Post-Easter Post

So lots of cool things have happened over the last couple of days, the most important of which is clearly the home run Matt Stairs hit to bring the Phillies to .500. It was majestic. But on to the other things.

The biggest story, in my eyes, at least, really just makes you think “America, fuck yeah!” When the Somali pirates captured an American ship, and took the captain hostage, you kinda figured they were getting in over their heads. I mean, it’s one thing to fuck with Danish or Panamanian ships; honestly, you can probably get away with that. But the US has a pretty badass navy, and a President who has to make known that he won’t put up with shit from anyone. So we sent in the Seals, and they kicked all sorts of ass. They rescued the captain, who’s pretty much fine, killed three of the pirates, and now we even have one under arrest who can stand trial. Additionally, it must be noted that the French also tried to rescue some hostages from pirates, but didn’t do nearly as well.

The pirates, understandably, aren’t taking this so well, and have issued some threats to both the French and Americans. This really isn’t the best course of action for them. If they were smart they would just take the beating they got and go back to preying on ships for Comoros or some other country that won’t fight back. The US and France will seriously fuck them up if they get too uppity. If they actually start killing Americans, they’re gonna have to deal with the wrath of the US navy, and their AK 47s really aren’t going to be able to compete with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Speaking of the French, it’s important to note that they’re assholes. This has manifested itself most recently, and really fairly consistently over the last like twelve years, in their treatment of Lance Armstrong. They’ve dicked him around with bullshit allegations incessantly, and they’ve never been right; he has passed every drug test he’s taken. But now it’s possible that he won’t be able to compete in the Tour de France this summer, even though he’s racing to raise global awareness about cancer. Two things have been made clear by the actions these French assholes are taking. First, the French love cancer, probably as much as they love not showering. Also, they’re afraid of Armstrong. They know he won’t lose, and they don’t want to be one-upped by an American anymore. Let’s be honest, America has been doing things better than France since America first existed. We had a Revolution for democracy, and things went pretty well; the French tried to follow in our footsteps, and mostly just a lot of heads got lopped off, and the only decent French military mind since William the Conqueror ended up exiled in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Oh, and they went back to a monarchy. Later, America decided it wanted to fuck with Mexico, and we got a ton of land out of it. When the French tried to do the same, they actually lost, getting their asses handed to them at the Battle of Puebla. In the twentieth century, France is best known for getting steamrolled by Germany, twice (seriously, the Maginot line? Great plan, dickheads; Vauban would be terribly disappointed in all of you). America bailed them out each time. Now, America is a world power, and France is mostly just fading into irrelevancy; they’ve been passed as a power by a bunch of other European and Asian countries, their soccer team isn’t that good anymore, and the Eifel Tower isn’t really anything special. Pretty much all they have left is this bike race, and they’ve been trying to take it back after Lance Armstrong had made it his bitch for seven years; clearly they’re screwing around with Lance because their national pride is dependent on it. Well, fuck them, I hope he gets to race, cause you know if they let him in there’s no way he won’t win number eight.

So since the economy is shit, local governments are doing all sorts of crazy things to raise money. And it’s bullshit. Seriously, a streetlight user fee? That’s asinine. Streetlights are there to make streets safer. The purpose of a government is to protect its people. Really, the responsibility for this falls on the government. Stop sucking.

The Pope said Mass in the Coliseum on Good Friday, and spewed some nonsense about the world being a desert of godlessness. I ignored most of that. But this part was interesting. He said that there are “many societies in the world where women fail to receive a fair deal.” Um, would one of these societies maybe be the Church? You know, the one that won’t let women be priests. Maybe the Church should work on its own discrimination before criticizing anyone else. Benedict has been pretty clear in stating that he won’t permit women to be priests. It’s pretty much bullshit that there’s a sacrament that only men can receive (nuns don’t receive Holy Orders). How is that a fair deal? Maybe it’s not as overt as marrying your eight year old daughter off to some guy in his forties to settle some debts, but it isn’t not discrimination.

Finally, Woody Harrelson is the coolest.

The Church, and idiocy

Kang: Abortions for all!
Crowd boos.
Kang: Very well… no abortions for anyone!
Crowd boos.
Kang: Hmm… abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!
Crowd cheers
- Treehouse of Horror VII

Yeah, going there again. I really don’t understand the thought process that goes into a lot of the decisions the Catholic Church makes. It’s like they decide what the logical course of action would be, and then go in the opposite direction. Seriously, how do things like this keep happening?

First, there’s a pretty sad case coming from Brazil. A nine year old girl was raped by her stepfather, became pregnant with twins, and had an abortion. Abortion is illegal in Brazil except in cases like rape or when the mother’s life is in danger. Both of these exceptions are present in this case. Any guesses who the Church excommunicated?

Most people, I imagine, would guess that the rapist step-father was the one kicked out of the Church. However, as Rome has reiterated many times over the last couple decades, raping children really isn’t that big a deal. The stepfather gets to stay in the Church, and, if he takes Holy Orders, may end up presiding over an Arch Diocese somewhere.

No, rather than side with logic and compassion, the Church instead decided to excommunicate the doctors who performed the operation, and the girl’s mother. What the fuck? Does anyone think that this is a good idea? Brazil is one of the most fiercely anti-abortion countries in the world, but even most Brazilians are appalled by the Church’s actions here. Nothing about the Church’s decision makes sense.

Seriously, can’t we just calm down about abortion. It’s a legitimate medical procedure, and if you think it’s wrong you don’t have to get one. Over two hundred thousand woman are treated in Brazilian hospitals for problems spawned by illegal abortions every year. I doubt that anyone has any idea how many illegal abortions go unreported. This is obscenely dangerous; when one out of every three pregnancies is unwanted, people are going to be having abortions. It’s the government’s responsibility to offer a safer alternative to a wire hanger in a Sao Paolo alley.

Barack Obama is also catching shit from the Catholic Church, this time over his decision to fund stem cell research. The Church says he’s just doing this to help drug companies, because I guess there’s no way that being able to regenerate cells would help anyone ever. The Church says that Obama is choosing politics over ethics, which I guess is one way to look at this, albeit a retarded way. I feel like this is something that the Church is going to apologize for opposing in like six hundred years, after some hellbound scientists have cured Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and most spinal cord injuries.

I’m going to give Jon the last word on this Church stuff:

"I'm tired of all this from-down-on-high bull, I don't really understand the people who get to make these rules up. It doesn't make any sense that they should be able to decide the fate of someone's soul, based on an interpretation of a translation of a translation of a collection of passages from a series of possibly unrelated documents passed down through generations that were supposedly written via the influence of an invisible spirit. Honestly, I think Church doctrine has been interpreted more often and far more loosely than our own Constitution, and the conservatives all applaud their 'hard lines' on dogma when it's pretty plain that it’s being manipulated for the hierarchy's benefit."

Bill Donohue Should Have Been Aborted

President Obama has nominated Kathleen Sebelius, the Governor of Kansas, to fill the role of Secretary of Health and Human Services. She seems to be a brilliant woman and an excellent governor, and, provided that she’s done nothing to draw the IRS’s ire, you would think she would sail through the confirmation process. But anti-abortion people are getting pissy about it.

I’m going to get my biases right out in the open out front: I don’t like the pro-life movement. I think that, for the most part, they’re insufferable, hypocritical assholes. The headmaster where I went to middle school and high school, Father Shea, was one of the worst of this type of person. He was staunchly pro-life, and did his absolute best to indoctrinate each of the students. Every January he would organize a trip to the Pro-Life March in DC, and he would basically bribe students to go. He chartered coach busses and gave plenty of free time in DC after the march; it was basically a day off school. He would even cancel school that day if more than half the student body would go, adding an element of peer pressure. He would do all of this just to swell the numbers at this rally. But seriously, what the hell does a sixth grader know about abortion? At no point in the 7 years I went to his school was the other side of the issue presented at all. It was all just shameless brainwashing. And how can people, like President Bush, claim to be pro-life, yet have no problem sending people to be executed? It just doesn’t make sense to me. And the rationales behind it, all that nonsense about souls and things, it’s just terribly inconsistent with the First Amendment. In fact, the more I think about it, the more certain I am that these people hate America. If you personally think abortion is wrong, that’s fine, and I have no problem with it. But shut the fuck up, and stop trying to legislate it away. I’ve never heard a good reason for outlawing abortion that was independent of religious beliefs, and I probably never will.

Anyway, these anti-abortion people are giving a lot of shit to Sebelius in this confirmation process. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, called her an “enemy of the unborn.” Putting aside how cool a title that is, incendiary rhetoric doesn’t really serve a purpose. Does Donohue have any statistics to back up his argument? If he did, I doubt I would have this bad a headache. Rather than point to any sort of empirical study, Donohue says that Sebelius has been criticized by the last three archbishops of Kansas City. So what? Honestly, if a Catholic politician hasn’t gotten shit from the Church he probably hasn’t been doing a very good job in office. And the archbishop of Kansas City? How many little boys do you need to molest before being put in charge of such an off the beaten track dioceses? Probably between four and nine; double digits and they just give you a posting to the Vatican.

More rational Catholics, notably Catholics United, were quick to shed light on one of the pro-life movement’s biggest foes, the truth. First, they pointed out that Sebelius is on record saying that she personally opposes abortion. Then they point out that Sebelius has lowered abortion rates in her state, offering incentives for adoption and offering more care for pregnant women. Anti-abortion crusaders point out that Sebelius vetoed a bill that would tighten restrictions on abortions. I guess they weren’t really concerned by its unconstitutionality and the dangers it posed to women’s lives. I guess they think the world would be a better place if abortion were a crime performed by hobos charging half a sandwich and a bottle of malt liquor in alleys with rusty wire hangers.

Whatever. People are going to get all up in arms about this, it’s not going to do any good, Sebelius will be confirmed, and we can all forget about it until Obama makes his first Supreme Court appointment. Maybe during the interim we can go back to actually respecting the Constitution.