You Big Mouth, You!

From October 18, 2002:

U.S. Roman Catholic Church’s new sexual abuse policy was doomed from the start. The Bishops
of the United States are either expert in Church law or have them on their staffs. From the
start, they have been well aware that this policy went directly against existing Church law.
Nothing in the twenty-four years of this Pope’s reign would suggest that a change in the law
was remotely possible. This charade was produced as a “cover your ass” exercise only.

The policy failed to address the criminal actions of various bishops and cardinals who
continued to support and concile child molestors for decades. Bishops should have resigned
or been removed over this. It won’t happen.

The policy does not contain one method of preventing any futher act of molestation. It
completely fails to address any of the central failures that have allowed these monsters to
exist in the Church. No changes were made in the way candidates for the priesthood are
recruited or trained. No changes were made in the behaviors demanded of priests.

Every priest takes an oath of celibacy. Every priest who has sex violates that oath. The
right wing loonies of the American Church lay this scandel at the feet of homosexual
priests, pointing to those young men in their late teens and early twenties who have been
abused. They ignore the counter arguement, what if it was your sixteen year old daughter?
Would it then be alright?

No, the key issue is the oath of celibacy. Sexual orientation that is not acted upon does
not prevent a man from being a good priest. Nor, as far as I can tell, is it a sin. And,
don’t quote me all sorts of non-binding Church documents from 1492. If a priest can be a
hetrosexual, not act on it, and be considered pure, then so can a homosexual priest who does
the same.

In the United States, we enjoy certain rights. We cannot be jailed without the opportunity
to face our accuser and be tried before a jury of our peers. If we are wronged by another’s
accusation, we have the chance to sue for redress of our grievances.

The Church has many of these same safeguards in place. After two thousand years, it has come
to recognize that if not every priest is pure, then not everyone who accuses a priest is
truthful. A priest has the right to be treated fairly and justly, as does any other citizen
of the United States, both under civil law and Church law.

The examples of priests who are child molestors are there. They range from the abuse of
dozens of pre-teen boys, to priest who had one-time sex with a seventeen year old girl. They
violated their oaths and should be subject to civl and Church justice.

But no man should be ruined by one spoken word. Due process, fairness, and, we must
remember…

Forgiveness. The Church cannot be what it is if it forgets the teachings of Jesus that it
professes to follow. Forgive seven times seventy.

Yeah, that sucks in a secular society. But this policy ruins men, a few who are innocent, a
few others who sinned once and have confessed their sin and atoned for it. Only a policy
that aggressively investigates accusations, refers suspects to civil authorities when crimes
have been committed, and which protects the innocent will fix this mess. Lay down behaviour
rules like not being alone with children and public professions on a regular basis of their
oaths. And separate the wheat from the chaff. A one time mistake thirty years ago with a
seventeen year old girl is NOT the same as a fling with a 22 year old male seminarian, nor
is it the same as molesting dozens of ten year old boys.

And, going back to the beginning of this. The Bishops don’t want to fix this. All they want
is an out.

From February 23, 2004:

Priests defrocked for sex abuse of minors posed a danger to society as well as to themselves and should be retained within the apparatus of the Church, which otherwise would be seen as “abdicating its responsibility”, the study said.

The rebuke was contained in a study by eight leading experts in paedophilia — all non-Catholic — which was shown to journalists at the Vatican on Monday.

Manfred Luetz, a lay member of the Pontifical Council for Life which commissioned the study, said it will form the scientific basis from which the church could draw up guidelines on how to deal more effectively with the problem…

Pfafflin said no screening procedure could offer complete certainty that those accepted as candidates will not in the future molest someone.

The study said public opinion pressured the church to act “with a destructive severity”.

“Although until now, the phenomenon of abuse was not always taken seriously enough, at present there is a tendency to overreact and rob accused priests of even legitimate support,” it said.

Over the last few days, sparked by a bluegrass song from the WW II era, I’ve been pondering the American heros that no one learns about anymore. I had never heard of Colin Kelly until I heard the song, and I suspect you haven’t either.

Copyright � Air Force Magazine On the morning of Dec. 10, 1941, six B-17Cs of the 14th Bomb Squadron, 19th Bomb Group, sat in the rain at a rough landing strip near San Marcelino on the Philippine island of Luzon. The crews had spent the night without food, sleeping in or under their planes. Of the war situation they knew little except that Japan had attacked Clark Field and other installations near Manila on Dec. 8-Pearl Harbor on the 7th-and some 400 Japanese aircraft had destroyed most of the US B-17s and pursuit planes. Squadron Commander Maj. Emmett “Rosy” O’Donnell Jr., had flown to Clark before daylight to get orders for his squadron. He radioed his pilots to proceed to Clark at daybreak. Only three of the B-17s were allowed to land. They were flown by Capt. Colin P. Kelly Jr., and Lts. George E. Schaetzel and G. R. Montgomery. Captain Kelly, a 1937 graduate of the US Military Academy and a former B-17 instructor, was one of the most experienced and respected pilots of the 19th Bomb Group. An imminent air attack sent the three bombers off to their respective targets before refueling and bomb loading were completed. Captain Kelly had only three 600-pound bombs aboard and orders to attack airfields on Formosa (Taiwan), some 500 miles north of Clark. The mission would earn Colin Kelly a place in American history and legend. In the confusion of the early days of the Pacific war, Kelly was credited with sinking a Japanese battleship and with award of the Medal of Honor. Overnight he became a national hero. It later was determined that Kelly and his crew did not sink a battleship, nor was he awarded the Medal of Honor, although some still believe both. In fact, Colin Kelly was recommended for the Medal of Honor by Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton, commander of the US Far East Air Forces. The award he received was the Distinguished Service Cross, on the orders of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters. This is what actually happened, as told in mission debriefings by members of Kelly’s crew and in an official report of the mission prepared in February 1942. For Captain Kelly and his crew, it was a solo mission deep into territory where the Japanese held absolute air superiority. They had no fighter escort. By Dec. 10, there were only 22 flyable P-40s and a few obsolete P-35s left. As they flew north toward Formosa, Kelly and his crew passed over a large Japanese landing in progress at Aparri on the north coast of Luzon. The presence of an enemy carrier in the vicinity had also been reported. Kelly radioed Clark Field for permission to attack the landing force, which was supported by several destroyers and a large warship, thought to be a battleship, bombarding the coast from several miles offshore. After two calls to Clark that brought only a response to stand by, Kelly told the crew they were going ahead on his decision to attack the battleship-actually a cruiser. Kelly made two dry runs at 20,000 feet, giving bombardier Sgt. Meyer Levin time to set up for an accurate drop. On the third run, he told Levin to release the bombs in train. As best the crew could tell, two of the three bombs bracketed the ship with one direct hit. Smoke prevented more accurate assessment. The B-17 then headed for Clark Field, its bomb bay empty. As it approached Clark, the bomber was hit by enemy fighters. The first attack killed TSgt. William Delehanty, wounded Pfc. Robert Altman, and destroyed the instrument panel. A second attack set the left wing ablaze. The fire spread rapidly into the fuselage, filling the flight deck with smoke. Captain Kelly ordered the crew to bail out while he still had control of the doomed bomber. Fire began to engulf the flight deck. SSgt. James Halkyard, Pfc. Willard Money, and Private Altman went out the rear. Navigator 2d Lt. Joe Bean and Sergeant Levin, after a time-consuming struggle, pried open a stuck escape hatch and took to their chutes. The nose of the aircraft was now an inferno. Colin Kelly remained at the controls as copilot 2d Lt. Donald Robins moved to the upper escape hatch. At that moment, the bomber exploded, hurling a badly burned Robins clear of the aircraft. The B-17 crashed about five miles from Clark Field. Colin Kelly’s body was found at the site. The early report of his heroism, which inspired a nation in shock, is in no way diminished by the actual events of that December day in 1941. Alone and far from friendly territory, he attacked and damaged a heavily armed ship, then sacrificed his own life to save his crew.

This graph grew out of the graph that follows. It came out so clearly that I decided to begin with it. It shows the percentage of the total population that was employed in each year from 1990 through 2003. It clearly demonstrates a decrease beginning in 2000, prior to Bush taking office. I would venture that it is related to the beginning of the Clinton recession and bubble burst. It also shows that this measure has regained 1995 levels, as part of the economic recovery.

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I was curious as to the relationship between population growth and job growth. Over the time period displayed, jobs outgrew population by a meager .2%. From 2000 through 2003, the Bush years, population grew much faster than jobs.

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This graph shows monthly employment from February 2001 through January 2004, the Bush years. It shows an additional 985,000 jobs from when he took office, not a loss of 2 million as people keep stating. It clearly demonstrates the economic recovery from January 2002. 2.8 million jobs. Not too bad, folks.

The statistics used for these three graphs can be found, with much more, at the web sites of the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

DoD News

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky., Feb. 11, 2004 - A 101st Airborne Division soldier who, despite being critically wounded himself, repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to treat wounded comrades in Iraq received the Silver Star here Feb. 5.

Pvt. Dwayne Turner, a combat medic assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, provided life-saving medical care to 16 fellow soldiers April 13 when his unit came under a grenade and small-arms attack 30 miles south of Baghdad. Turner and two other medics from Company A of that battalion were part of a work detail that came under attack as they unloaded supplies in a makeshift operations center.

“I moved to (my vehicle) just before the first grenade came over the wall,” Turner said. “The blast threw me even further into the vehicle, and I took on some shrapnel.” Ignoring his own injuries, Turner ran to the front of his vehicle and saw a soldier with eye injuries.

“I checked him out, and tried to get him into a building,” Turner said. The other two medics established a triage system under the cover of a building while Turner ran back outside to bring more soldiers into the makeshift clinic. “I just started assessing the situation, seeing who was hurt, giving them first aid and pulling them into safety,” he said, downplaying his actions on that day.

Turner, his legs wounded by shrapnel in the initial attack, was shot at least twice while giving first aid to the soldiers. “I didn’t realize I was shot,” he said. “A couple of times, I heard bullets going by, but I thought they were just kicking up rocks on me.”

At one point during the attack, one of Turner’s fellow medics told him he was bleeding. “Someone told me, ‘Doc Turner, Doc Turner, you’re bleeding.’” he said. “I looked down at my leg and saw I was bleeding, and kind of said, ‘Oh hell, if I’m not dead yet, I guess I’m not dying.’”

“I don’t think he realized how much blood he lost,” said Sgt. Neil Mulvaney, from the same unit as Turner.

“After I got the first patient inside the building, I sort of slumped down in the corner,” Turner said. “I didn’t think there was any way we were going to get out of there, and it would have been really easy to just stay in that corner. “Then I heard (the wounded) calling for medics,” he continued, “and I realized I could let them continue to get hurt — and possibly die — and not come home to their families, or I could do something about it.”

Turner chose to do something about it. He continued to give first aid and to bring soldiers in from the barrage of gunfire outside the compound until he finally collapsed against a wall from loss of blood. A bullet had broken his right arm. He had been shot in the left leg. Shrapnel had torn into both of his legs.

The Silver Star is awarded for gallantry in combat, but Turner does not see himself as a hero. “Nobody gets left behind,” he said emphatically. “We were the medical personnel on hand. You’re not relieved from your duty until someone comes. No one else was going to get the job done, so we did.”

Although Turner downplays his heroism, the Army believes that at least two of the 16 soldiers he treated would have died had he not been there. “He risked his life for 16 other men without noticing his own injuries - that’s heroism in my book,” Mulvaney said.

“I was just doing my job,” Turner insisted. “As far as the values of the Army, it’s not to ‘earn’ a Silver Star; it’s to uphold what you signed on for. Other people may see me as a hero; I see myself as doing my job. No one is going to die on my watch.”

Turner’s Silver Star is the highest award given to any 101st soldier during Operation Iraqi Freedom thus far. He received the Purple Heart in July.

The lovely wife and I have spent the last two evenings watching most of the Westminster Kennel Club’s dog show on television. I wanted to watch because I’ve been following the exploits of Lacey, a Borzoi (Russian Wolfhound) shown by Greg Hlatky, who blogs at A Dog’s Life. Don’t go look at that link until Monday, February 16 or so. He’s been in New York City and the blog has rolled to a blank while he’s out at the show.

Lacey won Best of Breed but did not place in the Hounds Group. I did think she could have taken fourth over the Irish Wolfhound. She appeared a bit distracted during the Group and the Group winner was a determined Ibizan Hound.

Best of Show was a gorgeous Newfoundland, though the wife and I were torn about the runner up, a Corgi with a lot of attitude and stage presence.

Ch Soyara’s Chantilly Lace JC
Breed: Borzoi
Sex: Bitch
AKC: HM 76323403
Date of Birth: December 19, 1997
Breeder: Prudence G Hlatky & Sabrina Rhodes
Sire: Ch Rossak Of Enfield
Dam: Ch Soyara Misleading Lady Essar
Owner: Prudence G Hlatky & Dr Gregory G Hlatky

Congrats to to the Hlatkys.