Clerical Sex Abuse Frowned Upon By God
by digby
The Vatican prosecutor of clerical sex abuse told perpetrators Saturday that they will suffer damnation in hell that will be worse than the death penalty.
Quoting from a long passage from Gregory the Great, an early pope, the Rev. Charles Scicluna said that for a pedophile priest “it would be really better that his evil deeds cause him death in his lifetime” than suffer “more terrible damnation” in hell.
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Saturday Night At The Movies
SIFFting through cinema, Pt. 2
By Dennis Hartley
Perrier’s Bounty: “Quentin fookin’ WHO?”
The Seattle International Film Festival is in full swing, so over the next several weeks I will be bringing you highlights. Navigating a film festival is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff. SIFF is presenting 405 films over 24 days. That’s great for independently wealthy types, but for those of us who work for a living (*cough*), it’s tough to find the time and energy that it would take to catch 16.8 films a day (yes-I did the math). I do take consolation from my observation that the ratio of less-than-stellar (too many) to quality offerings (too few) at a film festival differs little from any Friday night crapshoot at the multiplex. The trick lies in developing a sixth sense for films most likely to be up your alley (in my case, embracing my OCD and channeling it like a cinematic divining rod.) Hopefully, some of these will be coming soon to a theater near you. So-let’s go SIFFting!
No bees, no Van Gogh: Queen of the Sun
I never thought that a documentary about honeybees would make me both laugh and cry-but northwest filmmaker Taggart Siegel’s Queen of the Sun is one such film. Appearing at first glance to be a distressing, hand-wringing examination of Colony Collapse Syndrome, a phenomenon that has puzzled and dismayed beekeepers and scientists alike with its accelerated frequency of occurrences over the past decade, the film becomes a sometimes joyous, sometimes humbling meditation on how essential these seemingly insignificant yet complex social creatures are to the planet’s life cycle. We bipeds might harbor a pretty high opinion of our own place on the evolutionary ladder, but Siegel lays out a convincing case which proves that these “lowly” insects are, in fact, the boss of us.
It turns out that there have been voices in the wilderness over the years (aside from the constant and reassuring hum of our busy little trans-global pollinators) trying to get that message across; although they have been largely ignored (until now, of course-when it’s too late). Albert Einstein once said: “If bees die, man will only have four years of life left.” As early as 1923, Austrian philosopher-scientist-social thinker and biodynamic agriculturalist icon Rudolph Steiner warned that within 100 years, without careful cultivation and continued awareness of the delicate symbiotic relationship we share with them, the honeybees would simply begin to dissipate (silly Rudy). In his film, Siegel documents how, in the 80-odd year interim between Steiner’s dire prediction and the mounting evidence that it is becoming a sad fact, we have plowed ahead in our typically clueless fashion, taking and taking and not giving enough back (I know…familiar story). Siegel rounds up the usual suspects, like mite infestations, pesticides, and the use of domesticated colonies in mechanized industrial pollination (especially in regards to mono-cropping, for which the bees are sometimes fortified with corn syrup, of all things).
While there are a lot of revelations here that are likely to piss you off (and once again make you curse the ubiquitous corporate bottom line) it’s not all gloom and doom, however. Siegel offers up some hope, as well. In countries where toxic pesticides are currently banned, Colony Collapse Syndrome has been virtually non-existent (surprise surprise). There are some delightful interludes with, well, “unique” individuals who have an upbeat, purely philosophical/spiritual perspective on the human-bee connection. And perhaps most importantly, we meet people who are proactively working on solutions; biodynamic beekeepers, organic farmers, and some urban beekeepers in the heart of the Bronx who are risking actual imprisonment for maintaining their rooftop hives (obviously, there are some ridiculous laws that are screaming to be stricken from the books). The film is beautifully photographed, well-paced and features a lovely score by Jami Sieber. I’ll tell you one thing-you’ll never take that jar of honey for granted again.
The Topp Twins: Not directed by Christopher Guest, oddly
Sometimes, it’s kind of fun to just throw a dart at the SIFF schedule and see where it lands. I had no clue as to what to expect when the lights went down for the screening of Leanne Pooley’s documentary The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls. All I knew was that it was a film about yodeling lesbian twins. Aside from that, I knew squat. I didn’t even know if it was for real; it sounded like perfect fodder for a mockumentary, to be honest. To my surprise, by the time the lights came up, my faith in humanity had almost returned.
Because you see, it’s hard to be depressed after spending 90 minutes with the film’s subjects. Jools and Linda Topp have to be two of the most charming, down-to-earth, warm-hearted and preternaturally gifted entertainers you’d ever want to meet in a screen profile. As if that weren’t enough, they tell THE funniest goddam lesbian joke I have ever heard in my life…I couldn’t breathe (and I used to work in stand-up comedy). Hugely popular in their native New Zealand, the 52-year old Topps have been bringing audiences their unique blend of music and comedy (oh…and yodeling) since the 1980s.
What most impressed me, however, was their dedication to political activism (in the film, admirer Billy Bragg describes them as “an anarchist variety act”). Over the years, they have campaigned for gay and lesbian rights, participated in protests in support of civil rights for New Zealand’s indigenous Maoris, and worked in support of the anti-nuke movement (to name a few). What’s refreshing about their political work is that there is no grandstanding; you don’t doubt their sincerity for a second (“what you see is what you get” says one of their fans). These are two of the nicest “anarchists” I’ve ever seen. Pooley’s film itself is as upbeat and straightforward as her subjects; and like the Topps, it imparts a pure joy of creating something that manages to both entertain and inspire.
And here’s another one to be on the lookout for. This film has found a U.S. distributor, so as credentialed press I am “embargoed” from sharing copious details at this time…
Perrier’s Bounty-Despite an acute case of Pulp Fiction envy and Guy Ritchie déjà vu, this quirky Irish gangster flick (directed by Ian Fitzgibbon) sucked me in with its outstanding cast, saucy dialog (written by Mark O’Rowe) and dark humor (reminiscent of In Bruges, which I reviewed here). Cillian Murphy stars as a ne’er do well who owes money to a brutal mobster (Brendan Gleeson). After Murphy’s downstairs neighbor (Jodie Whittaker) accidentally kills one of the mob’s bill collectors, the two are forced to go on the run. Along the way, the fugitives are joined by Murphy’s father (Jim Broadbent), who demonstrates that the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree. It’s a hoot to watch two brilliant character actors like Gleeson and Broadbent going head-to-head, and I found myself laughing out loud, despite the predictability of the narrative.
And one more thing…a mea culpa:
In my review of the excellent film Son of Babylon in last week’s post, I was apparently so enamored with quoting my favorite lines of dialog that I overlooked mentioning the person who gave the actors those wonderful words to speak-screenwriter Jenny Norridge.
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“It Will Never End”
by digby
Michael Tomasky is worried about the Sestak non-scandal for the right reason:
The real import of this story is this: If the Reps capture the House of Representatives this fall, they will have basically limitless power to keep these things churning forever, turning political horse-trading into potential crimes. They’ll hold hearings, issue subpoenas, you name it. Remember the Clinton days. It will never end.
And they’re even crazier now then they were then, now that they’ve convinced themselves we got us a Mooslum preznit.
This is what’s at stake this fall. Forget policy. It’s this: endless hearings and investigations until they find something that gets the public worked up, or until the public just cries uncle and says oh okay we’re sick of hearing you crazy people, if it’ll shut you up, just impeach the bastard already.
Those who extol the virtues of divided government take heed. There won’t just be legislative gridlock. There will be chaos.
The sad thing is that I see no sign among most of the political establishment that they have even the slightest awareness of how the dynamics that feed this beast work, even now, after all these years. The machine that used to depend upon Rush, Drudge and a few Tory malcontents has grown to a vast corporate empire. You can’t underestimate how far they’ll go.
h/t to bill
Ferchristsake
by digby
CNN is actually running a story on BPs damage control public relations campaign with this chyron running below it:
BP’s other worry: Repairing a damaged eco-friendly image
I think we all know that’s actually been at the top of their list from the beginning. But I’m not sure why anyone other than the company executives think it’s either desirable or possible for that to happen. This company’s PR troubles are the least of the problem:
BP engineers failed again to plug the gushing oil well on Saturday, a technician working on the project said, representing yet another setback in a series of unsuccessful procedures the company has tried a mile under the sea to stem the flow spreading into the Gulf of Mexico.
BP made a third attempt at what is termed the “junk shot” Friday night, a procedure that involves pumping odds and ends like plastic cubes, knotted rope, and golf balls into the blowout preventer, the five-story safety device atop the well. The maneuver is complementary to the heavily scrutinized effort known as a “top kill,”which began four days ago and involves pumping heavy mud into the well to counteract the push of the escaping oil. If the well is sealed, the company plans to then fill it with cement.
The technician working on the project said Saturday pumping has again been halted and a review of the data so far is under way. “Right now, I would not be optimistic,” the technician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the effort. But he added, that if another attempt at the junk shot were to succeed, “that would turn things around.”
God that’s depressing. At this point I do hope they are putting at least as much effort into digging that relief well ahead of schedule as they are in this effort. And I think they should probably put that “other worry” about their eco-friendly image completely on the back burner. They have far more important things to do.
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Perpetually Indebted
by digby
… otherwise known as slavery:
Jewel Goodman eases back into his porch chair and breaks the filter off a peach-flavored Clipper cigar. He rolls it absentmindedly in his fingers and closes his eyes to smell the breeze tattle on an incoming storm. In his 57 years, he’s seen enough hard days to know not to rush an easy one.
For most of his life he has toiled long days in hot fields picking cabbage, potatoes and tobacco. Eight of those years were spent on a farm in Hastings, south of St. Augustine. In 2007, Ronald Evans was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after holding Goodman and other farm workers “perpetually indebted” in what the U.S. Department of Justice called “a form of servitude morally and legally reprehensible.”
Goodman is one of more than 1,000 slaves who have gained freedom in Florida since 1997.
Goodman lights his cigar, takes a slow draw, leans back and remembers.
“I had to scrap with the devil for my living. And by the devil, I mean contractors,” he says. “All the camps I been in, some of them was good and some of them wasn’t, but Evans . . . that was slavery time. No playing around.”
It started one day in the early ’90s, when a white van stopped him in front of the Fruit Stand grocery store in Hastings and asked if he needed work. He did. But as soon as he met Evans he knew he had found trouble. Evans was mean in a way that made Goodman feel suddenly aware of how far out of town they were. There was no phone. Chain link and barbed wired surrounded the property. The crew leaders looked hardened, “like they just come out of prison.” The field workers called them henchmen.
One of them gave him a pair of bloodstained work boots.
“He said ‘These belong to the last guy who ran. If I catch you trying to get down that road, you’re going to answer to me too.’ “
He eventually got away. The man who enslaved him is serving a 30 year sentence. Imagine what happens to undocumented workers who can’t go to the police.
I wonder if Rand Paul thinks the government should have enforced the oral “contract” this man made with his boss rather than intervening on the side of the “perpetually indebted.” I’m guessing he would think the dispute should have been adjudicated in civil court at the very least.
Right wing libertarians do speak out against indentured servitude, however. It’s just that they define it as the Federal reserve forcing them to pay taxes. Never say they don’t have principles:
Socialist politicians in our government, for almost 100 years, for the purposes of remaining in power by exploiting the weakness in individuals who were looking for a free handout, worked in conjunction with the Federal Reserve to expand the money supply (debt) to pay for the handouts. Not only was the public treasury pillaged for purely political reasons (that should be treason), but the American taxpayer also picked up the tab for the interest paid to the Federal Reserve and other countries for the loans and the hidden cost of inflation because of diluting the number of dollars in circulation. This evil is still going on today, but the numbers are escalating exponentially…
[A]s long as there are corrupt politicians who will exploit the weakness in humans for their votes and conspire with special interest groups, giant, international corporations and the Federal Reserve to create money out of thin air to pay for unconstitutional welfare and environmental protection programs, America’s airplane is on fire and is in a crash dive to the deadly sea of national bankruptcy, while Americans are headed for perpetual indentured servitude.
h/t to bb
Speaking of Primarying Blue Dogs
by digby
Dday writes about the Winograd-Harman race from the belly of the beast:
I live in the 36th District here in California, where we have a primary election for Congress between Rep. Jane Harman and progressive challenger Marcy Winograd. I’m squarely in Winograd country – there’s a yard sign every other house – but that’s not necessarily representative of the district at large. So I’ve been wondering just what the prospects were for a Winograd upset. Well, I didn’t know just how scared Blue Dog Harman was of losing her job until I saw the negative ad she’s running against Winograd. The ad, of course, is silly. No one member of Congress can “kill the defense budget” or cause Israel to “cease to exist”; it’s not even worth responding to that nonsense. The presence of one member of Congress who dissents from the perpetual war machine conventional wisdom would be refreshing, however, and that’s who Winograd represents. But let’s get some perspective here. Harman is outspending Winograd by a healthy margin. We’ve gotten several Harman mailers and none for Winograd. Harman’s been on cable TV more (including with this ad, though Winograd has a couple ads up on cable as well. But clearly, Harman must be reading some data that shows Winograd with a shot. We’ve seen no-name candidates all over the country grabbing 35-40% of the vote without spending a dime. Winograd has raised close to $300,000, and she has residual name ID from a 2006 run where she took 38% of the vote. This is a tough year for any incumbent, and without much action in the statewide primaries on June 8 on the Democratic side, only motivated voters are going to turn out. Winograd’s supporters are probably more motivated, enough for Harman to go negative. It’s extremely surprising to see an incumbent do this against an underfunded opponent.
Here’s Harmon’s ad. It appears she hired PeeWee Herman to direct:
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Blue America Chat with Ann McLane Kuster
by digby
Blue America is happy to endorse Ann McLane Kuster for congress in NH 02. Here’s Howie:
Blue America prefers not to endorse in primaries unless there is a clear case of one excellent progressive Democrat running against a conservative corporate shill. That’s how we came to endorse Marcy Winograd against Jane Harman, Doug Tudor over Lori Edwards and Regina Thomas over John Barrow. But in the New Hampshire House race to replace Paul Hodes, who’s running for the Senate, had a wrinkle. There was definitely an excellent progressive– Ann McLane Kuster– and there was certainly a conservative corporate shill— Katrina Swett— but there was another grassroots-type candidate running as well. He’s now dropped out and we couldn’t wait to invite Ann to come over to Blue America for a live chat. She’ll be joining us today in the comments section below.
Annie is an example of a grassroots activist working with her neighbors on real world problems and then taking it up a notch by running for Congress. She’s the polar opposite of the spoiled and entitled insider who’s running against her, the daughter of one congressman, wife of another and, to top it off, the former campaign chair of the Joe Lieberman For President campaign. As the Concord Monitor pointed out, Annie’s money is all coming in small donations from New Hampshire; Swett’s comes in big chunks from the corporate interests salivating to get another corrupt special interests shill into the House Democratic caucus who will do their bidding for nickels on the dollar.
Ann McLane Kuster and Katrina Swett, the Democratic candidates for the 2nd District seat in Congress, have far fuller campaign accounts than their Republican counterparts. Their accounts have been filled from near and far. Respectively.
Sixty-one percent of Kuster’s reported fundraising through March came from donors in New Hampshire, with her highest-netting ZIP codes including Concord, Contoocook, Portsmouth and Hanover, according to an analysis of federal campaign filings by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. Swett, by contrast, had raised 11 percent of her money this election from in-state donors. The ZIP codes giving her the most money included Greenwich, Conn.; New York City; and the suburbs of northern New Jersey.
New Hampshire’s most respected blog, Blue Hampshire, was in the same predicament we were in– one candidate too many for an endorsement. That ended last week when they got behind Annie in no uncertain terms (and unanimously):
Nearly four years ago Blue Hampshire was born following a groundswell of political blogging that had sprung up in a successful effort to support Paul Hodes’ election to New Hampshire’s second congressional district.
Today, we believe the best person to continue the work in Congress begun by Representative Hodes is attorney and advocate Ann McLane Kuster.
As Laura Clawson pointed out on Daily Kos, Ann McLane Kuster “supports the public option, the Employee Free Choice Act, non-punitive immigration reform, and environmental regulation. Not only does she want to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she wants to repeal DOMA, and she worked to help bring marriage equality to New Hampshire.”
In addition, Kuster has been a vigorous advocate for health care access and affordability, especially and unwaveringly so for women’s reproductive health. From Ann’s website: “Ann believes a woman and her medical care provider should be making decisions about her health care, not the politicians in Washington. She is committed to ensuring that the anti-choice movement doesn’t use abortion to derail health care reform, and also that they don’t use health care reform to restrict a woman’s right to choose.”
Please consider joining the netroots supporters who have rallied to Annie’s campaign. She’s our newest endorsee on the Blue America ActBlue page.
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Huckleberry Hedge
by digby
If you thought the oil spill might change the calculation on climate change legislation, think again:
Sen. Lindsey Graham warns that President Barack Obama will kill the last hopes for comprehensive energy and climate change legislation if he cracks down on offshore oil drilling.
In a sit-down interview with The Hill, the Republican senator from South Carolina said he is at a “crossroads” in deciding how to proceed on energy and climate change.
He doesn’t think the signs look good given the fallout from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Why would a person who really believes in drilling put a bill on the floor right now to expand drilling and revenue sharing, knowing it can’t get 50 votes?” Graham said. “The resistance to drilling has hardened on the Democratic side, so we [Republicans have] got more votes to make up.”
Graham predicts that 10 to 12 Democrats will oppose the drilling provision he originally negotiated in the energy bill, undermining the reason he joined talks in the first place: to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
[…]He refused to join Kerry and Lieberman when they rolled out the 1,000-page bill earlier this month, in protest of a decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to also move comprehensive immigration reform this summer.
Ok. So first Graham had a temper tantrum over immigration and couldn’t back the climate change bill. Now we have a catastrophic oil spill of epic proportions unfolding before our very eyes, and Graham blithely asserts that there’s no point in pressing forward because the Democrats have hardened their opposition to drilling. (The bastards!) There’s no word on what it would take for the Republicans to soften their support for it, but the worst spill in history doesn’t seem to be enough for them to even consider keeping it off the table and pushing through the other measures.
Graham holds BP responsible for the political problems — not sure how feels about the environmental problems made manifest by this disaster. He doesn’t really say. It certainly seems as though he has no intention of changing course, but merely hopes this icky distraction passes quickly so they can go back to his original plan. Indeed, he sees this disaster as the probable death knell for climate change legislation instead of an impetus to get it passed because the Democrats won’t support offshore drilling now.
And he does it with his patented cornpone “more in sorrow than in anger” act as if he has no agency in this and the Republicans have no choice but to vote against the bill if anyone so much as breathes that “drill baby drill” might not fly at the moment. Oh heck, too bad about that.
He does say that he’ll reassess the political situation in a month or so so that’s good. Perhaps by then everyone will have forgotten about this gusher in the gulf and we can put drilling back on the agenda so a couple of Republicans might find it in themselves to allow America to take a tiny baby step toward environmental sanity. I’m not holding my breath.
Political Blogger Sex Scandal
by digby
I never thought I’d write that headline.
For those of you who haven’t been following the ins and outs of the latest tawdry South Carolina sex scandal, Ed Kilgore has a full rundown here. I hadn’t realized that it now featured a member of the best political team on television.
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Seafood
by tristero
So I heard on NPR today that They – Trustworthy Serious People who have access to the media – say that if you’re worried about the safety of Gulf seafood – that is, if you were so foolish as to think that the miles and miles and miles and miles of toxic petroloeum, dispersants, garbage, effluvia, and unmentionable detritus has poisoned your fish dinner-to-be, really, you shouldn’t be. It’s quite safe.
So what if the sludge in the Gulf looks like God had a bad case of the Runs? Once you wash it off, it’ll be fine. Did you know petroleum has preservative qualities! Why, it’ll taste even fresher than norma!
Besides, Americans happily eat meat cleaned in ammonia. No biggie.