Thursday, March 21, 2002
Every time I'm faced with a research paper for psychology I'm tempted to just never go back to school. Just refuse to ever set foot on campus again. Of course I won't. They already have 50,000 dollars of my money. 17,000 of which is for this semester. I write awful papers chock full o' statistics. In exchange they give me pieces of paper which claim to show how much I know. This doesn't seem like a fair exchange. After you're in school for a while you begin to catch on to the fact that the first year is picking up the style and the rules, the rest is just perseverance.
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Turns out Bush didn't wave at Stevie Wonder. What does it tell you that the story spread like it did? Or that the correction won't spread? Perhaps that once the image of someone as a dolt is firmly entrenched it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
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In response to the Saudis burning school girls alive William Quick says:
Do not speak to me soft words about how Islam is a peaceful religion. How not all Muslims are like this. These Muslims aren't peaceful, they are murdering swine, and this branch of Islam is like this. Saudi Arabia is now a pariah among civilized men and women and societies. Bringing the loathsome lunatics who actually perpetrated this deed to some sort of Islamic "justice" will never extirpate the stain, nor the shame, for they are merely the crop that flourished in the fertile fields of Saudi Wahabbist fanaticism.
Absolutely true. The very unfortunate fact is that normal Muslims, honorable, moral Muslims, do not proclaim this from the rooftops. It is the height of hypocrisy to refrain from a full throated denunciation simply because the assholes share your religion. If you truly believe in the religion then you must realize that it can only grow and improve by removing the sickness and disease. Attacking the erroneous aspects of a religion will make it stronger if the religion has any worth whatsoever.
Silence is consent. Silence is acquiescence. Silence is complicity. In the words of Edmund Burke "All that is required for Evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
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The Pope must read my blog. He finally spoke up about all this, weeks later, with a blanket "this is a bad thing" statement. Not particulaly helpful. My favorite paragraph form the story:
"For years, the Vatican viewed such reports as attempts to discredit the church or as part of an orchestrated campaign against celibacy."
From another story:
"Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy, read a two-page statement.
He said sexual abuse was the product of modern culture, where sexual liberties had influenced priests too. The cardinal said the Church has not neglected priestly pedophilia and listed the times the Pope had condemned it." (emphasis mine)
That tells you all you need to know about how out of touch the church is.
I was also saddened to read that there have been allegations against priests in Ireland, England, France, Australia, and Poland. Millions spent covering for those priests too.
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