Culture

Rush Limbaugh, Verbal Abuse, and Objective Violence against Women

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When radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” who ought to post sex videos on-line, he not only revealed his own crass, crude ignorance, but he committed acts of verbal abuse. His comments were a kind of violence against women. Violence is a violation. It is a hurtful demonstration of a basic lack of respect. Those of us who are concerned about intimate violence, violence in personal relationships, tell our sisters and brothers to walk away from a partner the moment they call you out of your name.

General News

A Clash of Rights: The Catholic Bishops and Contraception

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While working on the introduction to a book I intend to publish in the next few months, I am reading “Radical Love: Forever Changed” by Donna Lowe and Kimberly Parker. In the introduction to part three, Lowe and Parker write about how little things from our past – a certain sound, a television program – may cause us to relive painful emotions. The point they make is that we ought to be intentional about not allowing ourselves to become trapped in those responses. This is the purpose of spiritual disciplines. This is the work of radical love.

Culture

The Imperatives of Whitney Houston

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I still sometimes dance in the car while waiting at a red light. However, back in the day, when I had less sense than I have now, I would throw the car in park, jump out and dance in the street. When Whitney Houston sang “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, the joy, the exuberance, the hope, the possibility was too much to contain inside the car. The imperative: turn the volume up, put the car in park, jump out and dance. Celebrate life.

Politics & Society

The Call to be Faithful

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The Republicans will hold a debate on King Day. Perhaps they will honor King with a vigorous debate about the benefits and the dangers of capitalism, including vulture capitalism.
At the end of the day, Gov. Perry, Speaker Gingrich and all of us ought to know to what moral principle, to what transcendent ideal, we will be faithful even if we are not successful.

Politics & Society

Mitt Romney, American Civil Religion and a Strategy of Lies

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The problem with the civil religion is that its transcendence is not transcendent enough. Its moral horizons are limited to the short-term interests of the nation as perceived by flawed individuals working within a deeply flawed political/economy. And when a politician stands up and proclaims his love for the country while loading his stump speeches with lies upon lies, that moral horizon has dwindled down to the puny size of one politicians’ political ambitions.

The Economy--Wealth & Poverty

Santa Angry About Poverty and Worried About Climate Change

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Wildfires in the arctic regions are increasing because the ground is warmer and dryer. So, in the midst of his busiest season of the year, Santa followed the work at the conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa very carefully. He reasons that no matter the state of development, every nation in the world will have to understand the truth of climate change and adjust their political economies to these new realities.

Culture

Halloween

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The wall that we think we build between life and death, between good and evil, dissolves into mist on All Hallows Eve. And the shadow of death looms large over us reminding us of our earthly mortality and our complicated selves. We wear the masks that reveal our internal Otherness. We costume ourselves in our fantasies and look our personal monsters in the face. On All Hallows Eve we see our own all too human un-holy-ness.

Culture

Winter is Coming: On the Occupation of #OWS

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The Occupy Movement has the potential to change the American political landscape to the benefit of the 99 per cent rather than for only the 1 per cent. But, such will require more than a willingness to sleep in the cold and the snow. It will require the vocation, the job, the occupation of solid political work and an occupation of worship space to have the spiritual wherewithal to continue the struggle for the long time that it will take to make the changes the Occupiers want to see.

Politics & Society

On the Death of Muammar el-Qaddafi

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I am always sad when these monsters who made their mark on the world through violence dies because I remember that someone has lost h/er husband, father, brother, or son. I hope and pray that the violence that killed them does not lead to even more retaliatory violence.