A blog inspired by my favorite concept from Catholic social teaching, "the preferential option for the poor," which lies at the core of two flawed institutions to which I am loyal, the Democratic Party and the Catholic Church.
Opinions expressed below are those of the author and not my employer, my family or anyone else.
This is an ad for the NBA that ran in 1987. I've never forgotten it and think about it whenever I hear the Pointer Sisters sing I'm So Excited. I've made a couple of stabs at looking for it online, mainly on the NBA website. Just occurred to me today that it might be on YouTube. D'uh!
I still love it. Check it out. It even has some value in terms of nostalgia. All those old Celtics and Lakers.
In one of my most embarrassing professional experiences, I got into a public food fight with network newswoman Diane Sawyer, which was played out in the Washington Post and then picked up by other media outlets. It was pretty ugly and, if I had been working for a less tolerant boss than Congressman Jim Olin at the time, I might very well have been fired. It's a long story and I don't have time to go into all the gory details.
But aside from the large public embarrassment of having her accuse me of being an overpaid congressional hack who is insensitive to the poor and needy in our society, there was a mini-embarrassment over my use of the word "schmuck." I was quoted in the Post saying something like, "where does she get off portraying me as some schmuck...."
In the middle of the firestorm that the larger argument caused, there was a letter from a Jewish woman. I honestly don't remember whether she wrote it directly to the Congressman or it was published in the Post. I think the former. But she enlightened me on the true definition of the word schmuck. It means flaccid penis and she found my use of it deeply offensive and not fit for family reading in a newspaper. Who knew?
So, it was with amusement that I read today's Huffington Post piece by Marty Kaplan entitled Springtime for Schmucks about this very issue and the extent to which the word schmuck has evolved in common usage. He writes:
It is arguable that its original meaning - a Yiddish profanity for penis, often part of an insult beginning with "You are such a - " and ending with an exclamation point - has been so diluted by widespread usage that nowadays it's no more offensive than any other common synonym for "jerk." This would explain why, at High Holy Day services at my synagogue last year, the associate rabbi, a lovely mother of three young children, could innocently say the word from the pulpit without imagining for a moment that it would cause the shocked sharp intake of breath among half the congregants that followed.
What's interesting about Kaplan article is his belief that schmuck has only recently become acceptable in polite conversation. When I used the word I had no idea it had any sexual connotation whatsoever. I thought then, in 1987, what Kaplan bemoans as only recently having come to pass, that the word has become the moral equivalent of jerk.
But what's most interesting from reading his piece is learning that Mel Brooks has launched a campaign to save the word schmuck. Again, who knew? He has a Facebook page dedicated to this cause, Schmucks for Schmuck. Of course, I quickly joined.
Growing up enjoying the vast numbers of Jewish comics who entertained me in my youth helped me appreciate Yiddish. The language is tailor made for humor. But it may also desensitized me to its scatological elements. Are there a lot of scatological elements? Are there other words like schmuck, which sound harmless, but offend true Yiddish speaker?
As a goy, I'll probably never know. But, if Yiddish didn't exist, we'd certainly need to invent it.
The Lexington Herald Leader nails the profound hypocrisy of the Tea Party and all who benefit from their, at best, misguided or, at worst, cynical, anti-government campaign.
In fairness, many of us are guilty of wanting the benefits of something — whether it's board certification or full campaign coffers — without paying the price.
Like the Gulf Coast residents who want government off their backs, until a hurricane or oil spill comes along.
Or the Farm Bureau that wants government off the farm, except for the mailbox which is always open to subsidy checks.
Or politicians who rail against out-of-control spending but show up to take credit when a ribbon is cut or oversized check presented.
Or all the rest of us, who resent the chunk of change that government extracts from our pockets but want smooth roads, good schools, police and fire protection, national security, personal security in old age, free markets governed by laws, student loans, flood walls, lakes and parks and the list goes on.
The Tea Party movement, of which Paul is both a leader and beneficiary, feeds the comforting illusion that we can have all we've come to expect from government without paying for it. We buy into this illusion at our own peril.
Tom Friedman has a typically thoughtful and well-written piece in today's New York Times. But he perpetuates what I hate most about "serious" pundits. It is this false equivalency that asserts "both parties" are wrong or contribute equally to a problem. In so doing, I believe the "serious" pundit positions him or herself above it all and superior in knowledge or motives to those engage in the grubby business of actually making policy. This approach also diminishes the possibility of any constructive advancement of the debate or policy change by essentially absolving the true culprits of any unique responsibility for the positions they hold. So, here's Friedman in his Olympian declarations:
We cannot fix what ails America unless we look honestly at our own roles in creating our own problems. We — both parties — created an awful set of incentives that encouraged our best students to go to Wall Street to create crazy financial instruments instead of to Silicon Valley to create new products that improve people’s lives. We — both parties — created massive tax incentives and cheap money to make home mortgages available to people who really didn’t have the means to sustain them. And we — both parties — sent BP out in the gulf to get us as much oil as possible at the cheapest price.
He's just wrong. It's not "both parties." For the most part, he describes the logical outcomes of the conservative policies that have held prominence since Ronald Reagan's Administration. The fact is that one party is actively trying to address these problems and the other party either denies their existence or simply obstructs solutions for political reasons. So, here's Friedman later in his piece:
We need to make our whole country more sustainable. So let’s pass an energy-climate bill that really reduces our dependence on Middle East oil. Let’s pass a financial regulatory reform bill that really reduces the odds of another banking crisis. Let’s get our fiscal house in order, as the economy recovers. And let’s pass an immigration bill that will enable us to attract the world’s top talent and remain the world’s leader in innovation.
Let's see, now. Who is trying to enact the legislation he says we need and who's blocking it?
Only by calling out the obstructionists (read: Republicans) can we really move the policy. But Friedman prefers his posture a an objective observer, above it all, damning both houses, and accomplishing nothing.
I'm not a passionate soccer fan, but I attended a party to watch a soccer game that I won't soon forget. Like millions of other Americans, I watched the U.S. team beat the odds and tie the UK in the first round of the World Cup. Unlike those millions of other Americans, however, I was fortunate enough to watch the game with the family of the undisputed hero of the previous time these two teams met....in 1950. In that game, the U.S. team beat the odds, as well. But those odds were astronomical and the U.S. actually won. It was and remains the biggest upset in World Cup history. And the winning goal in that 1-0 game was scored by Joe Gaetjens, a Haitian immigrant who was working his way toward an accounting degree at Columbia University by washing dishes. His achievement, which rocked the soccer world, was virtually ignored in the country on whose behalf he performed his heroic feat.....until recently.
The great tragedy of Joe Gaetjens was not that he was ignored by the country for which he played. It was vastly greater than that. Watch the video below to understand the full story. In fact, Joe Gaetjens was idolized by the people of Haiti and was recognized for his achievement by the people of Haiti. However, while he was very non-political, his brothers were active among those opposed to the ruthless, vicious and corrupt dictator, Papa Doc Duvalier. As a result of the political activities of his family, he was killed. Watch the video below for the full story:
OK, now wipe away the tears and let's move to a happier story.Today, the Gaetjens family gathered to watch the first game played by the U.S. and the U.K. in the World Cup since that game in 1950. It was a festive occasion, hosted by my friend, Jean Gaetjens, who is Joe Gaetjens nephew. Also attending was Leslie Gaetjens, Joe's son, who is featured in the video above. Leslie is a teacher in the DC public schools and coaches multiple sports, ironically not including soccer. He's a very mild-mannered, articulate man who, while bearing some scars from the loss of his father, is clearly gratified by the belated recognition his father is gaining 60 years later. For me, it was deeply moving to be with the Gaetjens on this special day.
And while Joe died too young and in an egregiously unjust way, one can imagine him and the brother who joined him recently enjoying the show together.
To the right is a picture of me and Leslie wearing our commemorative t-shirts.
When I hear conservatives raise the horrific specter of European-style socialism in Obama's agenda, I say, "Bring it on." I work in a company that has offices all over the world, so I get get to see how European-style socialism works. It's frightening. 8 weeks of vacation, complete healthcare coverage, childcare benefits, generous retirment. Oh the horror!
But then they say, "But look at their GDP." Or "Our productivity is so much higher." And I say, "what does our higher GDP buy us?" It seems to me that wealth is a means to an end, not the end itself. Once you have a good quality of life, the marginal benefit of increased wealth diminishes.
Research suggests that, once a certain level of comfort has been attained, there is no connection between greater wealth and greater happiness. It is also hard to think of a moral philosopher – not even Adam Smith – who argued that the pursuit of wealth should be an end in itself. Slogans such as “Poverty sucks” and “The one who dies with the most toys wins” are bumper stickers favoured by junior investment bankers, rather than quotes from the great philosophers.
Nicholas Kristoff relays an amazing story about a nun in Phoenix who was excommunicated for saving the life of a pregnant woman. A story right out of the movie, The Cardinal, but with a different ending:
Sister Margaret made a difficult judgment in an emergency, saved a life and then was punished and humiliated by a lightning bolt from a bishop who spent 16 years living in Rome and who has devoted far less time to serving the downtrodden than Sister Margaret. Compare their two biographies, and Sister Margaret’s looks much more like Jesus’s than the bishop’s does.
I've been puzzled over the "scandal" in which Congressman Joe Sestak was supposedly offered a job to quit his primary challenge against Arlen Specter. It's one of the oldest games in town when an administration is trying to manage its political affairs. This is clearly one of those "scandals" in which Republicans ascribe some evil to something that vaguely sounds inappropriate, but is really a big nothing.
So the accusation is some kind of quid pro quo in which Sestak would receive a job in return for quitting the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. This is ridiculous. You can't offer a Senator, or prospective Senator, a job in exchange for them abandoning the Senate, because accepting the job inherently means leaving the Senate. You can't be both a Senator and an executive branch employee. Last year, the White House offered a cabinet job to Senator Judd Gregg. This was not "in exchange" for him leaving the Senate, because he had to leave the Senate to take the job. Moreover, Gregg briefly accepted the job in exchange for a promise that New Hampshire's Democratic governor would appoint his Republican chief of staff, not a Democrat, to replace him. But nobody suggested that this deal was illegal or unethical.
In order to keep the content flowing to this blog, I'm introducing a new feature, my Favorite Before 9. It will be a post of my favorite online article, post, video, etc. that I discover in my first pass of the blogs each morning before the day begins.
Today's is a doozy. Congressman Rob Simmons is about to drop out of the Senate race in Connecticut, leaving the nomination to nutcase, Linda McMahon, the CEO of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation (on the left in the picture), continuing a trend in which Republican primary voters seem to be out of their minds. Maybe Obama just makes them crazy. There's hope for November. Daily Kos has a nice analysis.
Political pop quiz: You are the Connecticut Republican Party, the nation's richest state and a solid Democratic stronghold. Your Democratic opponent has been busted (fairly or not) for lying or exaggerating his military service during the Vietnam War. Do you:
Nominate a decorated Vietnam War vet, retired Colonel, and winner of two Bronze Stars, with a proven track record of winning elections in tough political terrain
Paul Krugman makes the case that we're not even close to the point where we must stop blaming Bush for our troubles. I agree with him wholeheartedly.
We’re in the aftermath of a financial crisis — and there’s overwhelming evidence (pdf) that recovery from financial crises is almost always protracted and difficult.
Last month, there was a story about two female ophthalmologists who rudely harassed Barney Frank on a plane about his vote on healthcare reform. Now we have the new Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, who's clearly either a nutcase or a cynic on a number of levels. Here's a story that describes his contradictory stances in favor of slashing government spending....except for doctors' fees, from which he personally benefits. The anti-government zealot derives half his income from Medicare patients and sees no contradiction.
I really struggle to understand how somebody who can handle the intellectual rigors of medical school can be so dumb when it comes to public policy. What's up with that?
In a fascinating post, Andrew Sullivan invites his athiest readers to explain what they believe about death. Then , he offers his own view, which admire tremendously. Wish I had his depth and faith.
I live in this awareness. But I also live in the awareness that eternity is here already, that the majesty and miracle of God's creation resonates through every second of our lives and every particle of matter within and without us. That is how I interpret Oakeshott's deeply Christian (and somewhat Buddhist) understanding of salvation as having nothing whatsoever to do with the future. The unity and individuality and wonder we are told we will only know then is actually here now, shielded from our own eyes by our own mortal fear, by our own avoidance of death, by our own inability to grasp that this struggle we fear is actually already over, that God loves us now unconditionally, overwhelmingly, this knowledge prevented solely from penetrating us by our own sense of inadequacy, or our looking away, or are losing ourselves in the human and worldly things that I understand by sin.
So I do not believe our consciousness is utterly different after death than now. I believe, with Saint Paul, that this is the same divine experience, but through a glass darkly. I believe it is Love, because Jesus showed me so. And I await with with great fear because I am human and I await with great hope because of the incarnation and resurrection of God in human history.
I'm no fan of LeBron James, or any sports figure who reaches God-like stature. But I have to say, I will think well of him if he responds positively to the people of Cleveland.
Here's something I stumbled across that surprised me. I'm a huge fan of Motown and loooove the Temptations. I sang My Gal to help my daughter go to sleep hundreds of times when she was young.
I've always loved the song, Let It Rain, but just learned the story behind that song from the Crooks and Liars website:
Lyricist Roger Penzabene penned the words after finding out that his wife was cheating on him and he tragically committed suicide a week after the single was released.
Now, listen to the song in light of that news. I'll never hear it the same again.
The Washington Post has a piece today noting the "Lack of a PR Strategy" in how the Vatican is handling the priest abuse scandal.
Excuse me, while their "PR" may be pathetic, it has been an accurate reflection of their view of the situation. According to most comments coming from the Church, the primary problem is the persecution of the Pope. That's what they believe and that's what they are saying. And, while the Post notes that the Vatican has not consulted with the American bishops who have been through this kind of scandal, it would seem that the Vatican's view is shared by the American bishops. Contrasting the lack of PR strategy in Rome with the presumably better responses in the U.S., the piece points out:
There appears to be a more organized effort, particularly in the United States, to defend the pope. American bishops across the country, including Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl, took to the pulpit and op-ed pages over the Easter weekend. "What happens when a pope is persecuted?" was the title of a news release by the Atlanta-based Catholic public relations firm Maximus. "Martyred Popes" was the name of a blog post by American Catholic writer Robert Moynihan.
"Martyred Popes"?? That's the superior American approach to handling the scandal? God save us from the Church!
The lack of a full acknowledgment of the problems is what's hurting the Church, not its PR strategy. The PR strategy comes after the operational response, which is currently sorely lacking. Only then can the Church begin to rehabilitate its reputation by communicating to its audiences its true remorse. And they would prove that true remorse by taking steps that go beyond institutional protection. The Church is nowhere near that phase yet.
All this said, I think there is a PR strategy at work. Think about it. Think about the current message about the persecution of the Pope. Think about which audience would respond to that message. They are arming the die hards with an explanation in order to hold onto them. They are not, in any way, seeking to reach people, like me, observant Catholics who are disgusted and whose only explanation is to chalk it up to human frailty that afflicts the Church just like any other human institution.
Sadly, while I look for a divine response more in keeping with the teachings of Jesus, a true humility, a true remorse, an acceptance of responsibility for the sins that have been committed, I wait in vain.
In a telling paragraph in the story, a man named Barry McLoughlin is cited:
Barry McLoughlin, who holds crisis management seminars for U.S. bishops and helped them craft the tougher 2002 rules, said he's "in agony" watching the Church fail to get its footing. He said people around the pope may be too intimidated to deliver bad news to his face.(emphasis added)
It was the tougher rules that helped the American Church begin to move on, not its PR strategy. As a person who works in PR, suggesting that the Vatican's problem is PR, gives PR a bad name.
New evidence that Cardinal Ratzinger was more concerned with protecting "the universal church" than the fate of children left in the care of pedophile priests. Here's an excerpt from the AP story that reveals a newly discovered letter resisting defrocking a priest that had not only been convicted of lewd conduct, but had requested himself that he leave the priesthood:
But the future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the "good of the universal church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age." Kiesle was 38 at the time.
I have a Catholic friend, more conservative than me, but who recognizes how bad things are getting. Still, since he believes all media outside of Fox News represent a liberal conspiracy against all he holds dear, including the Church, he admires the Church's seeming imperviousness to media criticism. He exults at how ridiculous any idea that the Pope will step down. He says, "It will NEVER happen, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, etc." I have to say, I can't easily conceive of the Pope "resigning." I'm not even sure what that means, it sounds so strange.
But things are truly getting out of hand. We are clearly in Watergate territory now where it is impossible to contain the damage. And every dismissive response from the Vatican simply fans the flames.
This is a nice piece, written by a thinking Catholic named Mary Gordon. It's worth reading in its entirety as it included a nice parable. But, here's teh bottom line:
How do some of us stay in the Church? In grief, in sadness, with a resolve not to be shut out by those who say they are speaking in the name of the Father. We just don't believe them. The Church is not an institution; it is the people, people who are now wounded and scandalized, not only by the sexual crimes of priests, but more important, by the cover-up by those in power. In 1959 the election of Pope John XXIII was a surprise, a kind of miracle. It happened once. It could happen again. We wait, in stubborn hope, for the return of miracle. We want to make sure some of us are at home when it happens.
The front page of the Washington Post today has a picture of the pastor of my local parish kneeling in prayer. The story discusses his struggle over whether to reference the scandal rocking Europe of priestly sexual abuse. Honestly, I barely glanced at the piece and didn't even know it was Father Enzler until my daughter called it to my attention. Like all Catholics, I'm disgusted by the scandal and I don't need to know all the details. I'm from Boston, so I've seen this movie before. My standard response is that the Church, while divinely inspired, is a human institution with all of humanity's flaws.
At noon, I went up to St. Matthews Cathedral a few blocks from my office to attend Good Friday Services. Since it is such an important day in the liturgical calendar, I feel like I should do something to get into the spirit of the day. It's a long service and does provide some spiritual sustenance as you contemplate the events of that day. Nothing says "melancholy" like a choir singing the Passion Chorale from St. Matthews Passion.
As I approached the Cathedral, I notice a crowd gathered across the street. It was on behalf of abuse victims and was a very calm, peaceful and respectful vigil. I learned later that Archbishop Weurl, who presided over the Good Friday services, stopped by the vigil and prayed with the group. Good move.
During the service, the sex abuse scandal was brought up twice. Once by a priest who was providing brief commentary on the famous "Last Words of Jesus." They are phrases that Jesus uttered on the cross before he died. One phrase was, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" The priest discussed various ways people feel forsaken by God. At the end, he mentioned people abused by priest. Importantly, he acknowledged that they were forsaken both by the priests they trusted, but hat they were also forsaken be the Church as an institution. Archbishop Wuerl also mentioned the scandal in his big homily, but he included ringing support of the Pope and was somewhat more vague on the responsibility of the Church as an institution.
So, I had to admire, to some degree, the effort to confront the issue. Then, as I drove home, I heard about homily delivered by the Pope's personal preacher in his Good Friday sermon. He compared the criticism of the Pope to anti-Semitism that culminated in the Holocaust. Big sigh! Makes my speechless. I guess I'm pleased that the Vatican had the good sense to reject the comparison. And the comments of Rev. Thomas Reese in the story about Fr. Enzler also gives some hope:
But not all Catholics have leapt to the church's defense. The Rev. Thomas Reese, a scholar at Georgetown University, said the suffering-Jesus metaphor might be more fittingly applied to the victims of abuse. Reese, who spent the week analyzing the church's crisis and preparing a Good Friday message for his chapel, said he asked himself, "Who among us has experienced the betrayal, suffering and torture Jesus felt more than the victims?
I doubt the Vatican will ever get it. The layers upon layers that provide an impenetrable bubble around the Pope deny him any sense of what's really happening. They are in total institution protection mode. But they are so misguided. Rather than protecting the institution, they are destroying it from within.
