Month: October 2014

A Declaration Of War On Francis, Ctd

Ross has written a moving and eloquent response to my post and other critiques of his recent column. I urge you to read it – it has all the usual marks of Douthat’s extreme intelligence and nuanced reasoning, with more than a little humility thrown in. It reminds me once again how converts can sometimes see the faith with more stringent acuity than those of us for whom Catholicism is both a faith and the background music to our entire lives.

And I’m not going to differ with him on the radical nature of Catholicism’s teachings on sex and marriage. The prohibition of divorce made VATICAN-MOZAMBIQUE-POPEJesus different – although you can interpret the context and meaning of that prohibition in different ways (such as Jesus defending women’s dignity and rights within a marriage, as opposed to mere aversion to adultery). I’m not arguing – and I see no one arguing – for an end to this prohibition as such. What the Pope is proposing is a new pastoral approach toward those who, for truly human reasons, have seen their marriage fail, have managed to construct a new one, and who want to be fully part of the church again. That is all.

But for Ross, this proposed change is far more significant. By allowing such individuals to receive communion, he worries that the entire edifice of the church’s sexual teachings – and possibly more – will crumble. For me, that’s an exaggerated fear. There is a balance between truth and mercy here, as I think we all agree. The question is: where does that balance best lie? I find the church’s withholding of the sacraments from one class of flawed Christians as a way to buttress a particular doctrine to be far too lacking in mercy. But then I find all deliberate withholding of the sacraments to be lacking in mercy. To publicly say to an entire group of people, “Sure, you can come to Mass, but never approach the altar for communion” is to create the very division between the outwardly obedient Catholics and a phalanx of black sheep that Jesus so often railed against.

What is more integral to our faith: that we do not mistake the outward signs of virtue for virtue itself, or that we uphold the doctrines even if they give us two classes of Christians? I think what Francis is saying is: God will judge, and the church’s primary mission is to treat the sick, nourish the wounded, and bring everyone to Christ’s table who seems to be earnestly seeking to follow God. Yes, in an individual case, a priest may decide that someone is not really ready for communion – but only on an individual, pastoral basis. And he may also come to the opposite conclusion. But to insist on an absolute rule for an entire class of people can damage the church and distort its deepest mission. That’s the core of Francis’s message about gay Catholics as well: how do we really know that these long marginalized Christians are really the problem, and that an arrogant and self-righteous hierarchy isn’t? That’s why I immediately associate this question with the teachings on how “the last shall be first and the first last,” or with the deeply counter-intuitive parable of the Prodigal Son.

In that parable, we really do have justice pitted against mercy; and Jesus is clear that God is about mercy before anything. It is indeed not fair that the faithful older brother is utterly taken for granted and never given the extraordinary mercy and love that the younger son is suddenly showered with. But what matters is the sincerity of the younger son’s desire to be with his father again. Ross will counter that the prodigal son isn’t asking to retain some aspects of his previously sinful life. But in the parable, the father does not put any conditions on his welcome for the younger son. It is unconditional:

The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

The older son has a legitimate grievance. If he has walked the walk of no sex outside marriage, and entered into a life-long, monogamous marriage always open to life, what on earth is the church doing embracing someone who has failed to live up to these standards? But the father is pretty clear in his response:

‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

I think that is what the Pope is trying to say in these respects: that the church should not become a club for insiders that turns away those who have publicly failed in some of its strictures. And when you come down to it, actually enforcing the rules that Ross favors requires believing that the debate is

over whether to admit the divorced-and-remarried, people in unions that the church has traditionally considered adulterous, back to communion while they’re still in a sexual relationship with their new spouse.

So this is the real stopping point.

Are you now or have you ever been having sex with your re-married spouse? And here again, I think the Pope is saying: do we really have to go there? And do we ask these kinds of questions of others more publicly and outwardly obedient to the church? Do we ask married couples how much sex they’re having, if any? Do we actually inquire into their use of contraceptives? Their porn-habits? Their sexual objectification of their spouse? The truth is: as a practical matter, we don’t police these sins as a class when it comes to giving communion. So why should the relationships of gay couples or re-married ones be so marked for exclusion? Just because they are more easily labeled and identified?

Does less judgment and more mercy in these respects threaten the entire super-structure? Ross quotes another convert, Richard John Neuhaus, to the effect that it will. And there lies a key difference. I believe that the truths of the church are far, far larger than any teachings about sex; that adherence to an edifice of unchangeable and detailed orthodoxy is not the core reason for being a Catholic; that we have emphasized sexual morality in the recent past – to the exclusion of so much else – far beyond what is justified by a healthy perspective on these matters; and that a little Catholic mercy in these murky waters is not the beginning of the end of everything.

I may be wrong. But I do know, from my own experience as a gay Catholic, that the hierarchy has been terribly rigid, cruel and mistaken about sexual matters in ways that have inflicted enormous pain and anguish on many people simply trying to love God and their neighbor. The hierarchy’s own sexual crimes – where mercy toward child-rapists was, for a long time, the reflexive response – brought the hypocrisy of this into a more glaring light. We can learn from this and enter into a debate about how to move forward without fearing at every moment that everything is at stake.

Or as John Paul II once said:

Be not afraid! Of what should we not be afraid? We should not fear the truth about ourselves.

How Do You Say “Chickenshit” In Hebrew?

After a “senior Obama administration official” calls the Israeli prime minister a “chickenshit”, Goldblog wonders whether the strained relationship between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations is finally reaching a breaking point:

What does all this unhappiness mean for the near future? For one thing, it means that Netanyahu—who has preemptively “written off” the Obama administration—will almost certainly have a harder time than usual making his case against a potentially weak Iran nuclear deal, once he realizes that writing off the administration was an unwise thing to do. This also means that the post-November White House will be much less interested in defending Israel from hostile resolutions at the United Nations, where Israel is regularly scapegoated. The Obama administration may be looking to make Israel pay direct costs for its settlement policies. …

Netanyahu, and the even more hawkish ministers around him, seem to have decided that their short-term political futures rest on a platform that can be boiled down to this formula: “The whole world is against us. Only we can protect Israel from what’s coming.” For an Israeli public traumatized by Hamas violence and anti-Semitism, and by fear that the chaos and brutality of the Arab world will one day sweep over them, this formula has its charms. But for Israel’s future as an ally of the United States, this formula is a disaster.

The “chickenshit” comment referred in part to the Obama administration’s realization that, for all his bluster, Bibi will never follow through on his repeated threats to start a war with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons program. Larison considers that a reasonable assessment, reiterating that a US- or Israel-led war with Iran would likely be a disaster:

Two years ago, Daniel Levy made the case that Netanyahu was too risk-averse as a politician to do anything as hazardous and potentially disastrous as starting a war with Iran. That seemed very plausible at the time, and I still find it persuasive. It has never made much sense that the Israeli government would launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if Netanyahu were inclined to do this, which he reportedly isn’t, starting a preventive war against Iran wouldn’t prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. On the contrary, a foreign attack would probably make the acquisition of such weapons a priority for the Iranian government.

Walter Russell Mead mulls what it means if the administration’s “chickenshit” assessment of Netanyahu is correct:

If this is in fact the conclusion U.S. senior officials have reached, their Middle East policy becomes clearer: The Israelis and the Sunnis are whiners who complain about U.S. policy toward Iran but are unable to do anything about it or come up with an alternative. If the threat of Israeli military action is really off the table (and we should remember that this wouldn’t be the first time a U.S. administration misjudged Israeli intentions), then it’s very unlikely that a strong international coalition in favor of tough sanctions against Iran can long survive. Many of the European countries that have supported sanctions on Iran have been trying to deter Israeli military action as much as to influence Iran’s behavior. If Israel has missed its chance for military action, or is perceived to lack the will to take it, then as that perception spreads we will have to expect significant changes in the politics of the region and in the attitudes of the Europeans.

Allahpundit, on the other hand, finds the insult outrageous:

Let me understand this. Netanyahu considered attacking Iran, we pressured him not to do it, and now we’re mocking him as a “chickensh*t” for taking our advice?

John Allen Gay is mystified at what purpose this sniping serves. He believes it could damage the chances of a nuclear deal with Iran:

The Iran negotiations come to a head on November 24. If there’s a deal, the administration will come under immense pressure at home, particularly from Israel’s strongest defenders in Congress. A better relationship with Israel would mitigate that pressure. And if there’s not a deal, the administration may wish to extend the interim deal with Iran—another political friction point in which pro-Israel factions will be at odds with the administration. Yet the White House has opened fire early, and rather than attacking Netanyahu’s Iran approach, it’s engaging in playground name-calling. It’s hard to see what good this will do, and the damage could be serious. There has been a growing feeling in Washington that Israel would not have been willing to push Congress to confront the president on Iran, that it would prefer to live with a tolerable deal than to have an open battle with its closest ally. If Congress is already attacking Obama on Israel and if Israel and America are already fighting each other, these incentives change.

Larison is less concerned about that:

That’s possible, but the administration may assume that it is going to bypass Congress on the nuclear deal anyway so that this doesn’t matter as much. More to the point, Netanyahu already made his opposition to the interim deal very clear, so it’s doubtful that Israeli opposition to a final deal would be kept in check by keeping these criticisms under wraps. The administration may also assume that the Iran hawks in Congress intent on sabotaging the deal will be committed to doing so no matter what the state of the U.S.-Israel relationship is, so there is nothing to be lost by broadcasting that the relationship is in very bad shape. That’s the trouble with being implacable foes of diplomacy–no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome. That appears to be how the administration sees Netanyahu as well, and they are treating him and the rest of his government accordingly.

Ilan Ben Zion rounds up the reaction in the Israeli press, which had some difficulty translating the key term:

Israel Hayom writes that the vulgarity expressed by American officials in the Atlantic article brings relations between the two countries to an all-time low. It explains to its readers that chickenshit is “a derogatory slang term whose meaning is ‘coward.’” Haaretz simply translates the insult that put the two allies’ relations on tenterhooks as “pathetic coward.” Yedioth Ahronoth uses the same translation, and also includes the litany of terms American officials used to berate Netanyahu that Goldberg listed.

Update from a reader:

I find it surprising that all of the pundits (and the Hebrew translators) are assuming chickenshit = coward and seem totally unaware of the meaning that the word has long had in the US military. While it is possible that the unnamed “senior Obama administration official” did indeed intend to call Netanyahu a coward, I think it’s just as likely, if not more so, that he meant this:

“Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige; sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline; a constant ‘paying off of old scores’; and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances.”

― Paul Fussell, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War

PSB FTW

Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” may have the consensus in America as the greatest cover-song ever, but in the UK, the Pet Shop Boys’ “Always On My Mind” reigns supreme, according to a new BBC poll and, well, me. Just saying that my love for the PSBs is not purely a personal fixation; it’s a global phenomenon, largely occluded by radio in the US. And speaking of covers and the PSBs, the AV Club recently got the heavy metal band, Gwar, to cover “West End Girls.” Seriously cracked me up.

For a large and comprehensive collection of cover-songs supplied by Dish readers and curated by Chris Bodenner, go here – and say goodbye to your afternoon.

The Agenda Of A GOP Congress

Ramesh Ponnuru lowers expectations:

The two things Republicans would most want to do with control of both houses of Congress involve getting popular conservative legislation to the president’s desk. If the president signs the legislation, public policy moves rightward. If he vetoes it, he pays a political price and Republicans can tell the public they need to elect more of their party’s candidates in the next election. There is a tradeoff between these goals: A party with a commanding position in both houses of Congress facing an opposing-party president has to choose whether to pass something the president could conceivably sign or something that he will feel obliged to veto. For the most part, Republicans will be spared that choice if they win the Senate. They won’t be able to pass much legislation in the first place.

We can predict that this frustrating situation will cause Republicans to lash out at one another. During the struggles over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling in 2013, Republicans who urged caution often said that conservatives needed to understand how little could be accomplished with a majority in only one of the two legislative chambers. The truth is that they cannot accomplish much more with control of both chambers, but those words will be flung in Republican leaders’ faces. The result could be another round of budget brinkmanship, depending on how many Republicans are under the impression that refusing to raise the debt ceiling or fund the government gives conservatives leverage to force the Democrats to go along with their policy goals.

The scenario he hopes for:

Republicans, with nominal control of the Senate, will not be able to “prove they can govern” because they will not in fact be able to govern. They can, however, work to prove that they have an attractive governing agenda, advancing legislation to reform federal policies on taxes, energy, health care, and higher education in ways that raise Americans’ standard of living. Most of that legislation would fall victim to filibusters, and some of it to vetoes. Offering and fighting for it would nonetheless lay the groundwork for a successful 2016 campaign, ideally followed by the enactment of much of it.

A nice thought, but House Republicans aren’t going to simply fall in line. Jay Newton-Small explains what Boehner has to look forward to in light of losing “a whopping 25 incumbents to retirement this cycle and another three in primary defeats”:

Ten of the 28 seats up for grabs because of retirements and primary losses are in swing districts where “Republicans have succeeded in nominating candidates who are conciliators, people who have proven that they will work with the business community, get things done,” says David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “In the 18 districts that are safe, Boehner’s going to end up with his fair share of rebels, people who campaigned against the Republicans’ and Democrats’ status quo in Washington.”

To put things in perspective, one of the first votes of this current Congress was to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2013. That measure squeaked by the in the House 230-189. All 28 of the retirees and primary losers voted for the measure. If Boehner had lost just 12 votes—never mind 18—the government would have shut down.

The Plight Of The Yazidis Still Isn’t Over, Ctd

Yezidis trapped in the Sinjar mountains arrive in Syria's Haseki

ISIS militants returned last week to further harass the hundreds of Yazidis who remain on Mount Sinjar. Joel Wing provides an update on the fighting:

During the second week of the month the Kurds said that they were liberating Sinjar, which was taken by the Islamic State in August, but then it was revealed that IS had actually surrounded Mount Sinjar and were trying to take it once again. On October 20 there were clashes in all the surrounding areas such as Khazir, Bartella, Bashiqa, Tilkaif and Mount Sinjar itself. IS was able to seize two towns north of the mountain that day as Yazidi fighters ran out of ammunition. Twenty peshmerga were also killed and 51 wounded. On Mount Sinjar there are two Yazidi militias resisting the IS push. They told Rudaw that they had not received supplies for weeks. There are also YPG, PKK, and peshmerga fighters in the area as well. IS has cut off the supply routes to the mountain and the Yazidi forces are desperate for weapons and ammunition.

With hundreds of thousands of Yazidis displaced from their homes and unable to return, and with international attention having shifted to the battle for Kobani, Sheren Khalel and Matthew Vickery fear that the Yazidis won’t get the help they need before winter arrives:

Since news about the Yazidis first appeared in the headlines, more substantial — and much-needed — relief efforts have stumbled. Liene Veide, the public information officer for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), says the organization is doing all it can for internally displaced persons and refugees in the region, but that more funding and manpower is required. Coordination, it seems, is another problem: The United Nations is working with other local Kurdish organizations, along with the Kurdish Regional Government, to deliver aid, but some communities are receiving assistance multiple times, while others are getting none at all due to a lack of communication between these different organizations, Veide explained.

According to Veide, even with the new UNHCR camps currently in the planning stage in for Iraq, there still won’t be room for everyone. “What we are working on now is absolutely not enough for the whole number — absolutely not,” Veide says.

Cathy Otten reports on the psychological trauma the displaced Yazidis have endured and the limited treatment options available to them:

It’s mid-morning in the hospital and patients crowd the narrow corridors outside Dr [Haitham] Abdalrazak’s office in Zakho General Hospital. He estimates that over 70 percent of Yazidi IDPs in Zakho, a small city in Dohuk Province near the Turkish border, are suffering from trauma. Abdalrazak has a kind, serious expression. He says about 20 percent of his patients have considered suicide and about five percent have attempted it. … Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders warns that PTSD, anxiety and depression are now also affecting displaced children. The organisation has been offering psychological support to displaced people in their Dohuk mobile clinics since August, but do not have any psychiatrists working with them in the area.

(Photo: Thousands of Yezidis trapped in the Sinjar mountains without food and water for days, due to the Islamic State (IS) violence, arrive in Haseki city of Syria on August 10, 2014. By Feriq Ferec/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

ISIS On The Rio Grande?

Musa al-Gharbi argues that Mexico’s drug cartels are in every last respect more violent and dangerous than the Islamic State, from their body count (16,000 killed last year) to their use of child soldiers, kidnapping, torture, rape, and slavery:

Some may argue that despite the asymmetries, the cartels are less of a threat than ISIL because ISIL is unified around an ideology, which is antithetical to the prevailing international order, while the cartels are concerned primarily with money. This is not true.

A good deal of the cartels’ violence is perpetrated ritualistically as part of their religion, which is centered, quite literally, on the worship of death. The narcos build and support churches all across Mexico to perpetuate their eschatology. One of the cartels, the Knights Templar (whose name evokes religious warfare), even boasts about its leader’s death and resurrection. When cartel members are killed, they are buried in lavish mausoleums, regarded as martyrs and commemorated in popular songs glorifying their exploits in all their brutality. Many of their members view the “martyrs” as heroes who died resisting an international order that exploits Latin America and fighting the feckless governments that enable it. The cartels see their role as compensating for state failures in governance. The narco gospel, which derives from Catholicism, is swiftly making inroads in the United States and Central America.

In short, the cartels’ ideological disposition is no less pronounced than ISIL’s, if not worse.

The Swedes On Beards

Another headline I’ve always wanted to write. The winner of Sweden’s Best Beard contest is a construction worker, with a simple, lush and beautiful beard. Yes, they appear to be pandering at this point:

Screen Shot 2014-10-28 at 3.14.09 PMKristofer Larsson didn’t grow his facial hair as a fashion statement, rather he was too busy to shave while he was renovating his family home. But the carpenter from Varberg in west Sweden decided to take part in a national contest to find Sweden’s best beard, with the final held at the Victoria Theatre in Malmö over the weekend.

An audience of around 150 people voted for him to pick up the prize, after he was shortlisted by an expert jury of beard watchers.   The two runners up in the competition both had neatly clipped beards, but spectators opted for Larsson’s wild whiskers.

Wild? Now compare that with the winners of many other Western beard contests. Many readers send pictures of the finalists for a Beard Of The Week mention, and I have yet to find a single one that makes the cut. They’re way too grotesque and over-the-top to be taken seriously as beards. Twisted into pretzels, or grown to absurd lengths, or turned into sculptures, they’re unrecognizable as beards any sane man would grow or any sane woman or gay man might admire. Mr Larsson? Au contraire. The Swedes are better at everything, aren’t they?

(Photo: taken by Larsson’s boss, the wonderfully named Pontus Flatum)

Editorial Selection By Algorithm

Ravi Somaiya delves into Facebook’s impact on journalism:

The social media company is increasingly becoming to the news business what Amazon is to book publishing — a behemoth that provides access to hundreds of millions of consumers and wields enormous power. About 30 percent of adults in the United States get their news on Facebook, according to a study from the Pew Research Center. The fortunes of a news site, in short, can rise or fall depending on how it performs in Facebook’s News Feed. …

The shift raises questions about the ability of computers to curate news, a role traditionally played by editors. It also has broader implications for the way people consume information, and thus how they see the world.

Jay Rosen challenges some of Facebook’s assertions about its news feed:

It’s not us exercising judgment, it’s you. We’re not the editors, you are. If this is what Facebook is saying — and I think it’s a fair summary of [Facebook engineer Greg] Marra’s comments to the New York Times — the statement is a lie.

I say a lie, not just an untruth, because anyone who works day-to-day on the code for News Feed knows how much judgment goes into it. It simply isn’t true that an algorithmic filter can be designed to remove the designers from the equation. It’s an assertion that melts on contact. No one smart enough to work at Facebook could believe it. And I’m not sure why it’s sitting there unchallenged in a New York Times story. For that doesn’t even rise to the level of “he said, she said.” It’s just: he said, poof!

Now, if Greg Marra and his team want to make the point that in perfecting their algorithm they’re not trying to pick the day’s most important stories and feature them in the News Feed, the way an old fashioned front page or home page editor would, and so in that sense they are not really “editors” and don’t think in journalistic terms, fine, okay, that’s a defensible point. But don’t try to suggest that the power has thereby shifted to the users, and the designers are just channeling your choices. (If I’m the editor of my News Feed, where are my controls?)