmates are asleep. We should accept no less when we're killing people."
I disagree.
We should accept nothing less than their being fully conscious.
Let them feel every last bit of society's outrage and retribution for their crimes.
Let them be aware of their punishment.
And let them understand, in their last moments, what their victims may have felt.
Posted by: Greg at
10:36 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 679 words, total size 4 kb.
The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday nullified nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year ago by Portland's Multnomah County, saying a county cannot go against state matrimonial law.
"Oregon law currently places the regulation of marriage exclusively within the province of the state's legislative power," the high court said in its unanimous ruling.
The court said state law bans gay marriage. It also noted that Oregon voters approved a constitutional amendment last November that even more explicitly prohibits the practice.
Kevin Neely, spokesman for the state attorney general's office, said the court left the big issue — civil unions for gay couples — for another day. "I suspect the issue will be resolved by either legislation or by additional litigation," he said.
Legislators had been waiting for the court's ruling for guidance. On Wednesday, Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski said he will push for a law allowing gay couples to form civil unions that would give them many of the rights and privileges of marriage.
The governor and legislature will consider civil union legislation. Whether that is the appropriate course of action is, of course, subject to debate, given the solid rejection of homosexual marriage by Oregon voters in November. It strikes me that they should tread very slowly in that area, because the overwhelming majority of Oregonians expressed a position that seems to oppose granting legal status to homosexual relationships. Given the difficultrts have imposed an unwelcome solution on a sharply divided public, I think the Oregon Supreme Court acted wisely, and I hope the legislature and governor act in a manner which respects the policy preferences of the people of the state -- who are, ultimately, the sovereign power to which they must defer.
Posted by: Greg at
10:30 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 320 words, total size 2 kb.
A trio of protesters with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals didn't find the welcome mat out when they stopped at a KFC in Brownsville on Wednesday. The sprinkler system was on for them, though.
John Olivo, the manager of the fast-food chicken restaurant, turned the system on full blast to soak the curbside protesters. And a man who eats beef followed them around with his stepchildren and a microphone.
The PETA protesters, including one in a chicken suit, are participating in PETA's campaign to get KFC to pressure slaughter houses to use more humane methods to kill chickens.
"They already hit me in McAllen," Olivo said in a story in Thursday's editions of The Brownsville Herald. "I was already waiting for them here in Brownsville."
"You're not going to win. Not in Brownsville," David Ingersoll, of Los Fresnos, shouted through his microphone at the protesters at a busy intersection. His stepchildren passed out anti-PETA pamphlets to stopped drivers.
"I'm waiting for someone to throw a cabrito head at them so they know what part of the country they are in," Ingersoll said, referring to the goat meat that's used in some Mexican dishes.
Good for you, Mr. Olivo!
Posted by: Greg at
10:27 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 235 words, total size 2 kb.
April 13, 2005
Brenten Kostner, 19, and John Shymanik, 17, graduated early in December to become Marines. They hope to attend the graduation ceremony wearing their dress-blue uniforms during a 10-day leave from boot camp.
However, the MarinesÂ’ mothers said theyÂ’ve been told by school officials their sons must wear Warren-issued caps and gowns like everyone else during the May 28 graduation event at Northwestern University.
KostnerÂ’s mother, Julie Hamil, said Warren District 121Â’s position doesnÂ’t make sense. She said the young men are against covering themselves with the caps and gowns because they want their peers to see their pride in becoming successful graduates as Marines.
“I’m shocked,” Hamil said. “Do you only show your patriotism when something bad happens?”
Hamil appealed to the District 121 board Monday night. Outgoing school board President Mari Carlson directed administrators to re-examine their stance on the uniforms.
“These are special times we live in,” Carlson said.
Nearly 350 students and teachers at Warren signed a petition Monday requesting Kostner and Shymanik be allowed to wear the dress uniforms. KostnerÂ’s sisters, Sherri and Audrey Hamil, circulated the petition.
Here's hoping that a little bit of common sense prevails here.
Contact the district and the school to comment.
Posted by: Greg at
02:46 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 258 words, total size 2 kb.
In what is shaping as a battle between conformity and self-expression, Pacific High School has suspended a ninth-grade boy for wearing lipstick and eye makeup.
Officials are calling it a violation of school policy, which they seemed unable to find in writing.
James Herndon, 16, repeating his second year at the school, and his mother, Valerie Wallace, say James has been wearing black lipstick and red eye makeup the entire time he has been enrolled at Pacific. He also wears his hair in a dyed-red mohawk with the sides shaved. But that was not cited as part of the reason for the five-day suspension, which was imposed Monday.
The youth said the makeup expresses religious beliefs he shares with his mother, a Wiccan priestess in the neopagan religion based on northern European beliefs in the supernatural.
James also said the suspension is sex discrimination and violates his constitutional right to free expression.
Now before you think that the school is simply being unreasonable in its demands for conformity, please be aware that this is how James has been going to school.
And lest you think James understands he occupies a different place in the pecking order at school that the faculty and staff do, look at this comment.
"If I can't wear makeup,' James said, "then the girls or the staff can't wear makeup either.'
Uh, wrong, James. You are a student. A different standard of conduct and different set of rules apply to the staff than applies to the students. It is not up to YOU to make that declaration. Of course given your motherÂ’s clear lack of respect for the schoolÂ’s authority over matters of school disruptions and safety issues, not to mention her failure to prepare her child to operate in a society with certain social norms.
When James returns to school Monday, he will wear the makeup with his mother's blessing. "My son shouldn't change the way he is.
"After my divorce from his father, he became very depressed, and wearing the makeup makes him feel good,' she said, adding that the boy's psychologist and psychiatrist encourage him to express himself.
IÂ’m hoping to hear that this kid is suspended again if he shows up in the same attire. His appearance constitutes a distraction in the classroom and a potential safety hazard on campus.
You may wonder about the latter point, but I can explain. As a teacher, I need to be able to determine at a glance whether or not someone at my school of 2300 students belongs there or not. I’m able to quickly tick through a number of dress code issues that help me narrow the field – things that include a ban on male facial hair and earrings, and visible piercings on any student. If someone is wearing a hat or bandana, they get confronted, too. There is also the school ID on a chain, but those are often not visible because of coats, sweaters, or the angle from which a kid is seen. A kid who showed up dressed as James is in the picture would be quickly hustled into an administrator’s office to be dealt with as a flagrant violator of the dress code or an unauthorized presence on campus. It is part of why we have so little violence on our campus, especially compared to some neighboring schools with similar demographics.
Now the ACLU is backing this kid and his so-called parent. IÂ’m betting they lose. That appearance is so distracting that it would be a source of disruption in class. The law they cite is intended to protect gender-benders from being harassed, not permit kids to wear clown makeup.
And if mom doesnÂ’t like the policy, might I suggest that she homeschool?
Posted by: Greg at
01:55 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 688 words, total size 4 kb.
But I have lost respect for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose actions to make jail less appealing made me a big fan. His take on the situation?
"Being illegal is not a serious crime. You can't go to jail for being an illegal alien. . . . You can only be deported."
Joe, that attitude is precisely why we have a problem with border jumping. Law enforcement doesn’t see it as a problem – and as a result doesn’t treat it like a problem. That means that little action is taken by law enforcement at every level to stop border jumping, detain and hold border jumpers, and deport border jumpers. The result is a flood of criminal aliens who walk among us with impunity, consuming taxpayer-financed resources far beyond their contribution to society.
I hope you have a strong opponent next election, Joe – you are clearly not a part of the solution, but are instead part of the problem.
Posted by: Greg at
01:52 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 205 words, total size 1 kb.
But I have lost respect for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose actions to make jail less appealing made me a big fan. His take on the situation?
"Being illegal is not a serious crime. You can't go to jail for being an illegal alien. . . . You can only be deported."
Joe, that attitude is precisely why we have a problem with border jumping. Law enforcement doesn’t see it as a problem – and as a result doesn’t treat it like a problem. That means that little action is taken by law enforcement at every level to stop border jumping, detain and hold border jumpers, and deport border jumpers. The result is a flood of criminal aliens who walk among us with impunity, consuming taxpayer-financed resources far beyond their contribution to society.
I hope you have a strong opponent next election, Joe – you are clearly not a part of the solution, but are instead part of the problem.
Posted by: Greg at
01:52 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 213 words, total size 1 kb.
So today, as the lone declared (as opposed to effective) Socialist in the House of Representatives is disclosed to have had the same arrangement for his wife and daughter, I’ll say it again – there is nothing wrong, legally or morally, for having family members on the payroll of the campaign or affiliated PACs.
Rep. Bernard Sanders used campaign donations to pay his wife and stepdaughter more than $150,000 for campaign-related work since 2000, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Jane O'Meara Sanders, his wife, received $91,020 between 2002 and 2004 for "consultation" and for negotiating the purchase of television and radio time-slots for Sanders' advertisements, according to records and interviews.
Approximately $61,000 of that was "pass through" money that was used to pay media outlets for advertising time, Jane O'Meara Sanders said in an interview. The rest, about $30,000, she kept as payment for her services, she said.
Carina Driscoll, daughter to Jane O'Meara Sanders and stepdaughter to the lawmaker, earned $65,002 in "wages" between 2000 and 2004, campaign records show.
Driscoll, a former state legislator, served as Rep. Sanders' campaign manager in 2000, his fund-raiser and office manager in 2003 and his database manager in 2004, according to Jeff Weaver, Sanders' chief of staff.
"Both of them are regarded as people who are knowledgable about Vermont politics," Weaver said Tuesday. "They earned every penny they got."
The practice is legal if there are actual campaign/political services rendered. That is the case with DeLay, and that is the case with Sanders. While the amounts vary, that is irrelevant. The fact is that there is nothing wrong with the practice at all – unless you want to apply the nebulous and ill-defined “appearance of impropriety” standard, which says it is an issue if somebody wants to make it one, but you can never know for sure if it is unless they do.
Like it or not, the family members of politicians often go into campaign/politcs related businesses. They are going to make money in the field, as is their right as American citizens. That goes for the Right and the Left. Deal with it.
Posted by: Greg at
01:47 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 420 words, total size 3 kb.
April 12, 2005
Today the
AUSTIN — A measure meant to save Texans billions in property taxes by limiting appraisal increases died before debate even began on the House floor today.
It was a stinging defeat for Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who has pushed for appraisal caps for more than a year.
"I'm disappointed in the vote. I don't mind saying that," Perry said. "This is not going to go away."
Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston, has been trying for weeks to gather the 100 votes needed to pass his constitutional amendment to halve the amount appraisals can grow each year. Currently, tax appraisals can grow as much as 10 percent annually.
"It's a sad day for the taxpayers of the state of Texas," Bohac said.
Perry vowed to keep up a public campaign to limit what he calls property appraisal "creep." He championed a bill set to be debated Wednesday that will reduce the cap on property tax revenue increases in cities and counties.
Proponents of appraisal caps said they would safeguard property-tax reductions that are part of the school finance plans in the House and Senate. Bohac's measure had support from the Republican leadership, including House Speaker Tom Craddick, who said today he supported appraisal caps.
"We need to take the burden of unfair taxation off the homeowners' shoulders," said Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio.
Let me explain this to you. there is a thing in finance circles that is called the "rule of 72" It shows the rate at which the value of an item will double. All you do is divide 72 by the rate of increase to determine the number of years that it takes for the asset to double in value. At 10%, that means that the taxable value of homes doubles in 7.2 years -- meaning, for example, a house bought at $100,000 today will be appraised at $200,000 in 2012 -- and at $400,000 by 2020. And that aso means that the taxes increase at the same rate -- today's $2500 property tax bill is a $5000 tax bill in 2012 and $10,000 in 2020. Given the rate at which my pay increases in my district (traditionally 3% each year), my salary will not have doubled in that time -- it will take until 2029 to do so. By that time the value of the hypothetical house will have increased in value to nearly $500,000, with a tax bill of about $15,000 each year -- and that does not include the mortgage payment.
Now to be fair, the argument by the county and local politicians makes sense on the surface. They argue that the lower rate of increase will not give hem a sufficent cash flow to provide services to the public. Apparently a 3-5% increase in the budget each year (about what the average Texan seens in their paycheck each year) is not enough. What they overlook is that they do have the option of making cuts or -- in an act of candor which frightens politicians -- going to the voters for a rate increase.
Fortunately, there is still hope for some tax relief.
House lawmakers Wednesday will debate a plan by Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, to cap at 3 percent the amount of growth in tax revenue cities and counties can take in each year. Local voters could elect to reverse the increase. The measure needs only 76 votes to pass the House.
Isett said his "truth in taxation" bill is a better way to provide tax relief.
"Lower taxes drive economic activity," Isett said. "That happens every time, everywhere it's tried."
A similar revenue cap measure by Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, is awaiting a vote by a Senate committee. Another appraisal cap measure, authored by Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, that would limit property value growth to 5 percent but allow cities and counties to opt out is pending in the Senate. Janek said he is not sure whether to proceed with his bill after today's action.
Perry remained resolved to get the tax relief he has promised.
"We're going to live to fight again," he said.
Yes, but whatever relief we get could be eaten up by higher appraisals, or overturned by simple majority vote. As it was, a minority (65 "Representatives") managed to thwart the will of the majority of 85 members of the House.
Texans -- here are the culprits who do not believe you should be permitted to vote on an Amendment to the Texas Constitution that will allow you to be able to afford to stay in your home.
Allen, R.; Alonzo; Anchia; Bailey; Blake; Burnam; Campbell; Casteel; Castro; Chavez; Chisum; Coleman; Cook, B.; Crownover; Davis, Y.; Delisi; Deshotel; Driver; Dukes; Dunnam; Edwards; Eiland; Escobar; Farabee; Flores; Frost; Geren; Giddings; Gonzales; Gonzalez Toureilles; Griggs; Guillen; Haggerty; Hardcastle; Harper-Brown; Hartnett; Hill; Hodge; Hopson; Hunter; Jones, D.; Jones, J.; Keel; King, T.; Kuempel; Laney; Luna; Madden; Martinez; Martinez Fischer; McCall; Menendez; Moreno, P.; Morrison; Mowery; Naishtat; Noriega, M.; Oliveira; Orr; Peña; Pickett; Quintanilla; Raymond; Ritter; Rodriguez; Smith, T.; Smithee; Solis; Solomons; Swinford; Thompson; Truitt; Turner; Uresti; Veasey; Villarreal; West.
Remember that during the primaries in March, 2006, and during the general election in November, 2006. They must be defeated.
Posted by: Greg at
05:11 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 941 words, total size 6 kb.
"She looks like an orangutan, and talks rubbish; send us a beautiful woman next time," stated one contributor to Sina.com.
"This black woman is not welcome!!!" stated another.
"She looks absolutely like a witch!" said a third.
Sounds like the sort of comments you would find on Demcratic Underground or other websites run by the "tolerant non-racist Left".
What other racist comments about the Secretary of State have been allowed to remain unmolested by the Yellow Menace? This is just a sample of the comments collected by one Chinese dissident about Dr. Rice.
"Black devil"; "black pig"; "black whore"; "black female dog"; "You're not even as good as a black devil, a real waste of a life"; "Her brain is blacker than her skin"; "Really ugly"; "The ugliest woman in the world".
You know, I wonder if these folks got their comments from the Democrats who tried to stop Condoleezza Rice's confirmation. After all, they are in character with what was said by the Senators and their surrogates.
Posted by: Greg at
04:55 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 230 words, total size 2 kb.
Calls for sainthood began almost immediately after the pope died on April 2 and reached a peak at his funeral on Friday, when mourners in St. Peter's Square held banners saying, "Santo Subito," or "Saint at Once," and chanted, "Santo, Santo." Reports of miraculous cures through his intervention poured in.
Several Italian newspapers reported that the Vatican had quietly been collecting messages from people attesting to healings attributed to him.
Luigi Accattoli, one of the most respected Vatican reporters, wrote in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera that a petition had already been circulated among the cardinals seeking signatures for a fast-track canonization process for John Paul. The usual process involves years of careful investigation, and it sometimes takes centuries for the final declaration.
Several cardinals confirmed that the idea of rapid canonization was discussed the day after the pope's funeral at their daily meeting.
If John Paul is canonized, he will be only the fourth pope to be so honored in 900 years.
That the cardinals are already discussing the possibility of a speedy canonization is intriguing. The waiting period for the process to start is five years, but it can be waived. And one cardinal even talks of being healed by the intervention of John Paul several years ago.
Cardinal Francesco Marchesano evoked the idea of miraculous healing. He said that when he had been in the hospital for an operation on his carotid artery and lost his voice, John Paul caressed his throat and said: "The Lord will give back your voice. You will see. I will say a prayer for you.'" Cardinal Camillo Ruini spoke of "the certainty of his new, mysterious and luminous presence."
Some argue that this speedy move for canonization, or at least beatification, is intended to cement the Pope's conservative policies into place by making them inseperable from the holy man himself.
While there may be some cynics around who are doing that, I don't believe that to be the case. What I see instead is a return to an older tradition, one under which the faithful themselves had a role to play in the process of declaring sainthood. Consider Thomas a Becket, martyred by English knights loyal to King Henry II. Shortly after his death, the people themselves had made his tomb a place of pilgrimage and devotion. The faithful declared him to be a saint, and he was so recognized by the Church within three years. Please note -- it was the sense of the faithful that came first, not the public affirmation by the institution. The outpouring of grief and love and prayer we have seen may be the sign that the faithful have recognized something that the institutional church needs to acknowledge.
Posted by: Greg at
04:28 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 524 words, total size 3 kb.
Apparently, the Secret Service is concerned about it, too.
Organizers of a politically charged art exhibit at Columbia College's Glass Curtain Gallery thought their show might draw controversy.
But they didn't expect two U.S. Secret Service agents would be among the show's first visitors.
The agents turned up Thursday evening, just before the public opening of "Axis of Evil, the Secret History of Sin," and took pictures of some of the art pieces -- including "Patriot Act," showing President Bush on a mock 37-cent stamp with a revolver pointed at his head.
The agents asked what the artists meant by their work and wanted museum director CarolAnn Brown to turn over the names and phone numbers of all the artists. They wanted to hear from the exhibit's curator, Michael Hernandez deLuna, within 24 hours, she said.
That particular work looks like a threat to me. It is obligatory on the Secret Service to check it out. And before the leftists complain -- remember that there were events at a couple of gun clubs shut down in the 1990s because the targets depicted Bill &/or Hillary. Anything that even looks like a potential threat must be investigated.
What other "art" would you find at this exhibit?
The Columbia exhibit features 47 artists from 11 countries and depicts powerful religious and political leaders worldwide on mock postage stamps. One, called "Citizen John Ashcroft," shows Ashcroft's face fashioned from images of naked bodies at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Another piece -- "I saw it in a movie starring Steven Segal" -- shows a series of images of an airplane nearing, then crashing into the Sears Tower, and ends with the Chicago skyline without the skyscraper.
In other words, it is some stuff that is simply sick and disgusting. While I recognize that such "protest art" falls within First Amendment protection (though perhaps not the Bush stamp -- threats against the president are illegal), that does not mean I have to approve of it or its message. Furthermore, I wish the college had the integrity to disassociate itself from a show that includes both the Bush stamp and the 9/11 style attack on Chicago. After all, the school also has a First Amendment right to not associate its good name with the exhibit.
And I am appalled, but not surprised, at the Left-wing fear-mongering of the exhibit organizer.
Hernandez said any government involvement could come close to trampling First Amendment rights.
"It frightens me ... as an artist and curator. Now we're being watched," Hernandez said. "It's a new world. It's a Big Brother world. I think it's frightening for any artist who wants to do edgy art."
Hernandez said he hopes the public sees the exhibit as a whole -- and not just about one man or even one country. Some works Hernandez thought would be more controversial challenge Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church. Others look at Nazi Germany and the killing fields in Cambodia.
This frightens him -- I wonder if it frightens him as much as the fake stamps he sent through the mail in the fall of 2001 frightened the postal workers who handled them. The design was of a black skull and crossbones with the word "Anthrax" on it -- during the height of the anthrax scare.
Where would you find this "artwork"? Columbia College's Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash, Chicago. Here's hoping there is some serious protest -- and financial ramifications for the college.
Posted by: Greg at
04:05 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 603 words, total size 4 kb.
Who are the candidates? Well, it is a bit hard to tell, since the cardinals are no longer talking. That said, there are a lot of names being mentioned, a diverse list of papabile. And while there are certainly some leading candidates, there are also some papal long-shots being mentioned.
If an African is to be the next pontiff, then Francis Cardianal Arinze of Nigeria is still the leading candidatre. That said, in recent days the name Cardinal Wilfred Napier of South Africa has been mentioned.
Are relations with Islam important going to be crucial in the conclave? If so, there are candidates who have experience in that area.
At a time when the Vatican is trying to broaden its dialogue with Islam, Julius Riyadi Darmaatmadja, 70, of Indonesia, is distinctive as one of the few cardinals from a predominantly Muslim country. Ivan Dias, 68, the archbishop of Bombay, India, also comes from a populous country with relatively few Catholics, though much of his career has been spent as a Vatican diplomat, serving in Africa, South Korea and Albania.
And of course, the Latin Americans are being mentioned prominently. One of those, as I mentioned the other day, is the Archbishop of Havana.
There are a raft of contenders - some front-runners, some long-shots - to be the first Latin American pope. The region's dark horses include Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, the archbishop of Havana, who helped organize the first papal visit to Communist Cuba in 1998 and negotiated modest openings with a government that was once officially atheist.
Ortega, 68, his risen far from humble origins as a sugar worker's son. He is fluent in French and a skilled pianist, cutting an elegant and generally nonconfrontational figure in Cuban society.
And we have all, of course, heard about the front-running Italian, Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi , but there are other cardinals to be considered as well.
Italy supplies at least three front-running candidates, but also several in the next rung, including Cardinals Ennio Antonelli of Florence, Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, and Severino Poletto of Turin.
Bertone, 70, occasionally provides radio play-by-play of his favorite soccer team, Juventus; a few weeks ago he made headlines worldwide by urging a boycott of the best-selling book "The Da Vinci Code," which he said distorts the origins of Christianity.
Antonelli, 68, is viewed a cheerful man of the people, a relative moderate on most of the issues facing the Vatican. Poletto, 72, is custodian of the Shroud of Turin.
There are even a couple of French cardinals mentioned as papabile, though their ages make it unlikely that they would become the first French pope since the Avignon period. One is even younger than John Paul II was in 1978, while the other is 78.
Two French cardinals are sometimes mentioned: Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, who is only 55 and known as an advocate for immigrants' rights, and retired Paris Archbishop Jean-Marie Lustiger, 78, a confidant of John Paul's, a Jewish convert - and a skeptic about lists of front-runners.
"All the names that have surfaced have been invented by journalists," he said last week. "What happens is that most of the time, those who get it are completely unexpected."
In the end, I think Cardinal Lustiger has it partially right. In handicapping the conclave like a political convention or a horserace, it is very possible that almost none of us have heard the name of the next pope – which is exactly what happened twice in 1978, a year that saw the burial and election of two popes.
Posted by: Greg at
02:09 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 685 words, total size 4 kb.
60 queries taking 0.2915 seconds, 248 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
