The Weekly Wrap

Today on the Dish, Andrew widened his scrutiny of the pontiff to new cases of abuse, as well as highlighted a spike in claims among Austrians. Benedict's personal preacher somehow compared the media inquiry to anti-Semitism. A reader dug up countless other cases from centuries past, another disagreed with Andrew about the nature of the abuse, and a female reader shared her own personal story. Jill Greenberg sent us a stunning image, Tim Russo condemned the Closet, and Michaelf Wolff eulogized the Church.

On the domestic front, Avent assessed the latest job numbers, Andrew hearted Barack, Sprung Obasmed everywhere, and Tumulty shared Romney's love for Teddy. Michele Bachmann undermined the GOP, a tea-partier railed against the RNC, Greenwald pwned White House reporters, and one reporter admitted as much. George Packer check in on Burma, a gay Oklahoman died mysteriously, and an MS patient was incarcerated for pot.

Erickson got a Malkin for CNN, Jay Rosen suggested reforms for the network, and Sady Doyle dissented over an ad. Creepy one here. Kick-ass compilation here, creative MHB here, clever song here, and hilarious sketch here.

Andrew explained the reason for this long post and how weekend blogging is going to change.

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Butte, Montana, 10.18 am

Thursday on the Dish, Andrew tackled the Vatican at length – scrutinizing its latest attack on the NYT, explaining why reports of abuse popped up in the '60s and '70s. and analyzing why so many of the abusers appear to be gay. A reader shared a revealing experience with Ratzinger, another offered her expert opinion on girl abuse, and another put forth more evidence of a dark ancient past. Also, E.D. Kain returned fire, the John Jay authors sided with Andrew, and the Vatican invoked legal immunity.

As Palin escalated her TV career, her favorables plummeted. Reader commentary on "Drill, Barack, Drill" here and here. Related Yglesias Award here and Moore here. Unrelated Hewitts here and here and Malkins here, here, and basically here. Cool ad here. April Fools coverage here, here, and here. Awesome MHB here.

Wednesday on the Dish we watched Obama adopt "Drill Baby, Drill!" Follow-up here. In Vatican coverage, Andrew dug up previous praise for Ratzinger but took him to task for his failings. Hitch was a bit harsher. A Kentucky lawsuit took aim at the Church, June Thomas brought up the abused girls, an Italian bishop spewed some bigotry, and Bill Donohue followed suit.

Palin backed Bibi, tried to hide Willow, peeved her "guests," and got some competition in the reality-show arena.

In other coverage, Suzy Khimm noted some strides in ending DADT, Friedersdorf sounded off on gender pay, readers pounced on the "misogynist asshole," and PZ Myers challenged Andrew on Christianity. More Romney commentary here and here. Animal-suicide blogging turned into parasite blogging. Marcotte got a Moore Award. And a real-life Cartman crashed Chatroulette.

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(Johannes Simon/Getty Images)

Tuesday in Vatican watch, Douthat deflected the outcry of Archbishop Dolan, Paul Moses countered George Weigel, Andrew differed with Father Brundage, victims activist David Clohessy called for disclosure, Tom McNichol compared the crisis to Watergate, a reader raised a double standard for prison rape, and another asserted that abuse has gone undetected for centuries.

In other coverage, Obama hugged Romney tight, Friedersdorf instructed us not to donate to the RNC, Erickson faced the music on CNN, Ravitch graded the president, David Corn revisited Bush's war rhetoric, and Larison danced on the grave of the UK special relationship. Brooks and Andrew heralded marriage, Bella DePaulo differed, Kate Pickert killed the buzz over preexisting conditions, and TNC talked video games.

Readers continued the feminist threats on stripping and salary. Another alerted us to April 19. Tax-blogging here, here, and here. Beard-blogging here and here. Blog-blogging here. Winnie the Poof met Alien, Obama looked at awesome things, and LBJ said "bunghole." Adorable animals here, badass ones here, and suicidal ones here.

Get your civic asset forfeiture fix here.

Monday on the Dish we kept up our coverage of the Vatican crisis. The big news was the Legionaries of Christ condemning its founder, Marcial Maciel, for his long history of abuse. Theocons such as George Weigel continued to defend the Church and cast blame on the media – a strategy not unlike Palin's. Meanwhile, David Link got to the crux of the crisis.

In Dennis Ross coverage, Andrew defended Rozen's post against Goldblog, Steinglass countered Andrew, and Exum added two cents. Mario Loyola ventured that Israel has no real desire for a two-state solution, Andrew pointed out a potential UN veto on settlements, and a reader dissented over Andrew's analysis.

In other coverage, Musings In Iraq assessed the elections, Andrew reacted to the Christian militia story, Podhoretz and Hinderaker fawned over Palin, Kristol invoked the blowback argument, and Murdoch readied the paywall. Jill Lepore discussed the futility of marriage counseling, Ricky Martin came out, Iceland banned strippers, and readers responded to the gender wage gap.

More AEI-gate here. A fascinating photo series here, fart blogging here, and more animal-suicide blogging here. Weekend coverage here.

— C.B.

Calling Or Career?

A quote from my old friend Michael Lewis:

A job will never satisfy you all by itself, but it will afford you security and the chance to pursue an exciting and fulfilling life outside of your work. A calling is an activity you find so compelling that you wind up organizing your entire self around it — often to the detriment of your life outside of it.

Ben Casnocha expands upon the thought.

The Dish is, of course, a calling, not a job. I did it for years for nothing. But in the end, life matters. Which is as good a way of saying that, as we approach our tenth anniversary, Patrick, Chris and I are going to start taking weekends off. I know this sounds completely crazy, and it has nothing whatever to do with the amazing weekend of summer weather we have coming up, but if we are not to burn ourselves out completely (there are just three of us catering to a million of you a month), we need to take some time to get our lives back in balance with the Dish's siren call.

I'm sure I'll break down at some point and blog on Saturday or Sunday, but I'm going to try not to. We may miss a couple of stories, but we already miss our lives. Living online can be destructive to things that make humans happy – and I'd like to have more time with friends, beagles, books, movies, Aaron. With any luck, observing the Sabbath may even help us produce better work in the weekdays. 

Thanks for understanding. The next post will be the weekly wrap, a new feature rounding out the week's highlights. There's plenty for digestion over the weekend. I'll miss the spiritual and philosophical focus of Dish Sundays, but we hope to integrate that into the week.

Anyway, have a happy Easter.

Science And The Meaning Of Life, Ctd

Freddie DeBoer clarifies his post:

Morality, to my lights, is best thought of as an agreement between people, which is therefore never certain, timeless, or transcendent. I think it is to our practical benefit to act as though there is no moral value that transcends limited human agreement. Which means, yes, I am incapable of saying that the Taliban is objectively or certainly of inferior moral value to the Dalai Llama. And if you'd like to haul out the high school debating team tactic, no, I can't say that Hitler, the Holocaust or Nazism are permanently, objectively and non-contingently evil in some transcendent way.

That doesn't mean that I don't consider them evil, or that I can't fight them, or that my feelings towards Nazism and the obligation to fight it are any less passionate or committed. Not at all. It merely means that I find the genesis of that opposition and that passion to be within the subjective framework of my own life. This is part of the problem again: people insist that saying, for example, that scientific truth is socially constructed represents some great insult to science, but it only would be if you maintain belief in a transcendent truth that socially constructed truth can be compared to. I don't. From my perspective, use visions of truth are actually more respectful of science, because science is fantastically useful.

The Evolution Of Morals

Paul Bloom thinks about moral development:

[M]any psychologists think that the reasoned arguments we make about why we have certain beliefs are mostly post-hoc justifications for gut reactions. As the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt puts it, although we like to think of ourselves as judges, reasoning through cases according to deeply held principles, in reality we are more like lawyers, making arguments for positions that have already been established. This implies we have little conscious control over our sense of right and wrong.

I predict that this theory of morality will be proved wrong in its wholesale rejection of reason.

Emotional responses alone cannot explain one of the most interesting aspects of human nature: that morals evolve. The extent of the average person's sympathies has grown substantially and continues to do so. Contemporary readers of Nature, for example, have different beliefs about the rights of women, racial minorities and homosexuals compared with readers in the late 1800s, and different intuitions about the morality of practices such as slavery, child labour and the abuse of animals for public entertainment. Rational deliberation and debate have played a large part in this development.

Saving CNN

Jay Rosen has some ideas. His line-up:

  • 7 pm: Leave Jon King in prime time and rename his show Politics is Broken. It should be an outside-in show. Make it entirely about bringing into the conversation dominated by Beltway culture and Big Media people who are outsiders to Beltway culture and Big Media and who think the system is broken. No Bill Bennett, no Gloria Borger, no “Democratic strategists,” no Tucker Carlson. Do it in the name of balance. But in this case voices from the sphere of deviance balance the Washington consensus.
  • 8 pm: Thunder on the Right. A news show hosted by an extremely well informed, free-thinking and rational liberal that mostly covers the conservative movement and Republican coalition… and where the majority of the guests (but not all) are right leaning. The television equivalent of the reporting Dave Weigel does.
  • 9 pm: Left Brained. Flip it. A news show hosted by an extremely well informed, free-thinking and rational conservative that mostly covers liberal thought and the tensions in the Democratic party…. and where the majority of the guests (but not all) are left leaning.
  • 10 pm: Fact Check An accountability show with major crowdsourcing elements to find the dissemblers and cheaters. The week’s most outrageous lies, gimme-a-break distortions and significant misstatements with no requirement whatsoever to make it come out equal between the two parties on any given day, week, month, season, year or era. CNN’s answer to Jon Stewart.
  • 11 pm.: Liberty or death: World’s first news program from a libertarian perspective, with all the unpredictablity and mix-it-up moxie that libertarians at their best provide. Co-produced with Reason magazine.

Joyner is skeptical. Derek Thompson looks inward.

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

I don't see how getting rid of celibacy is going to alleviate child molestation in the Church. Allowing married priests is OK with me, but let's not pretend that the stature of the Church would be enhanced by the works of Father Tiger Woods or Bishop Bill Clinton.  Since they haven't repressed their sexual nature, just what is their excuse?

Child molestation is evil, but you seem to be saying that the surrounding culture's refusal, and the Church's refusal, to normalize the gay orientation is somehow the root cause.  Do you realize what you are saying?  You are saying that being gay is somehow involved.  I have to differ with you on this.  If, following Susan Brownmiller, rape is primarily a sociopathic act of dominance, rather than a sexual act as such, then I think we can agree that child abuse is not really about sex; it's about control. 

I know the distinction may appear precious, but I think it holds true. Put it this way: how many people, who really want to have sex with someone, would want it and enjoy it if the partner had to be coerced, or drugged, or was otherwise not a willing and knowing participant?  I would wager very few. It follows therefore that child abuse, like rape, has to be centered in some other psychological realm, not just an attraction to some person. 

Therefore, a priest is abusing boys not because he is a closet homosexual but because he is a sick person, period. And that priest would just as easily be abusing girls or, for that matter, small mammals or dead bodies if he could.  Boys are just the targets of opportunity.  I don't think being gay has anything to do with it.

I do think the Church should consider jettisoning celibacy.  However, in the current climate, what do you think that would lead to?  It would lead to overwhelming suspicion against asexual and gay candidates.  Let's hope the priesthood opens the doors to marriage down the road, but not right now.