Sep 02

Palliative care and compassion

Bioethics, Law, Society No Comments »

This medical specialty is intended to relieve extreme suffering in the final stages of advanced illness and give the dying patient personal care and human dignity. The right-to-die movement has seized on it as yet another inroad to sell its ideology that some lives aren’t worth living, and suffering is an unnecessary evil. And they’re doing it under the guise of ‘compassion.’

Just when a new study shows how acutely beneficial this care really is…

Adding palliative care early to patients’ standard regimens not only improves their quality of life but lengthens their life as well, according to a study published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Unlike traditional hospice care, which is available to patients expected to live no more than six months and typically requires them to forgo curative treatment, palliative care can be offered in addition to regular care, and can start immediately after diagnosis…

Patients in the palliative-care group had a 50% lower depression rate, and that didn’t result from the use of antidepressant drugs, said Dr. Jennifer Temel, lead author of the study and an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

“It’s clearly something about how the palliative-care clinicians were communicating with them and managing them that improved their mood,” she said.

The study may help physicians better understand what the medical specialty of palliative care can offer to patients who are struggling with intense physical and emotional suffering, Temel said.

The former Hemlock Society is using this to suggest to struggling patients a way out. The group renamed themselves ‘Compassion and Choices’ to soft-sell death. Their director recently wrote this letter to the New York Times.

Leven starts by giving kudos to the medical community for offering palliative care, and New York Governor David Paterson for signing into law legislation assuring that patients will be informed of their right to receive it. All the way to the end of the final sentence of the letter, Leven strikes the tone of advocacy for patients and their end of life care.

The law will result in the provision of more and earlier palliative care, which The New England Journal of Medicine study found greatly benefits patients, and more and earlier referrals to hospice, as well as greater respect for patient wishes.

Those last five words hold the key to their agenda. So by sponsoring and advocating for this end of life care, the former Hemlock Society is positioning itself to introduce assisted suicide as one of the options patients may choose, and helping them ask for it more often.

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Sep 01

Killer environmentalism

Culture, Society No Comments »

Every movement has its fringe, its lone rangers, who take an ideology to radical extremes out of fervor for its cause. No matter what the consequences. Or….to produce the exact consequences they perceive will advance an ideology. They may be the unfortunate exception. Or the manifestation of carrying an idea through, on its own course of logic, to its inevitable conclusion.

What happened Wednesday at the Discovery Channel headquarters was the surreal and hellish fury of a ‘radical environmentalist’ enraged….not at the world….but the people who inhabit it.

The gunman, identified as James Lee, was killed by police following four hours of negotiations but the hostages are all safe, said Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger.

Manger said the suspect had “metalic canisters” strapped to his chest and back…

In a rambling manifesto on Lee’s website, believed to have been written by Lee, the writer rails against “disgusting human babies,” “parasitic infants,” and says people should “disassemble civilization.” The manifesto also calls on Discovery to “broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet.”

Furthermore…

“I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it,” the alleged manifesto reads, adding:

“Nothing is more important than saving … the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans.”

Shocked and saddened, two things came to mind rather quickly.

I recalled this MercatorNet article on the activist movement that really wants to save the planet by eliminating people.

And I appreciated again the fundamental message of Humanae Vitae: Once we go down the path of deciding that we can control the creation and elimination of human life, there will be no limit to the transgressions of the power over it.

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Sep 01

After the stem cell ruling

Bioethics, Law, Politics, Science, Society No Comments »

The Obama administration promised to challenge the ruling last week forbidding use of federal funds for embryonic stem cell research. As soon as it came down, the scramble was on.

New guidelines were still being penned as lawyers headed into court trying to halt the changes.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — still reeling from a District Court ruling that blocked the use of federal funds for embryonic cell research — issued new guidance last night detailing how it will comply with the Court’s preliminary injunction.

Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, stunned the medical community when he issued the preliminary injunction against the federal funding saying it was in violation of a 1996 law that forbids the use of such funds when an embryo is destroyed or damaged.

As early as today, the Obama administration is set to appeal the August 23rd ruling.

They were already in the process as that news report came out.

The Obama administration urged a judge to allow federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research to continue while it appeals his decision banning government support for any activity using cells taken from human embryos.

The Justice Department today asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington to put on hold his decision pending an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. The government argued that Lamberth’s preliminary injunction changed the status quo and will itself cause irreparable harm to researchers, taxpayers and scientific progress.

Lifting the ban would allow the government to continue funneling tens of millions of dollars to scientists seeking cures for diseases such as Parkinson’s, spinal cord injuries, and genetic conditions.

Which is what this is all about, money and profit. While all these millions of dollars are funneled to controversial and unsuccessful embryonic stem cell research, grants have been denied or diverted from scientists working on ethical and successful adult stem cell research and therapies. That’s what produced the lawsuit in the first place, since federal law doesn’t permit federal funding of embryo-destructive research, and the Obama administration has skirted that law until now.

White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said in a statement that embryonic stem-cell research is a top priority for the administration. “We’re going to do everything possible to make sure to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences of this injunction.”

That’s the kind of hyperbole surrounding the public opinion campaign marketing the idea that embryonic stem cell research is the only hope for sufferers of degenerative diseases and disabilities.

“The government is seeking a stay of the court’s injunction to prevent the irreparable harm and financial harm that could occur if these lifesaving research projects are forced to abruptly shut down,” Justice Department spokesperson Tracy Schmaler said in a statement. “The great potential for significant additional medical breakthroughs is at risk if this research is halted pending the appeals process.”

Lamberth’s injunction “causes irrevocable harm to the millions of extremely sick or injured people who stand to benefit from continuing research, as well as taxpayers who have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this research through public funding of projcts which will not be forced to shut down,” she said.

(presume that should have read “public funding of projects which will now be forced to shut down”)

At least this forces out details of the spending spree the government has been on with this controversial project.

In a declaration filed with the notice, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said the NIH had invested more than $546 million in the research since 2001 and that therefore the “anticipated financial loss to NIH and the taxpaying public is enormous and would include the hundreds of millions already spent on on interrupted projects and the administative costs of shutting down and restarting the NIH funding, Schmaler said.

The court order prevents the NIH from providing $54 million to 24 projects already underway that were expecting to be renewed by the end of September, Collins said….

In addition, $270 million that has already been spent on these grants “will have been wasted as investigators and labs can neither finish their curent projects nor pursue what has been learned,” the statement said.

Got that? Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars “wasted” on science that was unproven, unsuccessful and unlawful and unethical.

The court ruled that such research is likely to be in violation of federal law known as the “Dickey/Wicker Amendment” that prohibits federal funds from being used on research that involves the destruction of human embryos…

“If one step…of an ESC [embryonic stem cell] research project results in the destruction of an embryo, the entire project is precluded from receiving federal funding,” the district court’s preliminary injunction order states.  “Because ESC research requires the derivation of ESCs, ESC research is research in which an embryo is destroyed.  Accordingly, the Court concludes that, by allowing federal funding of ESC research, the Guidelines are in violation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.”

Such clarification from the Alliance Defense Fund helped make the case they presented to the D.C. Circuit Court, which led to this ruling.

“The American people should not be forced to pay for experiments – prohibited by federal law – that destroy human life,” says ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden.  “The court is simply enforcing an existing law passed by Congress that liberates Americans from paying for needless, destructive research on human embryos.

Some hundreds of millions of dollars, and countless human lives, later.

But the government is after the ruling and this is, for now, a temporary stay. Of execution, so to speak.

On Aug. 27, researchers inside the NIH who work with human embryonic stem cells were instructed to “initiate procedures to terminate these projects” in a memo from Michael Gottesman, deputy director for intramural research…

Better than terminating life. And better to give funding to the projects that are producing really promising and successful results.

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Aug 30

What to make of the rally

Culture, Media, Politics, Society No Comments »

The massive rally on the mall of Washington over the weekend has the media in a tangle. It was larger and more peaceful and more positive and less political than they expected, and this is all territory largely foreign to them. How to account for what they’re all calling ‘Glenn Beck’s rally’?

Though it was more about recovering personal virtue than replacing political parties, the CS Monitor suggests some politicians may have cause for concern.

Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington Saturday could not have been an encouraging sign for Democrats and the Obama administration.

The crowd was huge by any count – likely at least a couple hundred thousand people judging by aerial photos and the reported comments of some police officers – stretching from the Lincoln Memorial back to the Washington Monument.

And far from being a gathering of self-proclaimed rabble rousers carrying offensive signs insulting of President Obama, as has often been the case with “tea party” rallies spurred on by Mr. Beck, it was mostly a heartfelt and largely nonpartisan expression of civic concern, patriotism, and religious faith.

In other words, there may have been some Democrats in the crowd, but even they are likely not happy with the direction the country’s taking, according to recent polls – including the policies and programs pushed by the majority party in Congress and the White House.

And yet, this was a new Beck on a new mission, calling out Americans to change what’s wrong with the country by changing what’s wrong with themselves.

“We must get the poison of hatred out of us,” he told the crowd. “We must look to God and look to love. We must defend those we disagree with.”

This from a man who has called Obama “a racist” and likened Al Gore’s campaign against global climate change to “what Hitler did” in having scientists use eugenics to justify the Holocaust.

Which drives Beck’s critics nuts.

It’s driving them nuts partly because Beck is doing exactly what Obama did in 2007-2008, and doing it nearly as well. Most media don’t seem to be getting that, but in this NPR review of differing viewpoints on the rally, someone does.

At the widely read conservative webste HotAir.com, blogger “Allahpundit” thinks that “in a way, the rally … mirrored rallies held for then-candidate Barack Obama in 2007 and leading up to the election of 2008. Both this rally and many of Obama’s featured mesmerizing speakers, who chose to inspire audiences by rhetorically empowering them to take matters into their own hands.” But, Allahpundit adds, “while Beck’s rally emphasized belief in God, Obama’s generally emphasized himself as a savior of the American people.”

The comparison is both valid and important to understand. Obama was a masterful community organizer. The country has learned that skill from him and learned it well, and it’s working to galvanize individuals into a communal force for change.

That they rallied on this particular occasion where they did posed a problem, some say a huge offense.

The rally took place on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech.

Beck is asking for a return to traditional American values, but the Reverend Al Sharpton accused him of trying to hijack King’s legacy.

“They want to disgrace this day. This is our day and we’re not giving it up,” said Sharpton.

With all due respect, I take issue with this claim. Dr. King’s niece, Dr. Alveda King, took a prominent and active role in “Beck’s rally” at the site where her uncle delivered his impassioned rallying cry for the nation to ennoble itself and its citizens by recognizing the dignity of all humans. She has worked for years within the pro-life movement to promote King’s ideals and goals of realizing universal human rights across the spectrum, without exception. Her participation in Beck’s rally dignified it. Attacks like this disgrace the cause of unity King embodied.

“This is our day and we’re not giving it up”? What does this say? Dr. Martin Luther King said, passionately, that his dream is for a country that judges a person not by the color of their skin but the content of their character. It was an address about race as a highlight of the fundamental issue of human dignity. It dishonors Dr. King to narrowly and angrily claim that his rally belonged to one race and not the entire nation it sought to free from hatred and fear and rancor and division.

In Dr. King’s speech, just after he says

I have a dream that one day…right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

…he goes on to say what has far less been quoted:

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

He was a Christian preacher. He quoted the Gospel, and called on the nation to recall and embrace the meaning of ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee.‘

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

Many people are trying to do that still…and again.

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Aug 28

Human drama beneath the earth

Society No Comments »

They call it “the Miracle of the San Jose Mine.” It is captivating.

This story could not have been scripted.

The collapse occurred at around at around 2 p.m., sending up a massive dust cloud…The day after the cave-in, civil defense officials had mustered a 40-man rescue crew to go in after the missing miners. But the mission nearly wrought another tragedy, as the rescuers confronted a cascade of falling rock and buckling walls. “Rocks, dust, darkness, heat,” said fire captain Rafael Gonzalez Perez. “It was impossible.”…

Unable to send in rescuers to fetch the miners, the government shifted to Plan B: Drilling down from the surface after the trapped men.

But after a couple of days, the effort was looking like a geological shot in the dark. Engineers were finding the maps of mine weren’t accurate. “The situation is very complex,” President Piñera said at the time. “The mine continues collapsing. It has a geologic fault. The mine is alive and that enormously obstructs rescue work.”

But that’s when the miracle happened.

A little after 6 a.m. last Sunday the probe broke through an underground chamber, a short distance from the miners’ main shelter. The 28-year-old drill operator, Eduardo Guerra, thought he felt some vibrations coming from below. Some engineers came over with stethoscopes and said they heard something, too. When Mr. Guerra pulled the probe out of the ground, a plastic bag had been attached to the drill tip with cable and rubber bands.

Inside the bag was a note painted in red: “We are well in the shelter the 33.”

It gives you chills. Did me, anyway.

They are affectionately, emotionally, known as “Los 33.”

The men have captured the attention of the world by surviving longer underground than all but a handful of mine accident victims.

And now that workers have crafted a delivery system to send supplies and receive communication from the trapped crew, we can see them and hear their personal accounts and we are locked in this tense human drama together. No matter where we are, we are all there. 

One of Latin America’s most advanced economies, Chile has been a darling on Wall Street for its free-market ethos. Its capital, Santiago, is clean and modern, with a scaled-down version of the Chrysler Building. But despite the emergence of other industries, including finance and construction, mining remains the bedrock of the economy, accounting for the biggest share of exports and output.

But look at this…

The accident and rescue have allowed Chileans to get acquainted with people who are responsible for much of the country’s prosperity, but remain largely hidden from view due to the very nature of their work.

I read that line and thought ‘how many people this represents in the world.’

But now that they’re trapped underground, they are more visible to the world than ever. And what they show us about ourselves….or the capacity of the human spirit….is stunning.

When the miners broke out into a ragged chorus of the national anthem after the first telephone contact was made with them on Monday, it was as “as though we couldn’t believe that some countrymen are still that way, of that caliber and that timber,” wrote Daniel Mansuy, a professor of political philosophy, in the Santiago newspaper La Tercera.

It galvanized seemingly everyone.

Families at the site started hunkering down for a long haul, putting up tents or crude lean-tos made of garbage bags stretched above poles. Dubbed Campamento Esperanza, Camp Hope, the place took on a somewhat surreal air. The government started trucking in water and food, as well as sending counselors, cooks and kindergarten teachers. Shrines with votive candles and statues of baby-faced Saint Lorenzo, the patron saint of miners who is often decked out in a hard hat, sprang up alongside television satellite trucks and portalets…

They are relying as much on faith as on human endeavor now, in these desperate times.

Carolina Lobos, daughter of trapped miner and former football star Franklin Lobos, told reporters: “We have all changed because of this. Before it was not very common for people in my family to say ‘I love you’ or ‘I miss you’. Now I call my mum every night, I tell her how much I love her and send kisses. Now we are all valuing much more the people we have by our sides.”…

Meanwhile, a nation watches and does what it can to help. In this lost corner of the Atacama desert, one of the world’s driest spots, it is as if Chile had suddenly sprouted flags, tents and crude shrines to the 33 men. A spirit of solidarity has descended upon this rocky no-man’s land. Without a formal petition for aid or a website, volunteers throughout Chile arrive to bring support – moral, physical and monetary – to the families of the trapped miners.

“The country has shown a unity regardless of religion or social class. You see people arriving here just to volunteer, they have no relation at all to these families,” said Ivan Viveros Aranas, a Chilean policeman working at Camp Hope…

With experts ranging from Nasa doctors to submarine commanders, a team of 300 specialists co-ordinated by the Chilean government has spent the past week scrambling to design a programme of medicine, entertainment and exercise aimed at keeping the 33 men alive and stable for the duration of the rescue operation. Mañalich, one of the co-ordinators, admits he is often in virgin territory. “To my knowledge, this is a singular experience in human history.”

It’s still unfolding. And we’re in this inescapable drama together.

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Aug 28

Shifting political labels

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Before this year, it was already an intriguing question to wonder what the reference point was for left and right on the political compass, the question of what constituted center. Whatever the answer was, it has certainly changed.

As state primaries continue to lead into the Fall mid-term elections, more and more observations like this are popping up.

Republicans are energized, Democrats are not (right now), and the economy is hardly humming — all of which are a recipe for significant Republican gains in November. But when we head into the 2012 presidential election, when the electorate expands, you got to wonder if a Republican Party that doesn’t have room for a John McCain of 2001-2007, a Charlie Crist of 2007-2008, or a Lisa Murkowski of 2010 can reclaim the center of American politics and the presidency, even if they gain control of Congress in the fall. Then again, the center will judge the GOP on not just how it conducts itself if they get the majority, but on the results.

Reclaim the center of American politics? From whom? Democrats don’t control that turf. Many self-identified moderates believed Barack Obama represented a new era of post-partisan reasonableness. They’ve been joining disenfranchised conservatives in the burgeoning populist movement to reform government, loosely aligned under the Tea Party tent. Or just looking for someone to believe in, wandering in the political desert. Which is quite expansive at the moment.

And btw….let’s recall that the Democrats didn’t have room for a Robert Casey of 1992, a Joe Lieberman of 2006, an Evan Bayh of 2010 or a Bart Stupak of 2009….among others.

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Aug 28

Competing rallies, same essential message

Media, Politics, Society No Comments »

Restore, renew, reclaim. Two rallies take place today in Washington on this anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. One is on the spot where Dr. King delivered that famous oration. The other nearby, but headed to the Mall as well. They’re being reported as being two very different groups of activists in tension, having two competing messages. But they’re not. Or….need not be.

This WaPo story is an early snapshot of the whole thing, both as it is (facts are there) and as it’s being portrayed by the press and certain politicians (information is arranged strategically). Television host and commentator Glenn Beck organized the “Restoring Honor” rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Rev. Al Sharpton arranged the “Reclaim the Dream” rally to begin at Dunbar High School and continue in a march to the Mall.

Actually, both groups are claiming very similar purposes and have similar messages.

Beck’s is the headlined event. He opened with this:

“We have had moments of brilliance and moments of darkness. But this country has spent far too long worried about scars and thinking about the scars and concentrating on the scars. Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished – and the things that we can do tomorrow. The story of America is the story of humankind.”

A lot of participants are telling the media that’s the message that drew them to attend this event.

Beck’s rally has been billed as a peaceful and non-political “re-dedication” of the traditional honor and values of the nation. The event is taking place on the same stage where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years ago to the day, a coincidence that has caused controversy.

It wouldn’t seem to be a coincidence, and at this point you have to wonder what’s so controversial about a rally to inspire honor and dignity on the spot where Dr. King delivered his inspirational speech. But WaPo tells you in so many words, by noting the crowd was “overwhelmingly white.” (Cue reader to be race conscious.) Also…

The crowd, consisting of many from the Midwest and the South, was not visibly angry.

There were probably many from other parts of the country, too, but that line is another cue to think stereotypes.

Sarah Palin’s participation in Beck’s rally, no matter what she said, was sure to draw the most attention. And at last check, media stories (including this WaPo one) ran video of her on their front page. Her early comments:

Palin said she was speaking not as a politician, but as the mother of a combat veteran. Evoking the legacies of King, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Palin called on Americans to restore traditional values to the country.

“We must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want,” Palin said. “We must restore America and restore her honor.”

“Here today, at the crossroads of our history, may this day be the change point,” Palin said. “Look around you. You’re not alone. You are Americans! You have the same steel spine and the moral courage of Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King. It is in you. It will sustain you as it sustained them.”

So now the focus goes to the “counter-demonstration” nearby, starting with a quote from one attendee “who arrived early to show her opposition to Beck.”

“If we hadn’t elected a black president, do you think they would be doing this today?” she asked.

Why inject race and controversy into a day of reflection and inspiration? But there’s more here…

[Baltimore resident Tehuti] Imhotep shouted at passersby: “This is our real history. [Beck's] trying to redefine the civil rights movement. How insensitive! King was about bringing people together. This man Beck is pulling people apart.” 

How? Dr. King’s niece, civil rights activist Dr. Alveda King, was a featured speaker at Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, the article doesn’t note.

Fox News did a live interview at the “Reclaim the Dream” rally with the Dunbar High School principal, a very thoughtful man who had nothing but positive words about encouraging students to achieve honor by setting and pursuing noble goals.

I’m hearing the same message in both groups, and wish they would get together.

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Aug 26

Stem cell drama

Bioethics, Law, Media, Politics, Science, Society No Comments »

What timing. Just as I’m hurrying to leave town and have no time to blog, this major stem cell decision comes down and the media go apoplectic and there’s so much to say and I’ve no time to say it….

Michael Cook did a far better job than I would have, anyway, so I’m relieved to point you there.

If you’re not already familiar with the story, the basics are that a federal judge blocked federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, because it violates federal law. Let’s look at a few key snips from this Chicago Tribune story:

The ruling came in the form of a preliminary injunction in a case involving two scientists who challenged the Obama administration’s stem cell funding policy, which was designed to expand federal support for the controversial research.

That’s a loaded sentence. Those two scientists happen to work on adult stem cell research and therapy, the only sort proven to be promising and successful. But the Obama adminstration’s funding policy has been stretched to cover previously unacceptable and frankly unsuccessful research on human embryos. Why? Because pop science drove up investments in the biotech industry at a frenetic pace several years ago when pop media used beloved actors like Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox to convince the public that the only compassionate way to help people who suffered from disabilities and degenerative disease was by voting for embryonic stem cell research……though the ads never specified that the stem cell research they were promoting was on embryos.

In the intervening years, it didn’t pan out. But you didn’t hear that from big media. So reporting on this ruling was as hyperbolic in declaring fake doom as those ads were in selling false science.

Embryonic stem cell researchers said the decision would throw the field into turmoil…

“It’s going to be chaos,” Trounson said. Researchers will have to furlough some of their staff in order to keep their labs open, he predicted.

Then there’s this gem…

UCLA law professor Russell Korobkin, an expert on stem cell legal issues, said the ruling was “a terrible decision.”

By considering all research part of an unbreakable continuum, the decision implies that the Dickey-Wicker Amendment has no limits, which is an unconvincing interpretation, Korobkin said. “It suggests that by conducting research on an acorn a scientist would also be conducting research on an oak tree, because acorns come from oak trees,” he said.

Aside from the assault to dignity and sensibility of comparing humans to trees, this argument breaks down even further on the assumption that as an acorn will only later become a tree, an embryo will only later become a human being. When, in fact (easily learned from basic medical texts) the human embryo is a complete human being already in existence.

In June 2008, a 7-4 majority decision threw out [Judge] Schreier’s order, clearing the way for the informed-consent law to take effect. The court found that the state of South Dakota’s “evidence suggests that the biological sense in which the embryo or fetus is whole, separate, unique and living should be clear in context to a physician.”

Embryonic stem cell research was never grounded in truth. In its own convoluted way, this New York times article finally arrives at that conclusion, in a roundabout way.

“Things are very much in flux,” [Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch] said. “We will probably need human embryonic stem cells for a while. And then we probably will not need them anymore.”

As bioethics expert Nancy Valko notes:

If embryonic stem cell research is so ethical and promising, why is the goal not to use them?  The reality is that embryonic stem cell research doesn’t seem to be working as supporters promised.

And that is clearer all the time.

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Aug 22

‘Mentality of dissent dominating the intelligentsia’

Church, Culture, Geopolitics, Politics, Society No Comments »

Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet has just been elevated to a more prominent and acutely consequential role in the church. He didn’t get there by mincing words for political correctness.

He’s used to the spotlight, and uses it well.

During Cardinal Ouellet’s eight years as the archbishop of Quebec City and primate of Canada, he has become known as one of the country’s greatest defenders of faith, life, and the family.

This past spring he drew sharp criticism, from within and outside the Church, after he reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of unborn life, even in cases of rape. He later unapologetically reiterated his views on abortion in a press conference arranged to address the controversy.

He has drawn attention and fire, and Ouellet has welcomed it. The head of the Quebec bishops’ assembly has criticized Ouellet for his public witness, saying: “There are times when it is more important to keep silent than to speak.”

It gave him the opportunity to respond

that in addition to fearlessly preaching the teachings of the Church, bishops must embrace them deeply.  “Then you have the power of conviction,” he said.
 
“If you state it only formally and in the end you do not really want to see it applied because you don’t believe that it is possible that people accept it, you are in trouble for the transmission of the message,” he added.

The cardinal, further, said the Church needs what [the Canadian Catholic News] called a “new intellectual dynamism” to “recapture the spirit of Christianity” and “create a new Christian culture.”
 
“We need intellectuals for that, theologians, philosophers, Christians who really believe in the Gospel and share the doctrine of the Church on moral questions,” he said.  “We have suffered from this mentality of dissent” that is “still dominating the intelligentsia.”
 
“There is no real discipleship there, real discipleship,” he added. “The discipleship that is emerging is from those who believe and who really love the Church.”

Oulett’s new job suits him and the church well.

In his new position as head of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Ouellet will assist the pope in choosing the next generation of the world’s bishops.

In that role, he told [Canadian Catholic News], he will seek out bold “men of faith” with “the guts to help people live it out.”

Can’t come soon enough.

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Aug 21

Instituting a dress code

Church, Culture, Education, Society No Comments »

Somebody in authority had to say it, and we’re not hearing it much in churches and schools. People are coming to public institutions poorly, shabbily or inappropriately dressed.

It took judges to remind us that it’s not judgmental to uphold and apply standards.

If you’re headed to traffic court in Bakersfield, Calif., better leave the flip-flops at home.

Have a court appearance in district court in Inkster, Mich.? Jeans are on the not-to-wear list.

And don’t even think of wearing short shorts to court in Dover, Del.

Judges in those jurisdictions and others across the USA are cracking down on skimpy, sloppy or what they consider inappropriate attire in an effort to maintain decorum and beef up security.

It’s about time. The concept of “inappropriate attire” needs to be revisited in our culture. ‘Decorum’ has only gone out of fashion in the language, but not in human behavior.

The headmaster of my son’s middle-school put it succinctly in an address to parents years ago when he explained that we tend to act as we dress, and when the young men are dressed in uniform with shirts tucked in and belts and ties, they act appreciably more civilized than on ‘dress down days’…

The USA Today piece quotes National Center for State Courts adviser Timothy Fautsko as saying something similar…that a dress code maintains order in the courtroom and upholds the dignity of the court. Bravo.

Courts are a place where serious business is conducted, and that demands appropriate attire, says Delaware Superior Court Judge William Witham Jr.

“We’re not out to treat people as school kids, but we do expect if you come to court, you need to treat it with the appropriate respect and dignity it should deserve due to the occasion,” he says.

And to church.

And by the way, the school kids need this reminder, too.

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