If it walks like a duck….

Loved this characterization of the global warming nay-sayers: “climate loonies.” Read on.

Friday Cat Blogging

I’m working from home today and every time I look up from my monitor, Jack has contorted himself into a more ridiculous position. There’s something Picasso-esque about this one.

The Theology of Hurricanes

I need to freshen this place up before my mother notices that it’s been 5 days* since I last updated the blog. School is back in full swing, and I’m a little disorganized and a little grumpy. I just need to find my rhythm and figure out how much sleep I can give up without suffering cognitive impairments. (*”Missing link” added.)

But maybe the grumpiness explains my admittedly-less-than charitable reaction to this: At work I received a sort of diary-email sent to many, many people describing the sender’s recent visit to New Orleans as a medical volunteer. It was a long email, and probably very compelling, but I didn’t get much further than the first few paragraphs, wherein the writer shared an anecdote about an evacuee and then described herself giving the woman a hug and whispering “God gives us these things to test us.” Or words to that effect. I can’t verify because I deleted it so quickly and irretrievably at precisely that point.

You’ve heard the term “theodicy“? This is, loosely, an attempt to explain how evil can exist if God is good and all-powerful. Sometimes these efforts lead to proclamations better described as theo-idiocy. I have so far steered clear of posting links to the inevitable “God is punishing New Orleans/the US”-type bandwidth-wasters on this site, even knowing that they can be very entertaining. (I do wonder, along with Left Coaster, what these folks will be saying now that a Category 5 hurricane is churning toward the president’s home state.) But I find this kind of “God is testing you” pablum equally meaningless.

We were inundated with theo-idiocy in January after the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, and we’ll be inundated with it now. I don’t believe God sends hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes (or that God “lets” terrorists pilot airliners into buildings) to punish humans. I do believe, however, that God is keenly interested in how we treat one another in the aftermath.

Last January I posted a goodly chunk of a Jan 5 ‘05 LA Times editorial by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I don’t think you can link to the editorial anymore, so for convenience, I’ll repost it here, since it remains relevant.

…The simplest explanation is that of the 12th century sage, Moses Maimonides.

Natural disasters, he said, have no explanation other than that God, by placing us in a physical world, set life within the parameters of the physical. Planets are formed, earthquakes occur, and sometimes innocents die.

To wish it were otherwise is in essence to wish that we were not physical beings at all.

Then we would not know pleasure, desire, achievement, freedom, virtue, creativity, vulnerability and love. We would be angels — God’s computers — programmed to sing his praise.

The religious question is, therefore, not “Why did this happen?” but “What then shall we do?” That is why, in synagogues, churches, mosques and temples, along with our prayers for the injured and the bereaved, we are asking people to donate money to assist the work of relief.

The religious response is not to seek to understand, thereby to accept. We are not God.

Instead we are the people he has called on to be his “partners in the work of creation.” The only adequate religious response is to say: “God, I do not know why this disaster has happened, but I do know what you want of us: to help the afflicted, comfort the bereaved, send healing to the injured and aid those who have lost their livelihoods and homes.”

We cannot understand God, but we can strive to imitate his love and care.

Along these lines, Melinda Henneberger had a good column in Newsweek last week taking Democrats to task for forgetting their roots and failing to challenge Conservative Christian immorality and inhumanity toward the poor:

(Excerpt) But have Democrats loudly decried the inhumanity—or even the hidden, deferred costs of the Bush cuts in services to the most vulnerable among the already born? Heavens, no, with a handful of exceptions, such as former vice-presidential nominee John Edwards, who spoke every single day of his campaign—and ever since—about our responsibilities toward those struggling just to get by in the “other America.”

Most party leaders are still busy emulating Bill Clinton, who felt their pain and cut their benefits—and made his fellow Dems ashamed to show any hint of a “bleeding heart.” Clinton’s imitators haven’t his skills, though, so his bloodless, Republican Lite legacy has been a political as well as moral disaster.

That’s not, of course, because voters give a hoot about poverty, but because along with the defining moral strength of its commitment to the underclass went most of the party’s self-confidence, and all of its fervor.

Incredibly, they even ceded the discussion of compassion to President Bush, a man who has always struck me as empathy-free—to an odd extent, really, as we saw again last week when he cracked jokes about his carousing days on his first trip to the Gulf Coast.

Immediately after the disaster, Bush quickly intervened—to make it possible for refiners to produce dirtier gasoline. He has since zapped working people on the Gulf Coast all over again by suspending the 1931 law that requires employers to pay the prevailing wage to workers on all federally financed projects.

Others in his party have expressed concern about all the freebies evacuees will be enjoying: “How do you separate the needy from those who just want a $2,000 handout?” Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski asked—by way of explaining why debit cards for Katrina victims were a bad idea.

So far, though, I’d love to be wrong, I see no reason to think the president’s sinking poll numbers will persuade him that there’s more to (pro-)life than opposing abortion.

I still dare to hope Democrats may yet remember why they are Democrats, though. And that would be a real come-to-Jesus moment.

If I have a quibble with the piece, it would be where she suggests that we’re all complicit in the government’s failings because “top to bottom, we picked this government” — ’scuse me, but who are you calling WE?!

(Incidentally, all those folks I didn’t pick seem to be losing their edge as citizens awaken to the fullness of Bush administration incompetence, and even their own cheerleaders are noticing. Of course, the Democrats are certainly no better organized or united, but it’s still kinda fun to watch. (There are, however, tantalizing reports of spinal ossification among leading Democratic figures.)

FYI — Daily Kos has introduced a new “community” for discussions of faith and politics: Street Prophets. Read more about it here. I’ll add it to the blog links on the side bar.

When will we ever learn….

Karen Armstrong’s recent piece in The Guardian reminds us all, in the wake of Katrina, about the universal spiritual necessity of honoring the earth. As she points out, it’s a religious as well as spiritual imperative, embedded in the teachings of all the great traditions. One of my own mentors, Sallie McFague, proposes that we understand sin as “living out of touch with reality.” (See her book, The Body of God, for more about this. Of course, this could also be the definition of madness, for which see here.) What better description could there be of the way our current government has behaved, with respect not just to Katrina but to pretty much all else? Is this an example of how “Jesus touched my heart“? When the president was claiming Jesus as his favorite philosopher, he must have forgotten large parts of the Law (Torah), the Prophets, and the teachings of Jesus himself — those parts that enjoin us to care for our neighbors, the widows and orphans, the strangers and aliens, and the earth itself.

The evil genius of it!

Wow, I’m really off my game.

If you start with the assumption that there is no road too low for the Bush administration to travel, then even their most diabolical actions and hate-mongering rhetoric can never really be considered “surprising.” If they do something that surprises you, it can only be because (a) they violated your assumption and took the high road, or (b) — I’ll wait a sec and let you compose yourself after reading “a” — they exceeded the reach of your imagination.

They exceeded my limit today: I hadn’t thought of blaming environmental groups for the devastation of New Orleans…

Potty humor

I first saw this picture at the Left Coaster, in a slightly tacky and puerile but kinda funny set of “re-captioned” photos from Bush’s apparently (from the look on his face in a couple of those) unbearable day at the UN this week. But I actually thought somebody had “photoshopped” the script on the note Bush is writing: “I think I may need a bathroom break?” Turns out, the photo is legitimate and untampered-with. It’s also raising a bit of - you’ll pardon the pun? - a stink! (After you’ve snickered at Left Coaster’s reimaginings, just look at the series of photos. Is there any circumstance under which this president can momentarily suppress his obvious boredom and disdain for everyone around him?)

Thankfully, I was on BART while Bush was talking this evening, apparently reiterating his Tuesday claim of “responsibility” for the tragic aftermath of Katrina. I’m with Norman Solomon on this count: “It was a classic hollow statement, meant to sound important and meaningless at the same time.” In any case, Think Progress suggests that as long as Bush is “in the mood for taking responsibility,” he should address these issues as well.

And the "evidence" would be ???

Every now and then a news item leaves me sputtering unintelligibly. This is one. I truly have no words… As I spot eloquent retorts on other blogs, I’ll have to link to them.

Investigators appointed by the Vatican have been instructed to review each of the 229 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States for “evidence of homosexuality” and for faculty members who dissent from church teaching, according to a document prepared to guide the process.

The Vatican document, given to The New York Times yesterday by a priest, surfaces as Catholics await a Vatican ruling on whether homosexuals should be barred from the priesthood.

In a possible indication of the ruling’s contents, the American archbishop who is supervising the seminary review said last week that “anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity or has strong homosexual inclinations,” should not be admitted to a seminary.

Edwin O’Brien, archbishop for the United States military, told The National Catholic Register that the restriction should apply even to those who have not been sexually active for a decade or more.

American seminaries are under Vatican review as a result of the sexual abuse scandal that swept the priesthood in 2002. Church officials in the United States and Rome agreed that they wanted to take a closer look at how seminary candidates were screened for admission, and whether they were being prepared for lives of chastity and celibacy.

The issue of gay seminarians and priests has been in the spotlight because a study commissioned by the church found last year that about 80 percent of the young people victimized by priests were boys.

Experts in human sexuality have cautioned that homosexuality and attraction to children are different, and that a disproportionate percentage of boys may have been abused because priests were more likely to have access to male targets - like altar boys or junior seminarians - than to girls.

But some church officials in the United States and in Rome, including some bishops and many conservatives, attributed the abuse to gay priests and called for an overhaul of the seminaries. Expectation for such a move rose this year with the election of Pope Benedict XVI, who has spoken of the need to “purify” the church.

It is unknown how many Catholic priests are gay. Estimates range widely, from 10 percent to 60 percent.

The catechism of the Catholic Church says people with “deep-seated” homosexual tendencies must live in chastity because “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”

Read the whole thing here.

Onward Christian Penguins

(Photo snatched from National Geographic.)

A story you almost must see to believe:

On the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com, an opponent of abortion wrote that the movie “verified the beauty of life and the rightness of protecting it.”

At a conference for young Republicans, the editor of National Review urged participants to see the movie because it promoted monogamy. A widely circulated Christian magazine said it made “a strong case for intelligent design.”

The movie is “March of the Penguins,” and of all the reactions it has evoked, perhaps the most surprising is its appeal to conservatives. They are hardly its only audience; the film is the second highest grossing documentary of all time, behind “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

But conservative groups have turned its stirring depiction of the mating ordeals of emperor penguins into an unexpected battle anthem in the culture wars.

“March of the Penguins,” the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is “the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing.”

Speaking of audiences who feel that movies ignore or belittle such themes, he added: “This is the first movie they’ve enjoyed since ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ This is ‘The ‘Passion of the Penguins.’”

Michael of Americablog has an alternative take on “what you actually see/learn in the film”:

*Emperor penguins mate once, guard the egg until the baby is hatched and then — once the season is over — never see each other or the child again.

*Emperor penguins stand by and don’t raise a flipper when their children are attacked by a predator — one baby penguin is killed and taken away (survival of the fittest, kiddo!), a scene that makes the movie a tad too graphic for young and sensitive children.

*An emperor penguin who loses her egg is seen trying to steal the egg of another.

*Emperor penguins take a different lover every mating season.

The Revealer wonders if the Intelligent Designer in whose image we are made is a female penguin. (I just realized that my “header” is pretty close to theirs, but I can’t give it up.)

Well, hey, as long as we’re all open to discussing continuities in human and animal behavior… (By the way, in that book you’ll find discussions of “penguins” on these pages.) For that matter, perhaps we can all revisit this story?

Bushwhacked

(A TV screen shot posted on Daily Kos last week.)

Yes, I’m borrowing that headline from the Molly Ivins book more people should have read in 2003.

Front and center, you simply must see EJ Dionne’s fabulous editorial in the Washington Post today. I don’t want to get in trouble for posting too much of it (it will undoubtedly hit the hassle-free Truthout or somesuch, later this week) (Update: SF Gate has it, no registration required; thanks, cw!), but it begins thusly:

The Bush Era is over. The sooner politicians in both parties realize that, the better for them — and the country.

Recent months, and especially the past two weeks, have brought home to a steadily growing majority of Americans the truth that President Bush’s government doesn’t work. His policies are failing, his approach to leadership is detached and self-indulgent, his way of politics has produced a divided, angry and dysfunctional public square. We dare not go on like this.

It’s worth the hassle of free registration.

Other good reads this week: Newsweek’s “How Bush Blew It”, which is uncharacteristically blunt in its depiction of a president in a bubble:

Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it’s mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil’s advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn’t wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn’t act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.

and

By the predawn hours, most state and federal officials finally realized that the 17th Street Canal levee had been breached, and that the city was in serious trouble. Bush was told at 5 a.m. Pacific Coast time and immediately decided to cut his vacation short. To his senior advisers, living in the insular presidential bubble, the mere act of lopping off a couple of presidential vacation days counts as a major event. They could see pitfalls in sending Bush to New Orleans immediately. His presence would create a security nightmare and get in the way of the relief effort. Bush blithely proceeded with the rest of his schedule for the day, accepting a gift guitar at one event and pretending to riff like Tom Cruise in “Risky Business.”

and

Late last week, Bush was, by some accounts, down and angry. But another Bush aide described the atmosphere inside the White House as “strangely surreal and almost detached.” At one meeting described by this insider, officials were oddly self-congratulatory, perhaps in an effort to buck each other up. Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat.

And the NYT has a blow-by-blow of the disasterous response.

"Is this kind of fun?"

(AP Photo from Yahoo News.)

Chicago Tribune:

Doctors at the Houston Astrodome said Friday they have contained a viral outbreak that caused diarrhea and vomiting in about 700 Katrina evacuees. Forty people remained in quarantine as a precaution.

An estimated 3,000 people are still in the Astrodome.

Tom Delay, touring the Astrodome this week:

“Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?”