Monthly Archives: October 2019

Opinion | Catholic Bishops Agree: Anything but a Woman – By Sara McDougall – The New York Times

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By Sara McDougall

Dr. McDougall is an associate professor of history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.

Credit…Remo Casilli/Reuters

“The modern Catholic Church is beset with serious problems. Among them is that not enough men want to be priests. Over the past three weeks, 184 bishops gathered at a Vatican summit to seek solutions for the Amazon region in particular, singled out because of myriad crises it is facing, including environmental devastation, violence and a shortage of priests to serve the needs of the faithful there.

The bishops’ solution: Do anything other than ordaining women as priests.

On Oct. 26, in a “revolutionary” decision, the bishops gathered at the Vatican voted 128 to 41 to allow an exception to what has essentially been a 1,000-year ban on the ordination of married men as priests. They recommended this change for only certain parts of the Amazon and for only married men already made deacons, meaning men already allowed to perform marriages and baptisms, but not to officiate at mass, which only priests can do. It is now for Pope Francis to decide whether the decision goes forward.

It is surprising in many ways that the bishops made this decision. Allowing a married man to be a priest violates several longstanding rules. They voted as they did despite the tremendous importance of chastity for the Catholic Church and the old idea that sexual activity is a pollutant that cannot be allowed near the holy ritual of the mass. They voted in favor of married priests despite a longstanding fear that for a priest to have a wife and a family would lead to serious conflicts of interest. There is a legend that the word “nepotism” was invented in honor of the grasping nephews of popes who sought and obtained more than they deserved thanks to their powerful uncles (and “nephews” we can sometimes see as a euphemism for “sons”).

These potential conflicts of interest and other dangers that family influence and obligations bring, therefore, are something Catholic authorities have long recognized and have eagerly sought to prevent. They voted as they did despite the symbolic importance, too, of the idea that a priest be united to only one spouse, the Church, just as Jesus Christ was united in an exclusive bond with the Church.”

Amen. Check out the recommended comments for this op-ed:

Papercut61
Nevada
Times Pick

I am a 71-year-old woman who has been a practicing member of the Catholic church since I was baptized at one week old. I don’t know anyone of my generation whose children or grandchildren are church members. I cannot evangelize for a church which discriminates against me while paying out millions of dollars in reparations for, literally, the sins of the fathers. The bright spot is my 75-year-old cousin who left the convent after 25 years and joined the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. Of course, she was excommunicated. But she is the future of the Catholic Church, if there is to be one.

3 Replies823 Recommended

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Madeline Conant commented October 30

Madeline Conant
Midwest
Times Pick

The greatest boon to human rights that the Catholic Church could institute would be to help free impoverished women of the 3rd World from the slavery of uninterrupted childbearing. End the ban on artificial contraception.

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R commented October 30

R
Bay Area
Times Pick

Amen to this OpEd. I saw the news on the church allowing married men to be ordained, and my first thought was “still no women.” Unbelievable. I‘ve never understood how so many women give of their time, money, and beliefs for a religious organization that doesn’t support their equality. And now, in this time, to emphasize that fact by again excluding women while opening up the clergy to married men – it’s just tone deaf.

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Frank commented October 30

Frank
Brooklyn
Times Pick

as an ex seminarian, I have seen both extremely decent, compassionate priests and those who literally went through the motions and couldn’t care less about their priestly duties. more importantly, I have seen many women who served as so called secretaries or clerical assistants who were as competent and compassionate as any priest. I think women, who were priests in the church’s early days, would do a wonderful job and solve the clergy shortage problem. the church must move into the modern age.

1 Reply486 Recommended

Opinion | It’s the End of California as We Know It – By Farhad Manjoo – The New York Times

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By Farhad Manjoo

Opinion Columnist

Credit…Jose Carlos Fajardo/San Jose Mercury News, via Associated Press

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“I have lived nearly all my life in California, and my love for this place and its people runs deep and true. There have been many times in the past few years when I’ve called myself a California nationalist: Sure, America seemed to be going crazy, but at least I lived in the Golden State, where things were still pretty chill.

But lately my affinity for my home state has soured. Maybe it’s the smoke and the blackouts, but a very un-Californian nihilism has been creeping into my thinking. I’m starting to suspect we’re over. It’s the end of California as we know it. I don’t feel fine.

It isn’t just the fires — although, my God, the fires. Is this what life in America’s most populous, most prosperous state is going to be like from now on? Every year, hundreds of thousands evacuating, millions losing power, hundreds losing property and lives? Last year, the air near where I live in Northern California — within driving distance of some of the largest and most powerful and advanced corporations in the history of the world — was more hazardous than the air in Beijing and New Delhi. There’s a good chance that will happen again this month, and that it will keep happening every year from now on. Is this really the best America can do?”

Opinion | The Rules of Impeachment – The New York Times

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“. . .  Central to the resolution’s ambitions are ensuring order, transparency and fairness as the inquiry moves to the public stage. Rules are being set for conducting public hearings (including who gets to question whom and for how long), publicly disclosing depositions and issuing subpoenas. Guidelines have been established for the participation of Mr. Trump and his lawyers and the transfer of evidence from other committees to the Judiciary Committee, where any articles of impeachment would be considered. The rules providing for the minority party to call its own witnesses are basically the same as those set by Republicans during the Clinton impeachment.

Indeed, many of the procedures outlined in the resolution, and in a related set of procedures drawn up by the Judiciary Committee, are in line with those followed in the impeachment inquiries in 1974 and 1998. These include the president receiving copies of all evidentiary material; the president and his counsel being invited to all hearings; and his counsel being permitted to ask questions at the presentation of evidence, submit evidence on the president’s behalf, question witnesses, object to the questioning of witnesses and so on.

Perhaps the most notable departure from precedent is a provision concerning the Judiciary Committee stipulating that if the president “unlawfully” refuses to make witnesses or evidentiary material available to the investigating committees, “the chair shall have the discretion to impose appropriate remedies, including by denying specific requests by the president or his counsel under these procedures to call or question witnesses.” “

Opinion | Aaron Sorkin: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg – The New York Times

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By Aaron Sorkin

Mr. Sorkin is a playwright and screenwriter.

Credit…Merrick Morton/Columbia Pictures, via Everett Collection

“Mark,

In 2010, I wrote “The Social Network” and I know you wish I hadn’t. You protested that the film was inaccurate and that Hollywood didn’t understand that some people build things just for the sake of building them. (We do understand that — we do it every day.)

I didn’t push back on your public accusation that the movie was a lie because I’d had my say in the theaters, but you and I both know that the screenplay was vetted to within an inch of its life by a team of studio lawyers with one client and one goal: Don’t get sued by Mark Zuckerberg.

It was hard not to feel the irony while I was reading excerpts from your recent speech at Georgetown University, in which you defended — on free speech grounds — Facebook’s practice of posting demonstrably false ads from political candidates. I admire your deep belief in free speech. I get a lot of use out of the First Amendment. Most important, it’s a bedrock of our democracy and it needs to be kept strong.

But this can’t possibly be the outcome you and I want, to have crazy lies pumped into the water supply that corrupt the most important decisions we make together. Lies that have a very real and incredibly dangerous effect on our elections and our lives and our children’s lives.”

David Lindsay:   Here are the top, most recommened NYT comments, which I supported:

Didier
Charleston. WV

If Facebook is really about people joining together to share their lives, it should follow Twitter’s lead and ban all political advertising. People can still discuss politics and Facebook will survive without the revenue from those who would use its platform to disseminate lies. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.

14 Replies1355 Recommended

 
Mary commented 5 hours ago

Mary
Lake Worth FL

When did free speech become synonymous with spreading lies for profit? When did antitrust laws disappear and corporations become we the people. When did it become ok to destroy truth if the price is right?

8 Replies1130 Recommended

 
David commented 5 hours ago

David
Major

Bravo. Most in media are scared to attack facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg this honestly and directly. Hopefully this is a piece that will bring more voices to the fore…. Antitrust as we know it today must evolve…and do so quickly or we will all pay much more dearly…

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Just Ben commented 5 hours ago

Just Ben
Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico

Wishful thinking: No, Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t care about the damage his site does. That’s clear from both his actions and his words. The only things that motivate him are greed and growth. A solution is to write the “law”, or un-write it: repeal the exemption from the Communications Decency Act (which ought have been called the Communications Indecency Act) that shields Facebook from liability for what it publishes. Then, with any luck at all, lawsuits will put Facebook out of business lickety-split.

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Opinion | Here’s How to Compensate College Athletes – By Roger Pielke Jr. – The New York Times

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By Roger Pielke Jr.

Dr. Pielke is a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. who has written about sports governance issues.

Credit…Rick Bowmer/Associated Press

“A month ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed legislation that will allow college athletes in the state to profit from their sports celebrity by promoting products and companies. Other states quickly moved in the same direction, and on Tuesday the N.C.A.A., the governing body of college sports, bowed to the inevitable after long opposing the move.

The group’s governing board voted unanimously to allow student-athletes “the opportunity to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness.” The board directed the organization’s three divisions to develop new rules to begin no later than January 2021.

While the details of this “modernization” remain vague and it is unclear how student-athletes will be allowed to “benefit,” the new rules will be “consistent with the collegiate model,” according to the organization. By that, the N.C.A.A. means “consistent with the values of college sports within higher education.”

Professors like me already follow a “collegiate model” for receiving revenue from intellectual property created by university research we do. This model provides an obvious and straightforward solution to the challenges of compensating athletes based on their name, image and likeness. Just treat athletes like others on campus.

In 1978, Joe Allen, a member of the staff of Senator Birch Bayh, a Democrat of Indiana, discovered that of the 28,000 patents owned by the federal government through government-funded research, only about 5 percent were being commercialized. This was a dismal record for a nation investing hundreds of billions of dollars in science and technology. Senator Bayh teamed up with Senator Bob Dole, a Kansas Republican, to propose legislation to fundamentally change how universities commercialized their discoveries.

Signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, the Bayh-Dole Act allows universities to retain ownership of patents that result from federally funded research and to share any revenues that result with professors and other researchers whose work led to the discoveries. For instance, at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where I work, 50 percent of such revenue is split equally between the researcher’s personal and research accounts, and the remaining 50 percent is divided equally between the university system and the campus.”

David Lindsay: It is hard to be smart. I really liked the idea above, until I read the comments. Here are the top three which I liked.

ML
Washington, D.C.
Times Pick

This is really about two sports and only two sports for men – football and basketball. Those are the money makers. Why not break up the unholy alliance between the NCAA and the NFL and NBA? Abolish any requirement for college experience to play in those leagues. Let those leagues set up a “farm system” like MLB. Let those athletes who still choose to go to college be true student-athletes. Oh, I know why the NCAA has no interest in this – the NCAA desperately wants to keep profits high for it’s cash cows.

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David commented 4 hours ago

David
Louisiana
Times Pick

Athletics don’t belong in institutions of higher learning anyways. We are the only nation in the world that ties the two together, it’s time to separate that. The NFL and NBA use our colleges as taxpayer funded minor leagues to the detriment of the academic side of things.

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MA commented 4 hours ago

MA
Brooklyn, NY
Times Pick

All college sports should be division III sports. That is, a fun and character-building pastime for people pursuing real careers. People who want to be professional athletes should go into professional sports right out of high school. The NFL and NBA could easily set up minor leagues (like MLB and NHL). Get sports out of college. Sports are overly prioritized; they draw resources and attention away from college’s true mission, academics. My college sports friends fear that if college athletes are paid, this will “ruin” college sports by making them too expensive for colleges to run. I hope so; this is exactly how it should be.

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Opinion | Being Gay Hurts Mayor Pete. It Helps, Too. – By Frank Bruni – The New York Times

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By Frank Bruni

Opinion Columnist

Credit…Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg, via Getty Images

“Pete Buttigieg vaulted into the top four of a crowded Democratic presidential field because he has an agile intellect, is fiercely articulate and both espouses and embodies a fresh perspective that many voters of all stripes crave.

He also got there because he’s gay.

He’d be the first to acknowledge that. In fact he did acknowledge it when we spoke last June about the state of L.G.B.T.Q. rights in America. Referring to his sexual orientation and his marriage to another man, he told me, “It’s safe to say that it led to there being more interest and attention early on.” He stood out among the dozens of Democratic aspirants, each desperate to do precisely that.

But there’s a big difference between winning over enough Americans to land in his current position — he placed second, behind Elizabeth Warren, in one survey of Iowa voters last week — and having an appeal broad enough to nab the party’s nomination, let alone the White House. Is being gay an insurmountable obstacle on the path to those prizes?

Anyone who answers with an unequivocal yes or no is just guessing.

The question is now being asked more urgently than before, as the primary contests draw closer and many Democrats simultaneously assess the risks of the two front-runners, Warren and Joe Biden, and survey the field anew, wondering if anyone in the tier of candidates just below them might be a better opponent for Donald Trump. Their gazes invariably fall on Buttigieg, but their apprehensions include whether America could really elect a gay president.”

David Lindsay: Thank you Frank Bruni.

Here are the top comments, all of which I recommended:

Dave T.
The California Desert
Times Pick

I don’t know whether being gay is a plus or minus for Pete Buttigieg. It’s a plus for me, a gay man, but well down the list of reasons I will vote for him, including having an agile intellect, being fiercely articulate and espousing and embodying a fresh perspective that many voters of all stripes crave (thanks, Frank.) I’d also add reasons like not pandering, not bellowing and not being 70+ (I am 62.) So I’m voting for Pete Buttigieg in California’s primary and I hope he wins. Even if he doesn’t, I’m still voting for whomever the Democrats nominate to defeat the traitor currently in The White House. I hope everyone else will also vote blue, no matter who, because we are teetering on a precipice.

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SC commented October 29

SC
Midwest
Times Pick

If Ireland, a staunchly Catholic and, for decades, a very socially conservative country, could vote for a young gay prime minister, then maybe the US too could vote for a young gay President. Irish voters looked to someone who had great political gifts, intellect, personality and experience. Perhaps Ametican voters will respond to some of these same qualities in Buttigieg.

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KJ commented October 29

KJ
Tennessee
Times Pick

When I lived in California I worked with and became friends with many gay individuals, and came to realize that a huge percentage of them combined the best of both sexes. Male nurses with physical strength and the tenderness to work with fragile individuals. Female IT experts with the drive and ambition usually associated with males, but who worked cooperatively rather that coveting accolades. And parents who loved their kids no matter what. Buttigieg is special. Intensely intelligent, nonjudgmental, practical, and just plain decent. His personality or may not be influenced by his sexuality, but it’s beyond hypocritical for philandering, sexist, or racist individuals to make it an issue. Our country needs competence and fairness more than a first lady.

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JB commented October 29

JB
Los Angeles
Times Pick

Notwithstanding Mayor Pete’s obvious intellectual abilities and communication skills, it is a wonder that people find mayor him to be too inexperienced or too young to be president. Compared to the current occupant of the White House, who had no experience in anything other than grift and a host of other illicit activities, Mayor Pete would be a breath of fresh air.

8 Replies638 Recommended

Opinion | Trump, Zuckerberg & Pals Are Breaking America – By Thomas L. Friedman – The New York Times

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By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

Credit…Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“If America’s worst enemies had spent years designing a plan to erode our greatest strengths, they could not have done better than what some of our fellow citizens are doing to the country every day for short-term financial or political gain.

Prominent figures in government, politics and commerce are behaving in ways that are so destructive of the core institutions and norms that underpin our democracy, one can only assume that they take the country’s stability as a given — that they can abuse and stress it all they want and it won’t break.

They are wrong. We can break America, and right now we’re on our way there. Not in the Cold War, not during Vietnam, not during Watergate did I ever fear more for my country.

This moment “is like Wall Street before the financial crisis, when everyone just took for granted that the system was forever stable,” remarked Gautam Mukunda, research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of “Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter.” “

“. . .  And, finally, there’s the internet barons who for too long ignored the weaponization of social media, which is turning our free press into a house of mirrors, where citizens can no longer cognitively discern fact from fiction and make informed judgments essential for democracy.

I watch it all and wonder: “Are you really doing that? Do you all go home at night to some offshore island where the long-term damage you’re doing to America doesn’t matter?”

Here is my question to the NYT, and the two top comments, which I recommended.

David Lindsay Jr.
Hamden, CT |
Does the NYT and most other newspapers fact check political ads before running them?

 

Socrates commented October 29

Socrates
Downtown Verona. NJ
Times Pick

Zuckerberg has a lot of social problems for a guy who runs a social network. You would think he’d have a special sensitivity to the obvious human horrors of propaganda that we all know helped destroy European society eighty years ago. You would think that his education and rarified, privileged status might endow him with a sliver of humanity, wisdom and goodwill toward others, but instead he appears to be just a run-of-the-mill greedy corporate soul who has trouble seeing the destruction he and his Frankenstein invention have wrought on society. Most people don’t read much…most people don’t research much….most people aren’t great critical thinkers….many people are easily duped…most people aren’t well-informed…and these folks love Facebook and their minds are easily hijacked by professional gaslighters, liars and propagandists; Facebook allows these folks to be specifically targeted and manipulated into the twilight zone thanks to Facebook’s human-privacy-organ-harvesting business model. FOX News and Hate Radio also deserve credit for whipping up voters into a rabid, irrational state of fear and loathing as well; Rupert Murdoch is one of the worst things to happen to America. Murdoch, Zuckerberg and all the other gaslighting Robber Barons are long overdue for a heavy dose of reality and government regulation to keep the public safe from Grand Old Propaganda, a known hazard to human civilization. Time to regulate Facebook and bring back the Fairness Doctrine.

64 Replies3212 Recommended
ChristineMcM commented October 29

ChristineMcM
Massachusetts
Times Pick

I’m just as frightened as you, Tom Friedman, maybe even longer than you–I saw the signs of Trumps power abuses starting with the inauguration accounting issues. In addition to Zuckerberg, Graham, and Trump smashing the country to smithereens, you should have mentioned Bill Barr. He’s put least 5 nails in the coffin of American democracy by conducting a criminal investigation of FBI and CIA individuals who were so alarmed by intelligence intercepts of members of the Trump campaign that they reacted as any good security experts do: investigate. If that isn’t Putin territory Barr is taking us to, I don’t know what is. He’s weaponizing the DOJ to appease Trump’s lust for vengeance. Trump gets away with everything because he’s enabled. He’s getting plenty of help as he brings us all down.

21 Replies2754 Recommended

Opinion | Trump’s Deficits Are an Existential Threat to Conservatism – By Philip Klein – The New York Times

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By Philip Klein

Mr. Klein is the author of “Fear Your Future: How the Deck Is Stacked Against Millennials And Why Socialism Would Make It Worse.”

Credit…George Rose/Getty Image

“Last week, the Treasury Department announced that the federal deficit was just shy of $1 trillion in the 2019 fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30. The Congressional Budget Office expects deficits to exceed that mark every year going forward.

During Barack Obama’s presidency, such news triggered sanctimonious outrage among Republicans. Mr. Obama’s run of deficits exceeding $1 trillion helped fuel the Tea Party. Mitt Romney attacked Mr. Obama for fiscal irresponsibility during the 2012 presidential campaign. Mr. Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, built his national career around dire warnings about the mounting federal debt.

Even Donald Trump regularly got in on the act. In one of many such warnings about deficits, citizen Trump used the March 2013 debt crisis in Cyprus as an occasion to tweet: “Watching the madness in Cyprus? If our government keeps spending trillion dollar deficits, that could happen here.” In 2016, as a candidate, Mr. Trump said he could eliminate the national debt in about eight years.

Yet as president, Mr. Trump has piled on about $3 trillion to the debt, bringing the total to $22.9 trillion. What’s amazing is that he has managed to increase deficits at a time of historically low unemployment and relative peace, when one would expect the national balance sheet to improve.”

 

David Lindsay Jr.
Hamden, CT | Comments at NYT.
Nice essay Philip Klein. I too care about the growing deficit. Are you supporting that ugly idea, starve the beast? Grow the deficit as a way to pressure the cutting of the safety net. Social Security and Medicare allow older Americans to grow old and die with some dignity. It was created when a large percentage, maybe half?, of older Americans lived in poverty. So don’t forget to emphasize undoing unneeded and unfair tax cuts and loopholes for the rich.
Let’s test my argument. From Nasi.org: “Before Social Security, in 1934, roughly one half of seniors were estimated to be poor. Most had to rely on family or friends, or go to the poor house. As ever more seniors paid into Social Security and then received retirement benefits, the poverty rate among seniors steadily declined from circa 50 percent in the Great Depression to 35 percent in 1959, 25 percent in 1970, 15 percent in 1975, and around 10 percent in 2000, where it has hovered ever since. Today, were it not for Social Security, the senior poverty rate would be 43.5 percent, and just over half (PDF) of elderly African Americans (51 percent) and Latinos (52 percent) would be poor.”
David Lindsay Jr. is the author of “The Tay Son Rebellion” and blogs at InconvenientNews.net.

As Kurds Tracked ISIS Leader, U.S. Withdrawal Threw Raid Into Turmoil – By Ben Hubbard and Eric Schmitt – The New York Times

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By Ben Hubbard and Eric Schmitt

QAMISHLI, Syria — When the international manhunt for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, zoomed in on a village in northwestern Syria, the United States turned to its local allies to help track the world’s most-wanted terrorist.

The American allies, a Kurdish-led force that had partnered with the United States to fight ISIS, sent spies to watch his isolated villa. To confirm it was him, they stole a pair of Mr. al-Baghdadi’s underwear — long, white boxers — and obtained a blood sample, both for DNA testing, the force’s commander, Mazlum Abdi, said in a phone interview on Monday.

American officials would not discuss the specific intelligence provided by the Kurds, but said that their role in finding Mr. al-Baghdadi was essential — more so than all other countries combined, as one put it — contradicting President Trump’s assertion over the weekend that the United States “got very little help.”

Yet even as the Syrian Kurdish fighters were risking their lives in the hunt that led to Mr. al-Baghdadi’s death this weekend, Mr. Trump abruptly shattered America’s five-year partnership with them.

Opinion | Al-Baghdadi Is Dead. The Story Doesn’t End Here. – By Thomas L. Friedman – The New York Times

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By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

Credit…Al Drago for The New York Times

“The killing of the founder and leader of the Islamic State by United States commandos operating in Syria should certainly further weaken the most vile and deadly Islamist movement to emerge in the Middle East in the modern era.

The world is certainly a better place with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dead and a measure of justice meted out on behalf of all the women ISIS raped, all the journalists ISIS beheaded and the tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis it abused. Good for President Trump for ordering it, for the intelligence agents who set it up, for the allies who aided in it and for the Special Forces who executed it.

But this story is far from over, and it could have many unexpected implications. Let’s start at home.

President Trump was effusive in his praise for the U.S. intelligence agencies who found and tracked al-Baghdadi to the lair in Syria where he blew himself up to avoid being captured. In his news conference, Trump went on and on about just how good the men and women in our intelligence agencies are.

Well, Mr. President, those are the same intelligence agencies who told you that Russia intervened in our last election in an effort to tip the vote to you and against Hillary Clinton (and are still intervening). When our intel agencies exposed that reality, you impugned their integrity and quality.

And the same intelligence agencies who tracked down al-Baghdadi are the same ones who produced two whistle-blowers high up in your White House — who complained that you, Mr. Trump, abused the power of your office to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, touching off this impeachment inquiry.

And those same intelligence agencies whom you hailed as heroes for tracking down al-Baghdadi, Mr. Trump, are the same “deep state,” the same agencies and whistle-blowers whom your White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, just smeared as “radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.’’

So thank you, Mr. Trump, for clearing up this confusion. We now know that the same intelligence services who have been heroic in protecting us from those who want to attack our constitutional democracy from abroad are the same heroes who have stepped up to protect our constitutional democracy from within. Unlike you, Mr. Trump, they took seriously their oath to do both.”