Dear Editor,
Once again I am stunned by the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. Your article “Irish bishops faulted on abuse” brings home the continuing saga of pedophilic and abusive priests who terrorized children in Dublin for decades while the church leaders looked the other way.
Who should be denied Communion, Representative Patrick Kennedy for his support of a woman’s right to choose, or the Catholic bishops of this world? "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone."
Your faithful reader,
Big Red
Friday, November 27, 2009
More fun and games: Bingo in Baghdad
Seriously, you couldn't make most of this stuff up. The Globe today had many more ads than they usually do, so, they needed more pages, and so, I guess, they came up with more "news." I mean it. Here we are on the verge of sending more soldiers to the Middle East, and I know your heart will be warmed by the article that focuses on how FINALLY, after all the violence in Baghdad for the past six years, "an 85-year-old elite social club is making a comeback." Well, thank goodness for that!
There's an open bar and loud music, and best of all, Saturday Night Bingo. Early in the history of the club, one could only become a member if A) he/she was a college graduate and B) knew a foreign language. During the "bad years" of the U.S. invasion, (my quotations marks) in order to attract members, those requirements had to be dropped. Now, though, they have been able to reinstate the requirements, and hope to "weed out" the scumbags who joined up while bombs were falling throughout the city - even cracking their swimming pool. Oh no! But not to worry - the swimming pool has been fixed and plans are afoot to build a bowling alley, gymnasium and cafeteria. Probably another opportunity for KBR to get the contract on that new construction. The best part of the club (and I mean this sincerely) is that Shi'ites, Sunnis and Christians all come together there, and no one seems to mind.
So, I want to thank the Globe for bringing us this heartwarming look at how much stability we have brought to Baghdad. Such a club represents democracy in action, don't you think? I mean, you can't get much more democratic than Saturday night Bingo.
I just wonder if it was worth the lives of 4366 American soldiers, 31,571 seriously wounded and countless thousands (between 50,000 and 600,000) of Iraqi civilians?
There's an open bar and loud music, and best of all, Saturday Night Bingo. Early in the history of the club, one could only become a member if A) he/she was a college graduate and B) knew a foreign language. During the "bad years" of the U.S. invasion, (my quotations marks) in order to attract members, those requirements had to be dropped. Now, though, they have been able to reinstate the requirements, and hope to "weed out" the scumbags who joined up while bombs were falling throughout the city - even cracking their swimming pool. Oh no! But not to worry - the swimming pool has been fixed and plans are afoot to build a bowling alley, gymnasium and cafeteria. Probably another opportunity for KBR to get the contract on that new construction. The best part of the club (and I mean this sincerely) is that Shi'ites, Sunnis and Christians all come together there, and no one seems to mind.
So, I want to thank the Globe for bringing us this heartwarming look at how much stability we have brought to Baghdad. Such a club represents democracy in action, don't you think? I mean, you can't get much more democratic than Saturday night Bingo.
I just wonder if it was worth the lives of 4366 American soldiers, 31,571 seriously wounded and countless thousands (between 50,000 and 600,000) of Iraqi civilians?
A welcome update
Immediately after I wrote my last post, yesterday's Globe announced that the White House had issued a statement that the previous day's statement regarding land mines was in error. The administration hasn't decided yet regarding signing on to the International Land Mine Treaty. Add another thin layer to my string of hope for Obama.
Today's Globe features an article about a golf course in the DMZ between North and South Korea which was created to alleviate the boredom of the American troops stationed there. The troop contingent is down to 50, and needless to say, there is no night (or day) life there. Here's the kicker to the golf course, along the left-hand side is the heavily mined North Korean border. No one retrieves balls from the "rough." According to the news article, an errant shot can set off an explosion in the minefield. Oh yeah, let's sanction more minefields and more "fun" golf courses for our troops. Enough said.
Today's Globe features an article about a golf course in the DMZ between North and South Korea which was created to alleviate the boredom of the American troops stationed there. The troop contingent is down to 50, and needless to say, there is no night (or day) life there. Here's the kicker to the golf course, along the left-hand side is the heavily mined North Korean border. No one retrieves balls from the "rough." According to the news article, an errant shot can set off an explosion in the minefield. Oh yeah, let's sanction more minefields and more "fun" golf courses for our troops. Enough said.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Ignobel
I have been cooking like a mad fiend today, along with many others in the nation - those of us lucky enough to have homes, food and family to share Thanksgiving dinner with. The news inside my family circle is good. The news outside in the world makes me crazy.
If you read my previous post, you will see that I have been holding on to a thin thread of hope that this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, that would be President Obama, would follow the path of peace and decline to send more troops to Afghanistan. That thin thread has all but snapped with the news of his speech at West Point Tuesday night in which he will reveal his strategy for Afghanistan. As I said previously, he is a man who never does something politically unstrategic, so the revelation of his "strategy" at one of the military academies says it all, I believe. The pundits are all saying that he will focus on his exit strategy, and again, I say that you don't have to be a genius to understand that he's going to couch this in a way that will attempt to make this sound good to the American public, which is becoming more and more negative about this "good war."
It will be interesting to see what the Congress does re: funding more troops. That is the only place I see where the plan might run into trouble. Commentators have said that it will cost anywhere from 1/2 a million to 1 million dollars PER TROOP to send more soldiers over. You do the math on 30,000 troops, the number that has been batted around in the press today.
On the same page in today's Globe, screams the headline "President won't sign treaty to ban land mines." This I find positively sickening. This places us with the following countries which have refused to sign: China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Russia. Do we think it's a good thing that land mines remain planted in at least 70 countries and kill or maim 5,000 people per year? Did he not sign this treaty because we will want to plant land mines ourselves possibly in the Afghan region? I find it hard to reconcile the fact that the Nobel Prize for Peace was given to Jody Williams in 1997 for the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, yet in 2009, it is given to President Obama, who, like President Bush before him, refuses to sign on to the Treaty.
Just what are the qualifications for being a Nobel Peace Prize winner? How can the President in good conscience accept the award? And is the Committee squirming? My father would have said to me "You can't know what's going on behind the scenes. They (those in authority) know what they're doing." That was his famous quote to me about Nixon and Vietnam. Well I say, we questioned authority then and we should be questioning authority now. The Nobel citation isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
If you read my previous post, you will see that I have been holding on to a thin thread of hope that this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, that would be President Obama, would follow the path of peace and decline to send more troops to Afghanistan. That thin thread has all but snapped with the news of his speech at West Point Tuesday night in which he will reveal his strategy for Afghanistan. As I said previously, he is a man who never does something politically unstrategic, so the revelation of his "strategy" at one of the military academies says it all, I believe. The pundits are all saying that he will focus on his exit strategy, and again, I say that you don't have to be a genius to understand that he's going to couch this in a way that will attempt to make this sound good to the American public, which is becoming more and more negative about this "good war."
It will be interesting to see what the Congress does re: funding more troops. That is the only place I see where the plan might run into trouble. Commentators have said that it will cost anywhere from 1/2 a million to 1 million dollars PER TROOP to send more soldiers over. You do the math on 30,000 troops, the number that has been batted around in the press today.
On the same page in today's Globe, screams the headline "President won't sign treaty to ban land mines." This I find positively sickening. This places us with the following countries which have refused to sign: China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Russia. Do we think it's a good thing that land mines remain planted in at least 70 countries and kill or maim 5,000 people per year? Did he not sign this treaty because we will want to plant land mines ourselves possibly in the Afghan region? I find it hard to reconcile the fact that the Nobel Prize for Peace was given to Jody Williams in 1997 for the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, yet in 2009, it is given to President Obama, who, like President Bush before him, refuses to sign on to the Treaty.
Just what are the qualifications for being a Nobel Peace Prize winner? How can the President in good conscience accept the award? And is the Committee squirming? My father would have said to me "You can't know what's going on behind the scenes. They (those in authority) know what they're doing." That was his famous quote to me about Nixon and Vietnam. Well I say, we questioned authority then and we should be questioning authority now. The Nobel citation isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Thoughts on Veterans Day
It seems to me that Veterans Day ought to be a time when we commit to doing away with war. Instead, we're waiting for our President to decide to send more troops to Afghanistan, risking their lives and the lives of the "collateral damage" or in other words the civilians caught in the crossfire. I had hoped for better from President Obama, and so did the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, it seems.
I would like to be a fly on the wall in the Oval office, or wherever the National Security Team keeps convening to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. I hope there are some participants pointing to the dismal history of major powers trying to bring Afghanistan under their rule (and presumably kicking and screaming into the 20th century (now 21st). So far it's "visiting" Empires 0, Afghanistan 100. (That's an arbitrary number, much like many of the arbitrary numbers we are given for civilian casualties). Someone on the NST might even be reminding the Prez that we helped to arm and support the Mujahadeen (now Taliban) whilst we were trying to prevent the Russian takeover of Afghanistan. (And why did we care so much about keeping the Russians out? Natural gas, of course.) Now, ranking members of the erstwhile Mujahadeen sit at Hamid Karzai's right hand, and we don't know who the hell we're fighting against. Or why we are even there 8 years after bombing the countryside to punish the Taliban for giving aid and comfort to Al Qaeda. The Taliban fled and Al Qaeda fled into the Pashtun tribal area on the Pakistan border. If we try hard enough (and it looks like it won't take much) we can really draw nuclear-armed Pakistan into this dispute. Now that seems like a really good idea.
So. In my naivete, I believed that Obama's winning of the Nobel put a big weight on his shoulders to actively pursue peace, and not just pay lip service to it. Coming when it did in October, I thought it would be something that just might influence him to de-escalate our presence in Afghanistan, not escalate it.
Next came his overnight vigil at Dover Air Force Base to greet the bodies of 18 soldiers and DEA agents who had died in Afghanistan, as the news media said, seeing first-hand, the cost of the war. I believed at the time that since he never does anything that isn't strategic politically, that he was paving the way to say that our reasons for fighting weren't worth the cost of any more American lives.
Today, in Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington, he and his wife walked through the section of the cemetery where casualties from the Iraq and Afghani conflicts lie. It has to be sobering. Meeting the mourners in the cemetery would have to be hugely unsettling. Does Obama have a heart tied to his logical brain? Could he imagine the consequences of whichever decision he makes? Could he put politics aside and do what he thinks is right? As of July, our nation has spent 872.6 billion dollars on the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts combined. That would buy a lot of health care, wouldn't it?
So. The leaks say that he'll send 40,000 more troops. I hold onto my thin thread of innocent hope which I have just outlined above. At the same time, though, I'm preparing my signage, my candle and my warm clothes for the vigil which will occur in Portsmouth, at Market Square the day after troop escalation is announced. See you there.
I would like to be a fly on the wall in the Oval office, or wherever the National Security Team keeps convening to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. I hope there are some participants pointing to the dismal history of major powers trying to bring Afghanistan under their rule (and presumably kicking and screaming into the 20th century (now 21st). So far it's "visiting" Empires 0, Afghanistan 100. (That's an arbitrary number, much like many of the arbitrary numbers we are given for civilian casualties). Someone on the NST might even be reminding the Prez that we helped to arm and support the Mujahadeen (now Taliban) whilst we were trying to prevent the Russian takeover of Afghanistan. (And why did we care so much about keeping the Russians out? Natural gas, of course.) Now, ranking members of the erstwhile Mujahadeen sit at Hamid Karzai's right hand, and we don't know who the hell we're fighting against. Or why we are even there 8 years after bombing the countryside to punish the Taliban for giving aid and comfort to Al Qaeda. The Taliban fled and Al Qaeda fled into the Pashtun tribal area on the Pakistan border. If we try hard enough (and it looks like it won't take much) we can really draw nuclear-armed Pakistan into this dispute. Now that seems like a really good idea.
So. In my naivete, I believed that Obama's winning of the Nobel put a big weight on his shoulders to actively pursue peace, and not just pay lip service to it. Coming when it did in October, I thought it would be something that just might influence him to de-escalate our presence in Afghanistan, not escalate it.
Next came his overnight vigil at Dover Air Force Base to greet the bodies of 18 soldiers and DEA agents who had died in Afghanistan, as the news media said, seeing first-hand, the cost of the war. I believed at the time that since he never does anything that isn't strategic politically, that he was paving the way to say that our reasons for fighting weren't worth the cost of any more American lives.
Today, in Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington, he and his wife walked through the section of the cemetery where casualties from the Iraq and Afghani conflicts lie. It has to be sobering. Meeting the mourners in the cemetery would have to be hugely unsettling. Does Obama have a heart tied to his logical brain? Could he imagine the consequences of whichever decision he makes? Could he put politics aside and do what he thinks is right? As of July, our nation has spent 872.6 billion dollars on the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts combined. That would buy a lot of health care, wouldn't it?
So. The leaks say that he'll send 40,000 more troops. I hold onto my thin thread of innocent hope which I have just outlined above. At the same time, though, I'm preparing my signage, my candle and my warm clothes for the vigil which will occur in Portsmouth, at Market Square the day after troop escalation is announced. See you there.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Stupak or Stupid?
I've been pretty caught up with spending time with my daughter and my new granddaughter, my son and my older granddaughter and grandson. I've not been so caught up that I haven't had time to be sick to my stomach over the latest version of the Health Care bill just voted through the House. How is it that deals can be made that would involve singling out a medical procedure that is legal in this country, and mark it as unfundable if one is enrolled in the "public option" health insurance or in an insurance company that is federally subsidized? For years, under the Bush administration, family planning money sent as foreign aid to developing countries couldn't be used to pay for abortions; for a time, federal money that went to family planning clinics required that abortion could not be offered as an option to someone with an unwanted pregnancy. Supposedly, the Bush era is over. To that, I say a big "HA!"
I see my 2 week old granddaughter, and I wonder if she will face an unwanted pregnancy, and have a safe, legal option to terminate that pregnancy. For the millions of uninsured women who might benefit from the current health insurance reform bill, many of them among the poorest in the country, would have to pay for a procedure which is available to those who can afford private insurance, i.e. the wealthier class of women. It was ever thus. So congratulations to the "progressive" Democrats who have once again sold women down the river in a massive misogynist, classist vote. The Stupak Amendment couldn't be stupider.
I see my 2 week old granddaughter, and I wonder if she will face an unwanted pregnancy, and have a safe, legal option to terminate that pregnancy. For the millions of uninsured women who might benefit from the current health insurance reform bill, many of them among the poorest in the country, would have to pay for a procedure which is available to those who can afford private insurance, i.e. the wealthier class of women. It was ever thus. So congratulations to the "progressive" Democrats who have once again sold women down the river in a massive misogynist, classist vote. The Stupak Amendment couldn't be stupider.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
New grandchild!!!
I can't let another day go by without sharing my joy about my new granddaughter, Ella! Here she is, reclining on her changing table. She's only 9 days old today, and this picture was taken a couple of days ago. Holding her and watching her little face go through a whole gamut of expressions, from serene to the full forehead wrinkle provides hours of fascination! She has definitely stolen my heart!!!
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