Boinkie's Blog: 11/01/2011

Ebook downloads

The CurtJester has links for Father Aumann's book on Spiritual theology. and includes epub download at his site.

I checked it out: It's a bit heavy reading.

And he also has a link from Jimmy Akins for Benedict's talks. They are more poetic, but until I get an ebook reader I'll hold off. I can read light reading on the computer but after a page or two I give up, and I can't contemplate on it. Usually I switch to audiobooks for that.

When the encyclical on hope came out, I started reading it to my computer and was astonished. But then I gave up: as I age, it's hard to concentrate.

Father Slavko anniversary

DaMihiAnimas remembers Father Slavko on the 11th anniversary of his death.

headsup Spiritdaily

I have been to Medjugorje, and there is grace there. Those on the left want to get rid of it because it is bringing people back to Christ.

The disturbing part is those on the right who "nitpick" small problems (which were no worse than those in other apparitions such as Knock or Fatima) to be a sign that it is diabolic.

Yes, the local bishop hates the place, but you know, in the middle of the Yugoslavian civil war, where over 100 thousand people were killed, and Communist Serbs were destroying Catholic churches and Catholic Croats were bombing Mostar, some reporter asked the bishop what was the most serious challenge to the Catholic church in Yugoslavia, and he replied "medjugorje".

Yes, religious hatred, no problem. People being killed, no problem. The seige of Sarejevo, no problem.

A couple million pilgrims going to a Franciscan run church in Yugoslavia to pray: Big problem.

Thanksgiving supper sigh

My husband is fond of Chinese restaurants, so with the arrival of the cool season, has wanted for the last few weeks to go into Manila for a feast.

Usually we find one of the larger restaurants and go in and order all sorts of food and he chooses most of them and presides over the feast, a joyful family celebration.

So he has been asking to do this for several weeks, and wanted to go last Sunday.

But it is also pre christmas season and there are a lot of trade fairs so Chano and Joy are busy. Then we are having to process the rice for Christmas gifts, which we pack in a decorative package as a gift. Since we now have our own ricemill, that means checking the mill (some of the rollers broke down, so we had to replace them) and also planting rice in the dry season (We lost part of the last harvest from typhoon related flooding).

So Lolo asked to go on Wednesday or Thursday (Thanksgiving, not celebrated here) but they decided to take us on Friday for evening supper.

Big mistake: No, not because of shoppping but because the traffic is worse Friday with everyone going to visit relatives outside Manila.

It took us two hours to get to the mall in Bulacan (and it would be another hour by freeway to Manila and then going through the bad 5 pm traffic to find a busy restaurant on Friday evening). By this time, I was feeling lousy, Ruby had car sickness, and so we stopped at the mall, not for the food court but to go to the Chinese sit down restaurant there.

The place was clean and the menu good.

But the food was poorly cooked. Tasteless. The chicken and fish was supposed to be batter fried, but was frozen stuff they merely heated or microwaved so it was tough and the coating was like paper. Then they used a canned a sweet and sour sauce on top, instead of a freshly made sauce.

The fried veggie dish was also tasteless. Even the lechee nuts were canned with cool aide type cherry juice to flavor it.

The only thing good was the fried rice dishes. But even these lacked the garlic and onions that one expects, and the "special" fried rice merely had canned gravy and veggies over it: tasted okay but it wasn't fresh, and for the prices we paid, it should have been better.

I am now heart broken. What we should have had was a joyful meal, but Chano and Joy were busy talking and fighting over the orders that needed to be prepared, Ruby was bored and busy texting all over, and I was bored too: the food would have been better from the food court. Indeed, there was a Pizza hut and a barbecue restaurant next to where we ate, and I was tempted to go there for take out.

Lolo seemed to enjoy it, but it breaks my heart to know what we were looking forward to, and what we actually did.

So should I have backed Lolo and gone to Manila? No, because with the heavy traffic, we would all have been exhausted by the time we reached there.

Sigh.

Ethiopian Orthodox bible

linked for later reading.

Original link

Free Republic link

stuff

Bishop Flattery of Tulsa is interviewed...podcast on EWTN.

Eugenics and philanthropy. Yes, they are still doing this to the Philippines, and Hillary is coming here to push western birth control on poor people in the Philippines.

Omelas

This is the best post on the Penn State scandal.

the name refers to an Ursula LeGuin short story, where a city is wonderful and beautiful but only can exist that way by torturing a child.

Many pro life people see the story as an allegory on Abortion, where a girl chooses a good education, wealth, freedom, and all she has to do is abort her child. If the story is an allegory, one has to wonder, since I had always understood LeGuin was pro choice...or maybe she is prochoice but her conscience came out in the story, recognizing how women who abort often have done so under duress, and often have to deaden their consciences on that painful " choice", which often haunts them for their entire life.

the other interesting part is that no one bothers to worry about the victim. Much of what is termed "abuse" is touching or mastrubation, but Sodomy, as in this case, in a child causes physical harm, even when it is "consensual"...(ditto for vaginal harm to a pre pubescent girl).

Did no one think to take the kid to a doctor?

As for the "coverup": one suspects that the horror is there because few of us see such things. Yet maybe the lack of horror is because it was gay sex, and gay sex was tolorated and approved of. Yes, a normal guy seeing a child being sodomized would grab the guy, beat him up and call the cops, but a guy who was used to seeing gay sex in a shower might just call the father to take the kid home, seeing a normal activity but trying to get the father to protect the kid.

Another point is in the comments: That reporting such things puts the victim and the witnesses through hell. Several of the adult women who had gone through abuse and a court case said that giving testimony when the abuser was looking at you, and then being "called a liar" by his cross examining lawyer was worse than the abuse itself.

So often the authorities try to get the guy to plea bargain, figuring a lesser charge will punish him but save the child from the horror of a court case.

I remember one case (where the exam showed extensive intercourse in the past) where a father was abusing his older daughter, and then started on the younger one. The older daughter at this point (at age 13) reported him, to protect her sister. We caught him in a lie, and he plea bargained, but for six months the girl was in terror of thinking of the court case.

Finally, no one seems to be reading this report,Sexual Identity, Sex of Sexual Contacts, and Health-Risk Behaviors Among Students in Grades 9--12 --- Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, Selected Sites, United States, 2001--2009 including the part which says 3 to 10 percent of teenagers claim intercourse below age 12, and 10 to 30 percent of gay teenagers claim the same thing.

One of my friends, a nurse, on the Indian reservation said her AA meeting was full of men who had suffered abuse as children, including sexual abuse in boarding schools or by relatives/ friends of the family.

abortion of girls spreads to Europe

to Albania and other SE European nations.

Ultrasounds worsen Asia women shortage: UN Oct 06, 2011 | not rated yet | 0
Millions of girls lost to selective abortion in India: study May 24, 2011 | not rated yet | 0
Where have all the young girls gone? Feb 10, 2011 | not rated yet | 0
The impact of sex selection and abortion in China, India and South Korea Mar 14, 2011 | not rated yet | 0
Male preference could have negative impact Oct 30, 2007 | not rated yet | 0

More abuse

Abuse not prosecuted or reported in Penn state.

I remember when the bishop was soft in the area on accusers, and via the "way back" machine, someone posted an article now removed supporting homosexual love in the Pennstate campus.

As the U.S. Bishops have stated in their pastoral letter "Always Our Children," which was approved by the Vatican in 1998, "Our Homosexual sisters and brothers - indeed all people - are summoned into responsible ways of loving. ... We are called to become one body, one spirit in Christ. We need one another if we are to ‘grow in every way into him who is the head,

Christ ... .’ Though at times you feel discouraged, hurt or angry, do not walk away from your families, from the Christian community, from all those who love you. In You God’s love is revealed. You are always our children."

The Rev. Joseph Hlubik is a minister with the Penn State Catholic Community.

Note this was in 2000....I remember lay folks protesting him and this attitude back in the early 1990'swhen I lived in that general area.

more complaints on lay protests against this much hated bishop HERE.

Hogan was browbeaten by advisors who assured him that the pedophiles needed counseling and cured, but Adamec lies when he claims there were no cases after he took over. I know personally of one case where a nurse's husband was called to mediate with a family of an abused boy so they wouldn't press charges...and I left the area in the mid 1990's. And Adamec allowed the gay friendly priest to stay at Pennstate and the feminist nuns to preach heresy to our children (I kept my boys from taking confirmation classes by one such nun; luckily they had been confirmed as children before I adopted them).

Then we have this part from Drudge: DA went missing in 2005....

more HERE.

he was after the heroin pushers.

The strange thing is that although the hard drive was eventually found, the body never was.

Usually deer hunters find bodies of suicides/homicides that were hidden in the woods. Often the low level drug killings are dumped and found.

So that means either he was buried far away, he ran and hid, or professionals knew how to hide the body.

there is a lot of corruption in the area, the most famous the O'Kicki scandal....more HERE.
and HERE. and HERE.

In other words, these areas tend to allow coverups, and the people know the dirt but have no way to stop it.

And the corruption in the past included the courts, the mafia, the drug gangs, and the united mine workers union among others.