I am no apologist for the Church, and I have no problem whatsoever with gay marriage, but I think your crack equating the priest sex abuse scandal with the Church's position on gay marriage is underhanded. As I see it, gay marriage is a contracts issue: two people have entered into a contractual relationship that is sanctioned by an outside authority. That's all any contract really is: as Holmes put it, a contract is an agreement to be sued in the event of breach.
I can see no reason to deny this contractual relationship to anyone-- and I think that there are actually social stability arguments to be made in favor of gay marriage. So yes, as I see it, gay marriage is something that should be recognized by the government. If, however, we are talking about having a particular religion sanction a relationship, well, then we are talking about something else all together.
Religions are entitled to have their beliefs, and their rules, and if one of those rules is that homosexuality is not sanctioned, then you are out of luck if you want that religion to sanction your relationship. Really, beliefs and rules are all religions have, and if they back away from them, they are nothing.
So if you are a woman, and you would like to be a priest, by all means, be a priest-- but you can't e a Catholic priest, because that is against the rules. If you are gay and would like to marry, go to Ontario and get married-- you can have my blessing, but you won't get the blessing of the Catholic Church, because its rules say nay.
I can think that the rules that a religion puts out are bad rules, or stupid rules-- in fact, I do think this. But if I want to participate in the religion, I am saying that I will obey (or try to obey) those rules. I very much doubt that the sick individuals who committed the acts of sexual predation that we now know about and condemn did so thinking that their conduct was permissible-- no doubt they were all too aware that they were sinning. I am likewise pretty sure that those who concealed these things from the civil authorities knew that what they were doing was wrong-- on some level, anyway. These transgressions were not acts that were committed within the scope of the rules of the faith, and although that may aggravate the offense, I think it is wrong to suggest that something that is an article of faith is the same as something that is a sin.
Just thinking about it still makes me laugh. Of course, that's how it is with Mr. Sanders' stuff: it is hilarious in small doses, and conceptually it is even funnier.
Give the Gray Lady credit for trying to write about The Fugs-- it's hard to do without euphomism.
The best defense I've read for being a geek is in Sarah Vowell's last book, "Partially Cloudy Patriot". I'm paraphrasing here, because I lent out my original copy, and two subsequent ones, and therefore don't have it at hand, but in essence her argument is that feeling passionate about something is a positive thing, and that all of the most interesting people she's met have something that they feel passionate about. This is different from having no interests apart from learning Klingon-- it is about caring deeply about something that rewards the attention. An instrument, a language, literature, a political belief. It is possible to be so wrapped up in something that one becomes one dimensional (Ralph Nader comes to mind) but I'd have to say that for the most part, I find that the people who are the most passionate about the things that they do are the most well-rounded, because their passion illuminates everything else that they do. The media artists that I work with at Squeaky Wheel, for example, are much better informed about politics than most of the "well rounded" lawyers and judges I meet.
(a) You've touched upon one of the main reasons I don't believe that blogging is journalism- it ain't reporting, which is legwork-- it's commentary, which is mostly mouthwork. There are occasional exceptions, but they are pretty rare. (2) If there is a better paper than the NYTimes out there, then it is the International Herald Tribune, which is basically the Times and the WashPost mushed together. The end result has good reporting, comprehensive coverage of national and international events, decent sports, and the funnies. Other than that, in English at least, there is the Christian Science Monitor, and then, maybe, the Times of London and the Globe and Mail. None of these, in my view, is particularly liberal, and all of them really ought to be read in conjunction with at least one other daily paper. This is, by the way, one of the glories of living in a major urban center, with a subway. In such a setting there are lots of newspapers available, and a built in part of the day to read them.
(iii) All that said, it is not necessarily a bad thing for the institution that is the NYTimes to get called out from time to time. Its mistakes tend to keep it working hard at keeping honest.
The point is not the last election: the point is the election that is coming up: why don't more people recognize that the heads of our government are the worst manifestation of every bad impulse that exists in the American charactor? Is our country populated with such fools?
I have been walking around for months now muttering, "There must have been Germans that felt like this."
Of course, Novak's remarks are offensive, because they are personal to the unfortunate victim and her family, but they would also be offensive if what he was saying was more general. A statement like, "Persons who are injured as a result of the negligence of doctors are greedy, and should not be compensated for their damages," is also offensive. Because it is a more diffuse remark, however, or more abstract, people tend to react less strongly. The fact is, we are all being sold a bill of goods with respect to both medical malpractice reform, and tort reform in general.
Med mal cases are (a)comparatively rare; and (ii) comparatively unsuccessful. It is very difficult to prove medical negligence, usually. The third thing that is generally true about med mal litigation is that they tend to be comparatively serious. Because they are hard to prove, only the serious cases are litigated, and the damages in those are almost inevitably substantial. Death, brain damage, paraplegia, a lifetime of incontinence-- these are just some of the bad things that can happen to someone who has a doctor who screws up. It is also worth noting that usually the victim in these cases is not going to be found to have contributed to the harm-- it is all on the doc that didn't read the label, or count the sponges, or in some other way slipped up.
Love it or hate it, when someone is harmed, there is a cost, and someone has to pay it. In the neo-liberal welfare states in Western Europe they don't have a tort system like ours, which makes the wrongdoer pay-- they spread the risk across the economy. I don't see that "reform" coming to the US.
Exactly. Well said, and finally what I have been trying to say. I am not a native New York City boy: I grew up on LI, and wanted to be there. When I lived there full time (probably around the corner from you in the Slope), I knew I was in the place where I wanted to be. When I moved upstate, I missed NYC, and when I hung out my shingle, my partner and I established an address at 140 Broadway, because we knew that the City was where we would be for a significant part of the time. Even though I was in Buffalo last year, my first thought, after making sure that none of our people were downstate, was for the people where I had lunch twice a week, and the people that I bought my copy of the Economist from, and my neighborhood. That is it exactly: it is personal because it is where so many mundane transactions took place. Mundane transactions that were a part of what connected me to New York. Thank you for saying it so well.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2003 | 9 |
| 2002 | 3 |
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