My Personal Method Of Pausing To Refresh

I'll be off for a few days to my beloved mountains. Then...the greenhouse awaits!

Is This NOT A Dictatorship?

I wish my Dad was still living. He was a devout Catholic. I'd like to know what he would think about the on going refusal of his Church to fess up to the on going sex-abuse scandal.

It reminds me of a group of kids who have been caught in wrong doing having found it won't go away just because they refuse to admit it. They then try to lie their way out of it and find that doesn't work either.

When the Pope finally acknowledged the problem he had this to say,

dictatorships such as Nazism 'cannot accept a God above ideological power. Thank God we don't live under dictatorships today, but there exist subtle forms of dictatorships...a conformity, in which it's obligatory to think like everyone else, to act like everyone."

It sounds to me like he's speaking about his own church, "Subtle forms of dictatorship." My thinking harkens back to having been raised Catholic. Obedience by fear. Hell being the end result. In Catechism we were not to question. Even if we did not understand, accept. I can remember spending hours, with my Mom helping me, memorize the answers to the questions in the Cathechism. One was obligated to eat fish on Friday. Yes, I'm that old. Women were obligated to wear hats to church. One was obligated to attend Mass on Sundays and all Holy Days of Obligation. If you didn't...

My Dad was so indoctrinated I wasn't allowed to attend a DeMolay dance nor date a boy who was a Unitarian nor attend classes at the YWCA, what's more join! If that isn't a dictatorship, what is?

The arrogance of power and isolationism has finally come home to roost. The sins of the Fathers are no longer an internal issue. An even greater sin, if they're still looking for reasons to serve penanace, is that those in the highest of places allowed it to happen and happen and happen.

Suddenly they are being forced to ascribe to the"conformity in which it's obligatory to act like everyone else". It's called obeying the law! The church should no more be exempt from it than Congress, but that's another post!

Peggy Noonan suggests a good dose of female common sense would go a long way toward straightening out the thinking of the men who singularly make up the hierarchy. I disagree. What will go a long way to straightening out the church is to come into the 21st century and allow it's priests and nuns to marry; to live a life where men and women do not have to supress their sexual nature. Living in the same world as their parishoners would certainly go a long way to giving them credibility when it comes to counseling people on how to solve their problems and live their lives.

Until the inner sanctum of tired old men clinging to ways long past outside their walls, they will continue their dictatorial ways, scandals will recur and membership will diminish.

Perhaps Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins should be successful in having the Pope arrested when he visits Great Britain, if only momentarily, for crimes against humanity. If nothing else, it would get the attention of not only the Pope, but those who manipulate from behind the throne.

Fall Guys

It never ceases to amaze me what studies are being done. One would think some common sense and caution would suffice, foregoing the need. However, according to Live Science , one such study has been done finding our household pets are the largest cause of injuries related to falls! Dogs are the most dangerous. Women and children the biggest victims. This, of course, is due to their size and comparative lack of strength in comparison to dogs.

It doesn't say if the same holds true with cats though the difference is that one is injured more often in chasing a cat where with a dog it's tripping over them!

Now, I have to tell you, I've never, ever been hurt by living with dogs. We've had six over the years and no small bundle of love at that. Four were Saint Bernards, two were Newf mixes. One could argue they would be difficult to miss, having a rather large presence no matter where they may be. True. But on occasion I'd be called upon to step over one at the exact same time he chose to rise. Being limber is an asset.

The article warns us to watch out for toys and food bowls. It makes me wonder what the statistics are for emergency room visits from falling over children's toys. Well, you pick them up. So?? And the food bowl? I don't know. We picked it up too and washed it. Sure, there was always a water dish but it was always in the same place and not a place one would easily trip over it.

At least the people doing the study had the good sense to make a backhanded caveat, "Certainly pets are wonderful and have many benefits, so we're not saying anything about not having pets." Right.

Some of the people cited in the study probably shouldn't have pets. Tripped while crossing the street with dog. Would they have tripped anyway? Fainted while training her dog. That's the dog's fault? Walking dog and fell up steps. It seems there is an issue of clumsiness at play here!

Cats - well if you know they like to be under foot watch out for them. No brainer. As for dogs, with all the breeds in varying sizes, all I can say is get one that is size appropriate! They all provide you with the same thing you can fall for safely. Unconditional love.

Buyer's Remorse?

Stranger things have happened! With Obama's poll numbers continuing to slide, one might say that even Democrats are becoming disenchanted with the way his administration is conducting the business of the country. According to the L.A. Times he's barely holding his own against potential Republican opponents, whoever they might be. Heck, he only leads Ron Paul by one percentage point!

It's still early, though it seems troublesome that none of the Republicans seem to be gaining any sort of foothold. So Obama really doesn't have to worry, right? Wrong. Who is out polling every name mentioned? Hillary!

I've been debating with myself about the likelihood of Hillary challenging Obama. I think she just might. Where the Times suggests she's "free of political tussles", I don't agree. As Secretary of State she is steward of a weak foreign policy even if it's not her own. They are spot on, however, when they say she now has an "enhanced resume burnished on the world stage".

The one thing she needs to heed. Being true to the dictates of the administration when she strongly disagrees. If she disagrees. A recent example is the credibility lost by Colin Powell, another who could have been President, by buying into the Bush administration's stand on Iraq's owning weapons of mass destruction. He wasn't sure of the evidence but caved to administration pressures. Had he resigned I think he could have challenged Bush and perhaps won. I would suggest the same could be true for Hillary.

This is political theater that is fun to watch. If she steps down after the 2010 mid-terms I'd expect to see her run. You can expect all the denials that go with the territory. She would want to resign on her terms; have it her show; not Obama's.

I have a hunch she still has a burning desire to be the first woman President. I don't know if she'd be good or not. I think she'd have a very different Presidency than what we're living through now. I think she might right the ship of state to a less precarious angle.

I wasn't a supporter of Hillary, but in a sentimental sort of way, I'd rather like to see her achieve her goal. Especially if Sarah Palin were to be her opponent. Hillary had worked her entire life toward getting Bill to the Presidency. By the time that was achieved the political climate in the country had changed to the point a woman could, too, be a viable candidate and she set for herself a new goal.

I think she's earned at least another chance at it. Unlike Sarah Palin who was plucked from obscurity for reasons that have always eluded me; who's strength is the ability to deliver stinging one liners. No. The first woman to reach that height, if it's to be in my life time, should be Hillary. No one else has come close to climbing that mountain!

Foreign Policy By Appeasement And Spin

To say that this administration has a complex foreign policy would be an understatement. After months of complaining that voter fraud tainted the recent Afghanistan election, it seems now we're acquiescing to Karzai's "poor me" stance. Hillary Clinton even went so far as to call him a reliable partner !
I wonder if Ahmadinejad does too since his visit! This man who threatens to join the Taliban, whose brother is one of the major drug lords in the country and whose cabinet is chock full of corruption! So now we're going to play warm and fuzzy with this 'strong and vital American ally' because his feelings have been hurt. We're to express sympathy for the pressure he feels as commander in chief of a warring nation!

Well, he wanted the job! He threw the election once and was well on his way to a second time when his opponent withdrew. What's the adage about not standing the heat?? Heck, he wasn't even in the kitchen!

As all of this is carefully placed in the sound bite archives, Hillary comes back on stage to tell us we need fear that al Qaeda is obtaining nuclear weapons material. That's a little different than Iran seeking the big bomb. Which, by the way, we have yet to stop. You see, al Qaeda isn't even a country! Their figure head of a leader supposedly lives in a cave and their weapon of choice seems to be explosives strapped to one's body and detonated, or not, at the appropriate time!

For the sake of argument, however, let's say they get what they need for a bomb. And learn how to build it, enrich the fuel rods and explode it. Where will all this take place? My guess is they will choose a country that the U.S. has pledged no retaliation against other than with conventional weapons. I would. Heck conventional weapons haven't put them out of business yet as they blend into the populations of where ever they choose to be!

To surge or not to surge, to criticise or pacify, to fear acquisition of nuclear material by those who are capable of using it or those who are not. Talk about a spin zone. I wager even Bill O'Reilly has trouble keeping up!