Undernews For December 7, 2009

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WORD

I'm trying to sum up President Obama's first 11 months in office. He gave billions to Wall Street, cracked down on illegal immigrants getting health care, and he's sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. You know something, he may go down in history as our greatest Republican president ever. - Jay Leno

12/07/2009 | Comments

MORNING LINE

All projections based on latest polls (up to five)

Obama beats Huckabee by 6
Obama beats Romney by 7
Obama beats Palin by 14

In the race for the GOP nod, it's Huckabee followed by Romney and Palin

GOVERNORSHIPS

Democrats pick up one, with two in doubt
Republicans pick up 7 (including 2 decided this year) with 3 in doubt.
One GOP governorship headed to an independent.

SENATE

Republicans pick up 2 with 1 in doubt
Democrats pick up none with 8 in doubt

Details
12/07/2009 | Comments

WHAT BASEBALL, POKER AND THE STOCK MARKET CAN TEACH US ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Sam Smith

One thing is clear as the climate change debate chugs along: we need to teach math better in our schools. And it wouldn't hurt if journalism schools taught some math as well.

For example, it is apparent that those who argue that one good snow storm destroys the case for climate change never got a good introduction to odds and averages.

An exception seems to be baseball. I have never heard a critic of ecological theory argue that a good hitter's failure to get to base in a particular game indicates that he should be immediately traded. Sometimes it's because he swings badly and sometimes because the pitch is low and outside, but nobody says that's proof he's a bad hitter.

Yet, have one cold winter and they want to dump climate change.

I'm mystified by this. How can a culture that understand formulas like

have such a hard time with temperature variations?

My only explanation is that sports writers have done a far better job getting people to understand (or just accept) things like odds and averages than scientists or journalists. The unfortunate thing is that too many seem to think they only apply to sports.

Maybe we should forget about Copenhagen and have a Monday Night Climate Countdown.

There are some other people good at figuring out odds and averages, such as poker players.

Over a decade ago, I offered a poker player's guide to environmental risk assessment. Key points included:

1. Figure the stakes as well as the odds.

2. The odds of something happening at any moment are not the same as the odds of something ever happening. In ecological calculations - especially ones in which the downside could ruin your whole millennium - it is the latter odds that are important.

3. When confronted with conflicting odds, ask what happens if each projection is wrong. Temporary job loss because of environmental restrictions may come and go, but the loss of the ozone layer is something you can have forever.

4. When confronted with conflicting odds, remember that you don't have to play the game. There are other things to do with your time - or with the economy or with the environment - that may produce better results. Thus, instead of playing poker you could be making love. Or instead of getting jobs from some air or water degrading activity, the same jobs could come from more benign industry such as retrofitting a whole city for solar energy.

5. Don't let anyone - in industry, government, or the media - define an "acceptable level of risk" for your own death or disease. They may not have the same vested interest in the right answer as you do.

6. If the stakes are too high, the game is not worth it. If you can't stand the pain, don't attempt the gain.

Lately I've been wondering how a successful stock market investor might figure out whether global warming was a good investment.

Most stock market charts look much like climate records kept by NASA - an awful lot of detail in a small space that is hard for the impatient or untrained to figure out.

But there is one kind of chart that addresses the key issue: which way a stock really headed. It's called a point and figure chart. It consists of columns of Xs and Os - the former indicating a rising stock, the latter a falling one.

The neat trick is that you only change directions if the stock moves a certain amount - typically three points. What this does is to eliminate minor fluctuations and emphasizes the important stuff.

For example, let's say you bought a stock for 20 and it went up to 22. You would do nothing, but when it hit 23 you would show three Xs in a column.

Now let's say the stock goes down to 21 and then back to 23. You would do nothing because it hasn't moved three points. But let's say it goes down to 18. Then you would show five Os.

A normal chart of such things shows change in neatly divided time frames. Point & figure charts don't care much about time - mostly about movement.

I tried this approach on global temperatures since 1880 as reported by NASA. Using as the basis the average temperature for 1951-1980, here's what resulted:

Note the consistency in the patterns until 1981. Then suddenly there is a breakout combined with rising peaks. This is known as an ascending triple top breakout - and in the stock market it's a really good thing. The stock continues to rise and fall but the peaks keep getting higher. If this is a stock you may well want to buy it, but if it's climate change you don't want it at all.

Note also that the temperature has bounced up and down 3-6 points about a dozen times since 1880 just like the stock market. And just like the rest of life, come to think of it.

Of course, to those who think climate change is a purely ideological or theological issue, none of this means much.

Still, if someone tells you that the snow outside proves there's no global warming, remind them that in 2009 Albert Pujols only got a hit 33% of the time.

Labels: BASEBALL, CLIMATE CHANGE, ECOLOGY
12/06/2009 | Comments

OUR BETA CHART OF IMPORTANT SEX SCANDALS

The sex life of politicians and other public officials has become so complicated that we have tried to reduce it all to an easy to read chart. This is only the beta version and we welcome any additions or corrections. \

Labels: CELEBRITIES, POLITICS, SCANDALS, SEX
12/05/2009 | Comments

BERNANKE SAYS SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE NOT MANDATORY

Ryan Grim, Huffington Post - In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee today, where he's seeking re-appointment as the Fed's chairman, Bernanke called for cutbacks in Medicare and Social Security even as unemployment rises and the middle class is endangered.

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) sympathized with Bernanke, saying that, because of entitlement spending, 'you're going to be looking at a situation where the Congress will be unable to provide any kind of fiscal discipline because of the mandatory spending. That puts an enormous burden on your plate.'

"Well, Senator, I was about to address entitlements," Bernanke replied. 'I think you can't tackle the problem in the medium term without doing something about getting entitlements under control and reducing the costs, particularly of health care.'

Bernanke reminded Congress that it has the power to repeal Social Security and Medicare. "It's only mandatory until Congress says it's not mandatory. And we have no option but to address those costs at some point or else we will have an unsustainable situation," said Bernank.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) followed Bennett and pointed out that "there's only really two ways you can deflect this deficit, and that's either by cutting expenditures or raising income taxes or other forms of taxes."

Reed asked him if he could think of other ways, but Bernanke returned to entitlement money as the way to balance the budget.

"Willie Sutton robbed banks because that's where the money is, as he put it," Bernanke said. "The money in this case is in entitlements."

12/07/2009 | Comments

THE SECRET WAR IN PAKISTAN

Jeremy Scahill, Nation - The use of private companies like Blackwater for sensitive operations such as drone strikes or other covert work undoubtedly comes with the benefit of plausible deniability that places an additional barrier in an already deeply flawed system of accountability. When things go wrong, it's the contractors' fault, not the government's. But the widespread use of contractors also raises serious legal questions, particularly when they are a part of lethal, covert actions.

"We are using contractors for things that in the past might have been considered to be a violation of the Geneva Convention," said Lt. Col. Addicott, who now runs the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. "In my opinion, we have pressed the envelope to the breaking limit, and it's almost a fiction that these guys are not in offensive military operations." Addicott added, "If we were subjected to the International Criminal Court, some of these guys could easily be picked up, charged with war crimes and put on trial. That's one of the reasons we're not members of the International Criminal Court."

Labels: CONSTITUTION, PAKISTAN, WAR
12/07/2009 | Comments

WHY THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN IS ILLEGAL

Rich Whitney, Green candidate for Illinois governor - Any Presidential order to commit more troops to Afghanistan is illegal under established principles of international law, just as the initial invasion and occupation were illegal. The war against Afghanistan violates international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions, the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and international agreements dealing with the suppression and control of terrorism.

One of the principles that our nation championed during the Nuremberg War Crimes trials was the repudiation of aggressive war as an instrument of foreign policy. International law would have justified aggressive efforts to locate and apprehend Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists following the 9/11 attacks. But no international law or principle of self-defense justified invading an entire sovereign nation, overthrowing its government and continuing to occupy it, while attempting to control both the form and direction of its future government.
Such orders are also illegal under our Constitution. The Authorization to Use Military Force passed by Congress on September 14, 2001, gave the President powers to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks" or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism"

This amounts to a permanent delegation of congressional authority to the President, with neither standards to rein in his actions, nor a clear means of regaining control in Congress. As such, it was, and is, an unconstitutional abdication of Congress's exclusive power to declare war.

Another principle established at Nuremberg is the principle that government officials have an overriding duty to disobey illegal orders. The Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal states that government officials have a responsibility not to commit or further "an act which constitutes a crime under international law."If elected Governor of Illinois, I would honor my commitment to the Constitution and established international law, and assert the Governor's right to veto any mobilization of the Illinois National Guard for service in Iraq of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Labels: AFGHANISTAN, CONSTITUTION, WAR
12/07/2009 | Comments

FOR BLACKS IT'S A DEPRESSION

Kevin Gray - By any economic measure the black community is in a severe depression. Unemployment among blacks was high before Obama took office. For blacks in the 16-24 age group it's been double-digit unemployment for decades. Nevertheless, in the time between Obama's inauguration and the present, the unemployment rates for the parents of many of those unemployed youth nearly doubled. As of September, the 'official' Bureau of Labor Statistics data show the overall black unemployment rate at 15.4 per cent: 16.5 percent for adult men, 12.5 for adult women and 40.8 per cent for teenagers. Some economists estimate that the actual overall rate is in the 30 to 35 percent range, with the 'unofficial' teenage rate far surpassing the 50 per cent mark. These rates remain unchanged even as the overall rate, as of the end of November, has dropped from 10.1 to 10 percent.

The $787 billion stimulus plan didn't do much for the unemployed. No targeted youth or adult jobs program was part of the package. The most that the jobless got out of the stimulus deal was extension of unemployment benefits, if they hadn't already dropped off the rolls. At best, stimulus dollars forestalled some teachers being laid off and kept road crews working. If hiring more cops is a good thing, ostensibly to ramp up their drug war and gang suppression activities, the bill did that as well. It must be noted that the share of public funds to the police-penal state has nearly doubled as a percentage of civilian government spending over the past 50 years and now stands at 15 percent.

Gray is author of the forthcoming book "The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama"

Labels: BLACKS, ECONOMY
12/07/2009 | Comments

PODCASTS: THE REAL OBAMA

The Review was a lonely progressive voice raising serious questions about Obama during the campaign. Our coverage was based on the public record, but activist and author Paul Street also knew him from Chicago days and in this interview with George Kenney gives some interesting background as well as talking about some of the alternatives for progressives today.

Labels: OBAMA
12/07/2009 | Comments

BOOKSHELF: UNBOUGHT & UNBOSSED

Shirley Chisholm

Take Root Media's republication of Shirley Chisholm's "Unbought and Unbossed" will be out in early January and it's both an instructive and enjoyable reminder of a time when activists consulted their hearts and minds more than PR advisors. Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman to elected to Congress. She served for 7 terms, beginning in 1969, and spoke out for civil rights, women's rights, the poor and against the Vietnam War. She was a co-founder of the National Organization for Women, the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women's Political Caucus, and in 1972 ran for president.

Chisholm took on Washington almost from the first day she arrived from New York City. Assigned to the rural development and forestry subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee, she called up Speaker Jon McCormack to complain. Said McCormack, "Mrs. Chisholm, this is the way it is. You have to be a good soldier." When she tried to confront the matter on the floor, more senior members were repeatedly recognized, until she went down to the well in front of the podium and just stood there until she was allowed to talk. Said one sympathetic male colleague afterwards, "You've committed political suicide." She eventually ended up on the veterans committee thanks to the chair from Texas, Olin Teague, who said he'd be delighted to have her. Chisholm considered it a victory given that in her district there were a lot more veterans than trees.

She would become a major figure in the battle for the rights of women and blacks. And she understood the subtleties of how that battle was fought. At one point she writes, "The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they suddenly excuse themselves." And she understood that a lot of black politicians were the same.

Anyone involved in activism today should read this book not just for the story about a wonderful woman, but for the style and tone of someone who really knew how to help bring change.

PRE-ORDER

Labels: BLACKS, POLITICS, WOMEN
12/07/2009 | Comments

GREAT THOUGHTS OF MAYOR RUSSELL WISEMAN

Commercial Appeal, TN - In the opinion of Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman, President Barack Obama's speech on the war in Afghanistan was deliberately timed to block the Christian message of the "Peanuts" television Christmas special.

Wiseman made the statements on his Facebook page. . .

"Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load. . . try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it. . . w. . . hen the answer should simply be 'yes'. . . "

In Wiseman's extensive thread that attacked the president, his supporters and Muslims, he stated ". . . you obama people need to move to a muslim country. . . oh wait, that's America. . . pitiful."

At another point he said, "you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different. . . "

12/05/2009 | Comments

YOU CAN'T RECOGNIZE A RECOVERY IF YOU USE THE WRONG INDICATORS

Jonathan Rowe, Yes Magazine - One reason that the nation has not made more progress toward an economic "recovery" is that the people in charge really don't know what one would look like. The top economists in Washington don't appear to have asked the obvious question, "Recovery of what-and for what?" Instead they have followed the old drill, tried to rekindle the old flame, and remained wedded to the old guideposts that leave them looking at yesterday and trying to see tomorrow.

Just recently, the president of France realized the stupidity. He has decided that his nation's measures of economic health need to change to account for today's challenges instead of yesterday's. As Washington gears up to spend billions in more "stimulus," it would help to ask exactly what it is trying to stimulate-and most importantly, exactly what would constitute success.

Economic indicators are our national psyche's main gauges, the mirror into which we look to see how things are going. In a market culture-which is to say, a money culture-the prospects for money become the prospects for ourselves. Such metrics as the Gross Domestic Product have an oracular status; reporters watch them obsessively, policy experts steer by them, and politicians march to their command.

Yet for the most part the indicators are a crock and testimony to the grip of yesterday upon the expert economic mind. The prime example is the GDP, the anachronism of which is a secret, it seems, only within the media and policy establishments that invoke it constantly. Any measure that portrays an increase in car crashes, cancer, marital breakdown, kinky mortgages, oil use, and gambling as evidence of advance-as the GDP does-simply because they occasion the expenditure of money has a tenuous claim to being reality-based discourse. Metrics are silent rulers, in both senses of the word. In defining the task, they also define the steps we must take to carry it out. . .

Another example is "productivity," which, if anything, is even more totemic. An increase in output per hour worked-which is the reigning definition-is deemed the stairway to economic heaven, and the goal most devoutly to be sought, no further questions asked. Thus the excitement recently when the Commerce Department reported that productivity had increased at an annual rate of 9.5 percent during the third quarter of 2009.

But exactly why is this such good news? "Generally, when U.S. workers are more productive that's a really good thing for the economy," observed a writer on the Atlantic's website. "It means a higher GDP will result." The statement is standard issue, and remarkable only in its circularity (and that the ratio of fallacy to sentence is one to one. . .

Labels: ECONOMICS, GDP, PRODUCTIVITY
12/05/2009 | Comments

AF-PAK WAR COULD TURN INTO THE WAR AGAINST WHEREVER

CNN - Pakistan's prime minister rejected claims al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding within his country amid mounting global pressure on Islamabad to tackle terrorists linked to escalating conflict in neighboring Afghanistan.

"In fact Pakistan is fighting a war on terrorism," Yousaf Raza Gilani told reporters at a joint press conference with his British counterpart Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street.

"We have good defense and intelligence cooperation with the U.S.. I don't think Osama Bin Laden is in Pakistan."

Pakistan has regularly been identified as the suspected hiding place of bin Laden since a major military offensive in Afghanistan in the wake of the 2001 al Qaeda attacks in the United States failed to uncover his whereabouts.

Labels: AFGHANISTAN, BIN LADEN, PAKISTAN
12/04/2009 | Comments

CATHOLIC CHURCH TAKES CHARGE OF THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT

NPR - Pope Benedict XVI is known for his conservative theology, but it's his predecessor's legacy that is playing out in U.S. politics today. A generation of U.S. Catholic bishops who were selected by John Paul II is conservative on social issues, and they are willing to mix it up in the public square to push their views.

Exhibit A: the health care overhaul. On Nov. 6, the night before the House of Representatives voted on heath care, Speaker Nancy Pelosi received some visitors. One was Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, an anti-abortion Democrat, who wanted to amend the House bill to permanently strip federal funding for abortion. Critics say that would make it harder for all women to pay for abortions. Stupak brought with him two representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who said they would not support any bill without that amendment.

As Stupak later put it, "We want to send a message: If you start messing with abortion and health care, you've got a problem."

The meeting was a turning point. Pelosi allowed a vote on the amendment the next day. It passed.

Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro, a pro-choice Catholic, says she was dismayed that the bishops seemed to be elevating abortion over every other issue, including the health care needs of the poor.

"In their quest to push on the issue of abortion," she says, "they failed in the church's mission. They really act like a bunch of lawyers who are instructing members how to vote on arcane House rules."

DeLauro says the bishops are rejecting the tradition established by John F. Kennedy that Catholic politicians vote according to their conscience, not the dictates of Rome.

"The activity that the Catholic bishops have engaged in implies that the church will determine and dictate public policy," DeLauro says. .

And then there is the battle between Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, R.I., and his parishioner, Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy. Because of Kennedy's support of abortion rights, Tobin suggested to him, privately, that he refrain from taking Holy Communion. After Kennedy made the exchange public, the bishop took to the airwaves.

"The point is that for any Catholic in public office, his first commitment has to be to his faith," Tobin told MSNBC's Chris Matthews. "Not just for a Catholic, but for a member of any religious community. No commitment is more important than your commitment to your faith, because it involves your relationship with God."

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT AND THE BIBLE

This appeared in the Progressive Review during the Reagan Administration.

Sam Smith, Progressive Review - The ultimate irony of the conservatives is that they pretend to be a bastion of Christian politics when, in fact, they are comprised in no small part of despoilers, usurers, war-mongers, hypocrites, idolaters and groupies of false prophets - all of whom are frowned upon by the book they profess to follow. And their opponents, who are more faithful to the words that the conservatives only quote, are often such good Christians that they never say a mumblin' word about it all.

A TIMELINE OF INCONSISTENT BUT INCREASINGLY CRUEL CERTAINTY

Conscience, 1996 - Most people believe that the Roman Catholic church's position on abortion has remained unchanged for two thousand years. Not true. Church teaching on abortion has varied continually over the course of its history. There has been no unanimous opinion on abortion at any time. While there has been constant general agreement that abortion is almost always evil and sinful, the church has had difficulty in defining the nature of that evil. Members of the Catholic hierarchy have opposed abortion consistently as evidence of sexual sin, but they have not always seen early abortion as homicide. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the "right-to-life" argument is a relatively recent development in church teaching. The debate continues today.

Also contrary to popular belief, no pope has proclaimed the prohibition of abortion an "infallible" teaching. This fact leaves much more room for discussion on abortion than is usually thought, with opinions among theologians and the laity differing widely. In any case, Catholic theology tells individuals to follow their personal conscience in moral matters, even when their conscience is in conflict with hierarchical views.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT ABORTION?

Freedom from Religion Foundation - The word "abortion" does not appear in any translation of the bible. Out of more than 600 laws of Moses, none comments on abortion. One Mosaic law about miscarriage specifically contradicts the claim that the bible is antiabortion, clearly stating that miscarriage does not involve the death of a human being. If a woman has a miscarriage as the result of a fight, the man who caused it should be fined. If the woman dies, however, the culprit must be killed:

"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth . . ."--Ex. 21:22-25

According to the bible, life begins at birth--when a baby draws its first breath. The bible defines life as "breath" in several significant passages, including the story of Adam's creation in Genesis 2:7, when God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Jewish law traditionally considers that personhood begins at birth. . .

An honest reader must admit that the bible contradicts itself. "Thou shalt not kill" did not apply to many living, breathing human beings, including children, who are routinely massacred in the bible. The Mosaic law orders "Thou shalt kill" people for committing such "crimes" as cursing one's father or mother (Ex. 21:17), for being a "stubborn son" (Deut. 21:18-21), for being a homosexual (Lev. 20:13), or even for picking up sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-35)! Far from protecting the sanctity of life, the bible promotes capital punishment for conduct which no civilized person or nation would regard as criminal.

Mass killings were routinely ordered, committed or approved by the God of the bible. One typical example is Numbers 25:4-9, when the Lord casually orders Moses to massacre 24,000 Israelites: "Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun." Clearly, the bible is not pro-life.

Most scholars and translators agree that the injunction against killing forbade only the murder of (already born) Hebrews. It was open season on everyone else, including children, pregnant women and newborn babies.

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."--Psalm 137:9

The bible is not pro-child. Why did God set a bear upon 42 children just for teasing a prophet (2 Kings 2:23-24)? Far from demonstrating a "pro-life" attitude, the bible decimates innocent babies and pregnant women in passage after gory passage, starting with the flood and the wanton destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, progressing to the murder of the firstborn child of every household in Egypt (Ex. 12:29), and the New Testament threats of annihilation. .
Then there are the dire warnings of Jesus in the New Testament:

"For, behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the womb that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck."--Luke 23:29

The teachings and contradictions of the bible show that antiabortionists do not have a "scriptural base" for their claim that their deity is "pro-life." Spontaneous abortions occur far more often than medical abortions. Gynecology textbooks conservatively cite a 15% miscarriage rate. . .

The bible is neither antiabortion nor pro-life, but does provide a biblical basis for the real motivation behind the antiabortion religious crusade: hatred of women. The bible is anti-woman, blaming women for sin, demanding subservience, mandating a slave/master relationship to men, and demonstrating contempt and lack of compassion:

"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."--Genesis 3:16

What self-respecting woman today would submit willingly to such tyranny?

The antiabortion position does not demonstrate love for humanity, or compassion for real human beings. Worldwatch Institute statistics show that 50% of abortions worldwide are illegal, and that at least 200,000 women die every year--and thousands more are hurt and maimed--from illegal or self-induced abortions. Unwanted pregnancies and complications from multiple pregnancies are a leading killer of women. . . ?

Numerous Christian denominations and religious groups agree that the bible does not condemn abortion and that abortion should continue to be legal. These include:

- American Baptist Churches-USA - American Ethical Union - American Friends (Quaker) Service Committee - American Jewish Congress - Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) - Episcopal Church - Lutheran Women's Caucus - Moravian Church in America-Northern Province - Presbyterian Church (USA) - Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - Union of American Hebrew Congregations - Unitarian Universalist Association - United Church of Christ - United Methodist Church - United Synagogue of America - Women's Caucus Church of the Brethren - YWCA - Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice - Catholics for Free Choice - Evangelicals for Choice

Labels: ABORTION, BIBLE, CATHOLIC, CHRISTIAN
12/04/2009 | Comments

TIMELINE

Compiled from Conscience journal and Religious Tolerance. Note that all these decisions were made by men.

100 AD: One of the earliest church documents, the Didache, condemns abortion but asks two critical questions: 1) Is abortion being used to conceal the sins of fornication and adultery? and 2) Does the fetus have a rational soul from the moment of conception, or does it become an "ensouled human" at a later point? The matter of "hominization" - the point at which a developing embryo or fetus becomes a human being - would become one of the cornerstones of debate about abortion, and it remains a subject of debate even today.

Prior to 380 CE: Many Christian leaders issued unqualified condemnations of abortion. So did two church synods in the early 4th century.

Circa 380 CE: The Apostolic Constitutions allowed abortion if it was done early enough in pregnancy. But it condemned abortion if the fetus was of human shape and contained a soul.

St. Augustine (354-430) condemned abortion because it breaks the connection between sex and procreation. However, in the Enchiridion, he says, "But who is not rather disposed to think that unformed fetuses perish like seeds which have not fructified" - clearly seeing hominization as beginning or occurring at some point after the fetus has begun to grow. He held that abortion was not an act of homicide. Most theologians of his era agreed with him. In a disciplinary sense, the general agreement at this time was that abortion was a sin requiring penance if it was intended to conceal fornication and adultery.

Circa 675: The Irish Canons place the penance for "destruction of the embryo of a child in the mother's womb [at] three and one half years," while the "penance of one who has intercourse with a woman, seven years on bread and water."

Circa 8th Century: In the Penitential Ascribed by Albers to Bede, the idea of delayed hominization is again supported, and women's circumstances acknowledged: "A mother who kills her child before the fortieth day shall do penance for one year. If it is after the child has become alive, [she shall do penance] as a murderess. But it makes a great difference whether a poor woman does it on account of the difficulty of supporting [the child] or a harlot for the sake of concealing her wickedness."

In 1140, Gratian compiled the first collection of canon law that was accepted as authoritative within the church. Gratian's code included the canon Aliquando, which concluded that "abortion was homicide only when the fetus was formed." If the fetus was not yet a formed human being, abortion was not homicide.

Pope Innocent III (1161-1216):He determined that a monk who had arranged for his lover to have an abortion was not guilty of murder if the fetus was not "animated" at the time.

Early in the 13th century,he stated that the soul enters the body of the fetus at the time of "quickening" - when the woman first feels movement of the fetus. Before that time, abortion was a less serious sin, because it terminated only potential human person, not an actual human person.

1312: The Council of Vienne, still very influential in Catholic hierarchical teaching, confirmed the conception of man put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas. While Aquinas had opposed abortion - as a form of contraception and a sin against marriage - he had maintained that the sin in abortion was not homicide unless the fetus was ensouled, and thus, a human being. Aquinas had said the fetus is first endowed with a vegetative soul, then an animal soul, and then - when its body is developed - a rational soul. This theory of "delayed hominization" is the most consistent thread throughout church history on abortion.

1588: Concerned about prostitution in Rome, Pope Sixtus V issued the bull Effraenatam (Without Restraint) and applied to both contraception and abortion, at any stage of pregnancy, the penalty designated for homicide: excommunication. There was no exception for therapeutic abortion.6

1591: Only three years after Pope Sixtus V issued Effraenatam, he died. His successor, Gregory XIV, felt Sixtus's stand was too harsh and was in conflict with penitential practices and theological views on ensoulment. He issued Sedes Apostolica, which advised church officials, "where no homicide or no animated fetus is involved, not to punish more strictly than the sacred canons or civil legislation does." This papal pronouncement lasted until 1869. . . Pope Gregory XIV (1591) reinstated the "quickening" test, which he determined happened 116 days into pregnancy.

1679: Consistently, abortion had been considered wrong if used to conceal sexual sins. Taking this idea to its extreme, Pope Innocent XI declared abortion impermissible even when a girl's parents were likely to murder her for having become pregnant. The church was still teaching delayed hominization, sure only that hominization occurred some time before birth.

Pope Pius IX (1869) dropped the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus." The soul was believed to have entered the pre-embryo at conception . . . Completely ignoring the question of hominization, Pope Pius IX wrote in Apostolicae Sedis in 1869 that excommunication is the required penalty for abortion at any stage of pregnancy. He said all abortion was homicide. His statement was an implicit endorsement -- the church's first -- of immediate hominization.

Leo XIII (1878-1903):He Issued a decree in 1884 that prohibited craniotomies. This is an unusual form of abortion used under crisis situations late in pregnancy. It is occasionally needed to save the life of the pregnant woman.

He issued a second decree in 1886 that prohitied all procedures that directly killed the fetus, even if done to save the woman's life.

The 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first new edition since Gratian's code in 1140, required excommunication both for a woman who aborts and for any others, such as doctors and nurses, who take part in an abortion.

1930: In his encyclical Casti Connubii (Of Chaste Spouses), Pope Pius XI condemned abortion in general, and specifically in three instances: in the case of therapeutic abortion, which he called the killing of an innocent; in marriage to prevent offspring; and on social and eugenic grounds, as practiced by some governments.

1965: The Second Vatican Council, in Gaudium et Spes (section 51), declared: "Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes." Here, abortion is now condemned on the basis of protecting life, not as a concealment of sexual sin.

In 1974, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith issued the "Declaration on Procured Abortion," which opposes abortion on the grounds that "one can never claim freedom of opinion as a pretext for attacking the rights of others, most especially the right to life." The key to this position is that the fetus is human life from the moment of conception, if not necessarily a full human being. With this position, the church has fully changed the terms of its argument.

Canon law was revised in 1983 to refer simply to "the fetus." The church penalty for abortions at any stage of pregnancy was, and remains, excommunication.

Today: The Catholic church hierarchy today does not permit abortion in any instance, not even in case of rape or as a direct way of saving the life of a pregnant woman

Labels: ABORTION, BIBLE, CATHOLIC, CHRISTIAN
12/04/2009 | Comments

FILMS

THE GARDEN

This is one of the best films we've seen about activism when the chips are really down. A fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles was the largest of its kind in the United States. Started - created after the riots in 1992. but then the land was sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value in a closed-door session of the LA City Council.

The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, they organize, fight back, and demand answers and take it in the chops.

If it's not showing in your area, you can buy the DVD here.

11/24/2009 | Comments

BREVITAS

Religion

As the UN General Assembly prepares to debate a proposal calling for nations to take action against the defamation of religion, majorities in 13 of 20 nations polled around the world support the right to criticize a religion. On average, across all countries polled, 57% of respondents agree that "people should be allowed to publicly criticize a religion because people should have freedom of speech." However, an average of 34% of respondents agree that governments "should have the right to fine or imprison people who publicly criticize a religion because such criticism could defame the religion." Of the seven nations where most people agree with that criticism of religion should be prohibited five have overwhelmingly Muslim populations -- Egypt (71%), Pakistan (62%), Iraq (57%), Indonesia (49%), and the Palestinian territories (51%). Another two -- India (59%) and Nigeria (54%)-- have historically been plagued by sectarian violence.

LA Times - An estimated $10 million a day is smuggled out of Afghanistan, most of it through Kabul International Airport, rather than through secret routes over the mountains or across the desert, the country's minister of finance said today. The amount of corruption, by public officials and officials of private companies, makes him embarrassed to admit while traveling that he is an Afghan, Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal said. "Corruption is a stronger threat than terrorism for Afghanistan," said Zakhilwal, who was appointed in February and is the top financial advisor to President Hamid Karzai. "It is a cancer, a disease. It has destroyed the reputation of Afghanistan."

Politics

TPM - At least one computer containing undercover recordings from the investigation of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has been stolen from the offices of Blago's lawyer, reports a Chicago news outlet. . It's possible the theft could delay Blago's trial, which is scheduled for June. He has been charged with seeking to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat, among other transgressions.

Civil liberties

The San Francisco Chronicle: A novel anti-crime surveillance program that will record the license plate number of every car entering and leaving Tiburon should be up and running within six months, officials said Thursday. The Town Council voted 4-0 - with Vice Mayor Miles Berger absent - to install six cameras that recognize license plate characters on Tiburon Boulevard and Paradise Drive. Those are the only two roads that feed into the Tiburon peninsula, which also includes the smaller city of Belvedere on its southwestern edge. Tiburon will be the first community in the Bay Area, and perhaps the country, to line its borders with the cameras, which have drawn criticism from privacy rights advocates. Plates will be compared to databases of stolen or wanted cars, with matches triggering an immediate alert to local officers. If detectives are investigating a crime, they will be able to search the records to try to find possible suspects.

SF Bay Guardian - San Francisco Police Department officers have added a controversial tactic to their aggressive raids on house parties: they're seizing laptop computers from DJs at the events. While SFPD officials deny the laptop seizures is a new policy, they admit it has been condoned by Police Chief George Gascón, who took over in August . . "The police chief is aware that officers are being proactive in gathering evidence," Sgt. Lyn Tomioka told the Guardian when asked about a string of laptop seizures by undercover cops over the last 10 months, most of them in cases in which the DJs weren't even charged with a crime.

Health & Science

MS Magazine - The Senate approved an amendment to the healthcare insurance reform legislation that requires insurance companies to provide women with free mammograms and other preventative screening services. The amendment was approved on a 61 to 39 vote.
Afghanistan

Sue Sturgis, Facing South - According to the Center for Responsive Politics' Open Secrets database, the top recipient of defense industry money in the 2008 election cycle was Barack Obama, whose haul of $1,029,997 far surpassed Republican contender Sen. John McCain's $696,948.

Drug busts

Change - It costs $48,000 a year to keep an addict in prison, compared to $4,000 to $5,000 for outpatient treatment. . . A Washington Post report demonstrated that the alternative courts -- which funnel people charged with drug crimes to specific judges and courtrooms equipped to handle their cases wisely and offer a range of alternatives to incarceration -- are working, if you can get into them. Only 10% of drug cases nationwide find their way into drug courts.

Science Daily - Scientists may not be able to tell a good book by its cover, but they now can tell the condition of an old book by its smell. In a report in ACS' Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal, they describe development of a new test that can measure the degradation of old books and precious historical documents based on their smell. The nondestructive "sniff" test could help libraries and museums preserve a range of prized paper-based objects, some of which are degrading rapidly due to advancing age, the scientists say.

Furthermore. . .

Rules of Thumb - When going into a store, get a cart from the parking lot, odds are in your favor that it will not have a stuck or wobbly wheel since other shoppers should have exchanged them inside the store.
Af Pak War

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THINGS SCHOOL TEST SCORES DON'T TELL YOU

WHERE THE MONEY WENT

HOSTILITY BETWEEN BRITISH AND AMERICAN MILITARY LEADERS IN IRAQ REVEALED

WHY HELPING LOWER INCOME PEOPLE HELPS REVIVE THE ECONOMY

TRENDS: THE RURALPOLITANS

GALLERY: BEST PLACES FOR RELAXING AND KICKING BACK

POLL FINDS VOTERS LIKE INSTANT RUNOFF BALLOTS

TRYING 9/11 ATTACKERS IN MILITARY COURT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

REPORT: OBAMA USING BLACKWATER FOR PAKISTAN ASSASSINATIONS

ANOTHER GRIMM ECO PREDICTION

ONE IN FOUR HOME MORTGAGE HOLDERS ARE UNDER WATER

THE CASE FOR KIDS GETTING DIRTY

A FIFTH GRADE TEACHER'S TAKE ON 'FORMATIVE' ASSESSMENTS

ANTARCTIC ICE MELTING FASTED THAN THOUGHT

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