THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH'S REVOLVING DOOR:
For Many Parishioners, Gay Bishops and Gay "Marriage" Were the Last Straws

The New York Times reported this week that once again the membership of the Episcopal Church USA is undergoing migrations in and out the church's doors, this time in response to the ECUSA's ordination of an openly active gay bishop and it's increasingly liberal stance on gay "marriage" or "unions":

...Some lifelong Episcopalians have left their churches, saying the vote to affirm a gay bishop was the last straw in what they saw as the church's long slide away from orthodoxy. Many of these people have started attending Roman Catholic churches.

"It breaks my heart," said Shari de Silva, a neurologist in Fort Wayne, Ind., who converted from Episcopalian to Catholic this year. "I think the Episcopal Church is headed down the path to secular humanism."

Some Episcopal parishes, meanwhile, are welcoming clusters of new members, many from Roman Catholic churches, who say they want to belong to a church that regards inclusivity as a Christian virtue. The newcomers include singles and families, gay people and straight people...

The main church of choice amongst Exiting Episcopalians seems to be the one across the Tiber River in Rome, primarily because...

"...[t]he Catholic Church has reiterated its position on homosexuality, one that is a stark contrast to the Episcopal Church's. In July, the Vatican denounced homosexual acts as 'deviant behavior' and said the church could not condone gay marriage or adoptions by gay couples. In September, the American Catholic bishops said they would support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage."

It seems that in its new gay bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the clueless upper echelon of the ECUSA has found its very own Howard Dean: Robinson is likely to doom the ECUSA to irrelevance, if not extinction, the same way Dr. Dean will ensure the Democratic Party's slow demise, especially after the Presidential election next Fall.

In related news: Today's Washington Times reports that in Canada the liberal Anglican bishop of Vancouver, B.C. has shut down Holy Cross parish for protesting his policy of blessing same-sex "unions." However, the parish's conservative rector, Rev. James Wagner, continues to hold services at his home.

H. L. MENCKEN AND RELIGION:
An "Atheist" Reader Takes Exception

Early last week --barely three days before Christmas Day, of all times!-- a self-styled "atheist" sent us an e-mail to let us "know" something he had apparently already determined we did not know, namely that our "patron saint," early 20th century pundit and skeptic H. L. Mencken, was "agin" religion (as we Virginia gentlemen would put it).

Of course, anyone with more than two brain cells working can tell just by reading a good cross-section of Mencken's writings, the Bard of Baltimore was no friend to the "established" religions of his time --Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish-- and disdained religious belief and theology in general.

No argument there.

The problem, and point of departure with our "atheist" interlocutor, comes when some folks with ideological axes to grind hijack Mencken to make him appear to be one of their crowd. Just do a Google search with "Mencken" and "atheism," and up will pop more "atheists" on the internet than Hosts in Heaven selectively quoting Mencken's most bombastic and less mature statements about religion and religious persons as "proof" that Mencken was an extremist unto their own image and likeness.

Never mind that Mencken at times had some complimentary things to say about some religious persons (cf., his obituary of the scholarly Presbyterian theologian J.Gresham Machen), and even some religious institutions (cf., his comparison of the Catholic and Protestant churches of his time).

And never mind that Mencken never once called himself an atheist, preferring instead to be seen as a "doubter" or a "skeptic," and only because "sound thought," he wrote in 1921 to his then-girlfriend Marion Bloom, cannot take us further than that:

...No sane man denies that the universe presents phenomena quite beyond human understanding, and so it is a fair assumption that they are directed by some understanding that is superhuman. But that is as far as sound thought can go. All religions pretend to go further. That is, they pretend to explain the unknowable...

In other words, to Mencken, both theism and, by implication, atheism (which also "pretends to go further ...[and] explain the unknowable," namely by denying that category en toto) were presumptuous, so he embraced neither camp although he was more sympathetic to the latter. Catholic journalist and Mencken scholar George Weigel puts it this way in his thoughtful First Things article, "God, Man, and H. L. Mencken":

Throughout his mature life, Mencken insisted that he was not an atheist (for such a judgment would require a knowledge that was beyond "sound thought") but rather an agnostic. Asked once what he would do if on his death he found himself facing the twelve apostles, he answered (and in this instance we may be sure that beneath the humor lay deep convictions about intellectual honesty), "I would simply say, 'Gentlemen, I was mistaken.'" Imagine Carl Sagan saying such a thing about the possibility of his encounter with a postmortem minyan, and you begin to understand the difference between the agnostic Mencken and the true village atheist.

Noted essayist and Mencken scholar Joseph Epstein, as cited by Weigel, presents a more nuanced interpretation of Mencken's relationship to religion than the simplistic militant atheist P-R image both Protestant Fundamentalists and Atheist Fundamentalists like to promote:

...[Mencken's] objection to religion is that it represents an effort by ignorance to account for a mystery that knowledge simply puts aside as intrinsically impenetrable...

None of this is to deny that Mencken regularly made mock of religious convictions and practices. But he did it with a deftness and, in most cases, a good humor in which was rarely found the arrogance of sheer contempt. Moreover, Mencken was not insensible to the allure of religion or to religious contributions to what he regarded as the world's meager stock of decency. Thus Mencken on Roman Catholicism in 1923 (and in what some will regard as virtually a prophetic mode):

"The Latin Church, which I constantly find myself admiring, despite its frequent astonishing imbecilities, has always kept clearly before it the fact that religion is not a syllogism, but a poem. . . . Rome, indeed, has not only preserved the original poetry in Christianity; it has made capital additions to that poetry-for example, the poetry of the saints, of Mary, and of the liturgy itself. A solemn high mass must be a thousand times as impressive, to a man with any genuine religious sense in him, as the most powerful sermons ever roared under the big-top by a Presbyterian auctioneer of God. In the face of such overwhelming beauty it is not necessary to belabor the faithful with logic; they are better convinced by letting them alone. . . .

"[But the Roman] clergy begin to grow argumentative, doctrinaire, ridiculous. It is a pity. . . . If they keep on spoiling poetry and spouting ideas, the day will come when some extra-bombastic deacon will astound humanity and insult God by proposing to translate the liturgy into American, that the faithful may be convinced by it."

In summary, as in the areas of politics, economics, social criticism, journalism, and culture Mencken was "a party of [his] own" when it came to religion. Neither atheist nor theist can squeeze him into their prefabricated pigeonholes. He was simply too big for them.

Of course, such "inconvenient" facts serve only to irritate those who prefer caricatures and fantasies over reality, and who --like our "atheist" interlocutor-- prefer to call those who present them "liars" and "sophists" for having the temerity to cast doubt upon those caricatures and fantasies.

HELP WANTED: NEW ANTI-CHRIST NEEDED!
Saddam's Capture Re-Opens Much Sought-After Position

The Office of the Anti-Christ is vacant once again, according to National Review Online columnist and Veteran Rapture Watcher DeLuxe Carl Olson. It seems that Bible prophecy researchers had regarded ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as the leading candidate for that position.

As End Times expert Timothy LaHaye put it in his 1999 book Are We Living in the End Times? ("a nonfiction companion to the Left Behind series"), "Long before Saddam Hussein became a household name, he was busy fulfilling Bible prophecy" [by rebuilding "Babylon," as Iraq was known in ancient times]. Also said LaHaye, as quoted by Olson,

"As sure as there is a God in heaven who keeps His word, Babylon will live again as ‘the seat of Satan.' . . . Even now, in our lifetime, Babylon is being prepared for its final appearance on the stage of human history. The ancient prophecies about Babylon are unfolding before us — just like so many other prophecies of the end times."

Of course, this scenario went belly-up as soon as U. S. forces found the Anti-Christ and World Dictator hiding in a hole in the Babylonian mud disguised as a Bedford-Styvesant wino --and (in our humble opinion, providentially) only a week before Christmas. Thus ends the satanic career of yet another in a long line of has-beens who have failed to keep the Office of Anti-Christ intact, including Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, Henry Kissinger, Anwar Sadat, Bill Gates, Martha Stewart, and whoever invented those flimsy and practically useless plastic grocery bags.

Just goes to show that you can't find good help anymore.

But Old Scratch seems to have had great difficulty for over 100 years recruiting and keeping reliable personnel to carry out his nefarious work. Perhaps he ought to consider contracting the job out to one of the many high-profile Washington, DC head-hunters. We suspect they would have long lists of former Congressmen, retired CEOs, and practicing lawyers who would easily qualify.

TAKING CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS...
...and Everything Else Too

  Fox News reports that there is an alarming and growing trend afoot to remove all vestiges of our Christian heritage not only from public Yuletide celebrations and displays, but from everything else the public square as well.

It seems militant secularist groups with more time and $$$ than brains on their hands are increasingly Hell-bent upon shoving Christianity, including Christmas itself, and Western religion in general down George Orwell's Memory Hole: 
 
...Burning the flag is considered free speech; erecting crosses as roadside memorials is not. The FCC allows the "F-word" on television, but thanking God at a high school graduation is a no-no. And some schools freely dispense condoms to kids, but pencils that read "Jesus loves little children" were confiscated from a first-grade class in Virginia.

Some, like War on Christianity author David Limbaugh, say the list of examples is long and is evidence of an undeclared cultural war on the religion.

But those on the other side of the battle, like Elliot Minceberg of People for the American Way, point to the Constitutional separation of church and state as the reason behind keeping religion out of public life.

...[But] the Constitution doesn't explicitly discuss separating church and state. Instead, what it does say is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...," which means that, unlike in England, the United States decided not to form an official national religion, nor can the government interfere with the practice of any religion.

In fact, in 1789, in the days after Congress passed the First Amendment, it declared a national day of prayer.

Still, the number of bans on public displays of Christianity continue to grow...

  ...AND TAKING CHRISTMAS OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE:
The American Public Takes on the Grinches

  In his nationally syndicated op-ed column of this past Sunday, pundit John Leo notes that there is a growing popular resistance against efforts by the ACLU and other radical "First Amendment" groups to erase Christmas and traditional seasonal references, as well as Christmas carols and symbols, from all public "holiday" displays and events: 

....on the whole, things are not going well for the Grinches. In New Jersey, for example, the Hanover Township school district said it was considering a ban on Christmas carols and other religious songs at school concerts. Parents protested and threatened to sue, so the school board beat a hasty retreat. “If a school wants religious music, they can have it, the way they could before,” said the school board president.

The key phrase here is “threatened to sue.” In the old days, when an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer would show up to hammer some tiny school board into submission, the legal costs of resisting were so high that the boards usually caved in. Now the anti-Grinches have legal muscle of their own. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which supported the Hanover parents, claims to have 700 lawyers ready to fight anti-Christmas assaults around the country. The ADF played a lead role in blocking an attempt by the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League to force a charter school in Elbert County, Colo., to ban religious songs from its holiday concert. The Anti-Defamation League said the school’s program was harming the sense of well-being of Jewish students. But how harmful can it be to sing six Christmas carols, two Hanukkah songs, and a lot of ditties about Rudolph and Frosty?

In Plano, Texas, a school district refused to allow a third grader at a class party to hand out candy canes with a religious message attached. The Liberty Legal Institute and the ADF jumped in last week and demanded that the district back down, arguing that “public schools are not zones of religious censorship.”

The [Catholic] Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., supported a parent’s legal challenge to the New York City public schools’ policy that allows the Islamic star and crescent and the Jewish menorah (which the Anti-Defamation League concedes is a religious symbol) but not Christian religious symbols such as a Nativity display. The schools’ chancellor offered a tortured argument in court: The menorah has a “secular dimension” large enough to qualify as nonreligious. The judge, who was caustic about the school policy during arguments, is expected to rule any day....

STILL STUPID AFTER ALL THESE YEARS:
PETA "Hires" the Blessed Virgin Mary

Just when we thought there was already too much eye pollution along the nation's highways, along comes the perennially obnoxious "animal rights" group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to add even more, this time in the form of a billboard in Rhode Island and (eventually) five other states seemingly designed to offend Catholics. We say "seemingly" because, it turns out, what PETA really had in mind was appealing to Catholics in its ongoing anti-meateating campaign.

The billboard in question depicts Jesus' Mom holding a dead chicken. Alongside this "icon" in large, bold text is the message "Go Vegetarian. It's an Immaculate Conception." The "O" in "Go" resembles a Celtic cross.

In response to an avalanche of protesting emails, letters, and phone calls from offended Catholics (including William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights) and other Christians (including the Rev. John E. Holt, head of the Rhode Island Council of Churches, who found the billboard "insulting to any Christian"), PETA "explained" that the ad was designed by "a devout Catholic" on PETA's staff and, according to PETA Director Bruce Friedrich (who says he's "a practicing Catholic"), was intended to "raise awareness" of the "plight of chickens" to Catholics, not mock their faith.

"Mary is the embodiment of selfless love and compassion," Friedrich said. "The most oppressed creatures on the planet are chickens." Friedrich added that "The intention isn't to offend people. The intention is to shock people into thinking about the violence they are supporting."

Instead, what Friedrich really succeeded in doing was make even more people think about what utter dunderheads he and his comrades can be. PETA, which seems consistently run by dumb clucks, continues to be even more clueless than the pea-brained poultry they want the rest of us to help them rescue.

ON MUSIC AND SUFFERING:
Within the Darkest of Times Can Lie Beauty and Heroism

Two months ago we noted that Washington DC area singer and recording artist Grace Griffith, a long-time fixture in the DC-MD-VA folk & Celtic music scene, had begun to experience debilitating advanced stages of Parkinson’s Disease and that she was determined to keep making music in the face of it –and to keep mentoring up-and-coming young artists, such as the late Eva Cassidy, whom Griffith almost single-handedly launched to international stardom despite her awareness of the cost to her own career.

On another note of heroism on the part of another artist, we found in this month’s edition of First Things a particularly moving and thoughtful piece written by theology professor Peter M. Chandler, Jr., a tribute to the late singer Johnny Cash, who died three months ago at age 71 after several years of declining health.

Chandler focuses on how Cash used the suffering in his own life, up to and including his impending death, to grow as an artist and thereby leave behind a body of some of the most remarkable and remarkably original music in modern history. This was only possible, notes Chandler, because in his music Cash both embraced and revealed his own soul, drawing no distinction between himself as a man and himself as an artist:

…Johnny was the kind of person who could simultaneously hold in tension the conflicting parts of his personality and communicate to those who are alienated by a deeply counterfeit culture —particularly a counterfeit Christianity. …We seem to prefer the smile that conceals an inner deception to the honest purgative truth about ourselves. But with Johnny it was otherwise.

That’s because he lived, sang, and played truthfully. There was in him no hint of fraud. At a time when he could have resurrected his career by riding the coattails of others’ popularity (as is the trend today), Johnny did the reverse. On 1994’s American Recordings (on the cover he stands in a field wearing a long black preacher’s coat, alone except for two dogs), he did not simply return to the “old” Johnny Cash and commodify himself for a younger audience. …in a world full of fakes, Cash was authentic.

…[I]n a culture that by and large loves death but does not know what to do with it —a culture simultaneously repulsed and attracted by it— Johnny’s confrontation with his own imminent demise was largely misunderstood. The critics who complained that his voice was not what it used to be missed the point entirely. It is precisely because his voice was not what it used to be that the songs have such power. The beauty of the record lies in that very frailty, the tremolo in his voice that became more pronounced with each album. Even in his younger days, the inimitable strength and fortitude in his voice was mixed with the occasional moment of weakness, the odd quaver and show of vulnerability. In the last few years those moments became more frequent, and his voice became more diaphonous, disclosing more of the effects of illness.

Yet for that very reason, Cash’s voice was all the more beautiful —it had a weakness stronger than others’ strengths….

ON GIVING THANKS:
It's About So Much More Than the Food

In his wonderful reflection this past Thursday, St. Blog's own inimitable Fr. Rob Johansen (who like yours truly is grateful for "good Scotch whisky, good Bourbon, cigars, and micro-brewed beers," among other things) reminds us what Thanksgiving should be all about. In part, he notes:

Gratitude is an indicator of holiness. If you read the writings of, or the Lives of, the great Saints, you'll see that they were suffused with a spirit of Gratitude. They were always thanking God for all they had, and taking notice of the smallest blessings.

Gratitude is also a remedy against Sin. It's the times when I'm most self-satisfied and taking things for granted that I end up being the most susceptible to temptation, and prone to become self-absorbed. Gratitude takes the attention away from yourself and puts it on the Giver. If you make the effort to practice gratitude, you will be come Holy. It's that simple....

There's a "CAT IN THE HAT" MOVIE REVIEW
penned in Dr. Seuss style.
We came across it on the Internet,
reading e-mail awhile.

It's funny and clever,
and as you can see,
is written by a Cath'lic fellow
who has one kid and three.

The reviewer loves the Cat books,
which he knows by heart,
but he says the movie version
is not worthy Seuss art.

The alarmed writer warns
there's no more innocence there,
so in his opinion,
"Parents, beware!"

So it seems Hollywood moguls
have screwed the thing up,
making Seuss fans wonder
if there were drugs in their cup.

MASSACHUSETTS’ JUDICIAL COUP D’ETAT:
Did Four Judges Turn the Bay State Into a Banana Republic?

In the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay "marriage," Daily Standard columnist Hugh Hewitt thinks so:

"JOHN MARSHALL has made his decision," Andrew Jackson is said to have remarked in the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision he disliked, "now let him enforce it."

…It is an interesting time for the Massachusetts Supreme Court to have seized control of the elected branches in its state, given the connection between Thanksgiving and the Bay State. Unlike its neighbor to the north, the Look-at-Me State of Vermont, Massachusetts actually has a place in the collective national consciousness and Americans of all regions are interested in its history. Now, in the aftermath of Tuesday's radical diktat from four justices to Massachusetts' elected representatives, Americans are interested in the state's future as well.

…the people of Massachusetts … didn't sign up for a banana republic run by pretenders in robes, and no one in the state's illustrious history ever sacrificed life or limb --from Boston Harbor to Concord, Antietam or the battlefields of Europe and Asia-- for the proposition that four judges get to change everything when they decide to conjure up a reason for doing so….

JACK KENNEDY AND THE CATHOLIC FAITH:
At His Death, JFK’s Catholicism May Have Been More Pivotal Than During His Life

Catholic Exchange writer Michael H. Brown ponders the effect of the Catholic faith on both JFK himself and his wife Jackie, despite JFK's now well-known philandering as well as his indulgence in reckless behavior in other matters, including geopolitics (e.g., the Bay of Pigs debacle and several misguided covert attempts to assassinate Castro).

For example, Brown notes:

Kennedy, despite his roguish ways, had a streak of devotion inspired by his mother Rose — a daily communicant — and so did his wife, who in Dallas had prayed with a priest as he administered the last anointing.

…Did the sacrament count? No one was sure. Extreme Unction — as it was then known — was not valid if the soul had departed. Father Huber sensed that Kennedy's soul was still there. "Through this anointing, may God forgive you whatever sins you may have committed," he had prayed. Through a faculty granted by the Holy See he dispensed remission of sins and a plenary indulgence….

NOVEMBER 22, 40 YEARS LATER:
Noted Blogger Mark Shea Asks His Readers, "Where Were You...?"

Read some fascinating rememberances of that tragic day in Mark's Comments Box HERE

WHAT'S IN IT FOR THE REST OF US?
On Legislating Same-Sex "Marriage" vs. the Common Good

One of the most fundamental principles upon which civil law is based is the concept of "the Common Good," i.e., what is best for the stability and healthy growth of society as a whole. For example, society as a whole benefits greatly when laws and policies are enacted which give deference and certain advantages to men wed to women and vice versa. Why? Because, among other things, it is from these unions that children --and future citizens-- spring. And the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable the children, the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- are the citizens they become.

Moreover, even without children coming from their unions, the evidence has shown since the beginning of recorded history that married adults tend to be happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- as couples than they are as singles. This in turn makes the whole fabric of society stronger and more resilient, particularly because marriage is as much about, if not more about, shared life goals, shared interests, shared enterprises, and shared values than it is about shared beds.

Hence, the protection and strengthening of this timeless and universal institution of monogamous, one-man-and-one-woman-for-life is for the Common Good. And it's no accident that every human society on every continent on this planet since Homo Sapiens arose on the planet has had laws protecting it as well as giving special deference to it. Contrariwise, none of them --with the possible exceptions of ancient Sparta or a handful of polygamous tribal cultures-- has ever legalized or otherwise given the social stamp of approval to "alternative life-style" "unions." That's because they weren't stupid, even if they may have been "intolerant" and "unenlightened" by presumptuous modern Western secularist standards.

Yet all this seems to have been completely forgotten by the four judges sitting on Massachusetts' highest court this week. In fact, they've completely ignored, if not completely jettisoned, the principle of the Common Good when they decided instead that, in essence, official recognition of unions between two adults should be based solely on the whims and preferences of the two adults in question --i.e., merely because "they love each other." In fact, the judges themselves said as much, and there can be no other explanation for their decision; for in what ways can same-sex "marriages" serve the Common Good, as outlined above? The answer is "none," for --by their very nature-- they cannot.

MASSACHUSETTS' COUNTERFEIT MARRIAGE PROPOSAL:
Devalueing Marriage the Way "Counterfeit Money Devalues the Real Thing"

In yesterday's USA Today, op-ed guest columnist Tony Perkins focuses on the central absurdities and disasterous implications of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's asininely arrogant decision to radically redefine marriage by lifting the state ban on same-sex marriage:

....Marriage is the most fundamental institution of society. The law does not create it, it merely recognizes it. Marriage exists to bridge the gap between the sexes by bringing a man and a woman together in the context that is best for the reproduction of the human race and for raising children to be responsible adults. Healthy families are beneficial to the state.

A large and growing body of social science research has shown that husbands and wives and their children are happier, healthier and more prosperous than adults or children in any other living arrangement. The benefits conferred upon marriage under the law are not an entitlement — they are a recognition of the benefits that marriage confers upon society.

Other research has shown that same-sex relationships lack permanence and fidelity. Therefore, if such unions are recognized as "marriage," those values will be further stripped from the ideal of marriage that is held up to our children.

The deliberate creation of motherless and fatherless families will have the government's highest stamp of approval. Expanding the definition of marriage will weaken the institution, not strengthen it, in the same way that counterfeit money devalues even the real thing.....

Next to come down the pike, as surely as we stand here, is the legalization of polygamy and group "marriage," if not incest as well --the end result being the end of marriage itself.

Far fetched? Paranoid? Absurd? NOT REALLY, as Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution, points out.

MARRIAGE: "NOTHING TO DO WITH GETTING CHILDREN WHAT THEY NEED":
Columnist Maggie Gallegher's Analysis Cuts Through Massachusetts B.S.

Observes Gallagher in her column today:

Four judges in Massachusetts, ruling in a same-sex marriage case, have decided that children don't need mothers and fathers, that marriage has nothing to do with getting children what they need. Marriage is a passing plaything of the latest fashionable ideology, a toy for adults with graduate degrees to tinker with, at their pleasure.

[These judges] displayed their own massive ignorance about marriage, its history and its public purposes. Four people claim that "the government creates marriage." There is no rational reason, they claim, for the state legislature to require that for a marriage you need a husband and a wife, who can become a mother and a father for their children.

So why have marriage at all?, Gallagher asks. Because [quoting the judges]:

"Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones. It is central to the way the Commonwealth identifies individuals, provides for the orderly distribution of property, insures that children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds, and tracks important epidemiological and demographic data."

Translation: "So that the civil government can operate more efficiently" and, as Gallagher points out, in this mindset,

"Marriage is whatever the adults want. People have a right to conduct a great social experiment on children because, well, adults want to do it, and doing your own thing is the new law of the land.

As one philosopher pointed out long ago regarding pantheism, if everything is God then there is no such thing as God, for there is no dictinction between the Creator and the created. Likewise, the bottom line is that if marriage can be any and every sort of "relationship" between any and every sort of couple --i.e., there are no dictinctions to be made between marriage and mere coupling-- then, ultimately, there's no such thing as marriage.

MASSACHUSETTS COURT LEGALIZES GAY MARRIAGE:
Plans Now Underway to Legalize All Other Unions

In the wake of its decision to lift the ban on same-sex marriage, the Massachusetts Supreme Court will soon be hearing cases in support of other non-traditional unions.

Consider, for example, the efforts of the National Association of Narcissists to seek the legalization of same-person marriage. Or the campaign by the animal rights advocacy group, People for Equal Treatment of Animals, promoting the right of their members to marry their pets. Then there are all those guys who are married to their jobs, their golf clubs, their remotes, or their SUVs --but with no legal recognition whatsoever.

How unfair.

But let not your heart be troubled, at least if you live in Massachusetts: It's only a matter of time.

INTRODUCING "THE PERKY PAPIST":
A Promising New Blog Penned by the Irrepressible Meg Quinn...

...a very talented Catholic writer, and a friend of yours truly.

May her tribe --and content-- increase!

"WAS TERRI BEATEN IN 1990?"
Nat Hentoff Continues His Inquiry Into the Terri Case

This past Friday, in the latest installment of his columns on the Terri Schindler-Schaivo case, Hentoff notes that a Federal agency, the Advocacy Center for Persons With Disabilities (ACPD),

...has sent Michael Schiavo's lawyer a request that he authorize the release of Terri Schiavo's medical records. There was initial resistance, but the records have been turned over.

The purpose for this request by the ACPD is to be better able to determine if husband and guardian Michael Schiavo was telling the truth about how his wife underwent the heart failure which resulted in her brain damaged and quadraplegic condition.

NEW HOPE FOR TERRI?
Nat Hentoff Thinks So In His Follow-up Column

Notes Hentoff this past Tuesday:

In the most bitterly contested right-to-die or right-to-life case in many years, Terri Schiavo's husband and legal guardian, Michael, is back in court urging the removal of her feeding tube. But now, a federally funded investigation has begun by a disability advocacy agency. And a renowned forensic pathologist is asking questions about what actually put Terri in her current condition....

...The investigation — as Jeff Johnson reported on CNSNews.com Oct. 29 (and confirmed by Patricia Anderson, the attorney for Terri's parents) — will probe allegations of neglect and abuse, including therapy judgments, during Michael Schiavo's guardianship of his wife...

On another related note: Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, are scheduled to be interviewed on CNN's Larry King Live this Friday (Nov. 14) at 9:00 PM, Eastern time.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
Mark Shea Responds to Scrappleface's "Report" About the "Matrix" Filmmakers

"As a friend of mine said, it takes a peculiar sort of mind to attend academic conferences in which brilliant people offer massive, closely-reason monographs proving that language has no meaning, especially when they then break for lunch and haggle with the waitress over the bill."

NAT HENTOFF ON THE TERRI "RIGHT-TO-DIE" CASE:
Establishment Media Engaging in "Journalistic Malpractice"

Nationally syndicated Village Voice columnist and long-time pro-life libertarian Nat Hentoff had some choice things to say today about the major media's "reporting" of the court fight in Florida to save brain-damaged Terri Schindler-Schiavo from a court-ordered death via starvation and dehydration:

I have covered highly visible, dramatic "right to die" cases—including those of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan—for more than 25 years. Each time, most of the media, mirroring one another, have been shoddy and inaccurate.

The reporting on the fierce battle for the life of 39-year-old Terri Schiavo has been the worst case of this kind of journalistic malpractice I've seen.....

The media continually report that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state, and a number of neurologists and bioethicists have more than implied to the press that "persistent" is actually synonymous with "permanent." This is not true, as I shall factually demonstrate in upcoming columns. I will also provide statements from neurologists who say that if Terri were given the proper therapy —denied to her by her husband and guardian after he decided therapy was becoming too expensive despite $750,000 from a malpractice suit— she could learn to eat by herself and become more responsive....

...In all the stories on Terri Schiavo and her parents' determined efforts to save her life, the media continually report that the Florida legislature intervened because of many thousands of calls, letters, and e-mails from the Christian Right and pro-lifers. Those groups and individuals are indeed a major factor in rousing support to prevent Terri from being starved to death. But among the many others who sent urgent messages are disabled Americans and their organizations....

...[Yet] I have seen hardly any mention in the press of the deeply concerned voices of the disabled, many of whom, in their own lives, have survived being terminated by bioethicists and other physicians who strongly believe that certain lives are not worth living....

[Many thanks to Amy Wellborn for making us aware of Hentoff's very timely column.]

NONE DARE CALL THIS TREASON?
Memo Suggests Intel Committee Dems Misuse Their Posts for Anti-Bush Strategy

Well, someone came close to calling it that; namely Democratic Senator Zell Miller (D-GA), who has long been a critic of the far-left faction which has taken over his party. Miller refers to it as "treason's first cousin."

This past Tuesday, ABC Radio talker Sean Hannity received from an inside source on Capitol Hill a fax of a memo drafted by someone working for Sen. Jay Rockfeller (D-WV) outlining a suggested plan for Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to use their both positions and sensitive intelligence data in order to undermine the Bush admistration.

Following is a transcript of that memo as read on the air by Hannity:

We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as follows:

1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials. We are having some success in that regard.

For example, in addition to the President's State of the Union speech, the chairman [Sen. Pat Roberts] has agreed to look at the activities of the office of the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department.

The fact that the chairman supports our investigations into these offices and cosigns our requests for information is helpful and potentially crucial. We don't know what we will find but our prospects for getting the access we seek is far greater when we have the backing of the majority. [We can verbally mention some of the intriguing leads we are pursuing.]

2) Assiduously prepare Democratic 'additional views' to attach to any interim or final reports the committee may release. Committee rules provide this opportunity and we intend to take full advantage of it.

In that regard we may have already compiled all the public statements on Iraq made by senior administration officials. We will identify the most exaggerated claims. We will contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since been declassified. Our additional views will also, among other things, castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.

The Democrats will then be in a strong position to reopen the question of establishing an Independent Commission [i.e., the Corzine Amendment.]

3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time. But we can only do so once.

The best time to do so will probably be next year, either:

A) After we have already released our additional views on an interim report, thereby providing as many as three opportunities to make our case to the public. Additional views on the interim report (1). The announcement of our independent investigation (2). And (3) additional views on the final investigation. Or:

B) Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence.

In the meantime, even without a specifically authorized independent investigation, we continue to act independently when we encounter footdragging on the part of the majority. For example, the FBI Niger investigation was done solely at the request of the vice chairman. We have independently submitted written requests to the DOD and we are preparing further independent requests for information.

SUMMARY: Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war.

The approach outlined above seems to offer the best prospect for exposing the administration's dubious motives.

DID SADDAM TRY TO OFFER PEACE AT THE LAST MINUTE?
That's What ABC News and the New York Times Would Like You to Believe

But as with all other stories, this one has at least two sides to it, as reported by Fox News in reply to the Establishment Media's reports this morning:

Messages from Baghdad, first relayed by [businessman Imad] Hage in February to an analyst in the office of Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy and planning, were part of an attempt by Iraqi officers to persuade the Bush administration to open talks through a clandestine channel, people involved in the discussion told the Times.

One U.S. official told Fox News that while there were numerous offers and leads as the war neared, they were all thoroughly investigated and it was determined that they weren't in a position to deliver anything that would have been acceptable to the United States.

Additionally, this official says there were several attempts to meet with Iraqi intelligence officers, but each time, those officers were no-shows.

The attempts were portrayed by Iraqi officials as having Saddam's endorsement, but it was not clear if American officials viewed them as legitimate.

...[Pentagon advisor Richard] Perle told the [New York] Times in Wednesday's story that he was dubious Saddam would make legitimate proposals in such a circuitous fashion. "There were so many other ways to communicate," he said. "There were any number of governments involved in the end game, the Russians, French, Saudis."

So things may not be quite as the P. T. Barnums of American journalism would have them appear. Taking their version uncritically may be akin to buying used stock from Enron.

A VICTORY FOR TERRI'S PARENTS:
Bob and Mary Schindler's latest challenge to Michael Schivo's Custody Upheld

Associated Press reports (see full article HERE):

A state circuit judge Wednesday refused to block an effort by the parents of a brain-damaged woman to try to get her husband removed as her legal guardian. Attorneys for Michael Schiavo now have to respond in court to charges in the petition that he withheld proper care and therapy from his wife, Terri Schiavo, and that he has a conflict of interest because he's in a romantic relationship with another woman.

Bob and Mary Schindler, parents of Terri Schiavo, asked Circuit Judge George W. Greer to appoint Terri's brother or sister as guardian instead.

Schiavo had asked for the Schindler's request to be dismissed, but Greer refused.

DOIN' THE JACK CHICK SHUCK-N-JIVE AGAIN!
The Boston Globe's Charles Pierce Dives Headfirst Into the Know Nothing Pool...

...with this amazing Conspiracy Theory. We suspect that Mr. Pierce wears a Tin Foil Hat to keep out those brain-washing rays emanating from the Vatican's string of Mind Control Satellites. How else would he be able to expose this nefarious plot?

Our iniitial observations of Mr. Pierce's effort to lift the cover from the Giant Global Papist Conspiracy:

(1) Mr. Pierce forgot to bring Robert Hanssen into his article, and made only a passing reference to Richard Scaife.

(2) Mr. Pierce completely forgot to mention how Opus Dei has been assigned by the Vatican to assassinate the leaders of the Priory of Sion in order to protect the Top Secret that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene.

In our opinion, there is simply no excuse for Mr. Pierce's neglect of these important facts. Therefore, we recommend that his bosses yank his Know Nothing Party Yellow Jouralism license post-haste.

In any case, Catholic blogger Dale Price skillfully debunks Pierce's in his masterful point-by-point rebuttal.

TERRI'S PARENTS ON LARRY KING LIVE:
Bob and Mary Schindler to Appear on CNN Program Friday

According to Fr. Rob Johansen, Larry King has agreed to have Terri's parents on his show this Friday (Nov.7) at 9:00 p.m. to respond to accusations made against them by son-in-law Michael Schiavo and his lawyer George Felos.

Apparently, King also waived his demand for an exclusive interview, which would have prevented the Schindlers from appearing on other programs.

DOIN' THE JACK CHICK SHUCK-N-JIVE:
ABC News' Latest Foray Into Things Catholic....

...was, as expected, disappointing as news and history, but made for great Know Nothing yellow journalism.

Moreover, ABC's "documentary" Jesus, Mary, and DaVinci turned out to be a one-hour infomercial for Dan Brown's blatently anti-Catholic novel The DaVinci Code, summarized in our Oct. 31 blog below and skillfully debunked by Envoy Magazine writers Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel, who also wrote a similar critique for Deal Hudson's Crisis monthly journal.

Some initial takes on ABC's nonsensical presentation:

(1) To her credit, ABC News reporter Elizabeth Vargas admitted that Brown's theory that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a child with her has little or no credibility.

BUT...

(2) Vargas failed to dig into Brown's nonsensical Priory of Sion claim, which he lifted en toto from the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, one of whom Vargas interviewed in her program with a string of softball albeit somewhat skeptical questions.

Had Vargas done even a little homework via Google she would have quickly discovered that, as we noted below on Oct. 31, the Priory of Sion was not, as Brown claims, an ancient secret society --of which Leonardo was supposedly a member-- set up to protect the "true" identity of the "Holy Grail." Nor are the Priory's "ancient secret documents" which Brown referred to and relies upon for his "theory" the least bit authentic. According to New Age writer Robert Richardson, by no means a sycophant of the Vatican:

...The Grail is not a bloodline. This false story originated in reams of fraudulent documents created by an extreme right-wing French sect. The group responsible for these fictions, calling itself the "Priory of Sion" and claiming an ancient esoteric lineage, has kept its own authentic history carefully hidden. How it constructed its fraud has not been revealed. It is long past time for the light of truth to reveal the "Priory of Sion" and the fictional bloodline it has promoted for what they are really are -- a fraud...

(3) MUST every network which produces any program touching on either ancient church history or Catholicism always trot out Gnostic "gospels" advocate Elaine Pagels and off-the-wall uber-lib dissident Catholic priest Richard McBrien, as well as the nearest Liberal Establishment Protestant?

How come they never interview bona fide orthodox Catholic biblical scholars or historians, or at least bona fide conservative Protestant or Orthodox biblical scholars or historians like N. T. Wright or Juroslav Pelikan? (The only conservative they interviewed was some guy from Dallas TS whom we never heard of. Whoopee.)

(4) The addition of Margaret Starbird to Vargas' cast of characters is interesting in and of itself:

Apparently reporter Vargas just took at face value Starbird's claim to be a "Christian scholar" and never bothered to check Starbird's professional background as an expert in ancient Christianity and church history. The author of such books as The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine and Magdalene's Lost Legacy: Symbolic Numbers and the Sacred Union in Christianity and The Tarot Trumps and the Holy Grail --all pushing a fanciful Gnostic-feminist revisionism of ancient Christianity and the pre-Nicene Church-- Starbird is a quasi-"Christian" ex-Catholic New Age writer with no academic credentials as either an historian or a biblical scholar.

(5) Last but not least, Dan Brown's absurdly bigoted and extremist anti-Catholic statements --such as his nonsense statement that the Catholic Church of Leonardo's time equated science with heresy-- clearly demonstrated what he really is:

The Jack Chick of the New York Times Best Seller List.

WELL, HE'S NOT A CATHOLIC PRIEST...
...So It Musta Been OK

The same Limousine Liberals in Hollywood who repeatedly bash the Catholic Church over the negligence of some Bishops vis the "pedophile priest" issue seem to have no problem with the presence of pedophiles in their midst as long as the perverts in question wear Armani suits rather than Roman collars.

Case in point: "Jeepers Creepers 1 and 2" director Victor Salva is apparently well-known amongst his peers as a registered sex offender who especially enjoys molesting young boys while videotaping his activities. In one instance, for which he was caught and convicted, Salva served time in the joint. And we don't mean Chuck E. Cheese.

Word is, he hasn't changed his predatory pedophile ways one whit since prison. Yet Salva remains one of the darlings of the Hollywood elite, with Mary Steenburgen, Jeff Goldblum, and Francis Ford Coppola --who produced Salva's "Jeepers Creepers" flicks ("The film[s] did very well at the box office -- that's all that matters to us")-- among his most ardent defenders.

REVENGE OF THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL GIRLS:
A Flasher Gets an Unexpected Reception

South Philly has always had a reputation for being a tough neighborhood. This became especially clear yesterday to Rudy Susanto, 25, a known sexual predator who on several occassions had been exposing himself to some teen-age girls attending St. Maria Goretti* Catholic School in Philadelphia.

This time, as this CNN report notes, the girls took matters into their own hands:

...[A] group of girls in school uniforms angrily confronted Susanto with help from some neighbors, police said.

When Susanto tried to run, more than 20 girls chased him down the block. Two men from the neighborhood caught him and the girls took their revenge.

"The girls came and started kicking him and punching him, so I wasn't going to stop them," neighbor Robert Lemons told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Susanto was later treated for injuries at a local hospital. Police said he would be charged with 14 criminal counts including harassment, disorderly conduct, open lewdness and corrupting the morals of a minor.

Way to go, gals!

*(Editor's Note: Ironically enough, St. Maria Goretti was a 12-year-old girl who was murdered for resisting another sexual predator who tried to rape her.)

OF CODE-CRACKING & CRACKPOTS:
ABC News to Promote The DaVinci Code as “History”

We learned today that ABC News plans to air a special next week titled "Jesus, Mary and DaVinci," which proffers the “theory” that the controversial novel by Dan Brown –which novel revolves around an ancient global conspiracy to cover up the supposed marriage between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, who begat a child and, after Jesus' death, moved to France establishing a new “royal” bloodline.

Brown claims that his novel is based on “historical fact.” But what it’s really based on is a sensationalist tome written in 1983 which first publicized that “theory.” The book --Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Newage “researchers” and conspiracy theorists Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, and Richard Leigh-- can be found alongside books on UFO abductions, channeling, crystal-gazing, Enneagrams, how to become a witch or develop your psychic powers, and the like in the Crackpots and Kooks section of your local bookstore. In other words, you won’t find it in the History section, and rarely in the Religion section, and for good reason:

In their book, Messr.s Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh wove a fanciful theory about the ancient legend of the Holy Grail and a search for it by a Medieval warrior-monk order known as the Knights Templar, which group during the Crusades rapidly degenerated into a violent Gnostic cult –so much so that the Catholic Church disbanded the order, tried its leaders for heresy, and had them executed.

As part of their “research” --gleaned almost entirely from ancient myths, fairy tales, rumors, ludicrous Gnostic “gospels, and fake “ancient” parchments produced by the Priory of Sion, a looney mid-1900s French occultist sect-- Messr.s Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh soon “discovered” that Jesus married Magdalene and fathered children whose bloodline (the “real” Holy Grail) continues today. But, at variance with Brown, Messr.s Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh speculated, based on some ancient Gnostic "gospels," that Jesus may have bypassed the cross altogether and lived with Magdalene to a ripe old age.

As history, Monty Python’s version of the Holy Grail legend would be a lot more accurate.

Last, but hardly least, is the vacuous yet venomous Jack Chick anti-Catholicism which permeates Brown's novel. In his strange make-believe world, the Vatican is an all-powerful villain on a global scale, out to subjugate women, destroy democracy, and oppose All Things Good and Beautiful, even to the point of directing Opus Dei (!) to "handle" the Priory of Sion (the good guys in Brown's novel) by assassinating its leaders to keep the "secret" of the Grail secret.

This was too much even for uber-liberal Catholic novelist and pundit Fr. Andrew Greeley, who found the book "a skillfully written read" but flawed with anti-Catholic bigotry and unrealistic, anti-historical nonsense:

"...The [Vatican] is hardly all that deft and devious, save in its internal plots and conniving -- like getting rid of a colleague or undoing an ecumenical council. It is in fact a fractionalized bureaucracy whose heavy-handed personnel would have a hard time conspiring themselves out of a wet paper bag. Poison and daggers were abandoned long ago."

Greeley also sets the record straight about the real origins of the Grail legend, and it had nothing to do with Mary Magdalene bearing kids for Jesus:

"Back in the dim prehistory of Ireland, there was a spring fertility ritual (enacted on Beltane, usually May 1) in which animal blood was poured into a concave stone altar to represent the union of the male and female in the process of generating life. Later tales grew up to explain the rite, the best known of which is the story of Art MacConn. Memories of the ritual and the story floated around in the collective preconscious of the Celtic lands in company with folk tales, myths, bits of history and cycles of legends about such folk as Arthur, Merlin, Parsifal and Tristan. Later writers like Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chretien de Troyes, Thomas Mallory, and Wolfram von Eschenbach combined this bricolage of images and myths into more systematic stories with an overlay of Christianity. However, these storytellers (excepting von Eschenbach) were tainted by the perspectives of Catharist heresy and the results were dreamy, flesh-denying, life-denying legends that violated the older, if pagan, Irish tales. The Grail is always to be sought and never found. This version persists in the work of such disparate artists as Richard Wagner, Alfred Tennyson, Fritz Lowe and Robert Bresson. In the Irish story, Art gets the magic cup and the magic princess, though, more realistically she, being an Irish woman, gets him -- a happy ending!"

Yet here we have a bona fide journalist and alleged Catholic, one Elizabeth Vargas, who actually takes Dan Brown's balderdash seriously enough to convince ABC News higher-ups to actually finance and air a documentary promoting Brown's novel as credible historical theory instead of laughing her out of their offices. And, of course, Vargas manages to get a well-known All Purpose Useful Idiot --Fr. Richard McBrien, the media's favorite Catholic theologian, who always seems eager to embrace any crackpot notion which comes across his desk-- to lend “credence” to her efforts.

The mind just boggles.

IT’S THE BIOLOGY, STUPID
On Gay “Marriage,” Some Folks Just Don’t Get It

In his op-ed piece in The Washington Post yesterday, columnist Harold Meyerson asserted that the main reason conservatives and the GOP oppose gay “marriage” and want to make it a major campaign issue for the ’04 elections is that they are stuck in “Old Testament morality” and want to manipulate “xenophobic, homophobic and racist fears.”

The GOP, Meyerson says, needs more “moderate” Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger if they hope to retain both Houses of Congress in addition to the White House. The irony of this is that Meyerson’s example is himself opposed to gay “marriage.” During the California recall election, Schwarzenegger, in response to a question on this very subject during a radio interview with Sean Hannity, declared that “marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman" and not for same-sex couples.

Nevertheless, Meyerson misses the point about why at least half of the US population –including conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike—are opposed to same-sex marriages:

(1) The nuclear family is the most fundamental and most universal building block of any society, and always has been since the dawn of time. It transcends modern American society, and predates the modern American state by untold thousands of years. Its roots are not in modern legalism but in nature itself: The joining of one man and one woman to procreate and perpetuate the human race. Obviously, artificial “procreation” methods aside, that cannot be achieved when the partners are of the same gender.

(2) The state has no business tinkering with, and ultimately threatening, this natural building block by allowing a bunch of lawyers to redefine it to suit the personal preferences of certain special interest groups. The result could –and mostly likely would— be utter chaos, as is usually the case when Big Brother is allowed to redefine most things.

So, Mr. Meyerson, the main issue behind opposition to gay “marriage” is not about “hating gays” (although, no doubt, a relative few oppose it for that reason). Nor is it even about supposedly “outdated” moralities.

It’s about the biology, stupid.

”KILL TERRI, VOL. ONE”:
Schiavo First Tried to "Grant" Wife's "Wish" in 1993, Court Records Show

Michael Schiavo and his attorneys have been telling the Establishment media that he waited until 1998 (the year he hired “right-to-die” activist lawyer George Felos) to “grant” Terri’s “wish” to “allow” her to die if she had to be kept alive “artificially.”

But the court records tell a very different story:

(1) According to Schiavo’s November, 1993 Guardianship Hearing Deposition Schiavo first attempted to "allow" Terri to die via withdrawal of emergency medical treatment in June of 1993, when Terri contracted a potentially fatal urinary tract infection ---barely seven months after telling the court in his malpractive trial that he intended to "[take] care of my wife" and "spend the rest of my life with her." However, the Deposition shows, Terri’s doctor and nursing home staff refused to carry out his order because it violated Florida law:

[from Michael Schiavo Deposition, Guardianship Hearing, November 1993]:

Q. What was [Terri’s] bladder condition [in June 1993]?
[Michael Schiavo] A. She had a UTI.

Q. What is that?
A. Urinary tract infection.

Q. What did the doctor tell you treatment for that would be?
A. Antibiotic usually.

Q. And did he tell you what would occur if you failed to treat that infection? What did he tell you?
A. That sometimes urinary tract infection will turn to sepsis.

Q. And sepsis is what?
A. An infection throughout the body.

Q. And what would the result of untreated sepsis be to the patient?
A. The patient would pass on.

Q. So when you made the decision not to treat Terri's bladder infection you, in effect, were making a decision to allow her to pass on?
A. I was making a decision on what Terri would want.

Q. Had the bladder condition been treated?
A. Yes.

Q. And was...what was the reason that the bladder condition was treated?
A. Sable Palms Nursing Home said they could not do that by some Florida law which wasn't stated.

Q. But you didn't change your opinion or your decision to not treat the bladder condition?
A. We did change it.

Q. Correct?
A. Repeat the question.

Q. You did not change your decision not to treat the bladder condition, correct?
A. I had to change my decision.

Q. Sable Palms changed it for you?
[Schiavo’s] Attorney Nillson Objection

Q. Okay. Is there any reason that you would not make the same decision that you previously made if the problem came up again?
A. Repeat your question. You're losing me here.

Q. Let me be more specific. If your wife developed another condition that could result in her death, is there any reason that you would not take the position that you're not going to treat that condition and you're going to instruct the doctor not to treat that condition?
A. I wouldn't instruct anybody, no.

Q. You instructed the doctor not to treat the condition, correct?
[Schiavo’s] Attorney Nillson Objection

Q. You did instruct the doctor not to treat her bladder condition, correct?
A. Uh-huh. Yes.

Q. If a similar...would you do the same?
A. I'm thinking.

Q. Take your time.
A. I probably wouldn't instruct the doctor to do it.

Q. So you've changed your opinion?
A. Sort of, yeah.

Q. Why have you changed your opinion?
A. Because evidently there is a law out there that says I can't do it.

Q. Is that the only reason?
A. Basically, maybe.

Q. What you're telling me is, is that there is nothing in your belief or feelings that have changed. The only thing that has changed is the fact that you perceive the law prevents you to do what you intended to do?
A. Correct.

(2) Another court record, Schiavo’s Malpractice Testimony, also shows that barely seven months earlier, during his $20 million malpractice suit in November 1992, he told the court that he intended to take care of Terri “for the rest of my life” (he was awarded over $1 million total, including $700K for Terri's care and rehabilitation, in January 1993):

[from Testimony of Michael Schiavo, Medical Malpractice Trial, November 1992]:

Q. Why did you want to learn to be a nurse?
[Michael Schiavo] A. Because I enjoy it and I want to learn more how to take care of Terri.

Q. You're a young man. Your life is ahead of you. When you look up the road, what do you see for yourself?
A. I see myself hopefully finishing school and taking care of my wife.

Q. Where do you want to take care of your wife?
A. I want to bring her home.

Q. If you had the resources available to you, if you had the equipment and the people, would you do that?
A. Yes, I would, in a heartbeat.

Q. How do you feel about being married to Terri now.
A. I feel wonderful. She's my life and I wouldn't trade her for the world. I believe in my marriage vows.

Q. You believe in your wedding vows, what do you mean by that?
A. I believe in the vows I took with my wife, through sickness, in health, for richer or poor. I married my wife because I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I'm going to do that.

Apparently, a lot can change in seven months. Especially after winning a hefty sum in a malpractice suit.

LARRY KING & SCHIAVO OUT-TAKE:
Caller Makes Great Suggestion; Team Felos Blows Smoke

From the transcript of Larry King's Interview with Schiavo and Felos:

KING: Aurora, Illinois, hello.

CALLER: Hi Larry. I have a question for Michael. Since he's so passionate about it being Terri's wish, when she was 25 years old, that watching a TV program, to give peace to Terri's parents and brother, why doesn't he just take a lie detector test?

And one more quick question. If they could bathe her, they could probably give her a pap smear. So he should just take a lie detector test and it would bring peace and resolution to the situation for the parents and brother.

FELOS: The ultimate lie detector has gone before 20 judges who found Mr. Schiavo to be a loving, caring husband.

KING: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you could voluntarily take one, right?

FELOS: Sure.

KING: Would you take one?

SCHIAVO: I'll refrain from that right now.

KING: OK. This ain't a court.

SCHIAVO: It's not a court.

KING: Farmington, New Mexico, hello.

Of course, as most folks know, polygraph test results are inadmissable in court as evidence of anything. But, as King himself pointed out to Schiavo, "this ain't a court." So Schiavo should have nothing to fear about taking one, especially if he is as convinced and sincere about what he claims are Terri's wishes as he appears to be.

After all, polygraphs don't really detect lack of honesty, for psychopaths and trained undercover agents can pass them easily. Rather, they detect lack of confidence and sincerity via involuntary responses in the body.

Moreover, others who have been publicly accused of chicanery but were as confident of their positions as Schiavo seems to be have consistently and eagerly volunteered --and even begged-- to take polygraph tests, if only to generate better P-R. And isn't that at least one of the main purposes for Schiavo's increasingly frequent public appearances?

So why the reluctance on Schiavo's part to take a polygraph test? Why commit such a P-R faux paux, and on live national t.v.?

In fact, why didn't he take one on his own initiative years ago, when the Schindlers began to challenge his claim that their daughter wanted to die in her current state?

IN OTHER NEWS*
The Great Southern California Wildfires Continue Unabated...

...exacerbated in part by some thoughtless to-Hell-with-the-facts activism by the Tin Foil Hat Wing of the environmentalist movement and the Useful Idiots who cave in to them.

*(After all, the name of this blog isn't "All Terri All the Time," though we're sorely tempted to do make it so.)

NEW COMMENTS BOXES ADDED!
Many Thanks to Our Friends at Haloscan

Once again, you can leave whatever various and sundry brickbats, profundities, penetrating queries, or hymns of praise strike your fancy.

"THE INTERVIEW THAT WASN'T":
Wesley Smith Raises Some Questions Larry King Didn't Ask

Some of the questions Smith poses are,

Why did Schiavo tell a medical malpractice jury in 1992 that Terri would live a normal life span?

...Michael presented evidence ...that Terri would likely live a normal life span [and] that he intended to ...care for her for the rest of his life

Given that the jury awarded $750,000 to be used in part for Terri's therapy, why hasn't Schiavo provided any rehabilitation for her since 1991?

...The only efforts ever undertaken to improve Terri's condition took place in 1990 and 1991. They had ceased by the time of the malpractice trial in 1992 because her insurance coverage had run out....

[H]ow could Terri's father make any money off the case?

Schiavo's story is that once Schindler became Terri's guardian, ...he would stop her food and fluids....[A]s next of kin, the Schindlers would inherit their daughter's money. This sounds like a mighty stretch, particularly given that Bob Schindler has spent every nickel he has --including his entire retirement fund-- desperately trying to save his daughter's life. If Bob Schindler is a venal man, he has a funny way of showing it.

THIS IS TOO FUNNY!
ScrappleFace on Michael Schiavo

See his wonderful send-up, Michael Schiavo Slips into 'Carnivorative State'

THE GREAT SNOW JOB OF ’03:
CNN and Larry King Play Host to Schiavo and Felos

Last night Larry King Live featured a full-hour interview with Michael Schiavo --looking for all the world like a downtown Miami coke snorter with fake Rolexes to sell-- accompanied by geeky Newage lawyer George Felos.

Of course, with maybe one notable exception (about which in due course) King asked no hardball questions and to date has made no plans to give Terri’s parents equal time. Even the call-in segment, which lasted less than 20 minutes instead of the usual 30 or more, was typically bland with the deck stacked in favor of callers sympathetic to Schiavo: Of the six callers aired, only one posed anything approaching a skeptical query.

Our initial impression of King's interview with Schiavo and Felos can be summed up in two words:

”SNOW JOB”

--When asked by a skeptical caller if he would be willing to take a polygraph test to back up his claims and "settle" this controversy "once and for all," Schiavo hemmed and hawed and evaded, saying that the "nineteen judges" who believed him were "enough" of a test."

--When asked by Larry King if CNN would be allowed to take a camera crew to the hospice to document Terri's condition for themselves, Schiavo declined with Felos replying that they wanted to "respect Terri's privacy” (a little late for that, ain’t it, George?)

--When Schiavo claimed that Mr. Schindler –with, conveniently, no witnesses within earshot-- demanded to know where his share of the malpractice award was, Schiavo neglected to mention the fact that the Schindlers were never a party to the malpractice suit to begin with. Therefore, they would have had no rational expectation of receiving a share. King should have asked Schiavo about that but failed to do so.

--When King played a tape of an interview with Terri’s brother, in which the brother asserted that Terri had responded to him and tried to communicate with other family members, Schiavo called him a “liar,” claiming that he could “count on one hand” the number of times her brother visited her over the past 13 years. Schiavo’s only “evidence” for that claim was that those were the only times he saw him there. King let that one slide as well.

--When Schiavo made the preposterous claim that Mr. Schindler had received a letter from "an inmate" offering to kill Schiavo, and implied that Mr. Schindler welcomed the offer by not releasing the letter to the police, King failed to pursue Schiavo with some obvious questions, such as "how do you know?"

--However, and to his credit, King finally asked Schiavo something approaching a probing question and elicited a very telling response from Schiavo:

When King asked Schiavo why he thought Terri's parents were so intent upon opposing his decision to kill their daughter, he replied that they were trying to "just make [his] life Hell" because they were influenced by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Never mind that by his own admission in a 1993 deposition Schiavo tried to have his wife killed waaaaay back in 1993 --long before the VRWC showed up on Terri's doorstep-- by instructing Terri's caretakers to refrain from giving her antibiotics for a severe urinary tract infection. About which King, of course, said nothing.

Not very impressive.

IT'S NOT JUST THE "RELIGIOUS RIGHT":
The Mainstream Media Apply the Broad Brush Once Again

Irrepressible St. Blog parishioner Mark Shea observes that the New York Times has already begun spinning the Terri Schindler-Schiavo case into yet another fictitious "religious right" vs. "the rest of us" sham.

Yet the following article, originally linked by Mr.Shea, was posted by a critic of the Let's Rush the Handicapped to the Grave movement who is, by all indications, neither religious nor much of a right-winger:

THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?

Contra the Times and other mainstream media outlets, the battle for Terri's life is NOT about the "religious right" versus everyone else. It's about the Culture of Death versus everyone else.

Besides, with a few notable exceptions, the "religious right" ignored this case until only a few weeks ago.And even then, it seems, mostly to draw pontentially fund-raising media attention to themselves. Case in point: The discreditable Randall Terry --who has accomplished nothing for years except give the pro-life movement a black eye-- didn't show up at Terri's "hospice" until last week.

WHAT A BIG SURPRISE ....NOT!
ACLU Joins Forces with Michael Schiavo

Today's South Florida Sun-Sentinal reports that,

"The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that it will aid Michael Schiavo in his fight against Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature, which earlier this week took the remarkable step of passing a law to prevent the Pinellas County man from disconnecting his brain-injured wife from a feeding tube.

"For months, the ACLU resisted meddling in the dispute that has pitted a husband against his in-laws, believing that the courts were following the long-held legal right of an individual to refuse extraordinary medical measures, even if it hastens their death...."

So the ACLU also considers food and water are "extraordinary medical measures," and therefore favors execution via starvation and dehydration for innocent, helpless invalids. Of course, this is the very same ACLU which has adamantly opposed any and all forms of execution for convicted murders.

Go figure.

TERRI MEETS THE PRESS:
How the Mainstream Media Dropped All the Balls in the Florida "Right-to-Die" Case

H. L. Mencken once defined “truth” as “something somehow discreditable to someone somewhere.” And so it has seemed with the mainstream news outlets –e.g., CNN, PBS, ABC, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post, the New York Times-- in their mostly one-sided and neglectful coverage of the Terri Schindler-Schiavo “right-to-die” case, especially in recent weeks.

For example,

The Late Great Comatose Vegetable Myth

Almost all major news outlets have consistently referred to Terri’s condition as either “comatose” or a “persistent vegetative state,” even after the release of secretly recorded videotapes of her (which can be viewed HERE), taken early this past year, which show her awake and responding to her parents, albeit in a subdued manner. One tape shows her tracking a balloon with her eyes and in apparent response to commands to do so. Another tape shows her smiling and looking up at her mother as her mother greets her.

Moreover, according to the Chicago Tribune, ”...[t]hree of [Terri] Schiavo's former nursing-home aides have filed affidavits that Schiavo was speaking rudimentary words and swallowing pudding and Jell-O in the mid-1990s.” (Courts to Choose Victor in Battle Over Woman's Life, October 12, 2003, Chicago Tribune)

A complete photocopy of the Affidavit about Terri’s condition pre-2000 by Nursing Assistant Carolyn Johnson can be read HERE. Nursing Assistant Heidi Law’s Affidavit can be read HERE. Regitered Nurse Carla Sauer Iyer's Affidavit can be read HERE.

Comatose? Vegetative? We don’t think so, and neither do the medical personnel who testified under oath to that effect on behalf of the Schindlers in their efforts to preserve her life, in addition to many neurologists and other experts who have viewed the videotapes since their release earlier this month. However, in almost all instances, the only medics interviewed by the press were those who testified for Michael Schiavo, many hired by his “right-to-die” activist lawyer George Felos, and many of whom just “happen” to be pro-euthanasia sycophants.

Follow the Money

Also left out of most mainstream media’s reports is the fact that, according to the Chicago Tribune, in 1992, Michael Schiavo filed a $20 million malpractice suit against his wife’s gynecologist, whom he deemed responsible for the heart attack which left her quadriplegic and severely brain-damaged. He argued that he needed such a large amount because he expected his wife to live a normal life span: ”…during a 1992 medical malpractice trial, Michael Schiavo did not bring up his wife's end-of-life wishes and pledged to use the money he was seeking for Terri Schiavo's care and rehabilitation.”

Mikey's Magical Mystery Memory Tour

But, notes the St. Petersburg Times in June 2001, once the court awarded only $2 million instead --$1.4 million for Terri’s care ($700K after legal and other expenses), which was placed in a trust fund, and $660K ($300K after legal and other expenses) for him in compensatory damages— Schiavo changed his tune: At that point, he “remembered” that Terri “told” him she made him “promise her” that he would not “let her live like that.” However, he could produce no living will to that effect, as required by Florida law. Nor could he produce any other concrete evidence of Terri’s “wishes.” Hmmmm. Maybe Felos used his telepathic powers on her.

Schiavo: A Credible Witness?

Moreover, the Tribune observes,

”[In 1998,] attorney Richard Pearse …issued a report to Judge Bruce Boyer, who then was handling the case. In the report, Pearse said Michael Schiavo was not a credible witness to his wife's end-of-life wishes because he waited several years before coming forward with the claim that she wanted to die. Pearse also noted that Michael Schiavo would benefit financially from her death and be able to move on with his life.”

Yet most of the major news media outlets neglected to bring up the original amount Schiavo sued for, much less the “reason” for that amount which he gave the court at the time. Nor have they pointed out the inconsistency, referred to by the Tribune, between Schiavo's 1992 pre-award testimony and what he has been telling the courts since winning his malpractice suit.

Uh, Who Paid for the Lawyers???

The mainstream media have also left out the fact that --as reported only in a couple of Florida newspapers between 1998 and 2001 (cf. the June 3, 2001 edition of the St. Petersburg Times)-- Schiavo, from 1994 to 2001, dipped into his wife’s $700K trust –earmarked only for her care— to pay for his legal fees in his attempts to get her feeding tube removed. Since 2001, the remaining $350K in Terri’s trust fund has been used for additional legal fees. As of October 12, 2003, of the $300K net of the award given to Schiavo, he has used zero for his legal fees. Again, said the Chicago Tribune earlier this month:

…After costs, Terri Schiavo's guardianship netted $700,000 and Michael Schiavo $300,000. Most of the $700,000 has been used for legal fees as Schiavo has pressed the case to fulfill what he says are his wife's wishes. According to Felos, Michael Schiavo has not used any of his own $300,000 for legal costs.

However, since the Tribune's October 12 was published, whenever interviewed on national radio and television --particularly CNN, MSNBC, and Sean Hannity's ABC Radio call-in program-- Felos consistently claimed that Schiavo has no more money left.

Paving the Way for Death

Except for the Chicago Tribune and some Florida newspapers, the news media seem also to have neglected to mention that, according to court records, from the time Terri’s health insurance and medicare coverage ceased to cover her care, Schiavo has consistently refused to release funds from her account to pay for any kind of rehabilitative therapy, such as therapy designed to help her swallow on her own and to better communicate with those around her. In addition, nursing home staffers Johnson and Law have testified (see links above) that Schiavo also ordered that no antibiotics be given to Terri for any infections she may develop.

In 2000, Schiavo also moved her from the nursing home she lived in since the early 1990s to a hospice with close ties to attorney Felos and the “right-to-die” movement. The hospice in question --Woodside House, run by the controversial Hospice of the Forida Suncoast-- is supposedly intended only for terminally ill patients expected to live for only a few months. Yet there was no indication at all that Terri's life was in danger either from illness or from her condition. Her life span --again by Schiavo's own admission during his 1992 malpractice suit-- was expected to be of normal length.

A Conflict of Interest

Another pertinent fact is a conflict of interest which the major news media have consistently neglected to mention, much less raise any scrutinizing questions about: According to local media (e.g., the St. Petersburg Times) as well as Schindler family members and friends, for the past seven years Michael Schiavo has been engaged to his live-in girlfriend, whom he met shortly after his 1993 malpractice award and with whom he has fathered two children. Obviously, Schiavo wasted no time finding another honey once his wife was in a nursing home and the money started rolling in.

The Culture of Death's Harry Potter Wannabe

Then there’s the matter of self-styled psychic and New Age mystic George Felos: NONE of the mainstream media have said so much as a syllable about Felos’ close, long-time, and well-documented ties to pro-death movements and groups, such as the pro-suicide Hemlock Society (now known as End-of-Life Choices), of which Felos was once a member. Nor have they mentioned anything at all about the Aleister Crowleyesque “thinking” and New Age beliefs which drive Felos’ pro-death ideology and law practice in the first place. Yet the very same media have wasted no time or space making much ado over the “religious right” beliefs and/or “anti-choice” affiliations of those who have been fighting for Terri’s right to live --up to an including the lawyers and politicians helping her parents.

Smoke or Swamp Gas?

In most instances in the real world, when the news media see even a wisp of smoke waft in –particularly from a conservative or Christian or pro-life direction-- they waste no time rooting out the fire behind it; or, should a fire fail to turn up, rubbing a couple of dry sticks together. Contrariwise, in their coverage of the Terri Schindler-Schiavo travesty, they seem to regard the massive cloud of smoke billowing in from Michael Schiavo’s camp as nothing more than a little Everglades swamp gas.

TERRI'S FAMILY BANNED FROM HOSPITAL:
"No Visitors" Order Placed by Michael Schiavo

For more details on this apparently vindictive move, go to this report at the Fox News web site.

[UPDATE, 5:33 PM]: Fox News reports that Terri's family has finally received permission to see her.

QUOTES FROM GEORGE FELOS’ BOOK:
“Right-to-Die” Lawyer Claims Psychic Powers

In his 2002 book, Litigation As Spiritual Practice (Blue Dolphin Publishing), Michael Schiavo's lawyer shows off his looney side:

Page 63 (Felos on his landmark Florida case, Estate of Browning):

"Such a deep, dark, silent blue. I stared as far into her eyes as I could, hoping to sense some glimmer of understanding, some hint of awareness. The deeper I dove, the darker became the blue, until the blue became the black of some bottomless lake. 'Mrs. Browning, do you want to die?...Do you want to die?' - I near shouted as I continued to peer into her pools of strikingly beautiful but incognizant blue. It felt so eerie."

Page 73 (On telepathically “hearing” a comatose patient “scream”):

"As I continued to stay beside Mrs. Browning at her nursing home bed, I felt my mind relax and my weight sink into the ground. I began to feel light-headed as I became more reposed. Although feeling like I could drift into sleep, I also experienced a sense of heightened awareness. As Mrs.
Browning lay motionless before my gaze, I suddenly heard a loud, deep moan and scream
and wondered if the nursing home personnel heard it....

“In the next moment, as this cry of pain and torment continued, I realized it was Mrs. Browning. I felt the mid-section of my body open and noticed a strange quality to the light in the room. I sensed her soul in agony. As she screamed I heard her say, in confusion, 'Why am I still here... why am I here?' My soul touched hers and in some way I communicated that she was still locked to her body. I promised I would do everything in my power to gain the release her soul cried for. with that the screaming immediately stopped. I felt like I was back in my head again."

Page 75 (Felos on his son telepathically communicating with him before he was conceived):

"Before our son was conceived, my then wife and I went through a long and arduous process trying to decide if we should have a child. Given that our marriage was never very stable, the familiar arguments against creating progeny seemed at times hard to overcome....One morning, while still generally engaged in that process, I walked into my office, and about half way to my desk was hammer-struck. While almost seeing stars like a comic book character, I heard the soul of my yet-to-be-conceived child emphatically shout: I'm ready to be born... will you stop this fooling around!'... The voice I heard was distinctly male, and I beamed with the idea I had a son - or was going to have a son - or sorta had a son out there - or something like that."

Page 216 (On telepathically communicating with the comatose Mrs. Browning the night of her death):

"As I always did, I looked into her eyes and shouted to her, hoping for some response or sign. After a minute or two I sat in the chair by the foot of her bed, closed my eyes, and started to meditate. Having 'soulspoken' with Mrs. Browning when we first met, I decided, with a measure of earnest self-inflation, to purposefully initiate such contact. I settled into my breath and noticed all the passing sounds move through my consciousness. As I deepened my relaxation, I reached out with my awareness to see if I could touch her soul-presence. From deep inside I repeated, 'Mrs. Browning, it's okay to leave your body. There is no reason to stay in this body. It is all right to die now.' A few minutes into my meditative encouragement, I was jarred by a high-pitched sarcastic cackle and the words, 'You're telling me to drop my body – and you can't even get out of your head.' Apparently, Mrs. Browning had a spirited sense of humor!"

Page 182 (Felos on his warning from God after almost causing a plane to crash via his psychic powers):

"…’Be careful what you think. You are more powerful than you realize'.....I was startled, humbled, and blessed by God's admonishment."

In our humble opinion, the above quotes speak for themselves regarding not only Mr. Felos’ credibility, but his sanity as well:

It used to be that if someone thought they were Napolean --or one of Santa's elves. or a space alien-- he or she would be locked up in the nearest looney bin lickety-split. But apparently in Florida it's just fine and dandy for an officer of the court to think he's Harry Potter.

If some born-again Christian attorney blathered such preposterous nonsense in public --much less publish it in a book for all the world to see-- he or she would have been laughed out of the legal community long ago.

And rightly so!