This time, a political leader wants to use the military to track down and deport people seeking asylum. The fascist right is clearly ascendant. Oh, hold on a minute, that’s Tony Blair.
CHANDRA, CHANDRA, CHANDRA: How comforting that name now feels. So September 10. We now know that she was probably killed. But that’s about it. We also know that the D.C. police combed that exact spot months ago – twice! – and didn’t find her. As my long-time readers remember, I was a lone blogger defending Gary Condit’s right to privacy and his right to innocence before being deemed guilty. But we’ll see now, won’t we? At least the grand jury investigation might get a new lease in life.
MORE PAPAL PRIORITIES: The Pope doesn’t want to deal with the profound issues of priestly celibacy, ecclesiastical abuse of power and sexual morality that are wreaking havoc in the American church. He has far more important things to do – like complain about some celebrities wearing crucifixes and tend to his sparse flock in Azerbaijan. There are two priests in Azerbaijan. Two. This papacy is now descending into self-parody. While Rome burns …
A LOVER LOST FOR WORDS? Here’s a device that Benedick could have used in his somewhat hapless “conventional wooing” of Beatrice. It’s a surrealist compliment producer. My favorites: “Sir, what exquisite breasts you have!” and “My eyelids belch with effluvial afterthoughts when you tease me with jello and chicken rinds.” Hey’ it’s a holiday weekend soon. Enjoy. (By the way, there are three more chances to catch “Much Ado.” We close Saturday night, and perform tonight and Friday night as well. If you’re in the DC area and feel like checking it out, click here for tickets.)
THE ABUSE OF MINORS – GIRLS: A reader sends in the following fascinating story from the Houston Chronicle. It’s a year-old story about an epidemic of sexual abuse of minors by athletic coaches in Texas. Almost every one is of a male coach and an underage girl. What I want to know is why there isn’t a debate about banning straight teachers from coaching opposite-sex students. I want to know why this hasn’t been debated or discussed by social conservatives who allegedly care about the problem of minor abuse, but only seem to really care when they can use it as a weapon to tarnish gays. Well I know the reason for their silence. Still, the Chronicle’s account is pretty devastating:
Bill Franz, who became director of the SBEC Professional Discipline Unit in March 2000, said he has been struck by the number of cases involving coaches and band directors.
“We don’t do a survey, but it just seems like there is a higher percentage of those two groups involved with sexual wrongdoing with kids than any other group,” he said. “And with coaches, you have the physical-abuse aspect. Maybe science teachers are represented at the same percentage. I don’t know. It just seems like we get an awful lot of (cases involving) coaches and band directors.”
Robert Shoop, a professor of educational administration and leadership at Kansas State University who has written extensively on the subject of sexual harassment in schools and has provided expert testimony in dozens of lawsuits, said he has gotten a similar sense from tracking cases on a national basis.
“I would say almost every case I’ve dealt with is either a coach or a band director,” he said.
Shoop said the trend is rarely noted because the issue of educator sexual abuse in general is something that people often choose to ignore.
“It’s incredibly destructive,” he said, “but it’s still pretty much the dirty little secret that hasn’t really gotten to the light of day.”
The insouciance of the abusers is similar to that among some priests (although I would argue that the priests’ betrayal of their trust is even deeper than that of secular teachers. Here’s a passage that set my hair on end:
A similar perspective comes from Lorraine O’Donnell, who recently left her job as principal at Clint High School to take an administrative position at the University of Texas at El Paso.
In less than two years as principal at Clint, 25 miles southeast of El Paso, she dealt with two cases in which male coaches were allegedly involved in sexual relationships with female students. She said both men acknowledged their actions but showed no remorse.
“Their lack of remorse and responsibility was truly stunning,” she said. “They showed no evidence whatsoever that they had taken advantage of young people who could very easily have problems with boyfriends, husbands, sons.”
Just as disturbing, she said, was the attitude of another coach at the school who had no connection to either incident.
“I had a coach come up to me and say, `Well, I see we’ve taken care of the situation,’ ” she said. “I said, `Yeah.’ He said, `Well, what about the student?’ I said, `Excuse me?’ He said, `What are we going to do to the student? I mean, it takes two.’ I said, `Look, that girl was a victim. I think enough has been done to her. So, no, we’re not going to do anything to the student.’
“This was a God-fearing, clean-cut, family-man coach. His wife is a coach. A pillar in the community. And this is what he says, `What are we going to do to the student?’ I was stunned.”
So am I. Those subversive heterosexuals. They really need help. How we let them into our schools and classrooms is beyond me. Hey, Messrs Dreher and Kurtz, get busy. Oh, never mind.
NARCISSISM DEATH MATCH: A reader notes:
Between Eric Alterman’s May 22, 2002 / 01:30 update and his first post, I count the word “me” 12 times, and the word “I” appears 62 times. Those posts total under 3,100 words (not counting the letters from readers). That means nearly 1 out of every 42 words is a personal pronoun.
Let us contrast this with Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish. Taking the first 3,100 words from his page today, we’re left with entries between “Eric’s Spell Check” and part of “Now Take Gay Priests.” “Me” appears only three times, while “I” has 32 hits. In other words, by this objective test, Alterman is more than twice as self-absorbed as Sullivan.
And he still hasn’t corrected “incumbant.”
CAN KURTZ READ?: In his latest attempt to justify the exclusion of gay people from most mainstream institutions, Stanley Kurtz wheels out the old line that I secretly want marriage to be non-monogamous, and back same-sex marriage in order to undermine this vital social institution:
By far the most important thing about Sullivan’s reply, however, is not anything he says, but what he does not say. Sullivan has not availed himself of the opportunity to clarify his own position on marital fidelity. That is a tremendously significant omission, which leaves standing my characterization of his position. If, as seems evident, Sullivan still believes that the “ope
n sexual contract” [from “Virtually Normal”] that characterizes many gay unions will actually strengthen heterosexual marriage, then the worst fears of conservative opponents of gay marriage are entirely justified. Sullivan criticizes me for characterizing the gay-marriage movement as self-consciously subversive, but if he cannot convincingly disavow his earlier views on monogamy and fidelity, then it seems to me that Sullivan himself clearly exemplifies the way in which proponents of gay marriage mean to subvert marriage itself.
There is a simple reason for my not stooping yet again to rebut this lie about what I have written about marriage. It stems from a single, poorly worded statement in the epilogue of my book, Virtually Normal, which was pounced on by conservatives at the time as meaning I wanted monogamy abolished. I denied it, and apologized for my sloppy writing. In the afterword of the paperback, I even explained unequivocally that this interpretation was wrong, that I support monogamy as a principle in marriage – gay or straight. Here’s the passage on page 221 of Virtually Normal:
These reflections have been interpreted to mean that I want to incorporate into legal marriage the practice of adultery. So let me be clear: nothing could be further from the truth… In case my point is not clear enough, let me state it unequivocally so that it cannot be distorted in the future: it is my view that, in same-sex marriage, adultery should be as anathema as it is in heterosexual marriage. That is clearly the implicit argument of Chapter Five. Now it’s explicit.
Now what does it tell you about someone’s intellectual honesty that even after those words have been in print for years, he still argues that I meant the opposite in my book? If Kurtz did not know this, he is simply negligent of basic reading and research skills. If he did know this, he is being deeply disingenuous. I emailed to ask him to make a correction. It will be a simple test of his intellectual honesty if he doesn’t.
The Dish 