The PC and Hispanics still heart Mahoney

LeonPoodles asks why.

Because being on the side of the angels in political issues mean you can boink anyone or cover up for your priests boinking anyone without having to say you are sorry (or having the press actually publicize what is going on).

Mahoney was  so powerful even the Vatican (who enabled a lot of PC bishops to get away with heresy, sexual abuse, and bad liturgy) wouldn't try to remove him.

I mean: the only one in the US who had the guts to confront Mahoney (on heresy, not sexual abuse) was Mother Angelica. And his enablers in the Vatican would  have removed her if JP2 didn't like her guts and vetoes their plan to do so.

Yes, this makes me angry.

And both liberal and conservative bishops did this. I remember when our Johnstown Altoona diocese paid off or pressured folks for not reporting cases to the cops. Even at a time when there was a court case against the diocese, and one nurse cried on my shoulder that her husband was involved with trying to keep parents from reporting a new case of abuse, the bishop went around announcing we had no abuse going on.

Luckily, one of the priests hit a male teenaged prostitute while visiting the gay bars in Pittsburg, who decided to scam the church by suing them for abuse. Since he was over 17, he had his younger brother make the (false) accusation and took it to court. The priest and bishop denied it was the younger brother so they went to court, and even though it was an open secret it was a scam, the jury gave the family a huge settlement, sort of figuring it was the least they could do to punish the bishop.

When NDE doesn't meet the smell test: Find Dr Ko

Excuse the lack of capitals: I touch type and sometimes when I do a capital I end up hitting caplock or control, so sometimes I just don't capitalize stuff.

I'm trying to google on some lady named Anita Moojari who is here in Manila pushing her NDE and "cure".

The elites in Manila, who have rejected Catholicism (they love money, and push green stuff while promoting the RH Bill, but don't fight bribery or help the poor) tend to love new age stuff, but I find it silly.

Yes, I believe in NDE 's (although some are obviously subconscious wishes, most probably are accurate).

But her story, being pushed by new age gurus, doesn't meet the "Smell" test.

So where is her pathology or medical records?

Dr.PennySantori says one Dr Peter Ko checked them and they were accurate.

Hooray.

So who is Dr Peter Ko?


Supposedly he is a famous American oncologist (cancer specialist) at USC (university of southern California), yet this list of him as an oncologist doesn't give his address or affiliation but only articles associated with Ms Moojari.

Then why is the only Dr Peter Ko found by Google a family practitioner from Kentucky?

or this one, who is an endocrinologist in Singapore?

or this one, from British Colombia? (specialty unknown)

Or this one, a Family practitioner in Flushing NY (a NYCity blue collar suburb)

or this one, an optomotrist (not an MD) from Beverly Hills California?

not on Linked in.

The USC site shows a David Ko in the Neurology Department.

Specialty service recruits included Dr. Said Beydoun (neuromuscular disorders), Drs. Christopher DeGiorgio (now vice chair of neurology at UCLA), David Ko, Christi Heck, and Laura Kalayjian (EEG and epilepsy).

and they have a Dr Chester Koh listed too: a pediatric urologic surgeon.

no Dr peter Ko on their radiation oncology site


comment 169 on Santori's blog says:

Hi Penny,
Regina ( Anita Moorjani’s assistant sent me an excellent reply when I questioned Dr. Ko’s existence. ) She sent me a link showing Dr. Ko with a young girl. This is the same Dr. Ko on Anita’s video( see http://china.usc.edu/(S(1cfhxuffOtsjkz55mqmo1u45)A ). She also stated that Phil Whelan a well respected journalist and broadcaster has met Dr. Ko and can attest that both Dr. Ko and Anita’s physician Dr. Walker exist. Mr. Whelan still works at radio station RTHK . I checked and the station and the man do exist. http://programme.rthk.org.hk/channel/radio/index.php?c=radio3
There is also a radio interview on Anita’s website with the same doctors. If one needs to verify they can contact Phil Whelan and have him refer to the interview in 2006. Hope this helps .Regina has been most helpful.

Oh, if it's been on the radio it must be true (sarcasm off)

another comment answers with several links.

BTW…with about 5 mins. of research, the following came up either as articles written about Dr. Peter Ko, articles he co-wrote with other physicians, or references to him as a practicing MD:
http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/3692.html
http://www2.telemedtoday.com/articles/telemedicinehongkong.shtml
http://www.annsurgoncol.org/journals/abstract.html?v=5&j=10434&i=1&a=BF02303767_10.1007_BF02303767&doi=
http://dreamhealer.wordpress.com/2007/01/29/seeking-the-white-crow-dr-peter-ko-md/
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m3011440774337u8/
http://www.drscore.com/California/Pathology/search/Peter-Ko_10443352.html

Your comments, Julie, are spot on and any truly honest person would do exactly as you suggest. I suspect, however, we needn’t hold our breath waiting for this to happen.

One of them lists Dr Peter Ko as being associated with USC

HSC Organizers spearhead effort to bring health books to China

06/05/98

From left: Samir Ziend, from Huntington Memorial Hospital, joins USC organizers Peter Ko and Nelson Gilman

In an effort orchestrated by Peter Ko, assistant professor of clinical surgery, more than 2,000 pounds of books, journals and instructional materials have been sent to health sciences libraries throughout China.

hmmm.the USC site doesn't name him as a physician, so is he the optomtirist mentioned above? Or has he left (notice that article dates to 1998. Maybe he moved on or retired).

This article mentions a peter Ko MD

this one says he is a FACS but discusses his involvement in telemedicine to China.

Overseas, there is plan to organize a group of academic centers with demonstrated excellence to jointly design and carry out clinical trials. Such multicenter collaboration in telemedicine investigation would promote efficient use of resources and establish credibility. An effort along this line is a monthly case conference series with the University of Southern California School of Medicine, to study the efficacy of teleconsultation over great distances, due to begin at the end of 1998 (Professor Clarke B. Hazlett cbhazlett@cuhk.edu.hk / Professor Frederick W. George fwgeorge@hsc.usc.edu).
Thus far, the pace of progress in telemedicine in Hong Kong has been rapid, and could not have been accomplished without shared vision and uniform dedication among forward-thinking individuals.
Peter Ko, MD, FACX
Assistant Clinical Professor
Research Associate in Telemedicine
U of Southern California School of Medicine
Advanced Biotelecommunications and Bioinformatics Center
Los Angeles, CA
Visiting Fellow
Chinese U of Hong Kong (CUHK)
Faculty of Medicine
Center for Telemedicine
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China

one small problem: The article is very old:

An effort along this line is a monthly case conference series with the University of Southern California School of Medicine, to study the efficacy of teleconsultation over great distances, due to begin at the end of 1998 (Professor Clarke B. Hazlett cbhazlett@cuhk.edu.hk / Professor Frederick W. George fwgeorge@hsc.usc.edu).

© 2001-2002 - B2BMedia Inc.

Now, if you check LinkedIN Hong Kong,etc we have several Peter Ko listed. none seem to be physicians.

the commenter includs this link which indeed shows a Dr Peter Ko who is a pathologist. ...in pasadena.

Uh, a pathologist would be able to evaluate medical records of a supposed cancer cure, but if so, why does he say he is a cancer specialist?

However, pub med doesn't have a lot of articles by any Peter Ko's... I did find one article, an old article on orthopedics written by dr PPKo.

there is a radiation oncologist a Wui Jin Koh at Univ Washington. 
he is Chinese/Malaysian.

The confusion is because Ko/Koh/Go/Goh is a common Chinese name.

Yet Ko can also be a Korean name, and is a common name there.

As of the 2000 South Korean census, there were 435,000 Kohs in South Korea, accounting for just under 1% of the population

Dr. Howard Ko is even a big shot doc in the HHS.


the comment has this interesting link: this one, which is about the telemedicine link, but doesn't mention a doctor ko. Since the telemedicine stuff is with Hong Kong, that would make him Chinese, not Malaysian, Sinagapore, or Korean.

What is interesting is that presumably this is the organization cited above with Peter Ko mentioned.

more googling:

Dr Andrew Ko is an oncologist, but he works in San Francisco, not USC. and has lots of articles on line and also has has writen a popular book on cancer LINK more HERE.
Dr. Clifford Ko is a surgeon who does cancer surgery in UCLA.

Dr. Micki Ko is a radiation oncologist too, but she's a she, and works in Toronto.
Dr. Stephen Ko is a radiation oncologist too, but works in Florida
Dr. Mi Kyung Ko is also a radiation oncologist in LA. She works in Rush, not USC.

Dr. Stephen Ko works at Mayo clinic.in radiation oncology.

Interesting factoid: This article discusses spontaneous regression on an "alternative medicine" site. and starts with the title: Doctor Peter Ko MD.

But Doctor Peter Ko MD is not mentioned in the article, nor is the blog written by him. Huh?

Having missed several of Adam’s earlier presentations due to scheduling incompatibility, I finally made time to attend the INTENTION TO HEAL workshop in Vancouver BC on June 2 and 3.I was also eager to hear his co-presenters, Drs. Bruce Lipton and Edgar Mitchell, both of whom hold some very thought-provoking ideas on consciousness and healing…
How do thoughts and emotions influence certain gene expressions via molecular signaling mechanisms? How does one person’s mental state influence another’s physical health remotely? And, if validated, how would these ideas change our concepts of reality and view of ourselves!?

that's nice, but no mention of Dr Peter Ko MD in the article.

The author of the blog post is a "molecular biologist" who makes a living selling new age healing.
Yup. hangs around with all the usual suspects.

Adam has had a number of guest speakers at his conferences including Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who in the film "The Living Matrix" credits Adam with distantly healing his kidney carcinoma, Dr. Bruce Lipton and Dr. Lee Pulos. He has presented at the Association of Complementary and Integrative Physicians of BC conferences with Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. David Suzuki. Adam was the keynote presenter at the Northwest Naturopathic Physicians Convention. More recently he presented in a conference with Dr. Deepak Chopra. More answers to your questions about the workshops can be found in FAQ.

his linkedin page says:

Adam has a B.Sc. First Class Honors in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

Education	Simon Fraser University

and is a First Nations healer, speaker and international best selling author with books printed in 21 languages in 35 countries around the world.

yeah. the dreamcatcher should have alerted you that he is "first nation": the dream catcher is Objibwe, but I've found it being sold as indigenous Filipino tribal art in Baguio, so it does get around (sarcasm off).

And he gave a talk to naturopathic quacks. Heh. Yeah, I had a patient whose husband was a naturopath. Why me? well, her husband delivered her first baby at home in a natural way, and the kid died (and she almost died) and they knew I didn't go around blasting them for their irrational beliefs that let their first child die from ignorance, like the other docs in town.

Edgar Mitchell is an astronaut who went bonkers and got into new age stuff, but he's not an MD.

Dr Bruce Lipton is a "doctor": of development biology. So he isn't a physician either. and although he claims research and teaching at first line universities, it is interesting that he doesn't have tenure, and his last university listed was 1993...the wikipedia article links to Pubmed, but when I checked bruce lipton there, the only article by one burce lipton was about measuring a CVP via ultrasound, written in 2000, so it's probably another guy with the same name.

this alternative medicine site describes his way to treat the sick: If you think it, it will happen.
Sounds like Christian Science redux. and yes, conspiracy fans, you can find him on Coast TO Coast AM.

One of these days I'll write a long article on hypnosis/delusion/placebo effect and faith healing: they are all connected.

Put it this way: If they cure someone with a low measurement of hypnotizability (Low eye roll test) and they cure him, maybe I'll belive.

Or if they can explain why a baby is suffering and dying maybe I'll listen. These treatments are shamanistic: Reminds me of a Nigerian Psychiatrist who operated using hypnosis during that country's civil war: No he didn't learn it from medical school in the UK, he learned it from his grandmother, a shaman (witchdoctor, or a person who diagnoses witch craft). He knew a lot of her healing was placebo/suggestion. Which is why if you go to a native healer in many African countries, they treat you and give you a shot of penicillin, just to be on the safe side...

Back to our mistress of happiness, Ms Moojari.

Did you know on her website if you pay big money, she and Dr. Wayne Dyer will let you buy their course.

LINK
only $75 bucks and you too can learn to love.

KACHING!

and no, Dr. Wayne Dyer isn't a physician either. From a discussion at Randi's site:

Dyer holds a doctorate in educational counseling from Wayne State University ." That is not a Ph.D., rather an Ed. D. ...
From the back of one of his more recent books: "Wayne W. Dyer, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned author and speaker in the field of self-development.... Dyer holds a doctorate in educational counseling from Wayne State University and was an associate professor at St. John's University in New York."

On a book published in 1989 the back cover reads simply that he has a "doctorate in counseling psychology and is a psychotherapist."

Many of his previous books just claim he has a "doctorate in counseling psychology."

Jeff Corey

5th November 2008, 04:36 PM

how bad is Dyer? well when the PBS ombudsman wonders if their support of him goes against their policy of allowing proselytizing, you know you have a problem

and what is that about the white crow? Well an occult book publisher has that name.

Sigh.

As Chesterton said, when people stop believing in god, they start believing in anything.

A good explanation on why these biochemists/physicists etc. go bonkers over the new age cults can be found in Professor Raia's UCLA course on science magic and religion, now on youtube.

Blame the pre socratic philosophers who started the trend.
Love the hat.

The worst articles on line this lovely weekend

this reuters article on the holy pilgrimage to the Ganges is full of flip language: The Biggest show on earth (as if it was a circus), the people "dip" in the waters (as if they were effete people on vacation taking a dip in the ocean) and holy men who "smear" ashes on themselves (not anoint themselves with ashes). I wrote a comment criticizing the language.

The writer has a Muslim name (the only Masood I know was an Iranian) so maybe English is not his first language and he is unaware that using colloquialism is not respectful of religious practices.

However, the photos are wonderful.

---------------------
From Wesley Smith: The Hasting center complains about the problem of having the demented commit "assisted suicide".

Dutch doctors now are allowed to kill Alzheimer’s patients, a matter cheered on by Erik Parens, a senior researcher at the Hastings Center. From, “Alzheimer’s Disease and Personhood:”

As in the United States, the Dutch conversation about assisted suicide emerged primarily in the context of cancer. At least in that context, before acceding to a request for assistance in dying, caregivers must be sure that the person has made a voluntary and carefully considered request, and that her suffering is unbearable and without prospect of improvement. The Dutch have recently been trying to use those criteria in the context of Alzheimer’s disease. Given the wave of Alzheimer’s cases poised to crash onto wealthy countries, along with emerging technology to detect the disease process before symptoms appear, we should be grateful to the Dutch for that attempt.

The guidelines have always been a farce, broken often without significant legal or professional consequence–including infanticide, non voluntary euthanasia, and the killing of the mentally ill and grieving. And note the bottom line: Alzheimer’s patients should be allowed to be euthanized.
But how to get there ethically? Parens finds it odd that we try to apply concepts of consent to kill people no longer capable of consenting, and indeed, who may not be actually suffering. But, Parens concludes, we still have to find a way to justify their killings!

My guess is that it won’t work terribly well to use the cancer criteria in the context of Alzheimer’s disease. My further guess is that, to make headway, we will have to draw on both the “difference” and the “disease” views. How to do that is hardly clear, but that we need to try is.

My guess is that they eventually will decide if a person doesn't meet the criteria for "personhood" they will be allowed to be eliminated with prejudice (to use the sarcastic term of spy movies).

Welcome to the culture of death.

american violence

I'm doing a summary of the cdc reports on violence in the US and my html isn't working so I"m putting some stuff here to convert it.

A new CDC study, Gang Homicides — Five U.S. Cities, 2003–2008, is the first to compare gang homicides to other types of homicide using city-level data from the CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). This report analyzed 2003-2008 data from large cities within 17 NVDRS states. Of those, five cities met the criteria for having high levels of gang homicide: Los Angeles, California; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Long Beach, California; Oakland, California; and Newark, New Jersey.
The study, which appears in the January 27, 2012 online edition of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), found more than 90 percent of gang homicide victims were male, victims were more likely to be young, and 92-96 percent of gang homicides involved firearms. Findings also show gang homicides usually did not result from other crimes in progress or bystander deaths; instead, they involved youth responding to gang-related conflict.

This special supplement of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, “Protective Factors for Youth Violence Perpetration Issues, Evidence, and Public Health Implications,” is the first publication developed from the panel’s work. Its primary purpose is to increase understanding of protective factors for youth violence perpetration by clarifying methods for conceptualizing, measuring, and distinguishing risk and protective effects. 

quote of the day

LINK

No, there is a very big difference, all the difference, in declaring that the state should keep out of doctrinal quarrels (a prohibition of state power), and declaring that the state should impose unbelief by actively removing all vestiges of Christianity from our civilization (a positive mandate, of which the HHS mandate is a living example). Or, more deeply, there is all the difference, between defining religious liberty as the right of the unified church to be free from manipulations by the state, and defining religious liberty as the right of every individual to believe whatever he wants, which destroys the unity of the church and leaves the individual powerless before the manipulations of the state.

or as one sardonic person said: You are entitled to your own opinion but not entitled to your own facts.

why gay marriage will destroy the churches

I always encouraged my gay patients to find partners, since it often helps in stablizing their lives away from the despair filled search for love that for gay men ends up as an entry into promiscuity, disease, drugs and death.

My lesbian patients were not usually a problem: women living for years with a female friend never raised eyebrows even in the good old days, since such friendships often filled a need for career women and was not due to sexual orientation (i.e. not lesbians, or sometimes a lesbian with a hetero friend).

But most of my patients were women, and I've seen/treated too many women hurt badly because a gay man tried to pretend he was otherwise, or because a bisexual man fell into the trap that she should "welcome" the fact that now he has a boyfriend too. A lot of gays who "come out" after marriage are actually bisexual who want a male bimbo, since a true gay doesn't have a good sexual life with his wife: On the contrary often the woman ends up sexually frustrated and abused by her husband who take out on her his own sexual frustration on not having an outlet.

Yet today, I found another one minute of hate on my facebook page, about some minister who years ago gave a sermon on Christian marriage and what that meant, and now, even though he is active pushing welfare type programs, he is ridiculed and turned down by Obama and having the left call him a bigot.

Even Chuck Hagel, who once criticized a potential ambassador for going to a gay party where a notoriously anti catholic group was performing, is now being discussed if he was homophobic.

So ridicule Catholic, no problem. Give a sermon about traditional marriage or quote the bible and you are a bigot.

No wonder the Pope is worried.

And what makes it worse is that the friend who accidentally sent the post (she traditionally posts the one minute hate messages from her groups on her facebook page) also added a remark that she wishes that the "fundamentalist christians" would all leave the country.

So the 40 percent of the country who are evangelical or pentecostal are no longer welcome? Not just silenced and ignored, but now we are proposing they be deported?

Ah, but what about we catholics, who see gay marriage as part of a continuum of a philosophy that denies human biology: that sex is not chosen, but an essential part of one's being, that the sexual identity goes beyond genitalia, that God made two sexes as a way to procreate and mixed it up with sexual love and happiness so that the family could be the way to do this.

UK sexual implosion

Father L writes about the open subtle suppport of pedophilia in the UK Guardian?

the evil of the sexual abuse of children? Think again. This taboo is the next one to fall.
If you would like a lesson in how old Screwtape works take time to read through this article from the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
The piece discusses various studies on pedophilia, and attempts to relativize this horrible issue. Here’s a quote:

 ”There are a lot of people who say: “we outlawed homosexuality, and we were wrong. Perhaps we’re wrong about paedophilia.”

The journalist doesn’t go so far as to endorse pedophilia. He doesn’t even write sympathetically about pedophiles. Oh no, it’s much more subtle than that. Instead he states that “society’s attitudes change” and “experts don’t agree” and “it’s all very complicated” and “it could be that pedophilia is simply a natural condition that cannot be changed. He opines that it may be one of many sexual orientations, and that we should seek to understand the condition rather than condemn. He goes on to say that certain studies have shown that sexual relationships between adults and underage partners are not necessarily “harmful”.
Quite apart from the actual article itself, it is interesting to see what is going on here. The writer uses contrasting studies by “experts” to confuse his readership about a moral choice which should be transparently easy. Pedophilia in all its forms is wrong. End of story.
The modern relativist, however, is more unhappy with a moral black and white than he is with pedophilia itself. Like a tongue with a broken tooth–he can’t leave it alone. He has to unpack every moral decision and show how “It’s not that easy” and “Its actually very complicated”. This obsession is so complete in our society that the relativist will now even begin to attempt to show us that pedophilia is “a disease” and “a condition”. If it is such, then there is no moral blame and we tolerant people must “try to understand”.

read the whole thing.

And then we read this from the UKMail:

Lower the age of consent to just FOURTEEN, say civil servants... and let's make nudity on the streets legal too

• Civil servants were asked for ideas to cut state intrusion into everyday life
• 'Outrageous' suggestion to lower consent age was rejected by ministers
• But reforms to nudity laws are still being considered, sources say

By James Chapman
PUBLISHED: 22:30 GMT, 10 January 2013 | UPDATED: 07:41 GMT, 11 January 2013

Lowering the age of sexual consent to 14 and allowing public nudity were among the suggestions made by officials drawing up new laws on personal freedoms.
Number 10 asked civil servants to produce a list of ideas that could be included in legislation to reduce state intrusion into everyday life.
The ‘outrageous’ suggestion to lower the age of consent has been rejected out of hand by ministers and their advisers.

one suspects the "rejection' by ministers wasn't based on their opinions but after a few of them figured it was a losing proposal.

'The Liberal Democrats are leading on this Bill and people were in shock. With everything that’s going on with Jimmy Savile, you don’t need more than two brain cells to realise how toxic this is'

Tory source

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2260443/Lower-age-consent-14-allow-public-nudity-civil-servants-told-No10.html#ixzz2HpNL6KQz

ah, but the article points out that "academics" are behind the idea (which is touted as a way for more freedom)

According to organisations such as the International Child and Youth Care Network, an age of consent of 16 criminalises more than half the teenage population and makes it hard to give them proper advice and support to prevent diseases, unwanted pregnancies and abuse.

nonsense of course.

We don't report a 14 year old having sex with her 16 year old boyfriend.

But making it easier to report the older men preying on our young teenagers would be a big help for us docs.

the coming persecution

Get Religion has an article on how being Christian and defending it's sexual ethic now means ostracism.

Washington Post Book World fiction editor Ron Charles tweeted out this morning:

Changing times: Gay inaugural poet hailed; anti-gay inaugural preacher dismissed: ow.ly/gJopc, ow.ly/gJotK

And the links go to just that — stories about the hailing of a gay poet and about a Christian pastor who taught traditional Christian doctrine on homosexuality twenty years ago being disinvited from the inauguration.

Yes, changing times.

These are times that have been advocated strenuously for by the mainstream media. Many journalists don’t try to hide that fact and have been candid about this advocacy. We have covered their admissions here before. (See here, here, here, here)

And much of the current situation — where teaching what Christians outside of the Episcopal Church (and other churches that have recently changed their doctrines) teach about human sexuality makes you a pariah to be shunned — could have easily been predicted.

It was predicted, by many cultural observers (albeit the kind who don’t get glowing profiles in the same mainstream media).

--------------------------------------------

Les Femmes point out that the term "civility" is now used to silent the debate.

As an example, he used the response of some Notre Dame professors who attacked Bishop  Daniel Jenky of Peoria and demanded his ouster from the Notre Dame board of trustees after he wrote about the Obama administrations's assault on religious freedom. Here's that particular section from Fr. Miscamble's article, but I recommend you read the rest:

...

Let me give one example. Late last spring, 154 Notre Dame faculty responded to a powerful homily given by Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky in defense of religious freedom against various actions affecting the church at both the national and state levels. In his homily, Bishop Jenky quite accurately gave four instances of governments – those of Bismarck, Clemenceau, Hitler and Stalin – that “tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches.” He suggested further, also rightly, certain parallels with recent actions by the Obama administration and an Illinois state government, which had imposed unacceptable terms on the workings of certain Catholic social service agencies.

 Did the offended faculty members react by writing a civil note to Bishop Jenky contesting his view? Hardly. Their ire up and their blood presumably boiling, they instead falsely and publicly accused Bishop Jenky of “ignorance of history, insensitivity to genocide, and absence of judgment.” They further demanded that he resign as a fellow and trustee of the university. They in no way, however, addressed the substance of Bishop Jenky’s legitimate concerns. So much for measured, careful, and respectful dialogue! 

 0--------------------

here in the Philippines the problem is that a lot of the youth have been educated to think America's hedonistic society is correct, and the ways that worked for their grand parents was not.

So the RH bill, which was supposed to be about maternal health, forbids medical personnel to talk about the problems of artificial birth control and gives out free contraceptives to all who want them in our clinics, but ignores that one third of women deliver without a trained birth attendent and that the elites who discuss it always insist we need to lower population growth (i.e. stop poor people from having kids, not stop the corruption that leads to foreign businesses from investing here, or that adversely affect local businesses: a recent problem with my step son being paid by a major corporation for gift packages is one example).

The next step of course is divorce (and then gay marriage and abortion).

Lefty activist Archbishop Cruz, who also is on the local advisory commission on marriage notes:

“The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution.”  (Article 2, Section 12)

Let it be formally and expressly said that while someone must be good for something, not everyone however is fit for marriage intents and purposes. This is a down-to-earth reality that is squarely premised on the inherent nature of and obligations intrinsic to marriage—such as the requirements of mental composition, emotional constitution and physical make-up of the concrete man and/or woman concerned.  One thing is the plain desire of getting married but definitely something else is to have the fitness, the capacity or aptitude for getting married.

It is understandable wherefore that more and more couples do not get married at all—but simply unite and separate at will. In fact, more and more married men and women get married and eventually come to part ways at will—with or without having children.  Thus it is too that more and more children from “broken families” become confused, angry and/or bitter even as they grow in years and realize their predicament of growing without the parenting presence of their fathers and/or mothers.

And yet, there are individuals who furthermore even want to introduce and legalize divorce in the country—as if the fact of divorce and the divorce mentality would promote the right understanding and proper living of the reality of marriage.  

I'm old enough to remember when the same fight was being done in the US by the Catholic bishops, who were seen as hard hearted for the hard cases.

Yet maybe they were right, and Maybe Paul VI was right about the birth control part.

Yet my husband is divorced and we married in the Catholic church due to a technicality: At first I thought he would need an annulment because his first wife had obvious mental problem (she is bipolar with OCD and a manipulative personality, and literally would sit in her bedroom for months and collect things instead of caring for the kids).

But luckily for him, she was also an anti Catholic bigot, so they married with a justice of the peace and she refused to cooperate for him to get the marriage blessed by the Catholic church.

She also refused him "marital relations" and then played the martyr when he got a mistress on the side (a custom here in the Philippines called a "second wife"). But she wouldn't divorce him because she was a "christian" and didn't believe in divorce (translation: She could brag about being a doctor's wife in her bigoted little church while playing the martyr/long suffering wife for them).

So should divorce be allowed? Yes, for hard cases, but not made easy.

One result of the "no fault" divorce laws is that the law now says marriage is less than a piece of paper: there is no way to enforce what used to be called a legal contract, and so why get married at all?

Yet in Asia, there is still the idea that a wife means something beyond a man and woman (or two people as the PC now insist) living together and getting tax breaks.

It is about the social umbrella that cares for each other. The Chinese novel Waiting shows this, where the spouses are separated but the wife continues to wait for her husband...

as for same sex relationships being called marriage: This is not the first step to destroy the family but the final step.

And it has the advantage of letting the bigots use it as a tool to destroy churches who dare to oppose the immorality of the new world order/Obama dictatorship (Yes I'm being paranoid again).

-------------------------------
Side issue: via instapundit:

 

PIERS MORGAN UPDATE: WaPo: Yeah, Morgan got pwned last night. “Eric Wemple at the Washington Post confirms that Shapiro wasn’t intransigent — he was just a lot smarter than Morgan and beat him at his own game.”

Shapiro, you magnificent bastard. I read your book!

Plus: “None of this should be surprising, coming as it does from a disgraced former tabloid editor and ex-talent show judge. Indeed, a quick look at Morgan’s oeuvre, which includes stints at the News of the World, which was shuttered during the phone hacking scandal, and the Daily Mirror, from which he was fired for publishing fake photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, and one understands that Morgan is incapable of nuance.”

UPDATE: Jim Treacher: Piers Morgan loses gun-control debate to Ben Shapiro.

MORE: CNN Host Obliterated During Interview Malfunction.

Yes, it's about guns but it also is about the progressive bullying to silence folks, and shows that it can be opposed. (although I suspect he won't be invited back).

Bookmarked for later reading

Spiritual but not religious. link bookmarked for later reading. Lots of these are either druggies, neurotic women who reject religion after having an abortion, egotists who like to look down on other people, and of course gays.

In my practice, most were druggies, but on the internet the second and third are more common.

They want the fuzzy feeling of being "spiritual" without any rules. I prefer a good honest atheist myself.

Confucius christianity?

I am stuck reading one of my liberal friends five minutes of hate because they get posted on my facebook page.

Today's five minutes of hate is ridiculing Christians, a common target. Why? Well, a self proclaimed atheist is bragging she won't take the oath of office on the bible, and the comments include saying it's terrible for a non Christian to be forced to do it.

The problem, of course, is that there is no law that the oath of office has to be taken on the bible. Indeed, since Quakers aren't allowed to take oaths, it is a long tradition that one can "affirm" rather than "swear" to uphold the constitution. And as a doc, I have had to give testimony in court, and never was sworn on a bible, nor did I ever give the Miliary oath on a bible (and the mention of God is not in either of these oaths).

The "oath", as Thomas More explains in a Man for all seasons, is taking your soul into your hands. It is asking fate, or god, or God, or Heaven, to pay attention to your promise (presumably to punish you if you break it). But it is also a way to acknowldge that you are not the highest person, but you are part of a patter, where you may be making laws, but you are also responsible to a higher meaning in life.

Confucius talks about the importance of ritual: it reinforces our behavior so we are not tempted to do what is ethically wrong, and it reminds us that the lessons of society on what is right and wrong are more important than our egotistical desires.

That idea, that tradition has a way to guide behavior, is not always correct in today's world, but the outright rejection of all traditions is something that is now politically correct in the USA.

For example, in the USA, any disapproval of a homosexual behavior is wrong, and any expression that 50 thousand years of marriage being between men and women and having something to do with biology and procreation and caring for children is now homophobia.

So if Chck Hagel points out that a potential ambassador to a Catholic country might not be appropriate since he openly attended a party or celebration whose entertasinment was a notoriously anti Catholic (gay) group, well, how dare he. Anti religion is okay.

Similarly the Obama administrations' not very well publicized vendetta against Catholic institutions is ignored. and I find it strange that the Obama administration first asked one Christian pastor to give a benediction at the inaugural and then withdrew the invitation:the MSM as usual is calling a pastor homophobic for a sermon he gave years ago defending natural marriage.

so presumably this means gay marriage will be a way for the progressives to destroy those with traditional values, and now maybe even have the federal government do it for them.

It is hard to find a Christian attitude shown positvely in films...when it is shown (e.g. hunger games, the Hobbit) it is shown in a stealthy way, and the films dismissed as juvenile.

In contrast, Father Z links to an article suggesting that Christians might have more luck in getting published in Asia:

link

One of the leading figures of the Chinese avant-garde, Bei Cun, converted in 1992 and has since written a number of novels in which his Protestant faith looms large. Another convert from atheism, this time to Catholicism, is Fan Wen, who has written a trilogy of novels about Tibet centred around the Tibetan Catholic village of Yanjing. Rejecting magic realism in favour of what he calls “divine realism”, Fan Wen has achieved both popular and critical success, with the People’s Daily choosing Dadi Yage (or “Canticle to the Land”) as one of its top five novels of 2010.

yeah, and someday someone will notice that korean and Pinoys living in the Middle East mean that they are the new "christian" presence there.

just posting stuff to cross post elsewhere

homicide by year

Bishops: Prepare for trouble

Father Z has an article on the Pope warning the bishops they will be ignored or worse.

But, inevitably, we will also be beaten by those who live lives opposed to the Gospel, and then we can be grateful for having been judged worthy to share in the passion of Christ.

Politically correct cannibalism

When I read books, I cheat: Because I hate to waste my time finding out the book was a sham.

 The first thing that made me angry was that the "story" is made valid because it is told to a white man.

Uh, you mean either the Canadian writer can't fake it as an Indian (like the Life of a Geisha was "faked" by a male writer)?

Or is the story only valid if it is written and told to you, the gentle reader, by a white man?

So why can anyone tell me why "life of pi" is a hit? Yes, the movie is beautiful (I downloaded a Hindi version without subtitles and it is visually stunning.....). But then at the end, the story is ruined: Because it is a lie.

The dirty little secret is that the "story" is a coverup of cannibalism and murder.

It is not a "conversion reaction" (where the person really believes his story) nor is it psychotic (or it would be more disjointed and confused). No, at the end of the novel, the police and docs doubt the story, and the kid promptly says, well here is another version, and tells a story of murder and cannibalism.

In other words, he is a sociopath who made up the story for them, a story that the kid made up and more importantly KNOWS he made it up....so when they doubt him he promptly changed itThat is what a sociopath does.

Which brings up another point: The second story told so quickly proves the kid is a liar, so why should we believe his second story, where he is merely an innocent Victim.

Hello!: if he were the innocent victim of the second story (where he blames the canniablism and the murder of his mother on the cook), then how did he stay alive that long? One suspects that he was not so "innocent", and that is why he tried to fake out the police with a highly embellished romanticized tale for them to believe.


Since nothing can be proven, one can see the cops saying, well, you didn't sink the ship. You can't convict a man for confessing, since too many people can be talked into making a confession by zealous cops,  or under stress, tell a story that they believe is true, as happens in false memory syndrome...(see Rashomon, where the stories don't match and the woman claims she killed her husband, but that wasn't true).

So yes, the boy could have been brow beaten by the cops during a long interrogation to tell the second story. But he wasn't, at least in the movie, they just say: We don't believe you, and then he blurts out story number two, where he is the hapless victim of an evil cook.

But having the police and psychiatrist say "it doesn't matter which story is true" is a bunch of nonsense. Because the truth DOES matter.

The cops probably saw through his story, which is why they insisted he tell the REAL story. And then, being cops, they probably figured it was the kid, not the cook, who did the killing and eating.. but cops tend to be cynical and why waste time trying to prosecute a case that can't be proven. Lots of cops see murders go free for lack of evidence, and they meet sociopaths all the time who get away with the worst sorts of crimes and blithely make up fake stories to cover their trail.

But the Japanese psychiatrists would have known that the boy was deeply in need of psychiatric help.

If he was a sociopath, there is little psychiatry could do.

But if he still had a smidgen of normality inside him, and made up the story as a child makes up stories, then he is greatly in need of psychiatric therapy, because as children grow up, the guilt twists them inside.

That is why abused children, who are often adopted and appear normal, often "act out" and take drugs or become promiscuous or get into fights or abuse others....that's when you find how their "loving" parents, or more commonly the mom's  boyfriend abused them in terrible ways, physically or sexually. That is why veterans will refrain from telling the real truth of combat, and cope with it by getting drunk at the VFW and telling fake or exaggerated tales to their buddies. That is why a veteran suffering from alcoholism or abuse is assumed to have a service related disability, even if he never "saw" combat (one of the worst cases I saw was a patient who was stationed in Saigon and couldn't take the guilt of not being in danger when some of his friends were killed).

Indeed, if the psychiatrist was old enough, he might have treated one or two patients for depression and guilt from a similar starvation crisis. Because one of the rarely told horror stories of World War II was the situation of the Japanese soldier in the Philippines, who were not allowed to surrender normally and hid in the jungles. Often if they approached locals for food, the locals would kill them in revenge for previous atrocities by the Japanese. Many starved or died of disease, and there are rumors that some gave into their hunger by eating the bodies of the dead.

One of Shusaku Endo's most moving stories is of a Japanese man dying alone in a hospice, because he was so miserable and nasty no one loved him.

 But one nurse, a Brazilian man, cared for him gently no matter how he was reviled or shouted at. Finally, the man asked him why he was there, in Japan, caring for a stranger, and the Brazilian told him the story of being stranded after an airplane crash and that the survivors resorted to cannibalism to stay alive...and in reparation for his sin and in thanksgiving for his survival, he vowed to work with the dying.

At this point, the Japanese man starts crying and tells the story of being one of the lost Japanese soldiers stranded in the Luzon mountains, and they too ate "meat" given to them by a friend which was probably from the body of one of their dead comrads. The soldier literally couldn't live with the guilt, and could see no way to be forgiven, until he saw there in front of him another human who had faced the same dilemma.

 No, the Japanese man didn't "convert to Jesus", as would happen in a B novel.

Endo was a Catholic but one who saw in Christ the man of compassion who would be with people in the most miserable circumstances and show them God's love. And he emphasized that to Japanese, the christ the king or the christ of law would not be accepted, but that the Buddhist like jesus the compassionate would be understood. So the Japanese man learned that God's love overcame even his self hatred and guilt, and died in peace.

Alas, Life of Pi is more about...well, people say it is about god, but I agree only if you turn off the story when he is rescued.

It is really about the PC idea that there is no truth, there is no right and wrong, that crime doesn't matter, and that if a white man tells a pretty story about an exotic place with brown skinned foreigners, then you don't have to pretend these brown skinned people actually believe in stuff like right and wrong and karma.

No wonder the book starts with the boy combining the three faiths: Cafeteria Islam/Hindu/Christian beliefs mean never having to say you are sorry.