A Change of Venue!

...and The Question Is...

"Why Are Pedophilia--Hiding, Child-Abusing Church Fathers Allowed to Write Laws about Women's Bodies?"

Via The Nation / By Katha Pollitt

The moral authority granted the Catholic Church in the secular world is the most repellent aspect of the current crisis.

My favorite moment of the whole child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was when Father Klaus Malangré suggested that Peter Hullermann, the redoubtable German pedophile priest, might be sent to work in a girls' school. No boys, no molestation. Or, in churchly language, no occasion of sin. Problem solved! Plus, the good father would spend his life warding off female cooties. Malangré must not have heard about priests -- and they do exist -- who abused both male and female children. Nor had he learned the lesson of Watergate: the cover-up is worse than the crime.

The church has yet to learn that lesson. There is a positively Nixonian smarmy truculence in the response of church hierarchs to the ongoing scandal, which now involves Pope Benedict XVI himself. On Palm Sunday, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan urged worshipers at St. Patrick's Cathedral to show "love and solidarity for our earthly shepherd now suffering some of the same unjust accusations, shouts of the mob and scourging at the pillar, as did Jesus." On his blog, Dolan explains that what gets Catholics angry is not just the molestations themselves but also that "the sexual abuse of minors is presented as a tragedy unique to the Church alone." Oh, really? Does the name Mary Kay Letourneau mean nothing to him? This man needs to read the tabloids, which have for years featured an endless parade of molesting teachers, doctors, dentists, therapists and scout leaders. To go by the news, looking at child pornography on one's office computer is so common, it's a wonder anyone finds the time to abuse real kids. At this late date I doubt anyone is unaware that the sexual abuse of children is a widespread phenomenon.

The difference is, when other professionals who work with children are caught out, justice takes its course. People are fired. Licenses are lost. Reputations are ruined. Sometimes jail is involved. No human institution is perfect, and it would be foolish to suggest that incidents are always investigated and that abusers who don't happen to be priests are never protected by colleagues or superiors. Still, it's probably safe to say that if a principal was accused of overlooking a child molester in his classrooms or recycling him to other schools, nobody would compare his suffering to Christ's.

And nobody would be asking for his views about sex, reproduction, women, homosexuality or healthcare either. The moral authority granted the Catholic Church in the secular world is for me the most repellent aspect of the current crisis. In the succinct words of Jodi Jacobson, editor of RHRealityCheck.org, "Why is a pedophilia-ridden, pedophilia-hiding, child-abusing Church allowed to write laws controlling women's rights?" To which one might add: what gives a church in which celibacy is equated with holiness, in which males have almost all the power, the right to a place at the table where laws are made about women's bodies? The same institution that has dealt so indulgently with its ordained pedophiles had no problem excommunicating a Brazilian mother who sought an abortion for her 9-year-old daughter, raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather, or pushing for laws in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Chile banning abortion even to save the woman's life.

The Church's position of protecting priests and it's own reputation has been shown to be a higher priority than the protection of women and children. It is time to realize that these men are merely mortals who are fallible. They are no closer to the God they believe in, than anyone else is. It is therefore time to stop listening their opinions.

Just for Laughs

Sewage Sludge in Your Garden

Photo Courtesy of San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

Since 2007, the City of San Francisco has been giving away bags of "organic biosolids compost" to the residents of the city for use in their backyard gardens . The problem is that the compost is really not organic because it contains sewage sludge. That's right, is it "free compost or toxic sludge." Well, it is both.

Some offers are too good to be true. In late September, San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission once again offered "high-quality, nutrient-rich, organic" compost to any citizen who wanted it absolutely free. It's a popular program. Bay-area residents sprinkle about 80 tons a year of the fertilizer on their lawns and gardens--even schoolyards.

But Washington, D. C.-based Center for Food Safety (CFS) says that San Franciscans may be getting more than they bargain for when they load their trunks with white plastic bags at the city's "Compost Giveaway Events." What the Public Utilities Commission fails to disclose, the CFS says, is that the popular soil amendment is made out of sewage sludge composted with wood chips or paper by-products. According to a report released this year by the Environmental Protection Agency, sludge has been found to contain heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, PCBs, flame retardants, and endocrine disruptors--pretty much anything that humans living and working in a large metropolitan area flush down their toilets or pour down their drains. The CFS claims that San Francisco's compost contains "toxic chemicals and hazardous materials."

Although the current flashpoint is San Francisco, municipalities across the country are looking for places to put their sludge. The CFS has an on-going, nationwide program to shine light on the environmentally questionable practice, and the Organic Consumers Association, an advocacy group, announced last month that it is about to launch a "major campaign against the sewage sludge industry."

In March, the Organic Consumers Association decided to send a message to Mayor Gavin Newsom at San Francisco's City Hall.

It was quite a spectacle at San Francisco City Hall Thursday. People dressed in hazmat suits, goggles and gloves dumped piles of compost on the steps.

"It's the stuff your flushing down your toilet," San Francisco PUC spokesperson Tyrone Jue said. "It's brought to our treatment plant, treated there, then to a compost facility where it's treated for another 30 days at 130 degrees Fahrenheit."

The Organic Consumers Association says it is dangerous sewage sludge.

Biosolids is really just a clever way of saying crap, and the water that went down with it -- it is the byproduct of the water treatment process. And the compost that was given to San Franciscans came from nine counties, which are home to oil refineries, metal container manufacturers, foundries and electronics manufacturers, Jill Richardson writes. Which means there's the potential for the compost to be a noxious soup of chemicals, metals, pharmaceuticals, bacteria, parasites and more.

San Francisco's choice to label the compost "organic" has really got residents steamed. Richardson writes that the city claims they meant "organic" not to connote the USDA's program but that it instead "referred to the scientific definition of organic matter as in containing significant amounts of organic carbon." Hm, I'm guessing that might not have been immediately apparent to all the gardeners who hauled away sludge-laden compost. And in a city full of greens, the city almost certainly knew better.

Organic Consumers Association is calling on Newsom, who ironically was named the country's greenest mayor by Organic Style, to stop the "toxic sewage sludge giveaways."

It isn't only in San Francisco.

Unfortunately, many American farmers and gardeners are unknowingly using sludge-derived "compost." One reason for this is that sludged compost is being given away free in many cities throughout the United States, and as a result, farms and homes across the country have been unknowingly spreading hazardous chemicals and heavy metals on their fields, lawns and gardens. The problem has affected even our most prestigious residence--the White House. First Lady Michelle Obama herself has taken commendable steps to alleviate contamination from sludge-based fertilizer in her garden, a result of sludge used on the White House lawn more than a decade ago.

Courts have also weighed in on the dangers of sludge and the failure of the EPA to protect our food and farms. A federal court in Georgia recently ruled that land application of sewage sludge was the cause of contamination of several farms and the cause of death of the plaintiff farm's prizewinning cattle. The court also found that rat poison in sludge came out in milk distributed via commerce. It also turns out that in defending its sludge program in this case, the EPA used fraudulent data and tried to hide what they were doing. As the court noted: "The administrative record contains evidence that senior EPA officials took extraordinary steps to quash scientific dissent, and any questioning of the EPA's biosolids program."

Despite this case and mounting evidence of the dangers in biosolids, sludge giveaway programs continue unabated and are often accelerated.

What to do?

Source separation, reduction, and--where the wastes are too hazardous to reuse--containment, are the elements of a safe recycling plan. It's long past due that the EPA, the wastewater treatment industry, and city governments acknowledge the truth about sewage sludge distributed as fertilizer: it's not safe, it's not compost, it's not organic, and it's certainly not cheap. Indeed, our communities and children could pay a steep human health price.

The Future of Catholicism

Pope Benedict XVI delivers his Easter blessing from St. Peter's Basilica. (Elisabetta Villa/getty Images)

Timothy Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, offers his analysis of what the Pope and the Catholic Church must now do in light of the child abuse scandal. Shriver states that "what's needed is a conversion of the bishops and the pope himself."

That's right: It's time for the pope and the bishops to convert their culture to one that is centered on loving God from the depths of their souls and to leading a church that is as much mother as father, as much pastoral as theological, as much spiritual as doctrinal. It is time for them to listen to the deep and authentic witness of the people of faith, to trust the spirit that blows where it will, to abandon their defensiveness of their positions and trust only the gospel, and not their edifice of control. Conversion is a total experience -- letting go of the old and putting on the new.

The conversion we seek for them is the same conversion they invite for us: Put on a contrite heart and fall in love with God, recklessly, totally and passionately. Let the love of God be the only measure of their actions.

We live in a spiritual age, and until the bishops and the pope learn to lead a people hungry for authenticity, trust and spiritual nourishment, we will look elsewhere. There are millions of Catholics with deep spiritual wisdom -- millions of faith-filled people who love God in transformative ways. We will trust their faith and witness if the bishops fail us.

My faith is not shaken by these scandals. My hunger for my own conversion to a more loving, more just and more peaceful way of living is undiminished. On Easter, my family and I celebrated the hope beyond all hopes and did so with the Eucharist.

But this is Altargate. The hierarchy, not the faith, is in jeopardy. The pope need not resign. He must do something far more difficult: convert.

Difficult but necessary!

Window Farms

Urban agriculture is on the rise in cities across the country. In New York City, window farms are are perfect for urban dwellers. NPR has the story of the Do-It-Yourself Veggie Venture.

If you have a green thumb, a window and a serious Do-It-Yourself ethic, you too, can be a farmer ... even in your downtown apartment building. Spring is here, and for urban dwellers with no access to soil, hydroponic gardening is a way to grow fresh veggies indoors.

"Window farming," as it is called, is catching on in New York City and beyond. Window farmers use recycled 1.5 liter water bottles, clay pellets, plastic tubing and inexpensive fish tank air pumps to create their indoor gardens. There are now 4,000 registered users at windowfarms.org. Farmers are tending to their greens everywhere from the U.S. to Italy, Israel and Hong Kong.

A simple window farm system is a column of upside down water bottles, with plants growing out of holes cut into the sides. An air pump is used to circulate liquid nutrients.

WindowFarms

A simple window farm system is a column of upside down water bottles, with plants growing out of holes cut into the sides. An air pump is used to circulate liquid nutrients.

Last year in Brooklyn, N.Y., Britta Riley, 33, raised $27,000 for her window farms project through an online micro-donation web site. She's a true Do-It-Yourselfer.

Riley's project partner is Maya Nayak, 29, a professional gardener. Nayak has been growing herbs in her own window farm in her ground floor apartment. A sign in her window advertises windowfarms.org — and plenty of people have paused to check it out.

The window farms Web site provides instructions on how to put together a system that grows three plants. The materials will cost about $30 — and not all of them are traditional gardening supplies: water bottles, an aquarium air pump, air valve needles (like the kind you use to pump up a basketball), and a hanging system designed for displaying art.

Riley says that putting recycled consumer goods to use is an important part of the DIY ethic.

The simplest window farm system is a column of upside-down water bottles connected to one another. Plants grow out of holes cut into the sides. An air pump is used to circulate liquid nutrients that trickle down from the top of the column and make their way to the plant roots.

Window farms have been used to grow strawberries, cherry tomatoes and peppers. Riley's favorite is bok choi.

"Buttercrunch lettuce grows great and lots of herbs," Nayak says. "Anything leafy and green, essentially. You can't grow carrots. I mean, you can't grow root vegetables. Potatoes, garlic. Those things don't work."

Urban farmers use the Internet to exchange ideas for improving the window farms technology. It's a process Riley calls "R&D-I-Y" or Research and Develop It Yourself. One window farmer figured out a way to silence the gurgling sounds these window farm systems make — and he shared his solution with the rest of the indoor gardening community.

Check it out at WINDOWFARMS.ORG

Collateral Murder

If you haven't seen this, you should. "A stark and painful reminder of why military suppression of a sovereign civilian population does not work."

An Overview

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.

WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.

Short Version



Full Version

Who's Not Paying Taxes

The Tea Party, the Libertarians, and the Conservatives are angry at government. They don't want government telling them what to do and they don't want taxes. Perhaps they should redirect their anger to the corporations who milk the system and pay no taxes. Or they should be angry at the government officials who write the laws that allow the loopholes that these corporations use to their advantage.

How do profitable corporations have a lower tax rate than you? The answer is surprising. Here are examples of large corporations that pay NO taxes or low taxes and reap in huge profits.

Exxon mobile Paid No Federal Income Tax in 2009

Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.

Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein notes that, despite benefiting from corporate welfare in the U.S., Exxon complains about paying high taxes, claiming that it threatens energy innovation research. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room notes that big corporations’ tax shelter practices similar to Exxon’s shift a $100 billion annual tax burden onto U.S. taxpayers. In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.”

How can it be that you pay more to the IRS than General Electric?

As you work on your taxes this month, here's something to raise your hackles: Some of the world's biggest, most profitable corporations enjoy a far lower tax rate than you do--that is, if they pay taxes at all.

The most egregious example is General Electric ( GE - news - people ). Last year the conglomerate generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.

Avoiding taxes is nothing new for General Electric. In 2008 its effective tax rate was 5.3%; in 2007 it was 15%. The marginal U.S. corporate rate is 35%.

It's GE Capital that keeps the overall tax bill so low. Over the last two years, GE Capital has displayed an uncanny ability to lose lots of money in the U.S. (posting a $6.5 billion loss in 2009), and make lots of money overseas (a $4.3 billion gain). Not only do the U.S. losses balance out the overseas gains, but GE can defer taxes on that overseas income indefinitely. The timing of big deductions for depreciation in GE Capital's equipment leasing business also provides a tax benefit, as will loan losses left over from the credit crunch.

But it's the tax benefit of overseas operations that is the biggest reason why multinationals end up with lower tax rates than the rest of us.

What the Top U.S. Companies Pay in Taxes, In Pictures

Eliminating Deferrals

Naturally the Obama administration wants to put an end to this. It has proposed doing away with tax deferrals on overseas income. If the plan passes, a U.S. company that pays a 25% tax on profits in China would have to pay an additional 10% income tax to Uncle Sam to bring it up to the 35% corporate rate.

Of course, large corporations are against Obama's plan.

Ignore the Elephant

Via Daily Kos:

Flashback: Sometime Between 2001 and 2008

"Mom, can we talk?"
"Sure, dear. What's up?"
"I'm really concerned about the deficit and stuff. I think the government's spending too much money."
"Oh, now, dear, I think you just have an overactive imagination. The president says everything is just fine."
"Yeah, but..."
"Oh, go on and play now. Deficits don’t really matter, dear. Alan Greenspan said so himself. Here...go buy yourself some ice cream."
"Gee, thanks, Mom."

Flash Forward: Sometime Between 2009 and 2010

"Mom, can we talk?"
"Whaddya want?"
"I'm still really concerned about the deficit and stuff. I think the government's spending too much money."
"Yeah, well, you can blame that socialist America-killer Obama. It's all his fault! He and those Marxist thugs Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and their socialist-Marxist commie giveaways. Unbelievable! They come waltzing into town and run up the deficit like they're high on meth. Deficits matter, you know! They matter a lot! Deficits matter more than anything else! Just ask Alan Greenspan---he knows! As long as Democrats are in power, you are so screwed. Now go get me a beer."

Flash Forward: The Next GOP Presidency

"Mom, can we talk?"
"Sure, dear. What's up?"
"I'm really concerned about the deficit and stuff. I think the government's spending too much money."
"Oh, now, dear, you just have an overactive imagination like your older sister. The president says everything is just fine. So don’t you worry your pretty little head, Punkin'. He has everything under control. Besides, deficits don't really matter. Even Alan Greenspan says so, and he's 125 so that makes him very wise. Here...go buy yourself some ice cream."
"Gee thanks, Mom!"

The GOP motto: Blame the Democrats!

Hard to Embrace

“What You See is What You Want to See.”

Frank Rich has an interesting Op-Ed, "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Obama."

NOT since Clark Kent changed in a phone booth has there been an instant image makeover to match Barack Obama’s in the aftermath of his health care victory. “He went from Jimmy Carter to F.D.R. in just a fortnight,” said one of the “Game Change” authors, Mark Halperin, on MSNBC. “Look at the steam in the man’s stride!” exclaimed Chris Matthews. “Is it just me, or does Barack Obama seem different since health care passed?” wrote Peter Beinart in The Daily Beast, which, like The Financial Times, ran an illustration portraying the gangly president as a newly bulked-up Superman. [...]

But has the man really changed — or is it just us? [...]

Depending on where you stand — or the given day — he is either an overintellectual, professorial wuss or a ruthless Chicago machine pol rivaling the original Boss Daley. He is either a socialist redistributing wealth to the undeserving poor or a tool of Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs elite. He is a terrorist-coddling, A.C.L.U.-tilting lawyer or a closet Cheneyite upholding the worst excesses of the Bush administration’s end run on the Constitution. He is a lightweight celebrity who’s clueless without a teleprompter or a Machiavellian mastermind who has ingeniously forged his Hawaiian birth certificate, covered up his ties to Islamic radicals and bamboozled the entire mainstream press. He is the reincarnation of J.F.K., L.B.J., F.D.R., Reagan, Hitler, Stalin, Adlai Stevenson or Nelson Mandela. (Funny how few people compared George W. Bush to anyone but Hitler and his parents.) [...]

As far back as 2004 — when Obama was still in the Illinois Senate — a writer at The Chicago Tribune, Don Terry, framed what remains the prevailing Obama takeaway to this day. “He’s a Rorschach test,” Terry wrote. “What you see is what you want to see.” [...]

What’s clear is that Obama largely remains a fixed point even while the rest of us keep wildly revising our judgments, whether looking at him through the prism of partisan politics, race, media melodrama or any other we choose. It’s our recession-tossed country, not his presidency, that is rocked by violent mood swings.

Read the complete article HERE.

Happy Easter!

Politics in Medicine

A doctor in Florida is walking a thin line on an ethical issue of treating all patients.

A Florida doctor who considers the national healthcare overhaul bad medicine has posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Obama to seek care elsewhere.

"I'm not turning anybody away -- that would be unethical," said Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

The sign says: "If you voted for Obama . . . seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years."

Cassell may be walking a thin line between his right to free speech and his professional obligation, said William Allen, professor of bioethics, law and medical professionalism at the University of Florida's College of Medicine.

Allen said doctors cannot refuse patients on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disability, but political preference is not one of the legally protected categories specified in civil-rights law.

By insisting he does not ask his patients about their politics and has not turned away patients based on their votes, the doctor is "trying to hold onto the nub of his ethical obligation," Allen said. "But this is pushing the limit."

Is this the doctor's version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell?"

Cassell, who has practiced medicine in Republican-dominated Lake County since 1988, said he doesn't quiz his patients about their politics, but he also won't hide his disdain for the bill Obama signed and the lawmakers who passed it.

In his waiting room, Cassell has provided his patients with photocopies of a healthcare timeline produced by Republican leaders that outlines "major provisions" in the healthcare package.

The doctor put a sign above the stack of copies that reads: "This is what the morons in Washington have done to your healthcare. Take one, read it and vote out anyone who voted for it."

Cassell said a patient's politics would not affect his care for that person, although he said he would prefer not to treat people who support the president.

Should doctors stop treating patients because of differing religious views, sexual orientation or race? This is disturbing!

The Consistency of Being Inconsistent

Happy April Fools'

It's April Fools' Day! Watch a spoof on the meaning of "Social Justice" between Glenn Beck and Jim Wallis. The Reverend Jim Wallis is an evangelical Christian writer and political activist, best known as the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine.