Our Fathers

On Showtime tonight. I don't have cable or satellite, so I obviously can't watch it. Even if I could, I probably wouldn't, as I'm sure there will be plenty of unwarranted and unsubstantiated slams against the Church that have little or nothing to do with the Situation. I mean, for crying out loud, uber-Hollywood leftist Ted Danson is in this thing.

In Case All the "Sith" Showings are Sold Out

You can try catching the other prequel Exorcist movie that was made a couple of years ago but never released until now.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

John Conyers is a pandering Left-wing dolt. (HT: ChronWatch Blogs)

An Islamic civil rights group is urging all "people of conscience" to support a Democrat-sponsored resolution recognizing that the Koran, like the holy book of any other religion, "should be treated with dignity and respect."

The resolution, to be introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), also "condemns bigotry and intolerance against any religious group, including our friends, neighbors and citizens of the Islamic faith."

"This resolution expresses America's respect for the holy texts of all faiths. If passed, it will also reiterate our nation's condemnation of bigoted behavior and religious intolerance," said Corey Saylor, CAIR's government affairs director.

When I read that line from CAIR, the milk I was drinking sprayed out of my nose.

What I'm Reading

Because I frankly have nothing else to blog about right now:

Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President

Someone Needs to Close Up the "Big Tent" Flaps

WorldNet Daily reports that "actress" and former California gubernatorial candidate, Mary Carey, will be attending a GOP sponsored fundraiser dinner for President Bush.

"I'm hoping to run as lieutenant governor of California next year," Carey said. "Since Arnold [Schwarzenegger] is a Republican, I thought this dinner would be a great networking opportunity for me."

"I'm especially looking forward to meeting Karl Rove," Carey added. "Smart men like him are so sexy. I know that he's against gay marriage, but I think I can convince him that a little girl-on-girl action now and then isn't so bad!"

How do you respond to such silliness?

The Left Hates Traditional Believing Christians

And longs for the institution of religious litmus tests for the judiciary. Such is perfectly illustrated by this headline in the New York Times and this picture which briefly appeared on the website of Moveon.org.

May As Well Throw In World Peace and a Cure for Cancer While You're At It!!

That's what I felt like blurting out at a court hearing today in Los Angeles on whether there should be public disclosure of the personnel files of several former employees of the Diocese of Orange who had been accused of sexually molesting or abusing minor children. I was specially representing one of the non-priest employees who did not want his personnel files made public.

In the papers that I filed, I basically argued that since my client was not an expressly named party in the action against the Diocese of Orange, his personnel files were protected by the right to privacy under the California Constitution. Absent his consent, the only way that my client's files can be publicly discolsed is if the requesting plaintiffs can show a "compelling interest" and the information they seek cannot be gathered from any other nonconfidential source or by way of deposition.

At the hearing today, plaintiffs' counsel (there were several of them) essentially argued that getting "the truth" out about all the allegations that led to the sexual abuse lawsuits against the Diocese of Orange was a compelling interest. In counsels' collective mind, unless the personnel files are publicly disclosed, the plaintiffs in the matter will have no proper sense of "closure," even though they've all been paid a boat load of money in a settlement with the diocese. There was also a nonsensical suggestion that not getting "the truth" out would somehow deny the public of having any knowledge that there was/is a sexual abuse problem in the Church. On this, I felt like yelling out in court, "Just so you know: Japan militarily attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941!"

As objectively weak and surreal as the above arguments are, the presiding judge in the hearing, Peter Lichtman, was clearly buying into them. In fact, while I was making some remarks on behalf of my client in support of his disclosure objection, Lichtman rhetorically, and somewhat brusquely, asked me if I wouldn't make the same argument as the plaintiffs. When he said this to me, I pretty much knew that I was wasting my breath. Lichtman was basically signaling to everyone in the courtroom that he thought plaintiffs' thinly veiled desire to publicly humiliate the Diocese of Orange was a compelling enough interest to undermine the privacy rights of certain individuals who were never criminally charged or personally sued for doing things they have only been accused of committing. Given the disposition he displayed today, I will be absolutely shocked if Lichtman doesn't allow public disclosure of the personnel files in question here.

Sidebar Note: Looks as though Judge Lichtman is quite an ambitious jurist.

Update: Qualified shock. Although several personnel files were ordered to be publicly disclosed, it seems that many of them were withheld because of the objections that were made. I didn't stay around to see if Lichtman was going to make a ruling from the bench, and since my client is in pro per, I'll have to wait for him to get notice of the ruling in the mail before I know how he made out.

The New Archbishop of San Francisco

Who will it be now that Levada is going off to Rome? I'm hoping the Holy Father has a strong sense of poetic justice and names Fr. Joseph Fessio.

A Rashomon Moment

Rashomon is the title of a classic Japanese language film whose story centers upon the rape of a woman and murder of her husband. The hook of the movie is that every witness who claims to have seen the crimes take place, tells a different story of what happened. To a large extent, the movie is an illustrative commentary on the imperfectness of human nature and the strong tendecy we all have to see and interpret things as we want, rather than as what they are.

The underlying theme of Rashomon seems to have reared its head at Southern Appeal over this recent article written by Pat Buchanan on President Bush's celebration of the 60th anniversary of VE day in Russia. Seems that SA, and several of its combox commentators, think that Buchanan's criticism of Bush is a thinly veiled condemnation of America's involvement in WWII, and a backhanded slight toward all those who fought and sacrificed their lives in that war. I think, however, a closer reading of the article shows something entirely different, and is not what some people are interpreting it to be.

As Buchanan rhetorically asks, "But were we and the Soviets ever fighting for the same things, as FDR believed?" The asking of this question essentially sets up the premise of Buchanan's main argument: that the Soviet Union's involvement in WWII was primarily about preserving its world expasionist goals, and not resisting Nazi aggression. In light of this, Buchanan is expressing befuddlement as to why an American President would go and celebrate VE Day at ground zero for historical world communism.

I can only speculate as to why the good folks at SA seem to be misinterpreting Buchanan's article. This is only a guess, but I suspect that their reading of the piece is colored by their frustration with Buchanan's occasional alignment with the Left on various issues like the war in Iraq, his borderline anti-Semitic blatherings, and his pejorative labeling of any conservative he disagrees with as a "neo-conservative." I certainly share in this frustration about Buchanan, but it shouldn't be a reason to start imputing a belief on him that he never expressed.

Sigh

Assuming she didn't give her consent, I suppose Jennifer Wilbanks is enough of a "newsworthy event" to where this company can try to make money directly off of her image.

It's still sad commentary on our culture, though.

What to Make of It

There seems to be some teeth to the rumor about San Francisco Archbishop William Levada going to CDF. (link via Amy Welborn) While I don't think this would be a great move by PBXVI, it may not be all that bad. First, I highly suspect that no matter who is made the new head of CDF, PBXVI will be keeping a pretty tight reign on it. Second, we can start wildly speculating about the possibility of Fr. Fessio being elevated and appointed as the new Archbishop of San Francisco.

Update: Do I know what I'm talking about, or do I know what talking about? (via Amy Welborn)

Blatant Dishonesty

Tom Berg at the Mirror of Justice Blog writes the following in response to an argument that St. Thomas University Law School's express disavowal over being labled a "conservative" school will lead people to think that the school is not very serious about its Catholic identity, and is, in fact, liberal:

Mr. Adkins doesn't actually claim that being inclusive is the same as softening the teachings; he backs off to saying that "that is the message folks are going to take away from the [St. Thomas] disclaimer." Sorry, folks, but that reminds me of CNN smuggling a scandalous story onto the air in the guise of reporting about how other media are reporting the story. If people interpret a law school's statement that it does not "ascrib[e] to any political agenda" as being "anti-conservative," this will likely be in part because they read commentators who describe the school that way (inaccurately in this case, as I've said in my comments on the Seventh Age blog).

Apparently, Mr. Berg, a self-identified Protestant, has forgotten the following comments by the dean of STU Law School that he (Berg) had posted on the MOJ blog just two days ago:

There is nothing politically “conservative” about our mission, and the people we have attracted prove this. The vast majority of our faculty and student body are left-of-center politically. Our faculty includes individuals who are openly gay, who support abortion rights, who oppose the death penalty, and who have worked on behalf of other “liberal” causes.

Translation: She's an "Uncle Tom"

How else to interpret this comment about D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Janice Rogers Brown by Democrat Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid: 'She is a woman who wants to take us back to the Civil War days.'

I Love You Mom. Kill Me.

That would seem to be the message of this bracelet that NOW is selling and suggesting as a Mother's Day gift.

What a bunch of sick lunatics.

We're Just as Left-Wing as Any Other "Catholic" Law School!!

Via the Mirror of Justice blog, the St. Thomas University Law School is up in arms at being labled a a "conservative" institution by National Public Radio (whose opinion is apparently much valued by STU Law). According to the dean, STU Law's (alleged) seriousness about its' Catholic identity does not equate with pursuing a "conservative" political agenda. In any event, notes the dean, "There is nothing politically 'conservative' about our mission, and the people we have attracted prove this. The vast majority of our faculty and student body are left-of-center politically. Our faculty includes individuals who are openly gay, who support abortion rights, who oppose the death penalty, and who have worked on behalf of other 'liberal' causes. We have chapters of the National Lawyers Guild and Out!law on campus, but we do not have a chapter of the American Center for Law & Justice. We are one of the few law schools in the country to require all of our students to do public service as a condition of graduation, and the American Bar Association recently singled out for praise the high number of our graduates who have taken Legal Aid and other public service jobs."

Gee, with those kind of credentials, how could NPR have been so dumb as to call STU Law a "conservative" school? And, as strongly suggested by the Mirror of Justice bloggers, to call STU Law "liberal" simply lacks "nuance." What a load of highfalutin crap. Although I would agree that one cannot catergorize orthodox Catholicism into an ideological classification, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that any objectively orthodox Catholic could be a left-wing liberal. As such, it seems clear to me that STU Law, through its lauding and admitted recruitment of faculty members and students who hold and promote viewpoints that are decidedly anti-Catholic, is pretty far to the left of the political spectrum. In this sense, I would question whether it is even accurate for STU Law to claim that it is serious about its Catholic identity.

Update: Although it's not specifically the law school, here's more evidence supporting STU Law's claim that it is not "conservative" (as if it's a bad thing to be).

Bad News for Folks in Grand Rapids, Michigan

The Beast is apparently residing within your telephone area code. (via RelapsedCatholic)

Satanists, apocalypse watchers and heavy metal guitarists may have to adjust their demonic numerology after a recently deciphered ancient biblical text revealed that 666 is not the fabled Number of the Beast after all.

A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist.

Ellen Aitken, a professor of early Christian history at McGill University, said the discovery appears to spell the end of 666 as the devil's prime number.

"This is a very nice piece to find," Dr. Aitken said. "Scholars have argued for a long time over this, and it now seems that 616 was the original number of the beast."

Curiously enough, there is a small town in Michigan called Hell. It's not in the 616 area code, though.

Maybe It's Just Too Obvious

Out of curiosity, I did a Google search to see if there were any law schools in this country named after St. Thomas More, the most well known patron saint for lawyers. To my surprise, I couldn't find one.

University of Sacramento

This is a new university started by the Legionaires of Christ. Not much publicity about it, possibly because the university doesn't yet have a full blown campus or an undergraduate degree program. (The school currently only offers Master's degrees in Education and Liberal Arts).

Given the founders of the school, the positive references to Ex Corde Ecclesiae in the Mission section of the website, and the fact that folks like Mary Ann Glendon and Russell Hittinger are on the Academic Advisory Council, the University of Sacramento looks to be a solidly orthodox Catholic institution. Or at least let's hope it is.

It Would Have Been Deadly if I Had Eaten It

Talk about overreaction. Police in New Mexico lockdown a middle school over a 911 report of a possible weapon that turns out to be a big carne asada burrito wrapped in tin foil. (via Drudge)

In Re: Anti-American Billboard

In response to this garbage, talk radio station KFI 640 is putting this up throughout the Southern California region.

I love it.