'LET'S NOT BRING HITLER INTO IT'

Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham in England, writes in the Guardian on Alan Craig's despicable article in the so-called Church of England newspaper asking readers to "confront the Gaystapo", and which the editor of the newspaper says he didn't bother to read before it was published.

The worst of Craig's rant is not quoted here, because I did not want his words on my blog. Did you know? Alan Craig is today's Churchill, the lone voice against the "Gaystopo".

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. For years Winston Churchill was a lone voice against the burgeoning darkness of Nazi ideology and intolerance. In the wilderness and with few public friends, he was marginalised and dismissed as belligerent and a war-monger. He was scorned as a political has-been, out of touch with the then-modern mainstream.

We can only hope that Craig will suffer the same fate as Winston Churchill and be "marginalised and dismissed" for his nastiness, but without Churchill's comeback to a position of power.

Back to Alan Wilson:

I would defend, even on the beaches, the right of eccentrics to hold and publish their views, though I'd prefer them to read them first. May I modestly propose, however, that real debate would be served far better by ditching inflammatory second world war references, certainly those whose relevance cannot be established.
....

If we must bring Hitler into the story of the growth of gay rights, anyone who knows anything of the reality behind Craig's cheap imagery will tell you gay people were prime targets of the Nazi regime, who suffered and died at the hands of its real troops. This shouldn't be forgotten at remembrance tide.

But let's not bring Hitler into it. In the 1990s there was a whole wild west out on the internet, with usenet chatrooms in which no flame war was too hot, or opinion sacred. A general principle emerged that eventually prevailed, pretty well, down the line. In any debate, whatever the subject, the first person to bring Hitler or the Nazis into it automatically lost. Good idea.

Yes, please. Whatever point is being argued, let's leave Hitler and the Gestapo out as an analogy unless there is equivalency involving mass torture and killing? Honest. There really are ways to talk about injustices other than comparing them to to the Nazis in the WWII era. If you throw "Nazi" and "Gestapo" around casually, you lose the argument, so far as I am concerned. I follow Godwin's Law.

Godwin has argued that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Exactly. Thus endeth my mini-rant.

Thank you, Bishop Alan.

Image from Wikipedia.

A VOICE FROM ABOVE

A sprightly 60-year-old woman was walking along 5th Avenue when she heard a voice from above:

"You will live to be 100."

She looked around but didn't see anyone. Again she heard the voice: "You will live to be 100."

Boy, she thought to herself, that was the voice of God!

And then she thought it over: I've got 40 more years to live! Might as well make the most of them.

So off she went to the plastic surgeon. She got everything fixed, from head to toe. She was going to be as gorgeous as a 20-year-old. She was ready for her new second life.

When she left the plastic surgeon's office after her final checkup, she walked across the street, got hit by a bus, died, and found herself in heaven.

She complained to God, "You told me I would live to be 100! I was supposed to have had 40 more years! So how come you let that bus kill me?".

God looked over at her and replied, "Oh, sorry. I didn't recognize you."


Cheers,

Paul (A.)

You know whom to blame.

MARIANN BUDDE CONSECRATED 9TH BISHOP OF DIOCESE OF WASHINGTON DC

From the Episcopal Diocese of Washington:

The bells of Washington National Cathedral, silent since the Aug. 23 earthquake, rang out joyfully following the Nov. 12 consecration of the Diocese of Washington’s ninth bishop, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde.
And though black netting draped across the cathedral ceiling was testament to ongoing repair work, colored light from the stained glass windows filtered through, one of the many expressions of joy that greeted Budde as she took her place as Washington’s first female diocesan bishop.
....

Budde’s husband, Paul, read Coleman’s Bed, a poem by David Whyte. In a sometimes blunt-spoken sermon, the Rev. Linda M. Kaufman also quoted a portion of the poem:

“… Feel the way the cliff at your back
Gives shelter to your outward view
And then bring in from those horizons
All discordant elements that seek a home…”

Asking Budde to stand, Kaufman said: “Mariann, you must find places where you can lean back. … Trust the cliff because its strength goes back. Its strength is the awesome power of God. … I know in the strength of the cliff and the silence you find there you will find the strength of God wrapping his arms around you.”

Blessings and congratulations, Bishop Mariann!

From Peter Carey at Santos Woodcarving Popcicles:

"What I appreciate most about the tradition that is mine is the person of Jesus, the example of his life, the power of his teaching and the mystical presence of the risen Christ that is the spiritual foundation of Christianity. It's a great gift, to have a sense of the presence and the love of a personal God in your life."
~ Bishop Budde of the Diocese of Washington

And they all said, "Amen!"

UPDATE: The Washington Post has a wonderful slideshow of the ceremony.

HERMAN CAIN THEN AND NOW

Back in 1994, Bill Clinton debated Herman Cain on health care policy. Why was the president debating Cain in a public forum? I have no idea. Anyway, the right-wingers went crazy over Cain. According to David Remnick, in The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town", Rush Limbaugh played over and over a clip of Cain saying to the president, "Mr. President, with all due respect, your calculation on what the impact would do, quite honestly, is incorrect."

Remnick also reveals that Jack Kemp was so exuberantly admiring that he said, "Here's a black guy with the voice of Othello, the looks of a football player, the English of Oxfordian quality, and the courage of a lion."

Alas, allegations of sexual harassment (Nein, nein, nein, Mr Cain!) have now slowed the candidate's meteoric rise in the polls, but he still leads with 18% to Romney and Gingrich both at 15%. Cain's down but not out just yet. However, CBSNews says:

Cain has lost support among women since late October. Then, he led among women, garnering 28 percent of their support. Now, his support among women is just 15 percent. He has also lost ground with conservatives, from 30 percent to 23 percent now. And there has been some movement among Tea Party supporters as well; their support for Cain has declined from 32 percent to 19 percent. Romney has lost support among men, while Gingrich's support among that group has increased eight points.

The race to the finish line for the Republican nomination may be between Romney and Gingrich. Still, a lot can happen between now and the convention.

OH JOY!

Thanks to Diane R. on Facebook.

'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas'

The events at Penn State, the indifference of our politicians to the plight of many citizens of our country, including children, and the 1% who have it all and want still more call to mind Ursula Le Guin's science fiction/horror story titled 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas'.

My mind is a jumble about the connection, and my association is not even original, because I read John Scalzi's post on Omelas University on Facebook and immediately connected with it.

I think of the concept of the scapegoat, which is also not original, but comes from it's margaret.

I think that many of us here in the US and the West are culpable, because our comfortable lives depend upon the labor of a good many people, including children, who live desperate and sometimes violent lives in very poor countries.

See? My thoughts are far from coherent. They're scattered all over the place, and perhaps I'd have done better to leave them unwritten and hidden in my mind in their jumbled state. But LeGuin's story haunts me, so perhaps the post serves as a kind of exorcism.

If you haven't read the story and would like to, the link above will take you to the text.

Apropos of perhaps not much, I came across the following quote from Honoré de Balzac's novel Le Père Goriot. From Google Answers, here is the quote in its original French:

Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu'il a été proprement fait.

An English translation:

The secret of a great fortune without an apparent source is a forgotten crime that has never been found out, because it was neatly done.

Picture of William Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat from Wikipedia.

WHO ELVIS?

Whoa there, Big Mama!

H/T to echidne at Eschaton.

STORY OF THE DAY - FIRST THING

He tried hard to tell the truth but it
wasn't always that obvious, so usually he
just said the first thing that came to
mind.

Yes, I do like this story.

From StoryPeople.

HONORING OUR VETERANS

We honor our veterans best by serving them when they return from fighting our wars or leave the service. We honor them by providing compassionate and generous care for those who are broken in body, mind, or spirit, by providing opportunities for them to further their education or training, by providing jobs for them, so the numbers of homeless veterans don't grow. All the fancy, patriotic words in the world will count for nothing if we do not back up our words with actions. Veterans served in the military in place of the rest of us. I thank them from my heart for their service.

A Prayer for Veterans' Day

O Judge of the nations, we remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy. Grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines. This we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer)

SEE HOW THEY LOVE ONE ANOTHER

From the Guardian:

When Toronto zoo bought African penguins Pedro and Buddy from Pittsburgh's National Aviary, they expected them to mate with two females. Instead, despite being trailed by lovelorn lady penguins, they only had eyes for each other, engaging in what naturalists call "courtship behaviour". So Tom Mason, the zoo's curator of birds and invertebrates, ended the relationship on the grounds that it was jeopardising the future of the species. Despite the impression given by programmes such as Frozen Planet, which show carpets of penguins as far as the eye can see, the African penguin is on the verge of extinction. Only 60,000 are left in the wild (down from 225,000 two decades ago), and the zoo doesn't feel it can allow a season to go by without Pedro and Buddy's genes being passed on.

Aren't the penguins beautiful? The appearance and coloration of the two birds are quite different.

If you click the link to the Guardian, you will see the headline: "Is it homophobic to split up gay penguins?" Was the separation of Pedro and Buddy due to homophobia? The African penguins face extinction, and the zookeepers want the penguins to breed. Should the zoo have allowed Pedro and Buddy to stay together?
What do you think?

UPDATE: According to the website Penguins-World, "They [African Penguins] form lifelong mating rituals with one partner."

And thanks to Lapin for the link to the story.