Astroturf take three

VDHanson writes on how the coasts run the country and ignore the opinions etc. of "fly over country".

The problem is not just that the coasts determine how everyone else is to lead their lives, but that those living in our elite corridors have no idea about how life is lived just a short distance away in the interior — much less about the sometimes tragic consequences of their own therapeutic ideology on the distant, less influential majority. In a fantasy world, I would move Washington, D.C., to Kansas City, Mo. That transfer would not only make the capital more accessible to the American people and equalize travel requirements for our legislators, but also expose an out-of-touch government to a reality outside its Beltway.

one only has to go to Amazon to see all the books written about stupid Americans...or hear the president lament that the "american people" gave him approval to pass an agenda but are obstructed by the evil Republicans.

Uh, when the election is won by a few percentage points, it doesn't give you the right to demonize the 47 percent who lost.

I called the link astroturfing but maybe there is a Hunger Games parallel here too...

Astroturf take two

MomJones reveals the "Plan B" drug that was pushed by activists to become Over the counter and paid for by Obamacare doesn't work in the 30 percent of American women who are overweight...

Apparently the drug company knew about this but wasn't too eager to tell the public.

Hmm...wonder if those pushing so hard to pass it (which included the pro birth control physicians organizations) were aware of this?

And one wonders if this was astroturfed?

I know the AAFP pushed Obamacare with our dues, even though most Family docs were against it...

The dirty little secret is that most docs are so busy caring for patients they don't have time to do politics, but the political minded types who become doctors to save the world and find that their patients are human and get disillusioned tend to run these organizations.

This explains a lot of why not only the AMA is losing members but the US Catholic nuns have essentially lost most of their members: because their leadership was taken over by activists and the members voted with their feet.

Astroturf

Phillip Jenkins wonders if the often quoted Barry Lynn actually represents anyone? The organization was founded in 1948 as an anti Catholic organization, but who does it represent now? Who belongs to it?

If media outlets think that Mr. Lynn expresses an important point of view cogently, then by all means have him appear as an independent writer or broadcaster. But while presenting him primarily as the Executive Director of an impressive-sounding organization is technically correct, it really is misleading.

Well, I remember when one bigshot in Hollywood gave them a lot of money some years back.

But like "catholics for choice", it is not a grass roots organization but an astroturf, with lots of money from the usual suspects and a few activists as members.

Many of these organizations echo each other because essentially they all have many of the same people as "members" or "supporters".

Astroturf gets it's name from the fake grass used inside stadiums like the Astrodome, where ordinary grass won't grow.

wikipedia describes the word Astroturfing:

Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message (e.g. political, advertising, or public relations) to give the appearance of it coming from a disinterested, grassroots participant. Astroturfing is intended to give the statements the credibility of an independent entity by withholding information about the source's financial connection. The term astroturfing is a derivation of AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass.

 

quote of the day

comes from British composer James McMillan

Some Catholic dioceses run courses for wannabe composers to perpetuate this style. It is a scandal. People with hardly any training and experience of even the basic building blocks of music have been convinced that there is a place for their puerile stumblings and fumblings in the modern Catholic Church because real musicians are elitist and off-putting.

and the article includes this photo:

 contrast:

Bookmarked for later reading

Are the Pentecostals the link between evangelicals and Catholics?

and some notes on the sacramental view of the world often closer to the Orthodox viewpoint than modern Catholic thinkers

the "sacramental" viewpoint is that God is found in material things.

from a blogpost describing Andrew Greeley's explanation of what this means:

"How is the Catholic Imagination different?" I wondered, and "Why might this be so?" Greeley writes:

"The central symbol (of religion) is God. One's "picture" of God is in fact a metaphorical narrative of God's relationship with the world and the self as part of the world... The Catholic "classics" assume a God who is present in the world, disclosing Himself in and through creation. The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be somewhat like God. The Protestant classics, on the other hand, assume a God who is radically absent from the world, and who discloses (Himself) only on rare occasions (especially in Jesus Christ and Him crucified). The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be radically different from God." ³

the blog then quotes another writer

In a rather eye-popping essay for the New Art Examiner, Eleanor Heartney examines the legacy of the Catholic Church and its influence on contemporary art. Presuming her audience might be hostile to such a claim, she supports her contention with a brief "delve into theology" and explains:

"Catholic doctrine holds that the human body is the instrument through which the miracle of man's salvation from sin is accomplished. As a result, all the major mysteries of the Catholic faith - among them Christ's Incarnation, his Crucifixion and Resurrection, the Resurrection of the faithful at the end of time, and the Transubstantiation of bread and wine into Christ's body and blood during the Mass - center around the human body. Without Christ's assumption of human form, there could be no real sacrifice, and hence, no real salvation for mankind. The Catholic Church has traditionally relied upon visual imagery and sensual experience in order to convey these truths. The medieval cathedral, with its elaborate sculptural programs and stained-glass cycles provided a visual summary of both biblical tales and highly sophisticated theological disputes to a public that was largely illiterate. By the Renaissance, art had become an essential tool for the promulgation of religious doctrine...

"All of this is of course in stark contrast to the Protestant emphasis on biblical revelation as the primary source of God's truth. Since the Reformation, Protestants have tended to regard Catholic practice of venerating Christ and the Saints through richly ornamented religious statuary as a form of idol worship. Sensual imagery and sensual language are seen as impediments, rather than aids to belief. The body and its experiences are things to be transcended...

"The tension between Catholic and Protestant sensibilities outlined here can be summed up as a conflict between the Catholic culture of the image and the Protestant culture of the word. Catholicism values sensual experience and visual images as essential tools for bringing the faithful to God. By contrast, American Protestants depend for their salvation almost exclusively on God's Word as revealed through the Holy Bible..." ⁷

which is why the protestant "reformers" destroyed art work, as did the self proclaimed reformers who destroyed modern Catholic churches under the guise of Vatican II: Too hoi polloi.

Stuff from those "forbidden" books

the new agers laud all those books that agree with their gnostic ideas (i.e. that elite people with superior intellect and knowledge are holier than the hoi polloi)

But Phillip Jenkins has a series of blogposts about the rejected books that inspired a lot of non biblical Catholicism in the middle ages.

One of these stories is remembered today in the pre vatican II feast day "Presentation of Mary".

Fountain of Elias discusses the background of the feast.

I'm feeling snarky today

So how did this girl get admitted into an ivy league college, let alone have enough money to pay tuition?

Reality check: it's hard to get into these elite colleges, unless you have very high grades, or you have a relative with pull.

And even back then, before tuition started to soar, it was pretty expensive for ordinary folks.

Did she get scholarships? Who told her to apply there, a school teacher in WV? or did she have another family member who had pull to get her admitted?

and then she apparently had contacts with other elites that landed her very hard to get jobs.

Anyone?

and if you really want to get snarky, tell me how her sister, who is supposed to be a poverty stricken girl, manage to get into a psychiatric institution for an entire year? by the 1980's they were busy emptying the institutions, and only the very very psychotic types were kept in for a few months.

In other words, her story might be very politically correct and entertaining, but it is full of holes, at least to someone who actually came from non upper class circumstances.

don't expect to read this in the NYTimes

The two minute hate talking points yesterday was a quote from Thomas Jefferson saying that man was now modern and it was wonderful that we can discard the rules of the past in the name of progress. (I.e that gay marriage was about dignity, so if you say: wait a minute, you are a hater and immediately shut up. Heh. Atlantic magazine questioned if  you really mean to promote gay marriage as marriage, and give up the gay lifestyle).

yes, but the dirty little secret is that for Jefferson, it meant he could stumpf his slave without guilt, keep slaves while writing that all men are created equal, and not feel guilty about living high on the hog off their work.

Part of the Pope's statement. The Macabees part is in the Catholic bible, but the Jews celebrate their victory at Chanukah...

Centering his homily on the day’s first reading from the Book of Maccabees in which the Jewish community abandoned their cultural and religious customs because of the influence of the corrupt king “Antiochus the Illustrious,” who destroyed their temple and built pagan altars.
Pope Francis explained how giving up one’s identity like those in the reading “is a contradiction,” because “we do not negotiate values, but we negotiate fidelity.”
“This is precisely the fruit of the devil, of the prince of this world, which leads us forward in a spirit of worldliness. And after, the consequences occur,” he added, highlighting how not only did the people of God take the “customs of the pagans,” they took it “a step further.”
“The king prescribed in all the kingdom that everyone form a single people and every one will abandon their own customs,” noted the pontiff, adding that “it is not the beautiful globalization of the unity of all Nations, but rather each one with their own customs…it is the globalization of hegemonic uniformity.”

then he continued:

Pope Francis cautioned against the attitude of wanting “be like everyone else,” which he referred to as an “adolescent progressivism.”
“What do you think?” he pressed, “that today human sacrifices are not made? Many, many people make human sacrifices and there are laws that protect them.”
Despite this, continued the pontiff, “what consoles us is that the Lord, who cannot renounce himself, the Faithful one, always remains before this path that the spirit of the world makes.” Pope Francis cautioned against the attitude of wanting “be like everyone else,” which he referred to as an “adolescent progressivism.”
“What do you think?” he pressed, “that today human sacrifices are not made? Many, many people make human sacrifices and there are laws that protect them.”
Despite this, continued the pontiff, “what consoles us is that the Lord, who cannot renounce himself, the Faithful one, always remains before this path that the spirit of the world makes.”
“He always waits for us,” stated the Pope, “He loves us so much and He forgives us when we, repentant of any step, of some small step in this spirit of worldliness, go to Him, God of faithfulness before his people, that are not faithful.”

No man is an island

Professor MaryAnn Glendon argues (in her book Rights Talk) that the "isolated free man" (aka "noble savage) that many use to undermine traditional laws in the name of "freedom" never existed.

From what I know about working with AmerIndians (Objibwe, Sioux, Navajo, Apache) and in Africa (Karanga Mashona) I know that it's true. You simply can't exist in isolation: and the presence of French names in American Indians suggests that the "isolated mountain man" mythology was also a bunch of crap (most of them had Indian "wives" to do the dirty work).

So today, SavageMinds blogs has a link to a book review of Jared Diamond's newest book, the world until yesterday.

The reviewer critizes Diamond for assuming that today's hunter gatherers were like the primitive ones, and he argues against that. He blames the evil west, thereby proving he doesn't know how to think or analyze, but merely prefers to parrot marxist rhetoric than bother to look at reality.

Hello: Hairy Ainu anyone? The Han genocides as they expanded the Chinese empire?

The reviewer also discusses why war is a "new" idea of civilization:

Maybe, but the Yale course on population suggests that violence predates civilization, and even predates homo sapiens.

of course, I may agree with them after I read the book, but then blogs are about blasting people based on content out of context, aren' t they?

Lady Poverty

The Anchoress enthusiases over dying convents helping each other. Nice to not have to worry about the bills.

I guess I'd be more enthusiastic if I hadn't been forced to move in with my brother (and my mom with HER brother) when we left Africa because of the increased danger of being shot as the war there got hotter.

And these are the "good" nuns, i.e. the ones who still bother to pray.

Guess none of them ever heard of renting houses...

Heh. Don't pray you might cause problems.

I used to work in Boston in the late 1980's, and my kids attended schools there...when I lived there, the pro euthanasia types were pushing it in the local medical journal and in medical schools (and ostracizing those who disagreed) and we (myself and two non Catholic ethicists who taught in local medical schools) wrote to the bishop there with a "headsup" of what was going on, and got a formal letter in return. The end result was a vague "end of life" column in the diocese newspaper that was probably read by no one, which didn't make much difference since it was too vague to understand what they were talking about...

so this makes me cynical.

Ignoring pedophiles>
No problem. They only need "treatment" and then were reassigned.

Ignoring serial sex abusers because they are heroes in the press for working with street people?
No Problem...

Ignoring gay priests and screening out orthodox men  who applied to the seminaries for being believers?
No problem

Teaching 8th graders like my son that masturbation is okay?
No problem.

Ignoring the rush to euthanasia in the local medical schools, including the low grade persecution of professors who oppose it?
No problem

Ignoring the vast disappearance of people from attending mass?
No problem.

Praying and being given talks to encourage you to pray by a "non approved" visionary?

AGGGH!

One is reminded of St Teresa (the big one) who was a reformer and got in trouble and even tried by the inquisition: she asked her critics that why, with all the local problems in the church, they were so busy trying to stop women from praying.

Uh, if God is real, then prayer is dangerous.
Prayer definition: Raising one's heart and mind to God.

I find prayer hard: I tend not to emotionally "believe" much of the time, and am cynical about those who insist we need to feel the spirit to be close to god.

but then I don't emotionally believe in gravity, or in supernovas, etc. But I recognize God and gravity are "reality".

I tend toward the "social action" wing of the church, but not the "nuns on the bus" who are willing to look the other way at killing unborn babies to become politically correct.

Of course, the PC nuns hate the place: they (correctly) point out that these prayer organizations don't do "social action". Yet, as a doc who works with ordinary people, I think they are wrong because they equate doing good with approved forms of social action. This lets them overlook the everyday goodness of people struggling to raise and care for families.

As one Hindu saint told a woman who said she didn't believe in god: Your husband is god. Your children are god. in other words, caring and loving your family is one way of serving god. The catholic equivalent is the little St Theresa's "little way", of doing the duties of your daily life with love.


Take my case: I'd love to go down and care for those injured in the Visayas, but it would mean not taking care of my husband. Which is a priority? Should I have stayed in the US working as a doc in the poor Indian reservations, and placed him in a nursing home (where he would probably have died due to poor care)? Or was I right retiring early to return home with him to the Philippines, where he can be cared for by extended family?


The point is that praying is not "doing anything" but is the quiet that keeps one going. Like making love to one's husband, it is not something that is often seen as being as "useful" like working in a business or doing public charity.

Ironically, a lot of the 'traditional' types hate the place too: Probably because a really rabid guy who printed "ain't it awful" stuff for the right wing catholic publications did an expose of it back in the 1980's...the expose exaggerated trivial problems so much that it convinced me to go myself and see what was going on.

And I found it a place of grace.

If you have money, go visit.


But what do I know? I'm not a "churchy" type. 

A lot of the opposition is politics of course. The parish involved was run by Franciscans, who stayed there during the Ottoman days, and are beloved. The Bishop is trying to throw them out and replace them with his own priests, and this feud has made him decide it's a fraud...part of it also seems to be that he believed a lot of disinformation given to him by the old communist government to support his dislike of the so called apparition.

Yet one does wonder what was the bishop's sense of proportion.

So, in the middle of the Yugoslavian civil war, when thousands were being killed or ethnically cleansed, and the churches in Mostar were being destroyed and the Muslims there under fire, the local bishops were asked what was the local church's biggest problem, and they said it was the apparition, not the hatred on all sides killing people. Sigh.

One of the objections of the rabid traditionalist catholic guy I cited was that Mary told one of the women that a local Muslim neighbor was a saint: And that all of those seeking god were her children. That put his knickers in a knot: How dare anyone suggest that other religions can lead people to god!

(catholics say other religions are partly true, so can lead people to god, but that Jesus, via grace, saves them. We pre vatican II folks call this "baptism of desire", meaning they might not be christians with every dot and jiggle correct, but they wanted to serve the deity, so are given that grace. Bible thumpers can refer to Matthew 25 where a lot of people get into heaven even though they admit they didn't "know" Jesus)

So if one thinks that Mary says catholicism isn't true, well, not really.  Outsiders might not recognize what she was saying is that killing people because they aren't of your religion is a no no.

This did not sit well with fundamentalists or career church men who see organizational church as important.


Sigh.

Ironically, in the early 1990s our local Catholic bishop in Pennsylvania opposed us from going there.

His lack of action on priests who were openly gay or even hitting at young teenagers was notorious.  Coincidence?

When I lived in that area, he bragged there were no more problems with his priests: Yet a nurse cried on my shoulder that her husband had been asked to "intervene" with a family so that they would not report a "visiting" priest who had molested their 13 year old boy. And my gay friends laughed at him because they knew all those priests who they met in the gay scene in Pittsburgh. I even remember an article in the local newspaper which promoted a gay friendly ministry at a local state university which has since been in the headlines after a notorious abuser associated with the university was finally prosecuted.

And that doesn't even include the hippie priest who ran away with the catechist (our pastor just sighed and said: At least it was with a woman)...

So this bishop openly advised us to "obey" the local bishop and not visit there on pilgrimage, and forbad any local priests to go with us. (he also tried to shut down the local charismatic groups, and tried to get rid of art in the churches: Some of this was stopped by local groups because they got the eastern European churches listed as architectural heritage sites).

So we went there with the local Russian Orthodox prayer group, which had that bishop's permission.

Ha.

It is interesting that this prayer group included many catholics, in a town with several Catholic churches that were dying up in membership due to the pedophilia scandals (people refused to give them money in collection, and many just stopped going).

And strangely, this Russian Orthodox church was one of two churches (the other a holiness church) that were desecrated by satanic signs and mutilated animals, almost as if someone "knew" these two small obscure churches were "dangerous" to those with evil intentions.

Sigh.

and is it a coincidence that the letter noted that the original request was made by a German bishop who was "kicked upstairs" to the Vatican after reinstating a pedophile? PDF.

End of Rant.

Answering the important questions of the day

How much gold does Smaug have?

With this density and volume, I get a mass of 2.69 x 10⁶ kg. On the market, this would be worth 1.33 x 10¹¹ US Dollars. That seems like it’s a lot of money, but at least it is less than a trillion dollars (which is 10¹² dollars).

so no, stealing his gold won't pay the US national debt which is now 17 plus trillion dollars.

It's breast cancer month

Time to paint the tanks pink

Posted 11/2/2013 The Minnesota National Guard developed the Pink Tank Project to raise awareness during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is October. (Photo illustration by Tech. Sgt. Paul Santikko)

when I was posted to the local tank unit, it was an all male unit (I was given a temporary post into a male slot, with the understanding that if the Russians drove through the Fulda gap, I would not be going with my unit to meet them)