Month: March 2010

Video from Wonk Room:

"it doesn't matter how the Munich case develops–it shows how deep and existentially the church has fallen into crisis… The church is not in a crisis of trust because it is a club of abusers. It is in crisis because it tends ever more towards self-pity instead of helping victims, for example with reparation money. It is in crisis because it will not admit that the priests and brethren attract sexual identity problems. It is in crisis … because until now a closeness and warmth was possible in the church that had disappeared elsewhere in society. This rare quality could now be lost. The pope has to answer for that now as well," – Matthias Drobinski, Süddeutsche Zeitung.

TNC takes it on:

It's shame that's created our absurd McWeightLoss culture where Octomom takes to the cover of celebrity magazines to show off her new bikini body, and retired athletes claim to have found the secret to losing five pounds a week. It's symptomatic of who are, of our abiding belief in short-cuts, and our technological ability to elide truth. The truth is that weight loss–like almost anything really worth doing–is long, hard and very lonely. It requires you to live in a way that many of your friends and family almost certainly do not.

Dreher is less forgiving.

A few activists are holding on – good for GOProud – but the outlook is grim. Why? Look at what even GOProud supports: civil marriage equality, military service, and no federal constitutional amendment barring marriage equality. There are virtually no openly gay Republicans supporting Republican policy on gay rights. This is not true of any other minority.

This has changed for the worse over the last two decades, in direct opposition to what has happened in every other Western country, especially the British Tories. Here’s my attempt to explain why the old conservative politics of homosexuality has fallen apart:

Pivoting off an NYT magazine article on "femivorism" about stay-at-home moms raising chickens, Elizabeth Nolan Brown asks:

[W]hy does everything women do – and I was going to say outside the realm of paid work, but really, it’s everything: working, not-working, part-time work, hobbies, etc. – have to be considered as a reaction to or against “feminism?” Why can’t we accept that there have, are and always will be myriad ways for arranging domestic, social and professional life, and the periodic, cyclical “discovery” of them by magazine or style section reporters says close to nothing about the state of gender relations, the nature of egalitarianism, feminism or the rejection thereof?

Rasmussen-free.

This is what they endure day to day:

There are no beds, no showers, no toilets and no electricity. Chickens and ducks roam the bare dirt yard amid scraps of trash and rotting animal dung. Fleas, flies and filth are the grunts’ constant companions. “It’s definitely rough living,” said Capt. Josh Winfrey, 30, of Tulsa, Okla., the commander of Company L, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment.

The Marines of Company L have been living in the compound since late February. Unless they’re ordered to move into another sector, it will probably remain their home until they redeploy to Camp Lejeune, N.C., in August.

In the meantime, there’s little prospect for significant improvement anytime soon.

Kevin Sullivan scratches his head:

I challenge the increasingly marginal number of pundits, pols and bloggers who are blaming this incident on the Obama administration to explain to me exactly where and how Obama has changed U.S. policy on Israel in any material or substantive fashion. Joe Biden went over to Israel to make nice and say in no uncertain terms that "there is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security" against the Islamic Republic of Iran…for some reason which clearly escapes me, there is a faction – albeit a tiny one – pinning blame for the fallout on the Obama administration. Worse yet, this same faction for the most part believes that this event is somehow consistent with a record of disinterest or hostility toward a nation that hasn't had any aid guarantees seriously challenged since 2005, while President Bush was still in office.

Simply mind boggling.

“Some Palestinians are saying that we should send police and soldiers to guard Netanyahu and Lieberman because they are so good for our cause,” – a "Palestinian leader"'s joke in the NYT today.