pnwmom
pnwmom's JournalPope Francis's new book: "The Name of God is Mercy"
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/with-his-new-book-pope-francis-unlocks-the-doorA book on mercy might be expected to be a warm bath in kindliness, all sweetness and light, but Pope Francis, in “The Name of God Is Mercy,” offers a tough-minded reflection on an urgently needed public virtue, together with firm, if kindly, pushback against his critics.
The Pope’s now mythic line—“Who am I to judge?”—endeared him to many who long for humane authority, but it alarmed those who worry that the traditional center of religious and social order cannot hold. (Who are you to judge? You’re the Pope, that’s who!) That the question was asked in the context of an apparent tolerance of homosexuality made it especially threatening to the culture warriors, for whom gay rights is a flash point. Was the Pope yielding on a point of doctrine? Indeed, was doctrine at risk in his seeming openness to readmitting the divorced and remarried to Communion, or in his refusal to give due emphasis to other touchstone issues of sexual morality? Was there, in the Times columnist Ross Douthat’s incendiary phrase, a “plot to change Catholicism”?
The Pope’s new book is framed as an interview, and, as if to be sure that he is understood, he welcomes a return to that totemic question. And he makes clear that, yes, “Who am I to judge?” is a defining position, but for Francis it is a stance rooted in a strong sense of mercy. When his interlocutor, a Vatican reporter named Andrea Tornielli, raises the critics’ objection—“Can there be opposition between truth and mercy, or between doctrine and mercy?”—Francis’s answer is forthright. “I will say this: mercy is real; it is the first attribute of God. Theological reflections on doctrine and mercy may then follow, but let us not forget that mercy is doctrine. Even so, I love saying: mercy is true.” Against those who obsess that the Pope is failing to uphold doctrine, Francis recalls that, in the Gospel, such critics “represent the principal opposition to Jesus; they challenge him in the name of doctrine.” And he adds, “This approach is repeated throughout the long history of the Church.”
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Sexual assault survivor groups criticize Bernie's position on campus rapes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-campus-rape_5695431ee4b086bc1cd5616eBernie’s position:
The problem:
Currently, any school receiving federal funding is obligated under Title IX to respond to and investigate reports of sexual harassment and assault, regardless of whether police are involved. Multiple court decisions have held that sexual assault can deny someone equal access to education that they are entitled to under the gender equity law Title IX.
Advocates, higher education officials and sexual assault survivor-activists have routinely opposed bills proposing to send all cases to police, citing a distrust in the criminal justice system and data showing that prosecutors rarely bring charges in campus rape cases. Fewer than 10 percent of rape cases reported to police result in criminal charges against an accused perpetrator, according to one 2012 study.
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Both Brodsky and Dunn said Sanders' comments were typical of lawmakers who often want to appear as though they take sexual violence seriously.
"If politicians want to say they are serious about campus sexual assault," Dunn told HuffPost, "they should start by showing an understanding about the systematic failure of the criminal justice system to address or respond to sexual violence on campus."
ON EDIT:
For people who want to know more about the issues related to sexual assault survivors, this is one of the best:
RAINN.org
Steps a college student may take, regardless of whether she or he chooses to press criminal charges:
https://rainn.org/get-information/sexual-assault-prevention/campus-safety-sexual-assault
If you have experienced sexual assault, there are steps you can take to feel safer.
Make use of on-campus resources. Colleges often provide a host of services to students for free, including security escorts, health centers, psychological services, and sexual assault services.
Request a schedule or housing change. If you have classes with the perpetrator or live in the same building, you can request a change from your college administration. Federal laws, such as the Campus SaVE Act, require colleges to honor these requests.
Access off-campus support services. If you are concerned about anonymity, you can seek out resources located off campus in the community, like a local sexual assault service provider or domestic violence shelter.
Seek a civil protection order (CPO). A CPO, sometimes also referred to as a temporary restraining order (TPO), is a legal document that bars an individual from certain types of contact with the person who is awarded the order. An individual who violates the terms of the restraining order can face criminal charges. Each state has its own rules and regulations for Sexual Assault CPOs that you can learn more about through the American Bar Association.
Create a safety plan. If you are concerned for your ongoing safety, it can be worthwhile to create a safety plan. Safety planning is about finding ways to be safe in the present while planning for your future safety as well.
Why haven't they cut off water and electricity to the Oregon militants?
And blockaded the exits that can be traveled by vehicle?
If these people have to sit in the cold and the dark from 5 o'clock on, with no fresh water and toilets that stop working -- with cell phones that can't be recharged -- I doubt that they'll want to stay long.
ON EDIT: According to this Jan 5 article, it was supposed to have been done by now.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/05/oregon-wildlife-militia-standoff-power-cut-off
A federal government official told the Guardian that authorities were planning on Monday to cut the power at the refuge.
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Any such move would mark a significant escalation in the crisis. The local sheriff, FBI and other law enforcement officials have so far held back from confronting the militia, who are heavily armed and have lookouts on a watchtower.
The militia have said they do not want a violent confrontation but made clear they are armed and prepared for the arrival of law enforcement officials. However, it appears that federal authorities were planning to use the power cut, and an attempt to starve the militia of supplies, in order to force them out.
“After they shut off the power, they’ll kill the phone service,” the government official added. “Then they’ll block all the roads so that all those guys have a long, lonely winter to think about what they’ve done.”
Village of Whitesboro, NY votes to keep its racist seal.
Though most voters stay at home, the ones who vote choose to keep the picture of a white man strangling an Indian ("wrestling" him in "friendly match"
as their town emblem.
http://www.wktv.com/news/local/The_Votes_are_in_as_The_Daily_Show_visits_the_Village_of_Whitesboro.html
WHITESBORO, NY - It's been debated for more than 55 years: The Village of Whitesboro's historic seal that depicts a white settler wrestling with a Native American.
Tonight, January 11, the issue went to a residential vote. Polls were open from 6-9 p.m., and of the approximately 1900 registered voters, 212 came out to make their opinions known.
The results - 157 residents voted to keep the original seal.
In all there were 9 choices, some of them very interesting.
Many strongly against changing the seal because they say they love their village history and want it to remain the same. The original seal with the white settler and Native American is historically and locally known as a friendly wrestling match. But some call it offensive and racist because it appears to show the white man choking the Indian
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Study: Donald Trump's speech aims at 4th grade level listeners.
Which is why he sounds like such an idiot to most of us, but appeals to many.
This is scary.
I bet he does it on purpose. I don't think he could have succeeded at Wharton if this was his true level of speech.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/10/20/donald-trump-and-ben-carson-speak-grade-school-level-that-today-voters-can-quickly-grasp/LUCBY6uwQAxiLvvXbVTSUN/story.html
WASHINGTON — When Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign, he decried the lack of intelligence of elected officials in characteristically blunt terms.
“How stupid are our leaders?” he said. “How stupid are they?”
But with his own choice of words and his short, simple sentences, Trump’s speech could have been comprehended by a fourth-grader. Yes, a fourth-grader.
The Globe reviewed the language used by 19 presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans, in speeches announcing their campaigns for the 2016 presidential election. The review, using a common algorithm called the Flesch-Kincaid readability test that crunches word choice and sentence structure and spits out grade-level rankings, produced some striking results.
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The American Research Group (ARG) gets a C-minus rating from 538 for reliability.
Something to keep in mind the next time you see one of their polls.
This is a useful page in which 538 explains rankings for all the pollsters you may be hearing from.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/pollster-ratings/
Ralph Nader: "Bernie Sanders won't take my calls."
And he accuses Bernie of lacking in social graces, which is amusing, considering.
He also notes that none of the progressive Senators want to speak to him. Gee, I wonder why. Could it have anything to do with 2000?
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/18/ralph_nader_on_bernie_sanders_presidential
RALPH NADER: Bernie Sanders does not answer my calls. Fifteen years, he’s never answered a telephone call, never replied to a letter, never replied to a meeting that I wanted to go down and see him. I even had to write an article on this, called "Bernie, We Thought We Knew Ye!" One of the problems he’s going to face, other than his good graces in Vermont, is that he doesn’t have good political antennae. He doesn’t have political social graces. And he’s going to have to change that. A lot of his friends have told me that that’s a problem. But most progressive senators don’t really respond to any progressive group that tries to push him to do more than they want to do. I wrote nine letters to nine progressive senators, like Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and saying, "Look, you’re all lone rangers doing good things, but you’re going nowhere. So why don’t you get together into a caucus of nine, 10, 12 senators in the Senate and push a unified agenda on poverty, on labor, on the environment, on trade, on military policy? You might really get somewhere. At the least, you’ll raise these issues more prominently." Not a single response. Called up, said, "Would they respond?" Not a single response. I did finally have to go down and meet with the general counsel for Senator Warren. But by and large, that’s the problem with the left. That’s the problem of progressives. They don’t link with one another. You never see Heritage Foundation or Cato or all these right-wing groups tolerate members of Congress treating them that way who are supposed to be on their side.
Trayvon Martin's mother endorses Hillary because gun control is so important.
She's not the only mother who feels that way.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/11/opinions/fulton-gun-violence/index.html
I believe that person is Hillary Clinton.
I know Clinton is tough enough to wage this fight. I've seen her do it for years. As first lady, she advocated for the Brady Bill and convened meetings on school violence. As a senator, she voted to extend the assault weapons ban and against an immunity law that protects irresponsible gun makers and dealers from liability.
In spending some time with her in person, I also found a mother and a grandmother who truly heard me, and understood the depth of my loss.
She knew all the statistics. But like so many, I've long since grown numb to the numbers. So instead, we talked about Trayvon and other families who have lost a loved one to gun violence. We talked about all of the wishes and hopes we had for their lives. And knowing we can never get them back, we discussed how to prevent more moms from losing their sons to gun violence.
Clinton will uphold President Obama's recent executive actions, and then she'll go even further. Her plan focuses on reforms that would help keep more guns out of the hands of criminals. It would finally close the gun show loophole, and the outrageous provision that allowed someone with an arrest record to buy the gun used to shoot and kill nine parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trayvon-martin-mother-hillary-clinton-sybrina-fulton_5693ed4ce4b0a2b6fb70e584
"She sees what I see: a criminal justice system that is not always just. A system that has contributed to creating a reality where just selling cigarettes, playing loud music, looking at a cop the wrong way or walking home from the store are now activities that can get you killed," Fulton wrote.
The death of Martin, a black teenager who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, became a rallying cry in 2012, just as issues of gun violence and racial bias in police enforcement began to receive more national attention. Each year in the United States, some 33,000 men, women and children are killed by guns, shot by themselves or by others.
Clinton sat down with Fulton and several other mothers of prominent African-American victims of gun violence this past November in Chicago. In addition to being impressed with Clinton's work on gun policy reform, Fulton wrote Monday that she "found a mother and a grandmother who truly heard me, and understood the depth of my loss."
"When My Cute Black Kid Becomes What You Fear The Most"
By Lauren Dillard
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-establishment/when-my-cute-black-kid-be_b_8943120.html
Today, my kids are deemed "golden" and "adorable" and "sweet" because they look the way society has decided children should look. In a few years, as they grow into black young adults and men, that same line of superficial reasoning will mark them as dangerous.
Parenting to this fact is a near-impossible task.
We cannot protect our children by choosing to live in a low-crime, suburban area--they will stand out more. We cannot shelter our children by sending them to private schools we can't afford--they will never learn their heritage and the truth of what they're up against. We cannot safeguard our dear sons by making sure they keep their pants on their waists or hoodies off their heads--they will be judged either way.
To every sweet older white woman we meet who squeezes their cheeks and makes sure to look me in the eye and tell me my sons are gorgeous, I silently plead with you to remember this when they're teenagers, towering over us both. To every mom of my sons' peers who tells me how cute their hair is, I beg you to recall this moment if one of my sons is who you see when you open the front door for your child's first date. To every black person who does a double take at my pretty sons and their tired, black parents, I want to remove the blindfolds and hurt of hundreds of years of self-hatred and shame. To the police officers who smile and wave at the boys as they walk side by side with me, I would give anything for you to remember them as small, bright-eyed, and admiring--as sons of a loving mother, as humans with the right to live.
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As they grow, I find myself worrying more and more about the day the world will turn on them. Will they notice as they make the switch from boys to men that they've also transitioned from adored to alarming?
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