Well, this is unpleasant:

Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and “Aspergery.” (These are verbatim descriptions; I keep a running list.)  But I had not previously heard Netanyahu described as a “chickenshit.”

(source: The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here — The Atlantic, emphasis added)

It’s important to differentiate between just slandering one person, which is bad, and treating whole groups of people as problems that we can use as bywords in slandering other people.

Someone send the witch-hunters a memo about that, please.  And make sure you’re keeping it respectful, yourself, while you’re at it.

(P.S.  You won’t find me quoting Jefferson often, but he did now and then have a way with an apothegm.)

A fumble–nothing more than that, I think, but a definite fumble.  Matthew Hennessey comments:

Now, one might say that the bishop erred by presuming that both Down syndrome and homosexuality are unfortunate burdens that must be struggled with and overcome. Another might say that equating Down syndrome with homosexuality is a mistake because both things are in fact beautiful and completely normal states of being. But each view misses the point. 

We are all born broken — some in body, some in soul. We are all tainted by sin. We are all called to holiness.

What troubles me most about the bishop’s comments is the implication that disability and genetic difference are always a catastrophe for all involved. This tragic view of disability is not one I’m used to hearing from the Church. It’s demoralizing. In fact, for many families, including mine — and, it seems, Archbishop Kurtz’s — a child’s disability has enriched faith, deepened friendships, and cultivated a more joyful view of God’s world.

(source: A Bishop Sows Confusion about the Dignity of Life)

I’m happy to say that we really are usually better than this; we have to be.

Here, try chewing on this.  Enjoy!

…when you’re being killed. And I’ve always thought that calling the mandatory funding and legal privileging of the optional killing of baby boys and baby girls–babies, male and female, who just happen not to be born yet–that calling that a “women’s issue” or a “women’s health issue” or a “reproductive health issue” was about the most offensive thing on offer in American politics today.

I still do.

But, hey, now there’s another way that talking about abortion is offensive:

Feminists are now arguing about whether or not it’s offensive to talk about abortion as a “women’s issue” because gender is not that simple and men have abortions too.

“We must acknowledge and come to terms with the implicit cissexism in assuming that only women have abortions,” feminist activist Lauren Rankin stated in July 2013.

Or, as Jos Truitt of Feministing explained: “Trans men have abortions. Gender queer people have abortions. Two spirit people have abortions. People who do not fit into the box of ‘woman’ have abortions.”

In response, abortion funds around the country have already been changing their names and language to be more “gender inclusive.” Last year, “Fund Texas Women” became “Fund Texas Choice,” because, in the words of co-founder Lenzi Scheible, the group “refuse[d] to deny the existence and humanity of trans* people any longer.”

(source: Abortion Is Not a Womens Issue Because Men Have Abortions Too)

By all means, let’s make sure we don’t “deny the existence and humanity” of any human being who bears the image of God.

Of course, to affirm “existence and humanity” of all people–a pretty low bar–doesn’t mean we must then also approve or even allow them to rob banks, kill babies, pretend they’re married in impossible combinations, embezzle, slander, become pirates, or demand that society pay for self-mutilation in the service of distorted self-image, though we may occasionally find that a desperately poor person’s stealing was not worth much punishing, and a desperately confused person may well need some accommodation.

But to affirm “existence and humanity” pretty definitely will mean not summarily executing them whenever those most responsible for their care wish to do so.

A low bar–but one we don’t seem able to reach.

The lovely folks over at The Society of Classical Poets picked up a couple bits of verse I wrote for them. Here’s a sample, to induce you to go discover their site:

No one can insure candlelight; its flame
Precisely burns in flickering waves of gas,
Ingesting oxygen while fibers pass
Through burning into soot, and feel no shame.
A stroke of pen or brush behaves the same
When we regard them steadily:

(source: ‘Vessel’ and Other Poetry by Peter G. Epps, Ph.D. | Society of Classical Poets)

And here’s a really nice bit of ekphrastic verse from the talented Reid McGrath:

LIKE the storm, Cain’s gone, that murderous rover.
The land is cleared, trees are felled, the clover
and grass (that terrestrial plankton) grow
naturally, unlike the crops we sow.
The rain, the sun, the fertile loam nurtures
this Neolithic town’s verdant pastures.

(source: ‘The Course of Empire’ Observations by Reid McGrath | Society of Classical Poets)

Lileks provides an eviscerating defenestration of some obvious misapplications of the tedious “dogmaticness versus sciencyness” trope:

Why You Should Stop Eating Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

Dogmatic adherence to mealtimes is anti-science, racist, and might actually be making you sick.

(source: Three Square Meals)

[and, no, I didn’t mix my metaphors]  Continue reading →