"...SEND IN THE CLONES..."
UFO Cult Claims Birth of "First Human Clone"

A bio-engineering company called Clonaid, founded by a small religious group (the "Raelians") which believes humans were created by space aliens, claims to have successfully created and brought to term the first human clone --a girl named "Eve."

According to Clonaid, Eve's genetic material was taken from the skin cells of a 31-year-old American woman and implanted in one of her eggs to create an embryonic copy of the woman. In other words, claims Clonaid, Eve is the infant twin of her own mom.

Read all about it here: Group claims first cloned human born

Of course, the jury is still out about the credibility of the Raelians' claim, a claim which has not been verified and which seems dubious at best. After all, it's being made by an outfit which claims to be in regular and ongoing contact with ET and is run by "bishops" who say lame-brained things like "she was born yesterday in the country where she was born," as if "she" could've been born somewhere other than where "she" was born.

PIMPIN’ BARBIE:
Mattel Hammers One More Nail Into Childhood’s Coffin

In the Outlook section of the Sunday Dec. 22 Washington Post, outraged Baltimore school teacher Deborah Roffman protests yet another example of the seemingly endless trend in popular American culture to sexualize childhood.

In the past, Roffman points out, the culprits have been the recording and fashion industries: Witness, for example, the influence of pop singer Britney Spears’ increasingly risqué “fashion” sense on the ways adolescent, and even prepubescent, girls dress in public. Witness also, says Roffman, the rapidly lowering age of more and more kids getting caught up in sexual activities:

Those of us in the business of education have been worried about middle- and high-school students for a while. The stories of the past few years are harrowing ….[But] [t]he litany of stories I'm hearing now involving young children are even more disturbing: "freak" dancing or "grinding" at fifth-grade graduation parties in public school buildings, with adults as passive onlookers; 8-year-olds being taken to see R-rated movies such as "American Pie II"; elementary school children posting sexual jokes and messages online, even on school networks; mothers finding pornographic passages in their fifth-grade daughters' diaries; fourth-grade boys turning to fourth-grade girls in the cafeteria line and asking, "Do you spit or swallow?"

In too many cases, Roffman argues, adults have been not only willfully blind to these dangerous phenomena, but even complicit in them, at least psychologically. Including adults in positions of great influence in children’s lives, up to and including toymakers. This is where Mattel comes in according to Roffman:

Still seeking that perfect gift for a special young girl in your life? …For a mere $45, you can surprise and delight her with a Lingerie Barbie. And what a Barbie Babe she is, decked out in her sexy black (or, if you prefer, pink) garters, stockings and obligatory stiletto heels. Even her PR is PG, giving the phrase "sex toy" a whole new level of meaning: "Barbie exudes a flirtatious attitude in her heavenly merry widow bustier ensemble accented with intricate lace and matching peekaboo peignoir." …Mattel [also] plans a February launch for its sixth "limited edition" Lingerie Barbie, promising she'll be "simply sassy in a short pearl-grey satin slip trimmed in black lace" and "thigh-high stockings" that "add a hint of flair."

Yep, now Mattel, it seems, is moving its famous “teen fashion model” out of the fashion business and into the soft porn business –and targeting children as its key market. Oh, yes: Forget about Mattel’s “disclaimer” that Lingerie Barbie is for “age 14 and up.” As any parent can tell you, Barbie’s chief market is the 6 to 12 year-old set. “Get real,” one adolescent student puts it, "No 14-year-old girl would be caught dead playing with a Barbie Doll, 'lingerie' or otherwise. Who do they think they're kidding?"

Who indeed!

Happily, says Roffman, both the teachers and parents of young girls –and in many instances, young girls themselves—are up in arms about Mattel’s shamelessly shameful new strategy of making a buck off kids:

Teachers and parents (even among Barbie fans) can't believe their ears when they hear about this one: Disgusting! How dare they! Don't they have little girls of their own? Where will it all end? Enough!!

Many teens I know, and even younger children, have been equally outraged. High school students at one all-girls school in Tennessee where I recently spoke were moved to start a national letter-writing campaign to chastise Mattel for this brazen sexualization of children.

”NOPE, AIN’T NO ANTI-SEMITES HERE”:
The Remnant Whitewashes Fr. Dennis Fahey

In his “rebuttal” of Sandra Miesel’s Crisis article poking holes in the conspiracy-mentality and “anti-Judaism” of the Sieg Heil wing of the Catholic Traditionalist movement, Remnant writer Christopher Ferrara claims that the famous Jew-baiting Irish priest of the first half of the 20th century, Dennis Fahey, was not really an anti-Semite. To read more on this, go to the full version of this commentary at our Bullies 'N' Bozos BLOG.

POST-MODERNIST HUMBUGGING:
Or, "Here We Come a-Politically-Correct-Caroling"

Many thanks to Fellow Blogger Lane Core for this very funny "politically correct" update of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." It certainly made our Day!

DPI NEWS FLASH: There will be no Congressional Creche on Capitol Hill this year: No one can locate a wise man anywhere in Congress, and as everyone knows there are no more virgins left amongst the interns. However, there are more than enough jackasses to fill every stable both inside and outside the DC Beltway.

OF NEO-NAZIS, CHRISTIAN IDENTITY, & KKKATHOLICS:
Is the Uber-Catholic Lunatic Fringe Going Sieg Heil?

Conservative Catholic blogger Bill Cork notes how the thinking of some within the self-styled "Traditionalist Catholic" movement is rapidly (and rabidly) becoming indistinguishable from that of anti-Semitic conspiracy-theory-and-white-supremacy-oriented sects and movements such as Christian Identity and the National Alliance (an openly neo-Nazi group whose founder gave us Timothy McVeigh).

For background info on this weird phenomenon, go to our Bullies 'N' Bozos Web Log and stay tuned for further developments.

THE MESS IN BOSTON:
It Didn't Begin With Cardinal Law

Here's a thoughtful behind-the-scenes analysis by noted conservative Catholic pundit Michael Novak on William F. Buckley's National Review Online web site:

The Boston Disease: What Remains After Cardinal Law

One of Novak's chief points was that the Boston archdiocese had been ripe for sex abuse scandal long before Bishop Law was sent there:

...The reputation [of the Boston diocese] for lax discipline that had started long before Cardinal Law's time did not compel his immediate attention on his arrival in Boston....

...Cardinal Law faced four huge moral deficits in the Archdiocese of Boston. The first is an unusually tribal and mutually protective, ranks-drawn-up clergy, circling around its own three-generation tradition of moral fault; a pattern of "weakness" or "corruption" in some few, but covered over and unpoliced by the others, in a long-standing and defensive posture.

The second is a 40-year period of massive moral dissent from Catholic moral teaching, especially in regard to sexual and "gender" questions, in the principal Catholic institutions of learning in Boston... This fairly systematic dissent, through which some have boldly called the theology of Pope John Paul II (and Paul VI before him) wrong, mistaken, and based on untruths, has had the inevitable effect of weakening the sense of right and wrong in those faced with severe sexual temptations....

Third is a laity in very large numbers living in open dissent and rebellion, and encouraged in this by many clerical voices — even among their own pastors — first on many small things but gradually on many increasingly large things, too. ...They seem to abhor the most-distinctive features of the Catholic Church, most notably full communion with Peter, the bishop of Rome. They seem embarrassed also by her traditional and not-at-all-new teachings of embodied personhood, the physical/sacramental nature of reality, the full and rich sexuality of Catholic teaching (expressed in so many great works of literature, painting, and music down the ages), the nature of matrimony, and most obviously the tradition of celibacy and chastity as high ideals affecting the lives of all....

WE WON'T HAVE AL GORE TO KICK AROUND ANY MORE:
The Heretofore Presidential Candidate-for-Life Bows Out

This breaking news, first revealed by Gore himself last night on CBS's "60 Minutes" t.v. "newsmagazine" show, stunned many but really surprised no one. Although he confirmed that, "personally," he had "the energy and drive and ambition to make another campaign" for a 2004 Presidential bid, Gore rightly conceded that doing so would "involve a focus on the past that would in some measure distract from the focus on the future that I think all campaigns have to be about."

Hear, hear!

Needless to say, however, the Republican leadership is mostly likely not at all happy about Gore's decision since (to them) Gore would've been running as a two-time loser assuring George W. Bush's re-election.

TURNING INTO A PILLAR OF SALT?
Trent Lott's Dixiecratesque Faux Pas May Cost Him His Career

Last week, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) made the following ill-advised tribute to Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South Carolina) on the latter's 100th birthday: "I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Lott was referring to Thurmond's 1948 run for the Presidency against then-President Harry Truman as one of the many "Dixiecrat" segregationists who broke with Truman's majority wing in the Democratic Party. (After the 1948 election, Thurmond returned to the Democrat Party but switched allegiances to the GOP in 1964.) The Dixiecrats claimed to be about "states' rights" versus increasing Federal encroachment.

But the Dixiecrats had broken with the Democrats specifically on the matter of racial integration in the areas of voting registration, education, housing, and employment --a reform which Truman and both the Democratic and Republican parties increasingly favored. The Dixiecrats argued that their Southern brand of apatheid was strictly a state-by-state matter, while the two major parties came to regard racial segregation as a violation of the basic Constitutional rights of its minority targets and therefore a Federal issue.

The Dixiecrat legacy is what Trent Lott, whether unwittingly or intentionally, seemed to voice support for last week in the eyes and ears of many, both Republicans and Democrats, especially those old enough to remember those bad old KKK-run days in the South. Even though Lott has since tried several times to get out from under the cloud of seeming to endorse segregationism, and even though most of his critics agree he's not a racist, his carelessness and lack of clear thinking may have turned his ability to lead into a pillar of salt. Hence the call from many Republican leaders and conservative pundits --such as Linda Chavez, Charles Krauthammer, Mona Charen, and Cal Thomas-- for Lott to step down as Senate Majority leader.

DOING THE RIGHT THING AT LAST:
Cardinal Law Resigns His Post

Apparently Boston Archbishop Bernard Law finally woke up and smelled the cappuccino. In the wake of the on-going sex abuse and cover-up scandal plaguing his watch, and worsening each day as more previously hidden facts come to light, Cardinal Law tendered his resignation at the Vatican yesterday.

Also, the fact that Pope John Paul II accepted Cardinal Law's resignation may have meant that for him enough was finally enough. It may also mean, as blogger Mark Shea pointed out today, that the Pontiff's refusal to boot the former Archbishop last Spring was far less of a gesture of support for Law (as too many in the media and in the laity, this writer included, had assumed) than a means of making Law face the music back home at the hands of the press, the civil government, and the critics within his own flock.

With heat comes purification, and forcing Bernard Law to remain in the fire all these months may very well have been the Pope's strategy for fixing the mess in Boston and --by sending a message, via Law as example, to other prelates-- in the rest of the Catholic Church in the USA as well. In other words, asking for the Cardinal's resignation back in April would've been giving Law an easier way out. After all, not only has John Paul accepted Law's resignation, he is sending the former Archbishop back into the fire instead of sheltering him from it in the Vatican. Thus, far from being lenient with the Cardinal last Spring, the wise old Pontiff from Krakow was actually quite shrewd.

Additionally, the Pope's acceptance of Law's resignation may mean that some in the Curia and elsewhere in the Church's hierarchy will finally divest themselves of the lame notion that the American media (generally, no friend of religion) --rather than decades of incompetence, moral laxity, and misdeeds within the American clergy and hierarchy-- has been the source of Holy Mother Church's problems and the chief cause of damage to both her reputation and her moral voice in the world, a voice needed in these troubled times more than ever before.

Cardinal Law's resignation and the Pope's acceptance of it were the right things to do for all concerned and, we hope, will be the first of many steps in some badly needed reform and renewal for shepherds and flocks alike, and in all branches of Christendom.

FAITH ON THE FRONT BURNER:
Bush Expands His Faith-Based Initiative

In a move apparently designed to drive the ACLU and the liberal establishment in general into a state of apoplexy, President Bush has decided to give his "faith-based initiative" a big boost via Executive Order. Associated Press reports that,

Hoping to involve churches and religious organizations more deeply in government efforts to address social ills, Bush on Thursday was signing executive orders aimed at giving those groups a leg up in the competition for federal money, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said. He was announcing the changes in a speech to religious and charitable leaders meeting here.

The president began pushing the issue on Capitol Hill in his second week in office but ran into a fierce debate over how religious groups could get government money without running afoul of the constitutional separation of church and state.

He was successful in the House but the Senate wouldn't give him even a watered-down version that mainly increased tax breaks for charitable giving.

Though he faces a more friendly Republican-controlled Congress next year, Bush decided to forge ahead on his own.

Thankfully, the President went unilateral on this one, and did not consult the U.N. first.

To read more, go HERE: Bush Moves Ahead With 'Faith-Based' Plan (AP: White House)

"THIS SCUD'S FOR YOU":
The Bush Administration Lets Yemen Keep Its Covert Missiles

This week Spanish and American naval vessels stopped and boarded an unflagged freighter bound from North Korea for Yemen --an ally of Saddam Hussein's Irag, and the sole Arab nation which supported Iraq during the Gulf War. The reason for the boarding? The intel community had received tips that Pyongpang secretly sold Scud missiles to that Middle Eastern Muslim nation, which had bought them in secret. The boarding parties discovered the missiles, all fifteen concealed in blocks of cement.

The Yemenis' "explanation" for this? Well, they're just trying to beef up their defense capabilities --against whom? Oman? Kuwait? Oz?-- and needed the missiles to do so. But never mind that Scuds are not defensive systems to begin with, especially because they are highly inaccurate and indiscriminate when it comes to targetting. The Scud is an offensive system whose chief purpose and function is to terrorize, not defend. And never mind that systems such as the Patriot were designed from the ground up to defend against attacks, and thus would fill the Yemenis' defense bill much more effectively. And why the secrecy? Why not just buy the Scuds openly instead of covertly? Yemen, it seems, has no answer to that.

In light of such factors, Yemen's "explanation" rings hollow. But what rings even more hollow is the Bush administration's decision to accept Yemen's "explanation" and return the Scuds to them. Is the Bush administration's war on terrorism serious or not?

MEMO TO BOSTON: HOW TO KEEP FROM GOING BELLY-UP:
Refinancing Archbishop Bernard Law's Bankrupt Leadership

Apparently, in an effort to prevent the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston from having to shell out millions in monetary damages and restitution to the victims of the pedophile priests he shuffled from parish to parish, Archbishop Bernard Law may be taking the same route Enron and other mismanaged or corrupt corporations have taken in order to avoid the financial consequences of their bad judgment calls or unethical actions: File for Chapter 11 to keep what you have, and to Hell with the victims your incompetence or malfeasance created. (For more details on this newest wrinkle in Clerical Weaselism, go here: Boston Archdiocese moves closer to possible bankruptcy (CNN) and here: Law goes to Vatican for advice (The Boston Globe)

But we have a much better idea for solving the Boston Archdiocese's financial woes: Instead of resorting to bankruptcy, raise funds for any upcoming victim compensations by selling buttons, banners, bumper stickers, and other items emblazoned with the Cardinal's new slogan,

"WWJLD" ("What Would Jesus' Lawyer Do?")

No doubt they'd rake in millions.

PRESIDENT VIOLATES SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
Quick! Someone call the ACLU!!!!

General Thanksgiving

By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Conftitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

This dangerous right-wing religious nut must be stopped before he destroys the Republic!

AT LEAST THEY DON'T TAKE CREDIT CARD NUMBERS:
When Anti-Catholic "Christians" Behave Like Bill Clinton

If you, dear reader, ever become tempted to sign up with a "Christian" message board in which you are in a distinct minority, and that board's admin demands to know your private information, such as your full name, DON’T DO IT!

You might be putting your privacy at risk!

Thankfully, this fellow never asked for my credit card number. God only knows what he would've done with that. LOL

For more details go HERE

UPDATE: A "Christian" E-pologist Takes Lessons from the Cults in response to public criticism. For all the details, go HERE

TOM DASCHLE UNDER THE BOZONE LAYER
If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again to Blame Rush Limbaugh

Whilst driving home after work last night, WMAL-AM, the local talk radio outlet here at Babylon-on-the-Potomac, played back the recorded remarks of Senator Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) on why he and his party went down in flames on November 5.

The cause of the Dems' defeat at the hands of the electorate? Why, none other than talk radio in general and Rush Limbaugh in particular. Worse than that, Daschle exclaimed, talk radio incites people to threaten him and his family members, and other liberal Democrats and their family members, just like the Taliban and other Muslim extremists in the Middle East.

Talk radio, says Daschle is DANGEROUS! And you know what? I AGREE! Whilst listening to Sen. Daschle's remarks on that talk radio station, I laughed so hard I swerved off the road and almost killed myself!

But having regained control of my vehicle and my sanity, I began to wonder what in the world would move an allegedly sane man, and allegedly serious politician, to come up with such cockamamy notions. So did WMAL talk show host Chris Core, who immediately surmised that the strain of the election and the agony of defeat must have taken a deep emotional toll on the good senator.

Core may be right. But we here at DPI have another theory, based on the findings of the late great syndicated columnist Mike Royko, who tried to account for some bizarre behavior on Capitol Hill and in the Reagan White House back in the early 1980s.

Royko theorized that just below the Ozone layer protecting the earth against physically harmful radiation is another layer protecting us from other cosmic rays which cause people to do and say some pretty looney things. Royko dubbed these rays "Bozo Rays" and the protective layer blocking them, the "Bozone Layer." But every now and then, noted Royko, holes open up in the Bozone Layer allowing the Bozo Rays through, in turn causing even the most stable people to behave like --well-- Bozos.

Thus the only logical and scientific explanation for Daschle's Looney Tunes antics yesterday is also a very simple one: Sometime after the election, a hole in the Bozone Layer opened up over poor Mr. Daschle's house and did a number on him. And to compound the problem, the hole has been following Mr. Daschle around ever since.

Someone should call the EPA lickety-split and do something about that hole before it widens over the entire Democrat Party.

OOPS! Too late!

BAMBI MEETS GODZILLA:
A Protestant E-pologist vs. Pope John Paul II on Sexual Ethics

Evangelical Christian e-pologist Eric Svendsen once attempted to critique (i.e., write a silly screed against) the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality, sexual conduct, and family planning. The results were less than stellar either intellectually or spiritually (in fact, like Bambi under Godzilla's foot, they went "SPLAT!"), but enormously entertaining nonetheless.

Click HERE to read more....

THE KIND OF CATHOLICS ANTI-CATHOLIC MESSAGE BOARDS PREFER
Thanks to Scott Adams and Dilbert.com

Sheep to be Shorn

MEMO FROM THE GET A LIFE DEPARTMENT:
Humanist Organization Boycotts Christian Concert Sponsor

Many thanks to blogger Mark Shea at Catholic and Enjoying It!for bringing the following to the public's attention: "In a world riven by war and Islamicist terror, the American Humanist Association stood up for the things that really matter!"

Yes, the Enlightened Ones at the AHA once again demonstrate their Open-Mindedness and Love of Free Inquiry by trying to get Chevrolet to repent of the Mortal Sin of corportate sponsorship of religious music, even a form as innocuous as Christian Rock. Why, that would be --GASP!!!-- mixing reilgion and ...and ...and... YIKES!.. ART!!! Nosirree, we can't have that.

The AHA's "rationale" for its latest attempt at the Separation of Church and Reality was wrapped in a typically (for AHA) two-faced and paranoid spin on the subject:

It represents a significant entry into the culture war by a major corporation, an entry that can't help but lead the public to conclude that Chevy and perhaps its parent, General Motors, feel the attributes that they refer to, family orientation and great values, are to be found only in Christianity.

Too bad the AHA wasn't around during the Renaissance to nip in the bud all that annoying religious art and music funded by all those wealthy Italian, French, and Spanish merchant families whose intention, no doubt, was to "lead the public to conclude" that the d'Medicis and Borgias (for example) "feel the attributes that they refer to, family orientation and great values, are to be found only in Christianity."

It seems that some folks have waaaaaaay to much time on their hands.

NOT TOO WILD ABOUT HARRY (OR FRODO):
Some Critics Miss the Points About J. K. Rawlings and J. R. R. Tolkien

It’s that time once again. The next installment in the Disneyesque filmed versions of the popular Harry Potter children's fantasy novels by J. K. Rawlings –and the key word here is “fantasy”—is due to be released in theatres around the country tomorrow. The next installment of the classy and classical Lord of the Rings comparatively adult-level fantasy series will follow soon thereafter.

And once again, both –but especially the former-- will be met with a barrage of protests by many (especially amongst Protestant and Catholics) who seem ill-acquainted with Western literature save, perhaps, the local newspaper and the Bible, and likewise oddly unable to discern the difference between fact and fiction; not to mention those who seem to see a Global Satanic New Age Conspiracy behind the most innocuous presentations of myth-and-magic, no matter how hodge-podge and implausible (Harry Potter) even for one who believes in the supernatural and the demonic, or no matter how thought-provoking and invocative of Western Christianity (Rings). Granted, most Christians familiar with Tolkien’s work recognize the latter fact and place it in the same category as C. S. Lewis’ Narnia fantasies. Too many, however, especially in the upper far-right choirs of Christendom, do not and, in fact, look askance even at Lewis, whose fantasy works are more overtly Christian than Tolkien's.

In any case, whether one reads the novels of Rowlings or Tolkien (or even Lewis) --or views films based on those works-- one does so for their primary purpose: To be entertained. This rather salient fact seems to have been lost on both Tolkien's and Rowlings' critics. Moreover, the fact remains that the fairy tale versions of "magic" and Disney-style forms of "sorcery" (as in the famous Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Sorceror's Apprentice) depicted in Harry Potter bear no resemblance whatever to real-life Satanism or witchcraft (especially a la the modern, contrived "religion" of Wicca, created mostly out of whole cloth by occultist Gerald Gardner), or occult practice in general:

For example, nowhere in Harry Potter do the protagonists invoke Astaroth or Beelzebub; or summon demons; or conduct seances; or worship nature or "the Goddess"; or sacrifice animals to Satan; or dance in "magic circles" skyclad (i.e., naked). Instead, what one sees in Harry Potter is a smorgasboard of purely fictional elements and fantasy characters borrowed from all forms of Western folklore and legend. Even the scene in the movie of Harry and his friends learning to fly on broomsticks is based not on real occult practices, but on popular folklore, and Harry's magic wand is an echo of Disney "sorceror" Mickey Mouse, not Rosemary's Baby or even Merlin. Harry Potter no more teaches kids how to be practitioners of Wicca, or Satanism, or Necromancy, or Voo-Doo than Leggos teaches them how to construct office buildings, or Star Trek teaches them how to pilot a spaceship to the Moon.

Rather than some kind of imagined covert attempt by Hollywood in cahoots with the New Age movement to indoctrinate children into the nearest witches’ coven (which proves little more than that too many Harry Potter critics have entered the Twilight Zone) the only real problem with the Harry Potter series –unlike J. R. R. Tokein’s masterful work of political metaphor and symbolic Christian [i]didactica[/i] in the form of myth-and-magic story-telling-- lies elsewhere: As does the majority of contemporary Western secular fiction (and, for that matter, much of contemporary modern Western Christian fiction), the Harry Potter series seems shallow in how it deals with moral issues and with character development, especially in terms of teaching children to distinguish the differences between virtue and vice and to pursue the former.

In all fairness to Rowlings, however, her books are intended to entertain children, not teach them ethics. The very popular and enormously entertaining Veggie Tales videos are much better suited to that task.

In Tolkien’s story, Frodo, the lead character in the first installment of The Lord of the Rings must undertake dangerous tasks as well as overcome ongoing and great temptations as he seeks to destroy a demonic ring whose bearer would be given absolute power were he or she to choose to employ the ring. Added to that is the ring’s increasingly corrupting influence over the one who merely carries it without using it at all. Thus Frodo’s struggle is both temporal (overcome an evil force seeking to possess the ring in order to destroy the world) and spiritual (overcome both his imperfect nature and the ring’s morally debilitating effects upon his moral fortitude). The Lord of the Rings --written by Tolkein with the warring nations of the WW2 conflict and the then-new atom bomb in mind-- is nothing less than a wonderfully entertaining homily and epic-level parable against the dangers of absolute power and its tendency to corrupt absolutely as well as to destroy.

But nothing so high-minded can be discerned in the Harry Potter series, at least not in the first installment of the film version: The only reason the lead character, Harry, undertakes a dangerous mission to retrieve a magically powerful artifact from his friends’ arch-enemy is, well, the latter is his friends’ arch-enemy, and because the SOB murdered his parents when he was a baby. Beyond a vague appeal to “justice,” there is simply no moral element to Harry’s struggle to overcome both his foes and his weaknesses, the latter of which (unlike Frodo's) are less of a moral nature than a physical or mental one. Like much of what passes for "thinking" in modern Western liberal secularism (especially in politics and religion as well as in culture), the first Harry Potter story is about power versus powerlessness, not virtue versus vice, or even good versus evil --two concepts which seem hopelessly vague and empty of any real content in Harry Potter.

Other than a comic-book-level treatment of good and evil, this lack of moral clarity and depth is the only potential problem with the Potter series, at least last year's film version. Yet its most vehement critics ignore this very central aspect of Harry Potter, and aim instead at the wrong target --a target largely of their own collective imagining.

CATHOLICS vs. THE WEASEL ZONE:
Outraged Christians in an Age of Buck-Passers

Once again the Vatican and the US Catholic Bishops are in the news as the latter meet this week to discuss and implement Rome’s directive to bring the June 2002 draft of the Bishops’ new “zero tolerance” policy on clerical sexual abuse of minors into conformity with the Church’s Canon Law.

According to an editorial in The Washington Post last week, one of the objections Rome raised was two-fold: (1) the Bishops’ new policy overlooked or ignored the due process rights of accused clerics under the Canon Law; and (2) the Bishops’ new policy ignored the Canon Law’s 10-year statute of limitations on charges of clerical sexual abuse. That is, a victim of sexual abuse by a priest must report the incident(s) within 10 years of his or her 18th birthday –a proviso which seems to have been difficult at best for victims in the past because much pressure was placed on him or her and/or his or her family by their diocese to protect Mother Church against needless embarrassment in the public eye, a priority the Vatican seems to consider still rather paramount.

The Post also notes that the Vatican likewise objected to the Bishops’ June decision requiring all Bishops and clerics in all dioceses to immediately report all accusations of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the civil authorities whether or not state or local laws mandate such reporting, and even whether or not state or local governments which mandate such reports specifically exempt religious organizations. Instead, the Vatican said, Bishops should be required to do no more or less than comply with whatever the civil laws in their dioceses happen to be.

Ironically enough, mostly non-Catholic and highly secularized average American citizens and civil leaders seem to take this problem much more seriously than do some leaders within the Catholic Church, even at the Vatican level: Many, if not most, American state and local legal codes include no statute of limitations on either statutory rape (consentual sexual relations between an adult and a minor) or sexual abuse of minors, the latter of which is considered a deeply serious crime to which are attached severe penalties up to and including long prison sentences. Moreover, in almost any school district in the country the mere accusation of any form of sexual involvement by any teacher with any student of any age, with or without that student’s consent, results in that teacher’s immediate dismissal. In most cases, the offender is turned over to the civil authorities for prosecution. But, with perhaps a few rare exceptions, offending teachers are never transferred to other school districts and victims and/or victims’ families are never urged to keep quiet to avoid embarrassing the school system.

On the surface, the Holy See’s desire to protect the rights of priests as well as the reputation of the Church seems all well and good, as well as fair and proper. That is, until one remembers a couple of (in our opinion) important caveats:

(1) One of the roles of the Church and her clergy is to protect the family, without which the Church cannot exist. It’s NOT the role of the family to protect the Church and her clergy. After all, the family as a God-ordained institution precedes the Church as a God-ordained institution, both in terms of history and theology:

God –Himself a family in the form of three Persons!-- created the family first for a reason, and founded the ancient nation of Israel –the Church’s prototype-- upon families for a reason, primarily to image Him. Thus the integrity and security of the family --especially its most vulnerable members, its children-- has primacy over the integrity and security of the Church –especially its most powerful members, its clergy. God has even built into human nature the tendency of all human beings to protect and defend their immediate families –especially their children-- from any person or institution which threatens them either unwittingly or self-consciously, up to and including the Church or her clergy. In its understandable (and even proper) desire and haste to protect the rights and reputations of her priests and the Church, the Vatican seems to have forgotten these first things.

(2) Too many of the world’s institutions –civil government, the multi-national corporation, the investment firm, marriage, and even charity and volunteerism are being both overrun and run by weasels, those folks who, in the words of “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams, operate in “a gigantic gray area between good moral behavior and outright felonious activities” which Adams has dubbed “the Weasel Zone” (see Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel HarperBusiness; 2002).

While only the most skilled weasels are also lawbreakers who don't get caught (once you're caught and prosecuted, you cease being a weasel and become a criminal), most weasels engage in less-than-illegal yet less-than-moral activities such as "acts of omission, conflicts of interest, manipulating public opinion, deflecting blame, avoiding issues, hypocrisy, false claims of discrimination, obfuscation (weasel words), cover-ups, unwarranted optimism, turning a blind eye, ignoring scientific data, scapegoating, and anything else that strikes you as just-plain-wrong."

Weasels will never take responsibility for any negligence or incompetence on their part, especially when it results in harm to those around them and under them, or to their organization as a whole. Instead, weasels will blame someone else inside their organization, usually an underling. Or they’ll try to blame their organization’s rules or policies. Or they’ll blame outside “forces” (such as competitors, the media, or the civil authorities) who are “out to get them.” In any case, weasels pass the buck from themselves to something or someone else.

This latter phenomenon may be one of the factors many otherwise loyal and compliant Catholic lay people have been especially outraged by. As they see it, the Vatican’s –and some American Bishops’-- response to and attitude toward the Bishops’ “zero tolerance” policy is and has been an example of operating in the Weasel Zone.

Instead of using the Canon Law to preserve the status quo, or –worse yet— as an excuse for avoiding accountability and its stepchild, reform, the Vatican should acknowledge that the Canon Law needs to be changed radically (“at the root”) to place at least as much emphasis on protecting the natural rights of Catholic children who came into the Church’s life involuntarily as on protecting the man-made rights of Catholic clergy who came into the clerical life voluntarily.

This is especially crucial in light of one of the foundational principles upon which the Catholic Church’s social teaching is based; namely, consistent emphasis on the rights and dignity of the most vulnerable over the rights and dignity of the most powerful –a principle which has rightly earned the Church worldwide admiration and respect, even from many of her toughest critics. It’s time to bring the Canon Law into conformity with that principle, and to bring out of the Weasel Zone everyone in the Church’s hierarchy who may to still be in it.

NOTES ON ELECTION NIGHT 2002:
The Shipwreck of the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything Right

American liberalism, in its majority incarnation of the Democratic Party, may very well have gotten its head handed to it yesterday in election after election for seats in Congress as well as in several governor’s mansions. The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything Right (aka the Democratic Party) seemed to have virtually no burning issues to run on, and in several key states ran lackluster and wholly negative campaigns for the U. S. Senate based on outdated ideas. The Senate race in one state --Minnesota, a long-time Democrat stronghold— ended up taking on some rather symbolic significance:

Immediately upon Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone’s untimely death a couple weeks before Election Day, the Democrats had so few eligible and appealing candidates to run in Wellstone’s place that the Minnesota chapter of the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything Right brought 75-year-old Senator and former Vice President Walter Mondale out of retirement to run against Republican go-getter Norm Coleman, who is twenty-some years Mondale’s junior. The middle-aged Coleman so successfully capitalized on that difference in terms of each generation’s approach to issues and problem-solving that Mondale, an icon of outmoded and largely discredited Great Society thinking, was quickly sent back into retirement.

Similar results for the Democrats took place in other long-time predominantly Democrat states, especially Maryland, where a well-known member of the Kennedy clan, liberal Democrat incumbent Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend (RFK’s daughter) was defeated by a comparative unknown, moderate Republican Robert Erlich. It seems that Kennedy-Townsend may have shot herself in the foot on at least three counts:

First, she ran such a nasty and incompetent campaign that even fellow Democrats, including several pundits, predicted that if she won it would be by a very narrow margin despite Maryland’s heavily Democrat voter demographics.

Second, during her tenure in Annapolis, neither she nor her boss, Governor Parris Glendening, lifted a finger to solve Maryland’s rapidly worsening commuting problems, such as beginning construction of the badly needed Inter-County Connector, which had been an integral but untouched part of Maryland’s transportation plans for well nigh unto 40 years, ironically enough the same amount of time since Maryland had its last Republican governor.

And, last but not least, while Erlich had selected a highly respected moderate African-American running mate, Maryland GOP chief Michael Steele, Kennedy-Townsend, who had the cream of the crop of highly eligible African-American Democrats in Maryland politics to choose from for her running mate (including Montgomery County Council member Ike Leggett and Prince George's County Executive Wayne Curry), instead selected a white conservative life-long Republican and retired Admiral, Charles R. Larson.

But why would Kennedy-Townsend do such a thing? A few days before the election, liberal Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King, himself an African-American and a Democrat, offered a stinging explanation: Kennedy-Townsend’s campaign staff thought having an African-American running mate would reduce her chances of being elected. Besides, King said they “reasoned,” African-Americans in Maryland would never vote to put a Republican in the Governor’s mansion so Kennedy-Townsend would get the African-American vote no matter who she ran with. In other words, noted King, Kennedy-Townsend –like most liberal Democrats, who preach one thing while they practice another-- felt free to think and act like a hypocrite because she thought she “owned” the African-American vote --a vote she had to have in order to win the Governor's mansion.

Apparently, like so many of her fellow Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything Right, Kennedy-Townsend miscalculated her course and ended up shipwrecking her own campaign --if not her career and the chances of the Democratic Party in Maryland in the near future: For example, guess who will be running for Governor once Erlich's term is up? You got it: African-American Lieutenant Governor-elect Steele, a Republican. The Boss Pirates in Annapolis and Baltimore can kiss the African-American vote "good-bye" for the rest of this decade.

HEAT vs LIGHT:
The Pope’s "New" Luminous Rosary

Earlier this month (Oct. 16, to be exact) Pope John Paul II decided to propose the addition of a fourth set of five “new” meditations (known to Catholics as “Mysteries”) on five significant events in Christ’s ministry --taken directly from the Gospels-- while praying the Rosary. The Pope refers to these as “Luminous Mysteries” or “Mysteries of Light.”

Some of the reactions to this announcement have been interesting, to say the least. For example, a few Type A nitpickers residing in the upper right choir of the Catholic Church seem to have been in such a state of apoplexy ever since John Paul II's announcement that one would think the Pontiff had suggested each parish set up a birth control clinic.

On a Catholic message board, one of the "traditionalist" Catholics (those who gripe the most about the changes which took place after the Second Vatican Council, most of which they deem "un-Catholic") complained that "...the tendency for the current pontificate to alter tradition at a whim has been standard the last couple of decades." Another "traditionalist" smelled a Secular Humanist Conspiracy afoot: "...Again, we contemplate Christ in order to orient towards and contemplate Man...Constantly the orientation is towards Man."

Hmmm. Upon reading the entire text of the Pope's Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, it seems to your humble servant that the optional addition of the five "new" Mysteries are anything but based on a "whim," much less influenced by atheists and agnostics: Even a cursory reading of RVM reveals that the Pope put a great deal of study, thought, meditation, and --yes-- prayer into proposing these "new" Mysteries --all of which, btw, come directly from the New Testament, not from the New Humanist Manifesto.

But then again, I could be wrong: Maybe the Pope created his Luminous Mysteries ex nihilo whilst having his morning cappuccino. Or maybe he woke up on the morning of October 16 and said to himself,

"Now what shall I do today? HA! I know! Why, I'll just think up five radically man-centered new meditations for the Rosary! That should change the Rosary so that no one will recognize it any more and I can make the atheists and secular humanists happy at the same time. THAT should show them pesky traditionalists who's boss in this Church! COOL!!!"

Anything's possible.

And if that sort of kvetching hasn't been sufficiently clueless, here is how another “traditionalist” Catholic critic put the Pope’s proposal: “…just when you thought that the rulers of the Novus Ordo Ecclesiae [aka, the “post-Vatican II Church” –TC] were done introducing novelties and innovations, just when you thought that it was safe to come out of your prayer closets and try to be Catholic again… the Holy Rosary has been put up on the auction block… another relic from a more orthodox era that apparently needs to be traded in for a newer model.”

The “cause” of the Pope’s decision, according to the writer? Why, none other than that Great Evil Boogeyman, ecumenism: “…If you're thinking you smell a bit of ‘ecumania’ here, you're exactly right. It's no coincidence that the less Scriptural [Stations of the Cross, and entirely separate Catholic devotion –TC] were replaced [by the Pope privately] with events recorded in the Gospels (The Agony in the Garden, The Betrayal, Peter's Denial, The Good Thief, and Mary and John at the Foot of the Cross), so that our Protestant brethren might feel a bit more at home participating in this Catholic devotion.”

But never mind that unlike the Stations of the Cross, the REAL barrier for Protestants to pray the Rosary were NOT the traditional 15 Mysteries at all (with the possible exception of the 4th and 5th Glorious Mysteries, which focus on the Blessed Virgin Mary), but the 53 “Hail Mary” prayers recited in the Rosary –not to mention the repetitious nature of the Rosary itself, which many Protestants regard as “unbiblical.”

So if this writer –himself an ex-Protestant, so he should know better-- really thinks that the Pope’s modest Gospel-centered proposal will move Protestants –especially Fundamentalist Protestants!—to fall all over each other in a mad rush to cause a run on Rosary beads in the Catholic goods market, your humble servant, The Curmudgeon, has some –um—land in the Okefenokee he’d happily sell him.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY SNIPERS:
Is Race Really An Issue???

Believe it or not, in the wake of the arrests of suspected DC snipers John A. Muhammed and Lee Malvo, some are already making much ado about the race of these two losers, indulging in some rather needless and IMHO misguided speculation bordering on race-baiting.

See for example this article on another weblog site: Two Black Men Arrested in the Beltway Sniper Case

For some "reason" or other, the article writer "wonders" (emphasis via italics in the original), "Call me Mr. Cynic, but when I heard the news, the first thought that came to mind was I wonder how many paragraphs into their lead story it will take before the New York Times identifies the race of the arrested individuals."

The writer goes on to assert that members "of a Black Muslim group called Jamaat al-Fuqra ...may have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of journalist Daniel Pearl." But he offers not a shred of evidence to support his speculation that any "Black Muslims" or any "Black Muslim" groups were involved in the Pearl case.

In fact, the article on this group to which he provides a link says only this regarding that group's membership (emphasis mine):

"...a terrorist outfit operating in Pakistan and North America, was formed by a Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, in New York in 1980, on his first visit to the US. Mubarak Gilani's intention in forming the outfit was to 'purify' Islam through violence ...Muslims of the Americas, a tax-exempt group established in the US in 1980 by Gilani, operates communes of primarily black, American-born Muslims in many states in the US, including in Binghamton in New York, Badger in California, York in South California and Red House in Virginia. JF is reportedly linked through court documents to the Muslims of Americas. There is also a road in the name of Sheikh Gilani in the vicinity of Virginia. The cult houses between 100 and 200 people, many of them women and children in about 20 huge trailers. There is also a Virginia newspaper, the Islamic Post, founded by Sheikh Gilani."

The last time I looked, Pakistan was not an African ("Black") country and Pakistani clerics were not "Black Muslims." In fact, the vast majority of Pakistanis are of the same races as their neighbors, Afghanistan and India (of which Pakistan was once a part). As for the point that Sheikh Gilani's North American branch is composed of "primarily black, American-born Muslims," so what? How does this "prove" or even indicate a likelihood they were involved in the Pearl kidnapping and murder? EVIDENCE PLEASE! Idle speculation based on little more than one's imagination simply will not do.

As for the suspected (and IMO most likely actual) DC snipers, while it's true that both are black --Muhammed is African-American and Malvo is Jamaican-- on what grounds does the aforementioned weblog writer imply that they were racially motivated or that their race was the determining factor in their actions? After all, at least half their victims were non-whites, including at least one African-American, Hispanic, and Asian. They also shot men and women alike, and one child as well.

And let's not forget that Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh was neither "Black" nor "Muslim," and like the DC snipers killed people of all races, genders, and ages.

IOW, like McVeigh, the bastards who had been murdering and wounding innocent bystanders in the Washington DC area were equal opportunity assassins. But could they, like McVeigh, have been motivated by racism as well as, like McVeigh, anti-democratic and anti-pluralistic views? Of course. But thus far they gave no indication at all that they were motivated by race issues, nor --least of all-- by the fact that they were black. After all, like McVeigh, they killed people of their own race.

In what way, therefore, is the race of the DC sniper suspects at all relevant? Perhaps instead of being coy by dancing around that question, the weblog writer should be straightforward and tell the rest of us precisley why "identi[fying] the race of the arrested individuals" is so damn important to him.

Just MHO.

[EDITOR'S UPDATE: In his reply on his weblog to the commentary above, the aforementioned weblog writer explained the intent behind his comments: Apparently he was merely expressing his exasperation with those media outlets who identify the race of white perpetrators whose victims are minorities while at the same time withholding the racial identity of those perpetrators whose victims are white, even when their crimes turn out to be racially motivated. In our view, his explanation seems quite reasonable and not at all racially motivated. However, one can bet one's next paycheck that not all those who make a point of focusing on the race of the DC snipers will do so out of similarly respectable motives. Nevertheless, we humbly stand corrected.]

GREAT BREAKING NEWS!!!

THE DC SNIPER HAS BEEN CAUGHT!

Or so the police seem to believe. Actually there were two of them, a disgruntled and twice-divorced 42 year-old ex-Army drifter who had converted to militant Islam a few years ago; and his 17 year-old stepson, apparently the one who wrote those poorly written, bad-grammar-ridden, semi-literate notes they left for the police.

It seems these bozos, in a fit of indignation and ego after being blown off as "cranks" by the FBI's tip line operators, gave themselves away by boasting to the police about a killing they committed in Montgomery, Alabama while robbing a liqour store there. A fingerprint left at the crime scene led to their identification and arrest.

In addition, early news reports indicate that both of these losers had openly expressed approval and support of the 9/11 destruction against New York and Washington by the Al Queda terrorists. What a surprise!

CNN.com carries the full story to date HERE.

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Your obedient servant,

The Curmudgeon