If you visited
St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York from 1.30pm to 4.30pm to visit the nativity scene there during the past week, or on the steps of the Cathedral on Wednesday, you might have seen the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Renewal or if attended the pro-life Mass and prayer vigil at
Holy Innocents Church on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, then you probably saw me.
I have lots of pictures and I'll post the best later.
I've been busy with my family, my parish, and my job to properly blog what's going on in the world that I'm interested in. That's probably of a good sign that I've got my priorities on track.
I hope bloggers and non-blogger-readers here are enjoying their time off from work or school and if they are religious, use the time to get closer to God.
I've been telling people, "It's not always Christmas in Heaven, but it's always Easter." -- did think that one up or did I read it somewhere?
Stories on the Christmas sermon of Cardinal Egan:
The New York Times did not find it fit to print. On covering the Christmas message of Pope Benedict, the word count for the article on page A8 is about the same as the word count on page A10 for "Mecca Visitors Reportedly Check for Disease".
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If I've got to walk it, I'll take some pictures.
About 2 hours to get to work and 3 hours to return home.
What would Reagan do? : Wall Street Journal
[The MTA] asked to push the retirement age back to 62 for new workers but dropped that demand and is now merely asking that they contribute 6% of their pre-tax salaries toward their pension for their first 10 years on the job, as well as pay 1% of salary for health insurance. By contrast, the TWU demanded that the MTA lower retirement age to 50 for its current workers and grant 8% wage increases over the next three years.
That's so out of line with private employers but, hey, this is New York City.
Photos: (1) my photo of sunrise Tuesday (2) the AP photo of Bloomberg crossing the Brooklyn Bridge (3) my photo of Bloomberg crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.
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I'm calling for hearings on how Congress wastes time, defers the really important debates, and then rushes everything near their vacation breaks.
Why wasn't there a debate on the alternative minimum tax and the Patriot act a month ago? What's happened in the last four weeks that just made these get to the top of the agenda?
But Congress is the only thing exempt from the TV exposure of Congressional hearings.
They are labelled "Good Samaritans".
Bill Gates' foundation is perhaps the largest source of contributions to population control and abortion funding in the third world.
Tomorrow when the pro-life organizations get on this case we will find out exactly how much he does for the anti-life forces. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he also contributes to some Catholic-in-name organizations such as Catholic Charities which give him cover from criticism that he is also anti-Catholic.
Personally I admire Bill Gates. We were born less than 2 years apart and first learned of him when he complained to the world's personal computer/hobbyist community that he was selling software and that the purchasers should not make free copies of it to give to friends -- that was back in 1977. Software piracy nearly sunk Microsoft at its birth.
I met him in person in 1992 at a conference called "Windows on Wall Street" as an employee of Digital Equipment which at the time was larger that any other technology company except for IBM.
Remember all these money-fuelers of third-world birth control and abortion and pray for their conversion.
The Monthly Reflections with Fr.Groeschel which this year is has as its theme:
The Sacraments: Appreciating the Gifts of Christ.
Earlier in the week he fell and was released from the hospital only yesterday (December 16, 2005) but he came down to Holy Innocents parish and, as usual, the place was packed.
He told the story of how it was suspected that he had life-threatening internal bleeding. Because of his January 2004 accident, he has been using a substance, coumarin Fr. Benedict gave the credit to Ireland but the web gives it to
Wisconsin: rotting clover, a dead cow, a bucket of blood that doesn't coagulate -- a medical miracle.
(Coumadin ® is the name of the drug as it is manufactured)
He fell and that caused internal bleeding which for a time, it could not be determined if it was life-threatening. Thanks be to God, it wasn't and he was able to be at Holy Innocents. He didn't mention if was going to be on EWTN Live tomorrow.
He noted all the modern saints and the holy people of New York that might be saints one day had a deep devotion to the Holy Eucharist.
It was tragic that the informality in the Catholic Church that started in the 60's led to a loss of reverence for the Holy Eucharist.
There are so few elected and electable pro-life politicians in the Republican party that it no longer unifies the party or draws pro-life people to it. Pro-life pols are giving up and the ones that remain are marginalized in states like New York and Massachusetts.
In the Democratic party, the old pro-life pols of the 1960's and 1970's have gone to God's waiting room in Florida or to God. Hugh Carey was the first pro-life, then pro-choice, elected governor, groomed pro-choice Mario Cuomo to succeed him, and then Carey became pro-life again in retirement.
Our local congressman, a Democrat, had a pro-life dad, and a pro-life uncle (also in politics) who fathered 15 children. The congressman who is around my age, is pro-choice. He succeeded the last pro-choice congressman of the New York City delegation.
I only vote for local Republicans in the hope that they will support national Republicans who, at least under President Bush, walk and talk pro-life.
I think the New York State Republicans have a point that they excuse themselves by saying they only have votes to lose and none to gain and risk not being reelected by supporting pro-life legislation.
I conclude it's a "choice" of pragmatism over morality.
Black people were offended that Red Cross volunteers running the Astrodome facility in Houston wore latex gloves.
Everyone in New York wears latex gloves where the have physical contact with people or food -- police and fire, all kinds of health care workers, food vendors. People among the public wear latex gloves for no apparent reason except that they want to.
You have to wonder if the Washington Post's anonymous black people would have been offended if the Red Cross volunteers were not wearing latex gloves -- as it would be indicative of indifference to spreading disease.
The fir has been flying on Long Island over a Christmas tree-lighting celebration in the tony North Shore community of Manhasset. The North Hempstead town supervisor, who is Jewish, objected to a local Catholic priest's religious blessing at last Friday's ceremony, and he made his displeasure known — in front of the entire crowd. What followed was a mini-holy war, waged via phone and e-mail, that ended with Supervisor Jon Kaiman bowing to public out rage and repeatedly apologizing to the Rev. Nick Zientarski by letter and in person.
In a widely circulated e-mail, "Father Nick," associate pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Manhasset, noted that when he was invited to the annual event, "I thought about what kind of blessing to give — something generic or something 'Catholic.'
"It seemed to me that because this was a Christmas tree, it would be OK to use the blessing from my Catholic tradition."
But when he did, he heard Kaiman fuming behind him, saying "something to the effect of, 'This is nonsense,' 'We're not doing this next year,' 'I can't believe this.' "
When the blessing was finished, the priest said, Kaiman took the microphone and "in a harsh, annoyed voice," told the crowd, "I just want to make it clear that this is in no way a religious ceremony . . .
"We're here to celebrate the holiday tree lighting. This is not the place for a religious ceremony."
In other accounts he grabbed the microphone from the priest and shouted the above in rage and not merely annoyance.
On television, Supervisor Kaiman tried to look remorseful. I don't think he succeeded. To me, he looked like he knew that his political career is over.
This one almost looks made to order for
Catholic League fundraising.
I also hope that the Diocese of Rockville Center doesn't retaliate against Fr. Zientarski for his boldness.
New York Magazine on the future of the New York GOP.
The smart money is on making the New York GOP less conservative -- just as the
Conservative Party in New York is about to lose its ballot line. (according to the
Associated Press)
Detectives probing the brutal slaying of stripper Catherine Woods were yesterday trying to pinpoint how their prime suspect — her estranged yoga-teacher boyfriend — may have traveled from his East Harlem apartment to her Upper East Side pad on the day of the murder.
NYPD detectives yesterday questioned workers at a car service across the street from the apartment of 25-year-old Paul Cortez, who had dated Woods over the past year.
"We're doing everything we can. We checked everything, even the buses," said a law enforcement source.
An employee of New Easy Way Radio Dispatcher said cops showed her a picture of Cortez, asking if she recognized the personal trainer and rock musician.
They told her he was a suspect in the killing of Woods, 21, who was stabbed and nearly decapitated in her East 86th Street apartment Nov. 27.
Law enforcement sources have identified Cortez as the prime suspect in the case.
The Post previously reported that cops learned Cortez made seven cell-phone calls in rapid succession to Woods — who did not answer — around the same time she was killed.
He told police he had called from his apartment, but cops learned the calls actually were made from near Woods' apartment, and that surveillance video from a building down the block shows Cortez standing near her residence around the time she was killed.
In television coverage for the first 24 hours, she was a dancer who was in training and auditioning. She had told her parents he was in off-Broadway productions.
A day later she was now a "stripper" and the story has been covered from that angle ever since.
Here's some criticism of the coverage:
New York's gristmill exploits Ohio girl's murder : Scrips Howard
On the day after Catherine Woods was killed, the New York Post described her as "an aspiring Broadway dancer" in a story headlined "Dancing Beauty Murdered on Upper E. Side."
Within what seemed a New York minute, however, the 21-year-old was dismissively demoted in a WABC-TV Web site headline: "Still No Arrest in Topless Dancer Murder."
Scrips Howard seems here to be exploiting Wood's death here as well for it own purposes of putting down New York media. Scrips Howard folded its New York newspaper in 1967.
What's especially sad is how God gave her beauty and talent and how tragic her life has ended.
The dangerous thing to do is to say that God punished her or that she deserved it.
God doesn't cause sin or suffering.
Technically, New York has the death penalty for murder, but even though there have been a few death sentences, none have been executed.
Cell phone call traces put Cortez at the scene of the crime and he's already lied to the police, so I think it's only a matter of time before an arrest.
Despite a policy that allows motorists to wear religious head coverings in their driver license photos, some Muslim women complain that workers at the state Motor Vehicle Commission continue to require them to either remove their head scarfs or pull them back so that a substantial amount of hair is showing.
After several of the women complained, the motor vehicle agency wrote several letters of apology, and promised to redouble its efforts to make sure all its employees are familiar with guidelines on head coverings, and apply them equally to everyone.
Sarah Elfayoumi went to have her photo taken at the Lodi office in October, and said she was told by a female employee to take off her hijab, or Muslim head scarf. As is the case in other religions, observant Muslim women cover their heads as a sign of modesty and respect for God.
"Everyone in the room was watching, and it was incredibly embarrassing," she said.
On the other hand, the Muslim community ought to come clean: covering up women is an Arabic cultural artifact that became popular when it became a signal of the the Muslim militancy of the 1970's. Look at any photos of Muslim parts of the world prior to 1978 and you will not see veiled women.
The rule for Islam is the same as the rule for Christianity and Judaism: i.e. modesty
As for the situation in Muslim countries, the authorities there would laugh at the refusal of a woman to refuse to show her full face for an official identification card. In Saudi Arabia, women are arrested and beaten for driving.
I'm not just a Catholic blogger and a Catholic teacher, I do Catholic outreach in
the public. This is the mission of the Catholic Evidence Guild, to speak in public on the truth of the Catholic faith.
This weekend we were in Grand Central terminal. A member of the team was parking his car and some others were yet to arrive.
I heard screams and saw in the space of seconds, hundreds of people run up the stairs to get to the street. I was genuinely afraid that people were going to injured in the panic.
As the flow of people up from the subway dimished, a second wave was running down the stairs -- police officers.
I stood there waiting for instructions what to do. I was alone with a crucifix and about a thousand tracts on things from the Papacy to abortion -- from a half dozen
or dozen people walking past the table per second to zero, now virtually alone.
It turns out that the reports of gunfire were exaggerated. Someone blew out a bicycle tire. Elsewhere in the terminal a wedding was taking place.
I love this place as a New York City landmark. I've been all over the great train stations of Europe and Grand Centeral has a unique and classic look which was recently restored. It looks almost exactly as it did in those 1930's location films.
National Geographic is having a special Inside Grand Central on Thursday.
Youths reveal racy Bible calendar : BBC
A German Protestant youth group has put together a 2006 calendar illustrated with erotic scenes from the Bible.
The 12 re-enacted passages feature a bare-breasted Delilah cutting Samson's hair and a nude Eve offering an apple.
The Nuremberg-based group said they wanted to represent the Bible in a way that would entice young people.
New Alberta law will permit some lawsuits against mothers : CBC News
Alberta has become the first province in Canada to enact legislation allowing children to sue their mothers for injuries suffered in the womb. But the law applies only to damage suffered in car accidents.
Lisa Rewega was pregnant when she was in a car accident five years ago while on her way to church. "I just felt so great, everything was perfect and I just never made it there. I hit black ice. I was five months pregnant."
Rewega spent eight months in hospital. Her daughter Brooklyn was born severely brain-damaged and blind, with cerebral palsy and epilepsy. She needs expensive, round-the-clock care.
In a ruling six years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada said a child can't sue its mother for damages suffered in the womb. But the ruling also left a small and very narrow loophole, saying provinces could allow a child to sue its mother, but only in the case of a car accident.
Alberta is now the first province to allow this.
It also doesn't make sense that you'd allow abortion (i.e. death of the child in the womb) but the child has rights which become real before birth -- in some limited sense.
It's wacky and it's inconsistent.
But it seems pro-life to recognize that child is a human being distinct from the mother before birth. After all, if the mother broke her her leg, the leg wouldn't be able to sue her in 12 months.
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Grandmother charged, blames 'tattletale' after prank Jesus theft : USA Today
Virginia Voiers thought she was taking part in a rambunctious holiday custom, but a carriage driver thought differently and called police when he saw the 70-year-old grandmother stealing the baby Jesus from the city's nativity scene.
Well, let me look at the New York Post today. I see that there haven't been any multiple homicides recently... hmmm... that gives me an idea.
The natural order for men to is be attracted to women.
It is disordered for men to be attracted to men.
How can be made more clear than that? Lust and masturbation are disordered as well.
This is all from the constant teaching of the Church and paragraph 2351 and following.
Popular opinion may classify same sex attraction, lust, and masturbation as all choices that one can make, but all sin starts with a choice.
What the Church teaches (and what I believe) is that same sex attraction is an objective disorder to human nature.
By human nature I do not mean merely occurring in nature because, of course, all types of physical and psychological disorders occur in the natural world.
I do not support discrimination against homosexuals or people afflicted with other disorders. It was this desire not to discriminate that made people of all types, including the very influential American Psychiatric Association in 1973, go silent on the question of it being a disorder.
Today advocacy of homosexuality and it's thematic lifestyle name, gay, is being shouted from the streets, rooftops, and several cable channels. Anyone speaking to it as a disorder is marginalized, called hateful, and silenced. It's a paradox that gay advocacy still has campaigns that present the inverse of the world as it is now -- that one speaking out favorably on homosexuality risks being silenced -- it's called The Day of Silence just in case you forgot what April 26 is for.
...the incident occurred shortly after both men left a bar at 4:30 a.m. and were seen arguing on the Flushing-bound platform of the 52nd Street station in Woodside, police said. The two were quarreling over a 16-year-old girl they had met in a bar, a police source said.
The accused murderer, Molina is 19-years-old. The minimum drinking age is 21.
The girl is 16. Where are the parents in this?
Childless by Choice:
Pitter-patter of little feet isn't for them: Chicago Tribune
When Tina Roggenkamp and her husband, Mark, decided to keep their marriage free of children they took a lot of things into account.
They considered their desire for greater freedom, something that enabled her to get a graduate degree and start a small consulting business. There was also their enjoyment of what she called "smaller things," such as being able to sleep late when they wanted and to dine out whenever the mood struck them.
There were larger issues too, such as environmental concerns and worries about an overcrowded planet.
"We worry about global warming," said the 25-year-old who lives in Charlotte. "We worry about what the world will be like in the future. There's so much uncertainty, and I can't see bringing a life into such a world."
I wonder if they reflect what the world would be like if everyone shared their view of "environmental concerns" and or if, at the very least, their own parents were childless by choice.
They are just getting a headstart on becoming the "greedy geezers" who will expect other people's children to fund their social security and medicare in 40 years.
On the positive side, think of it as culling the selfish and self-centered from the herd.
The Roe effect describes the demographic changes brought on the larger society
by the practice of artificial birth control and abortion.
New patriarch:
No land for Jews
: WorldNetDaily
Christian leader signs secret document
nixing sale of key Jerusalem propertiesThe man enthroned last week as Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem signed a secret document obliging him to nullify the recent sale to Jewish groups of land comprising much of a key entrance to Jerusalem's Old City, and has allegedly made statements against Jews living in certain parts of Jerusalem, WorldNetDaily has learned.
Carrying rosary beads and cameras, the faithful have been coming in a steady stream to a church on the outskirts of Sacramento for a glimpse of what some are calling a miracle: A statue of the Virgin Mary they say has begun crying a substance that looks like blood.
It was first noticed more than a week ago, when a priest at the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs Church spotted a stain on the statue's face and wiped it away. Before Mass on Nov. 20, people again noticed a reddish substance near the eyes of the white concrete statue outside the small church, said Ky Truong, 56, a parishioner.
Pushed in Front of Subway, Man Is Killed : New York Times
A Queens bakery worker was killed yesterday morning when a man his family described as a friend and former co-worker threw him into the path of an oncoming subway train during a fight, the police said.
The killing occurred just before 5 a.m., several hours after the victim, Edison Guzman, 22, of Richmond Hill, had finished his shift at the bakery, his relatives said.
Yesterday evening, detectives arrested a Brooklyn man in Mr. Guzman's death. Charges against the man, Richie Molina, 19, of Humboldt Street in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, were pending last night.
Patricio Bermeo, an uncle of Mr. Guzman's, said last night that his nephew and the suspect formerly worked together at the bakery and that they still "hung out regularly."
"They were friends," he said.
"Maybe they were fighting, maybe they were playing," Mr. Bermeo said.
The authorities said it was unclear what had provoked the fight, which they said had begun under the elevated tracks of the No. 7 line near the 52nd Street station, on Roosevelt Avenue in the Sunnyside section of Queens.
Mr. Guzman and Mr. Molina then went upstairs onto the outbound platform and continued to fight, the police said. As a train entered the station, the killer shoved Mr. Guzman onto the tracks, according to a statement to detectives from the train's motorman, whose name was not disclosed. The train consisted of 11 cars, each weighing almost 37,000 pounds, according to Charles F. Seaton, a spokesman for New York City Transit.
It was unclear exactly how close Mr. Guzman was to the train when he was pushed, but it is impossible for a train entering a station at the customary speed to stop suddenly.
"He was all twisted up. It was bad," said Paul Cabrera, 35, a track worker at the scene.
William Schultz, 54, a transit maintenance supervisor who was working in the station, said he had run to the platform after he heard a woman screaming.
Mr. Guzman's father, Raul Guzman, identified a cellphone found at the scene as belonging to his son, according to Mr. Bermeo.
Mr. Bermeo said that the elder Mr. Guzman had been shown video by the police of the assailant fleeing the station and had identified the man as Mr. Molina. The police said detectives had obtained surveillance video from both the station and a nearby store.
At the victim's home on 133rd Street, Mr. Bermeo, 41, said Mr. Guzman's family was from Cuenca, Ecuador, and moved to New York City 18 years ago.
For the last four years, Mr. Guzman worked at Pain d'Avignon, a bakery in Astoria, with his father, Mr. Bermeo said. He worked until midnight on Saturday after switching shifts so he could have Thanksgiving off and spend the day with his family, Mr. Bermeo added.
"He's young; he doesn't give a problem," Mr. Bermeo said. "He goes to school. He wanted to be somebody." Mr. Guzman had a girlfriend and enjoyed bowling and playing pool after work, Mr. Bermeo said
Another uncle, Luis Guzman, 44, said: "My brother called me in my home and said, 'My son is dead.' We can't believe it."
Last night, no one answered the door at the apartment where Mr. Molina lives with his mother and two sisters. The building superintendent, Arnold Cruz, 46, said of Mr. Molina: "If he said a handful of words, it was a lot. He was a quiet kid."
The death halted service on the 7 line from 4:59 a.m. until 9:05 a.m., when outbound train service resumed, said Mark Groce, a transit spokesman.
This part of the subway is an elevated train. As the television account put it graphically, the body parts rained down from the tracks 30 feet overhead.
I was watching the film Amistad, and later reading up on the actual events that the conservatives were alarmed by the decision which freed the Africans.
In an excellent performance, John Qunicy Adams was portrayed by Anthony Hopkins.
Adams was one of the founders of the Whig party -- advocates of states rights. Here Adams argued for the African's freedom that even under Spanish law they were illegally seized.
Later the Whigs were split by the question of slavery. But what does it mean to say that the conservatives of 1841 were pro-slavery?
Referring to the Politically incorrect guide, it seems that Thomas Woods calls pro-slavery John C. Calhoun, a conservative. So it might be correct to say that the conservatives prior to 1860 were the pro-slavery.
Meadowlands sets aside prayer spaces for Muslims : AP (November 23, 2005)
The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority says it will provide a special area for anyone who wants a place to pray while at Giants Stadium or the Continental Airlines Arena — a reaction to Muslim groups' outcries after several fans who prayed at a New York Giants game were detained and questioned by the FBI in September.
One the plus side, if people suspiciously congregate in a restricted non-public area next to a nexus of air ducts as these men were, there will be a better justification to detain them.
I wonder how access to people of all faiths (or no faith) will be accomodated in the "special area".
The AP story isn't quite accurate in the lead above, according to the witnesses who I heard and read about the men were not merely praying but behaving like they were examining the area for concealment.
High court says newspapers can intervene in abuse settlement : AP
The state Supreme Court ruled Friday that newspapers can ask for documents related to the Bridgeport Diocese’s settlement of priest abuse cases but left it up to a lower court to decide whether to release them.
Attorneys for The Hartford Courant, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Boston Globe argued that the public has a constitutional right under the First Amendment to see the records.
They say the sealing orders expired when the diocese settled the lawsuits in 2001.
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We had a traditional Thanksgiving at home. A late invitee was a recent immigrant to the United States whose family doesn't have a traditional Thanksgiving and wanted to experience it firsthand.
I have so much to be thankful for, my family thought it was funny that I would thank God for the Internet. I hope that when I meet the Lord on judgment day, the I won't be called a worthless servant for writing this blog.
Holiness starts with the awareness of God. All thanks and praise be with Him, the source of our bounty.
A pregnant and unmarried former pre-kindergarten teacher [Michelle McCusker] yesterday accused the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Queens elementary school [St. Rose of Lima (Rockaway Beach)] where she worked of wrongfully firing her for having sex out of wedlock and choosing to keep her baby.
There's a question of the prudence of the school doing this which I will get to but first: What was she thinking? She agreed in writing to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church which she must have known to have included the teaching favoring marriage and condeming fornication.
The response of the diocesen spokesman sounds a little flat:
The school and its parish church referred press inquiries to the diocese. Diocese spokesman Frank DeRosa said in a statement, "This is a difficult situation for every person involved, but the school had no choice but to follow the principles contained in the teachers personnel handbook."
"I didn't think they could fire me," said McCusker, who informed the principal she was not planning to marry the father of her baby. "I held the Catholic religion to a higher standard."
The Post put "Catholic morality" in scare quotes.
But it seems that McCusker presented the school with two bad alternatives: The school should have allowed McCusker to teach the remainder of her contract and then not renew the contract -- simply because firing her for her pregnancy exposed them to this legal liability. They have made themselves too easy a target.
The lead on the radio and television news is a leak of the document from the Vatican on the ordination of homosexuals, or more precisely, their admission to seminary.
Vatican speaks against gay seminarians : AP
The Vatican is toughening its stand against gay candidates for the priesthood, specifying in a new document that even men with "transitory" homosexual tendencies must overcome their urges for at least three years before entering the clergy.
A long-awaited "Instruction," due to be released next week, was posted Tuesday on the Internet by the Italian Catholic news agency Adista. A church official who has read the document confirmed its authenticity; he asked that his name not be used because the piece has not been published by the Vatican.
I think the resistance and evasion of this instruction will be intense.
I'm mostly a pessimist on this kind of action by the Vatican: no homosexuals are going to be excluded from the seminary unless the seminary staff desires it to be so.
Of course, we need to see what the final form of the rule is.
The former vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix was arrested Monday on charges he fondled boys and young men and asked them prying questions about their sex lives that he pretended were part of confession.
Monsignor Dale Fushek, 53, becomes one of the highest-ranking priests to be charged in the sex scandal that has engulfed the church. The vicar general is the highest-ranking administrator of a diocese next to the bishop.
Fushek was charged with three counts of assault, five of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two of indecent exposure. All are misdemeanors, punishable by no more than three years and nine months in all.
Fushek "used a relationship of trust to perform criminal acts, including but not limited to sexual activities, improper sexual discussions and physical contact, upon vulnerable minor and adult victims," prosecutors said in court papers.
Prosecutors said Fushek committed the acts between 1984 and 1994 at St. Timothy's Catholic Church in Mesa or on property belonging to the church. The alleged victims were seven young men and boys.
Fushek resigned as pastor of St. Timothy's in April after someone claimed to have recovered a repressed memory involving sexual improprieties by Fushek in 1985. He has denied the allegations and remains on administrative leave.
Thomas O'Brien was bishop from 1981-2003. He resigned after hitting a pedestrian and leaving the scene of an accident. He was convicted and not given a prison term but probation.
Update:
Arizona Republic article with a very detailed video link. The news reader without a trace of irony calls the former Vicar General, the mouthpiece of the diocese.
A Manchester historian has claimed that Pope John Paul II was Jewish.
Yaakov Wise says his study into the the maternal ancestry of Karol Josez Wojtyla (John Paul II's real name) has revealed startling conclusions.
Mr Wise, a researcher in orthodox Jewish history and philosophy, said the late Pope's mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were all probably Jewish and came from a small town not far from Krakow.
Priests speak out against
Vatican's anti-gay policies : New York Blade
Some Catholic priests who are tired of the Vatican's anti-gay rhetoric have joined together to start
Catholics Affirming Homosexual Leadership, an organization founded to support gay clergy and parishioners.
The CAHL Web site explains its purpose: "As members of the Catholic Church, we want to express our support for the countless gay religious men and women, deacons, priests and bishops who have ministered in the Church throughout the ages. We affirm those gay priests and seminarians who continue this tradition of faithful service."
A South African Catholic cleric who supports the use of condoms against HIV/AIDS, contrary to the church's stance on the prophylactics, has called for a new "theology" for the pandemic.
Bishop Kevin Dowling [C. SS. R., Rustenburg] told The Chicago Tribune that such a theology would be based on an ethic of "human dignity and justice and human rights instead of just an ethic of sexuality".
Official Roman Catholic teaching bans condoms because they are a form of contraception, arguing that abstinence is the best way to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
However, Dowling argued that abstinence in marriage should be reconsidered "in a diocese full of desperately poor women with few options beyond prostitution to feed their children."
If he can no longer teach official Roman Catholic teaching, he ought to resign so the people of his diocese can have a bishop who does.
Letter to the Editor: Concord Monitor (NH)
Will pope decide what is lawful?
though I do not think a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court should be doled out on the basis of religious orientation, I also do not think a religion should automatically excommunicate a member of the U.S. Senate for voting to uphold a law deemed constitutional in several Supreme Court tests.
I did not pick this fight. The Roman Catholic Church made it a necessary consideration by the decision the Vatican handed down during the 2004 election cycle.
In 2004, Marc Balestrieri, a Roman Catholic canon lawyer from Los Angeles, sued John Kerry for heresy in ecclesiastical court. The basis of the suit was Kerry's support of a woman's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy under U.S. law.
In October 2004, Balestrieri received his answer from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The congregation wrote that any Catholic politician who says he personally opposes abortion but supports a woman's right to choose incurs automatic excommunication.
Neither the pope nor any other high Catholic authority has disagreed with or denounced the decision. In fact, the person who headed the congregation at the time is now pope. That would seem to cement this decision by the church to dictate the actions of its adherents within the U.S. government.
The problem arises when there is an accepted, constitutional law that provides for a woman certain lawful access to terminating a pregnancy through a personal decision. The church is saying that not only Catholic women but also all women in the United States cannot have that lawful access.
We have never had a Roman Catholic majority on the Supreme Court. Justice Roberts was the fourth Catholic on the court. If Judge Alito is confirmed, it will be a Catholic majority. That means five Catholics could overrule any decision before the court. The final arbiters of a woman's right to choose will be five Catholics, each of whom will be automatically excommunicated if he, as they are all men, chooses to uphold a woman's right to choose.
Chris Baker-Salmon, Antrim
As for Marc Balestrieri, his last press release was in January 2005.
No action has been taken on his complaint.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned - but heck, so has everyone else.
That's the moral twist on a legal argument raised by a Catholic monsignor who's hoping to win a criminal dispensation from charges he stole $820,000 from his upper East Side parish.
Lawyers for Msgr. John Woolsey, the former pastor of St. John the Martyr Church, have told a Manhattan judge that priests like him have been hiding money from the Archdiocese of New York for years.
Parishes routinely shortchange Edward Cardinal Egan on the archdiocese's share from the Sunday collection - hiding funds in accounts beyond the eyes of church auditors, the lawyers said.
Woolsey's story, laid out in court papers seeking dismissal of a grand larceny indictment, is backed up by a longtime church bookkeeper and by an old pal, William Donohue, the outspoken president of the Catholic League.
"This has been going on for years. It's a way of life," Donohue told the Daily News. "He's one of the greatest priests I ever met in my life. To impute that this man would grab money out of poor boxes is outrageous and malicious. His integrity is being ripped off."
This is the second greatest scandal in the American Church today: money and greed.
Catholic bishops' president defends American priests after a negative 'avalanche' over abuse : AP
The president of America's Roman Catholic bishops defended American priests Monday, saying a "handful" of miscreants who sexually abused minors have forced the rest of the clergy "to endure an avalanche of negative public attention."
You've got to get down to the 7th paragraph to find out that this "handful" has bankrupt his own diocese.
It's one billion dollars and the number is only going to grow. Please, don't minimize the problem.
Beware The Wrath Of 'My Gang' : KOMO-TV
After a Wenatchee police officer proclaimed that wearing rosary beads around one's neck could be a sign of gang activity, school administrators decided to just up and ban rosaries.
Now, many of us former "Mackerel Snappers" have a special affinity for our rosaries and don't take too kindly to being told to pack them up and put them away.
He's a real stupid is as stupid does moment:
"I could tell these kids weren’t gang members, but I had to draw the line the same," he said. "I can’t say yours are OK, but his are gang-related."
The first openly gay Anglican bishop, Gene Robinson, has called for the Roman Catholic church's attitude to homosexuals to be confronted.
The Bishop of New Hampshire said the Vatican's ban on ordaining gay men was "vile", in a speech in London.
He received a standing ovation after his speech, in which he spoke of how he had faced prejudice in his role.
Some Anglican conservatives had called for the St-Martin-in-the-Fields church venue to be changed to a secular one.
Bishop Robinson said: "We are seeing so many Roman Catholics joining the church.
"Pope Ratzinger may be the best thing that ever happened to the Episcopal Church."
He continued: "I find it so vile that they think they are going to end the child abuse scandal by throwing out homosexuals from seminaries.
"It is an act of violence that needs to be confronted."
Robison is in his denomination a leader of 16,000 Christians according to his web site. Did he just call them to jihad against the Catholic Church?
Psychologically, it seems an odd projection to call the insistence upon chastity to be vile. Since 81 percent of the child and young adult sexual abuse was homosexual and the incidents of sexual misconduct by clergy with adults were also overwhelmingly homsexual, it might be a good beginning of the end.(see this summary of the John Jay study)
A very good article by Robert Spencer in FrontPage
That decision is a small example of what the Paris riots demonstrate on a large scale: the abject failure of the multiculturalist philosophy that disparate groups can coexist within a nation without any idea that they must share at least some basic values.The French are paying the price today for blithely assuming that France could absorb a population holding values vastly different from that of the host population without negative consequences for either.
A teacher, Marie Bain, at Loretto (Catholic) High School in Sacramento was seen by Katelyn at an abortion clinic. Katelyn in a vigil and Marie was an escort.
Katelyn brought this to the attention of the school and didn't have a problem with this disclosure and then she went to the bishop who directed that the school fire the teacher.
In retaliation, the school expelled Katelyn.
Blogger credit:
Domenico Bettinelli
"no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children." : Ninth Circuit
Lifesite
This is why we need to keep electing Republicans and keep the pressure on them once in office to appoint originalists.
In the meantime, pass a constitional amendment supporting the rights of parents to make educational choices and support vouchers for K-12 education. End the public school monopoly.
Bust up the Ninth Circuit. Put one Circuit in Los Angeles and another in Seattle.
The French government was reeling yesterday after six nights of rioting which have exposed a split in the cabinet over how to deal with poverty and immigration in the dilapidated Paris suburbs.
As authorities cleaned up the debris of another bout of violence, including the wrecks of 250 cars burned out on Tuesday night, both the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, and the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, put off foreign trips to deal with the rioting.
A very busy news week in the United States has pushed this story which would otherwise merit a headline here.
Charles and Camilla to go straight to Ground Zero: Times of London
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall headed straight to Ground Zero in Manhattan after they stepped onto US soil on their first foreign visit together.
The chartered plane carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, and their 16-strong entourage, touched down in fine weather at New York's JFK airport, after leaving RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire at 9am.
Camilla, who has been trying to project a more glamorous image, was wearing a red Italian wool crepe jacket and dress, with velvet chiffon trim by designer Roy Allen.
At Ground Zero, their first ever official duty on foreign soil, they were met by New York Governor George Pataki, British Consul General Sir Phillip Thomas and Kenneth Ringler, Executive Director of the Port Authority which owns the World Trade Centre site.
They paid an emotional visit to the Family Room, a small room set aside for the relatives of those killed and open to them 12 hours a day, seven days a week. The walls are plastered in personal mementos, photographs, birthday cards and tributes from military services around the world. A model of the twin towers is enshrined under a white arch topped with a dove. There are seats inside for the bereaved to sit and grieve and several windows overlooking the site.
"For so many this is their graveyard," a Port Authority spokesperson said.
I walk the long path from Broadway to the Hudson River each day at north end of the site of the World Trade Center and we encounter tourists all the time. Today the tourists were not only in my building but walking through my floor which is very unusual because we deal with data subject to SEC privacy rules.
I suspect they were part of the entourage.
Senator Rick Santorum is up for reelection in 2006 and things do not look good. He's down 15 points to Casey in a recent poll -- and his state, Pennsylvania, went for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004.
According to
The Hill, relations between him and the White House are frayed: He didn't get behind Miers as other Bush loyalists did.
It would be ironic if after the big effort to get the RINO Specter reelected, Santorum was abandoned by the Republican party as being too far behind in the polls to give campaign money and appearances to.
It started out as investigation as to who leaked the name of Valerie Plame to Robert Novak.
And two years later we don't know.
There's a lot of stuff we don't know. A investigation that wound up asking more questions that supplying answers.
First, I want to be consistent: You can't lie on a material matter to the FBI or to a grand jury. Martha Stewart, I believed, was properly tried and convicted.
Who was the first person in the government to make a disclosure outside of the government on Plame?
Was Plame actually covered by the identity disclosure law?
I think it will be another Oliver North-style inquisition -- turning the tables on the prosecutors -- if it goes to trial.
5-year old censored by NY school will get his day in court : Catholic News Agency
5-year old Antonio Peck had no idea when he turned in his homework assignment--a poster about protecting the environment--that it would land him in federal court.
Peck, then a kindergarten student at Baldwinsville, NY’s Catherine McNamara Elementary School, originally turned in his poster-assignment to his teacher in 1999. It featured, among other things, a cut out picture of Jesus--something he reportedly thought applicable to the environment, and the assignment.
The teachers and school administrators want to do this is a stealth mode, concealing the intimidation of kindergarden kids and their parents.
In the United States today, obscenity is more tolerated than the name (or image) of Jesus in schools.
Baldwinsville NY is near Syracuse.
Kellenberg just says no to senior prom culture : Newsday (October 10, 2005)
Why do many parents on Long Island sacrifice to send their children to parochial schools? The decision to cancel this year's senior prom at Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale might provide a clue.
Among various reasons to choose parochial schools, an obvious factor is that these institutions offer something special - an education rooted in faith and traditional moral values.
In an important sense, such an education should be countercultural. It should reject both ever-expanding secularism pushing God to the sidelines and acceptance of an anything-goes-that-feels-good moral relativism. So perhaps it shouldn't have been surprising last month when Kellenberg, a Roman Catholic school, announced it would no longer sponsor a senior prom.
Brother Kenneth Hoagland, the principal at Kellenberg, told me: "We certainly would want to instill [in the students] a proper sense of values, and we felt that the prom culture was going in the opposite direction." He noted that this was not particular to Kellenberg, nor should it be viewed as punishing students.
At the risk of sounding like a prude, I think that certain "traditions" or "parties" have been given a Jekyll-Hyde transformation.
Around the time I turned 21 in the 1970's there was a high-water mark in the sexual revolution. The place that everyone was talking about was Plato's Retreat. Clubs like this were shut down not only for the drugs and prostiution but out of health concerns with the spread of AIDS.
Proms became the gateway drug to sexual anarchy.
It's a sad cultural indicator that's the outrage lasted only a day or two on
the story of the Minnesota Vikings sex cruise, which included allegations of drugs, prostitution, and threats and solicitations made to women employees of these ships.
Shocked by the Vikings boat bash? Hardly : Pioneer Press
"We're not immune but desensitized to acts like this," said Doug Hartmann, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota who studies American culture.
Another social critic on the Vikings from OnMilwaukee
Another tale of the religion of peace
Muslims clash with police outside Egyptian church; 1 dead, 90 wounded : AP
Demonstrators gather at a Coptic Christian church Friday to denounce a play deemed offensive to Islam.
AXALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) -- One person died and more than 90 were injured as thousands of Muslims rioted outside a Coptic Christian church Friday to denounce a play deemed offensive to Islam. Police responded by beating protesters and firing tear gas into the crowd, officials said.
Stories like this lead one to conclude that Islam isn't so much a way to worship God, but a way to channel violence. It's almost like a demonstration of how to gather and deploy a mob.
The 20th century's version of Islamic fanaticism nearly destroyed Egypt's Coptic Church. I doubt that this Church will see the end of the 21th century.
Rush served up a version of his radio program on stage covering many of his personal stories:
his early days at WABC his cochlear implant, and his trip to Afghanistan as well as covering the political issues of the day.
I sat next to a couple at the show who came down from Toronto and told them about his arrival in New York back in 1988.
Memorial museum: Trade center steel, memories and "immersive" look at attacks : AP
Visitors to a Sept. 11 memorial museum could relive the 2001 terrorist attacks in an "immersive" area that surrounds them with pictures of the falling towers, the sounds of police sirens and the last words of some of the people who died at the World Trade Center.
This is sick. The parallel would be the immersive experience of drowning or being blown to bits on the U.S.S. Arizona in Pearl Harbor or being nuked in Hiroshima.
Just because we have the technology to recreate the experience doesn't mean that it should be done.
It's too late for that. If there was anything in the public written record of Miers that the White House could feed to the media and say "Here -- this clearly is a writing sample of an intellect that belongs on the Supreme Court"
The White House hasn't done so. It's the conservative opponents of the nomination who have discovered and made her writing -- such as it is available -- to the nation.
The loyalty of the conservative movement to President Bush is not in question: We stood by for the sellout on education, immigration, Medicare prescription entitlements, signing McCain-Feingold. That's loyalty.
Rather, it is President Bush who is being disloyal to the conservative movement who elected him twice by picking someone for whom the chief priority seemed to be to always appear as if she didn't have a stake in how the Court interprets the constitution.
The Department of Homeland Security is looking into whether or not agency officials tipped off family members about last week's alleged terror threat against the New York City subway system before the public learned about it from the mayor.
A report in Thursday's Daily News says people received emails about the potential threat as early as October 3rd, three days before Mayor Michael Bloomberg's announcement about the suspected plot.
Very bad for Homeland Security. In public they cut Bloomberg and Kelly off at the knees -- for being alarmists. In private they were sending out warnings to insiders.
Good for Bloomberg and Kelly. If this had come out and they had not taken the cautionary steps they did, it would have been bad.
Bad for Fernando Ferrer because it its means that that some in Homeland Security were privately very sure that this was a serious threat and not a hoax.
You're Fired (and maybe you go to jail) for the person or people who sent these emails.
Los Angeles Files Recount Decades of Priests' Abuse: New York Times
The confidential personnel files of 126 clergymen in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles accused of sexual misconduct with children provide a numbing chronicle of 75 years of the church's shame, revealing case after case in which the church was warned of abuse but failed to protect its parishioners.
People watching the scandal since 2000 or earlier have known that Los Angeles has been able to dodge the bullet for years. No longer it seems.
This is only the signal that the documents will be released sometime this week. The worst is yet to come.
Leaked emails published two years ago indicated the efforts they were making to avoid this day.
The Times speculates that the price tag to settle all the oustanding cases would be over $500 million.
I have a body of knowledge that I use in my work. How financial markets have worked, work now, and will work in the future, and the information technology of their concrete realization.
My knowledge was put to the test when I changed jobs. I had six interviews of one hour each on these topics.
There's no way I could fake it. Likewise, I'm self-taught in history and Catholic theology and it's these two areas that I blogging about because of my personal interests. I can spot fakers in these area as well.
The consequences to one who fakes their mastery of a body of knowledge in a job interview are they will be denied a job offer and embarassed. A nomination of a Supreme Court is orders of magnitude more significant.
Has Harriet Miers mastered the constitutional law of which she will er... "Supreme" in its future interpretation?
I think this is a wonderful opportunity for Schumer, Kennedy, Biden, Feinstein, Leahy, and Durbin to look smart after being made to look stupid.
Priest said he voiced concerns about Erickson to a bishop : AP
A co-worker of a priest who was found by a judge to have likely killed two people to cover up his sexual misconduct said [Rev. John Anderson] had voiced concern about the priest's social habits to the Superior diocese bishop.
A judge last week ruled that the Rev. Ryan Erickson almost certainly shot to death funeral home director Dan O'Connell, 39, and employee James Ellison, 22 in 2002. St. Croix County District Attorney Eric Johnson said evidence suggests the O'Connell had found out that the priest was sexually abusing someone, was providing alcohol to minors, or both.
The ruling came Oct. 3 after a so-called John Doe hearing requested by the victim's families.
I need to add that these proceedings are rather unusual. Erickson is deceased, and apparently he is not represented by attorney from his estate.
1. If being an originalist were made a crime would there be enough evidence to convict Harriet Miers of being one?
2. Bush can survive withdrawing the Miers nomination. Are you sure that Conservative movement will have the opportunity to get another Scalia or Thomas on the Court in the not too distant future?
The threat is real
It also was remarkable, here making the assumption that Monica's subject was a devout Muslim woman, that she would be alone on the subway. Muslim women according to their own rules for being out in public should be accompanied by their husband or male member of their immediate family or in a group of women.
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Bush says to trust her. (1) I don't know. (2) I don't know why I'm being asked to trust her.
Miers avoided in her entire career any alignment with the originalist movement.
I'm beginning to wonder if she's really, really prepared to champion it, or is she the designated safe vote. (As we thought O'Connor, Souter, and Kennedy were)
Bush misunderestimated the loyalty of the conservative movement to principle.
This seems like a win-win to the Dems -- which is why if she's collapsed before the finish line, the Dems will drag her across it. If she's utterly clueless before the judiciary committee, she will be rejected and Bush will be humiliated. If she does OK, she's in a seat that could have gone to a non-crony originalist judge. We will have to wait for the third vacancy on the Court.
I don't like the undercurrent of -- on the one hand, we know she's an originalist, but no we didn't discuss Roe, privacy, gay marriage, Kelo, etc. Someone's lying.
RNClife had a great line in their email to me:
The opportunity to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor should have resulted in a nominee who is to life what Ruth Bader Ginsburg is to abortion.
Amy Welborn has devoted some serious thought to the question of admitting homosexual persons to seminaries.
Same sex attraction is a disorder and represents a risk to the Church which should be manifest to anyone paying attention. Homosexual acts are 80% of the clergy sexual abuse of minors.
I have gone to school with and worked with homosexual persons all my life. There's no question in my mind that some are good Catholics and living a life of grace. I think they would, if the opportunity presented itself, to suppress what the Church teaches on human sexuality.
Many priests, and many bishops have revealed themselves to be homosexuals and have been working for years or even decades to undermine Church teaching on human sexuality. Even if they were not caught with their pants down, they were betraying the Church in their obligation to teach what the Church teaches by omission and artful distortion of the truth.
Persons afflicted with disorders such as addictions to gambling and drugs don't form networks to undermine the Church's teachings in these areas.
If there's a climate of fear in seminaries today, it's the fear of men committed to celibacy and chastity from other seminarians and people appointed above them to accept (or tolerate in others) the lifestyle choice of unchastity.
I am be alone in believing this but I believe at the heart of the crisis is the abuse of discretion -- given any loophole, any rationalization to permit an sexual abuser priest to have access to children -- the bishop's discretion invariably was against the accuser, the witness, the whistleblower, etc. and for a brother priest.
A rule that permits exceptions in the area of excluding homosexuals from seminaries means that in practical terms, no homosexual will be turned away. It's parallel to the so-called health exception in abortion which includes psychological health, for example, a self-diagnosis of anxiety in allowing the unborn child to continue to live. Such an exception has the real effect of not restricting any abortions.
To borrow Amy's term of witch hunt. I think the witch hunt will be for the seminarians naive or bold enough to hold to what the Church teaches.
I don't want Congress to be 535 lawyers. Congress needs some occupational diversity. But what about the Supreme Court?
"Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they?" - Roman Hruska in defense of Harold Carswell on the charges that he was 'mediocre'. A Nixon nominee, Carswell was rejected by the Senate.
But first, let me do a little "Paul Harvey"-style aside. Justice Abe Fortas was forced to resign after it had been learned by he accepted cash from a businessman under investigation. Nixon nominees Clement Haynsworth and Harold Carswell were rejected by Senate. In exasperation he went for the safe but not well known Harry Blackmun -- who later went on to write the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade
Rather than being a man or woman of the people, I want a pilot's pilot, a surgeon's surgeon, a genius like Scalia or a near-genius like Thomas to craft the opinion that will reverse Roe and maybe Griswald as well.
God save this honorable court! God bless America!
The Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571 |
 A fresco from the wall of a chapel depicts the Battle of Lepanto, St-Etienne-de-Tinee, Cote D'Azur, France. (CORBIS) |
434 years have passed. Yet this war is not over. The original dedication of the Church for this day was to Our Lady of Victory. Many churches carry this name as well as the name of the new dedication for this day to Our Lady of the Rosary.
Pope St. Pius V prayed the Rosary and believed through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, the Austrian (?) fleet under Don Juan (?) was victorius. (Austria's border's once include the Mediterrean Sea, the royal houses of Spain and Austria were allied at this time.)
It was also one of the greatest days of emancipation of slaves. This battle was the last to be fought primarily by oared ships. The Ottoman fleet had 15,000 Christian slaves. 10,000 of which were liberated after the battle.
The beginning of Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton
We call the enemy Al-Qaeda but what do they call themselves? During the Clinton administration and after the 1993 American humiliation in Mogadishu and the first bombing of the World Trade Center, bin Laden proclaimed in 1998 the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.
Before the takeover of the Iranian embassy in Teheran, who thought the 21st century's principal conflict would be rooted in the 16th century?
I'm not a biologist. I only read books with sci-fi plots that involve some sort of world-ending plague.
Avian flu human transmission is the big one.
Pope John Paul II died from the flu. We can ask for his intercession that was don't face a pandemic as the world faced in Spanish flu pademic of 1918-1919.
If you are like me and wondered what happened to the prices of these stocks.
Joshua wrote a Spam Stock Tracker to report on the stocks he was told about.
If I were writing a tracker like this I would automatically sell at gain or loss of 25%. I wonder how different the results would be for that.
EPS is educating lay Catholics for participation in the Church's life and mission through academic and spiritual programs.
Fr. Carleton Jones, O.P. is pastor of St. Vincent Ferrer Church at East 65th Street and Lexington Ave. I am fortunate to be one of his students this term.
The Gothic church is one of the most beautiful churches in New York City.
Maybe picking Miers wasn't a betrayal, but demanding that we take this all on faith was. (Yes, I'm taking that smirk on President Bush's face personally.)
Why should the conservative movement risk so much nowafter we have achieved victory?
This nomination should have been the sewing of the salt over the ruins of Carthage.
We can only hope that the next nomination, if we should be so blessed with be.
Does anyone know of an Evangelical Christian who isn't 100 percent behind Miers?
The Bush would say "Trust Me" and conservatives would shout back "No".
Hannity and Limbaugh (and I) are really on the fence -- certainly wishing
the this would not have happened -- but willing to listen to all sides.
I think the critical question (and I've not read this elsewhere) is which way is the obligation facing?
Only 2 justices are Democratic appointees: Breyer and Ginsberg.
Where are the 7-2 decisions -- which would reflect the values of the conservative movement? Elections out to mean something.
The Fight
An full-of-himself caller to Hannity thought himself clever to say "Isn't the best general the one who wins a war without firing a shot?".
The question was not answered directly on the show but I can answer it here.
Sometimes, to win the war, the enemy has to be educated -- there can be no ambiguity as to who won the war and who lost.
Leaving behind Saddam after the first Gulf War was a tragedy. The coalition of 1991 ended a limited war without winning a peace.
Lincoln knew that a negotiated end to the Civil War would be the end of the United States, which is why he continued to pursue an unconditional surrender. The South had to be educated that they lost the war.
The best electable conservative since Reagan is in the White House, we have a solid House majority, and 55 Senate votes, if that's not enough
when will there be enough on our side to fight?
This nomination should have been the fight because it's by no means certain that Bush will get a third nomination -- or that we will get the White House in 2008.
Lohan family drama : New York Daily News, Rush and Malloy
Lindsay Lohan poured her soul out in the video for "Confessions of a Broken Heart," shooting in Chelsea last week. At left, actors portraying Michael and Dina Lohan duked it out (note Mom's rosary). Lindsay's sister Ali got in on the action, clutching a teddy (and rosary). Finally, Linds (rosary in hand) had her say. The song is reportedly about the singer/actress' issues with her father.
 | Separation of Church and Sony: Gamespot
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William Bennett: What is there say about this other than the attacks on him are unfair?
He's accused of supporting something that he called morally reprehensible.
They play the tape without including that part.
Ellis Henican in Newsday has a particularly unfair spin on things.
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