Year: 2004

British Abortion Film Wins Prize In Venice

I hate to say bad things about a movie without seeing it, but the data I have on the movie Vera Drake suggests that it is a pro-abort propaganda piece.

It’s also just won a prize at an Italian film festival.

Excerpts from the story:

“Vera Drake,” Mike Leigh’s tough tale of a working-class mother who is caught performing illegal abortions in 1950s England, scooped up the prizes at the Venice Film Festival Saturday, including the coveted Golden Lion.

The film raises difficult questions about abortion in a world where the wealthy have access to discreet and legal abortions and the poor throw themselves on the mercy of practitioners like Drake.

“The audience must walk away with a debate and struggle with it. These things are not black and white,” Leigh said.

Staunton anchors the movie as a working mother who risks her close-knit family’s love after a girl on whom she performs an abortion falls seriously ill and she is jailed.

Somehow, I suspect that the film is more black-and-white than advertised. Given the plot as described, it would be easy for filmmakers to send the clear message that, as regrettable as injuries like this were, they were caused by the era’s “repressive abortion laws,” to which good riddance.

I could be wrong about that, but the odds of a British company spinning the plot in a pro-life direction (i.e., portraying the lead character as a babykiller who injures mothers, too) or even in neutral manner seem to me to be remarkably low.

Seen At Mass Yesterday

Doginchurch

The vest she’s wearing says “American Guide Dogs / Puppy In Training.”

She was real quiet during the whole Mass. Didn’t bark once.

Mostly lay quietly trying different doggie-comfortable positions on the ground. Would open her eyes when people walked by.

Sniffed at the shoes of the collection takers at collection time.

Only excitement was when everyone stood up at the Gospel. She thought it was time to go and hopped up, excited to go somewhere new. Once she realized that wasn’t happening, she settled down and every other time people stood up in Mass she continued laying on the ground and didn’t do more than raise her head.

Real calm, quiet, professional demeanor.

Good dog!

Dan Rather Stands By ScrappleFace Story

DAILY PLANET (METROPOLIS) – Dan Rather today said that he stands by a recent story reported by the ScrappleFace newswire about a 1972 e-mail raising doubts concerning President Bush’s national guard service.

Wearing a cowl that obscured most of his face, the veteran CBS anchorman–known to some of his colleagues as Darth Rather and Darth InCBS–spoke to reporters in front of the network’s Metropolis affiliate. “That story is true. That story is true,” he said to reporters. “I will make it true.”

Denizens of the blogosphere were quick to respond. “If Dan Rather says it’s true, then that’s good enough for us,” said Chirp Birdly of Little Red Power Cables Instablog, which served as a major clearing house for used auto parts and evidence of the falsity of the ScrappleFace story.

Birdly was contacted by the Daily Planet at his home at two o’clock in the afternoon. He came to the door wearing pajamas.

“We originally doubted the authenticity of the story because of concerns that were raised by some of our readers,” Birdly explained. “A close examination of the ScrappleFace logo suggests that it was originally produced on a computer.”

After the ScrappleFace story broke, Birdly says a number of his readers were able to duplicate it in modern word processing programs such as Microsoft Word.

“It appeared to be written in 50 point bolded Courier New font,” Birdly explained. “Some blogs even did side-by-side comparisons of ScrappleFace logo with MS Word-produced versions.”

Though an original copy of the ScrappleFace logo could not be obtained, unnamed sources at Little Red Power Cables Instablog provided to the Daily Planet a copy of one comparison, which appears below. Afterwards, unnamed experts testified to its authenticity.

Scrapplefacecomparison

Birdly did express concern that in his response Rather had not addressed all of the major points of evidence suggesting that the story was a fake.

“For example, look at the subtitle to the ScrappleFace logo,” Birdly suggested. “It’s clearly a reference to FOX News’s slogan, ‘News Fair and Balanced. We Report. You Decide.’ Yet Rather himelf is on record as saying that FOX News didn’t even exist at the time the ScrappleFace story appeared. In fact, he recently reiterated his claim that FOX News still does not exist. Yet he didn’t address this aspect of the story at all.”

Birdly stated that Rather’s failure to address the logo’s subtitle continues to cast grave doubts on the story’s authenticity. “Of course the subtitle doesn’t mean anything at all after a newsman of Rather’s gravitas has vouched for the story. If he says it’s true and that he’ll make it true, then you can be sure he will.”

When pressed on how he would make the 1972 e-mail story true, Rather brushed aside reporters’ questions while loading a couple of laptops and a wireless network router into his 1985 DeLorian. As some reporters pressed closer to get a glimpse of the vehichle’s flux capacitor, Rather shut the car’s hatch.

“I regret that I have but one professional reputation to give for my President!” he declared before screeching away.

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UPDATE: Chirp Birdly of Little Red Power Cables Instablog now claims that his comments were misrepresented by the Daily Planet. According to Birdly, he stated that Rather’s failure to address the ScrappleFace subtitle does not mean that it continues to cast grave doubts on the authenticity of the story, whereas the Daily Planet represented him as saying that it does. The Planet stands by its original story.

The Redemption of Disney

A reader writes down yonder:

I don’t personally criticize Disney’s moves to diversify its business – ESPN, for example, is a valuable addition to the business. In addition, while perhaps Walt’s version of Disney was family-friendly, it’s a stretch of the imagination to claim that it was predominantly Christian (occultic elements run through many of Disney’s early films).

The early Disney problems weren’t limited to occult elements (though these were pretty tame by today’s standards; Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice even taught a valuable moral lesson). There was also a streak of secular humanism that runs through mid-century Disney material. Still, the company cultivated a fundamentally family-friendly image and jettisoned this as part of the Eisner Era. The company may not have been Christian, but at least it wasn’t trying to subvert family values in the way it came to in recent years.

I only hope that when the history of the Eisner Era is written a couple of years from now, it will recognize that the disaffection of family-oriented patrons contributed substantially to the decline in Disney boxoffice receipts and that, by the time Disney started to produce more family-friendly films again (like the ones Steve mentions), its family base had been so alienated that it wouldn’t come out to the theater for Disney films.

The alienation went far beyond those who formally boycotted Disney. Many who didn’t commit to the boycott still were so turned off by Disney that they would only show up for the most exciting movies (e.g., the Pixar features), passing by less exciting movies they would have turned out to see if not for a general distaste for the company (and they would have seen even more if they had a general like for the company rather than a feeling of betrayal). I know this was the case with me in numerous instances, and I’m sure that it was the case with many, many others.

The level of dissatisfaction with the company reached such levels that even many Christians who weren’t specifically boycotting would feel ashamed to admit to friends that they had been to a Disney movie, and it just wasn’t worth the effort to go.

If the scope of family alienation is recognized then the departure of Eisner will be a chance for the company to make a clean break with recent history and families may again start going to Disney films in the numbers needed to make them profitable. Disney needs to reach out to its alienated family base when Eisner goes. DRAMATICALLY SO. It needs to send a clear signal that Disney intends to serve its family-oriented customers again in a way that it hasn’t in years.

But if the role of family alienation is not recognized then the company may turn in an even more anti-family direction, having concluded that the family-oriented market is either too small to make a profit or too alienated to come back. In that case, look for its profits to continue to decline as the alienation grows worse, with family-oriented customers concluding that Disney passed by its last, best hope for redemption (i.e., the departure of Eisner).

NOTE: If any Disney employees happen to see this, please print it up and share it around.

Is The Holocaust To Be Shortened Or Extended?

A reader takes exception down yonder with my analysis of Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement regarding voting for pro-abort politicians:

There is a logical error in the numbers presented. Even a pro-life candidate has a chance of preventing only a small portion of those abortions. For example, he could through support of information requirement laws require more women at abortuaries to know the full facts about their children in utero. That will probably prevent some abortions. But he can’t overturn Roe v. Wade. That can only be done by SCOTUS and they are appointed, not voted in. And most judges with a pro-life stance are strict constructionists, not activists, and thus unlikely even in the case of unjust and illogical rulings to overturn the decisions of previous judges for fear of dangerous precedent. (Just think of the can of worms opened when judges can overturn each others rulings willy-nilly.) So the pro-life candidate is saving far few lives than the millions listed. The Six million over the course of a four year term will be the same, give or take a few thousand.

I appreciate the reader’s thoughtfulness and the charity with which she wrote her post. However, what I wrote does not contain the logical flaw that she has in mind. Let me explain . . .

The reader is indeed correct that in the short term the death toll would only be reduced by a few thousand kids during a president’s four year term. It also is true that the president cannot act unilaterally to end abortion but can only appoint Supreme Court justices who–in all probability–would not declare a legal right to life but merely overturn the legal right to abortion and re-allow states to legislate the question. We would then be facing a long, hard fight that would last decades in order to get legislation re-passed to protect the unborn. It would be long past the president’s term in office before the abortion holocaust ended.

This multi-decade legislative fight is the most likely way that abortion in America will be ended. It is difficult to imagine any other practical scenario. Indeed, it will take decades to educate the moral consciences of voters to the point that they will be willing to elect lawmakers with the pro-life spine to enact the laws needed to protect the unborn. Though there are other scenarios which are theoretically possible (e.g., passing a constitutional amendment), the one described above is by far the most likely one.

The key to that scenario is having a Supreme Court willing to overturn Roe (et al.) and that will not happen until presidents appoint the number of justices sufficient to provide 5 votes to overturn. Barring the extremely unforeseen, that will not happen as long as a pro-abort president is in office. Thus each time a pro-abort president is in office, it effective extends the abortion holocaust by delaying the overturning of Roe.

If one averages the effect of presidential appointments to SCOTUS, the net effect is that the abortion holocaust extends by one year on average for each year a pro-abort president spends in office. If an average president has 1.5 terms in office (half the recent presidents having one term; half having two) then each pro-abort president will extend the abortion holocaust for an average of six years by delaying the time when Roe is overturned. With 1.5 million kids being murdered each year abortion, that’s an average of nine million deaths attributable to the the actions of a pro-abort president due to whom he appoints to the Court.

Thus, if you look again at what I wrote, you will note that I spoke in terms of a pro-abort president extending the abortion holocaust, not of a pro-life president ending it during his term. Short-term, the number of deaths would not change appreciably, but pro-life presidents must be elected in order to get the SCOTUS appointments needed to allow the process of ending abortion to begin.

Each time a pro-abort president is elected, it extends the abortion holocaust by one or two presidential terms.

What I want to know is what the ostensibly pro-life people who voted for these presidents will say on judgment day to the souls of the nine million additional babies died because the abortion holocaust was extended because of their votes for pro-abort presidents.

Somehow I don’t think that the babies will agree that it was justifiable for voters to allow their lives to be taken because the abortion holocaust was extended so that particular social programs and policies (e.g., regarding jobs, education, taxes, welfare, immigration) could be sought.

I suspect that, to borrow words from Our Lord, they “will arise at the judgment of this generation and condemn it.”

[NOTE TO FELLOW BLOGGERS: This post makes the same point more concisely than the former one. You might consider linking it as well. Thanks!–Jimmy]

I Smell Junk Science . . .

. . . in this article about men suffering from pre-menstrual syndrome.

Setting aside the obvious point that men don’t menstruate, it is hypothetically possible that men have a monthly biological rythm that leads them to experience PMS-like symptoms on a regular basis, however that is not what the study in question shows.

All it shows is that on a survey of 50 (!) men, the men admitted to

feeling antisocial and suffering poor concentration; depression; lack of arousal; hot flushes and pain – including stomach cramps, back pain and headaches.

Okay, fine. But so what? Lots of people have periodic symptoms like that without it amounting to a syndrome. What you’d need to have in order to argue that there is a male equivalent to PMS is evidence that the symptoms recur on a somewhat regular schedule, especially a monthly one. Yet that is what the researchers seem to admit they don’t have. According to the article:

[Dr. Aimee Aubeeluck] and colleague Joanne Worsey will now study couples over several months to discover if symptoms are cyclical for both men and women.

Given the wild inaccuracy of the press (more on that later), I can’t be sure if the researchers themselves tried to advance the “male PMS” angle or if that was a figment of the newspaper’s imagination, but if so it would be irresponsible to advance such a claim based on the scanty data the article represents the researchers as having (anybody know where the original study can be read online?).

What Ratzinger Said

[NOTE TO FELLOW BLOGGERS: This topic is important enough that I’d encourage you to link to this post so more people can get the straight story on it. Thanks!–Jimmy]

“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

So wrote Cardinal Ratzinger in a confidential memorandum titled Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles that became public earlier this year.

Many Catholics were at a loss to understand the Cardinal’s statement. “Has Ratzinger lost his mind?” some wondered. “Isn’t he departing from sound Catholic theology?”

Others, including well-known dissidents, pounced on the statement as vindication for their cause and wrote newspaper columns trumpeting it as proof that in the Vatican’s view it is okay to vote for pro-abortion politicians as long as you don’t share their pro-abortion view. In other words, a voter can be “personally opposed but . . .”

Both responses fail to do justice to the Cardinal’s remark. Contrary to the first response, he is not departing from the established principles of Catholic moral theology. In fact, he is emphasizing them. Contrary to the second response, he is not offering an easy pretext for voting for pro-abort politicians.

Continue reading “What Ratzinger Said”

I . . . Have Returned

Blogging has been light the last few days while I’ve been dealing with the killer bee invasion (at least, they must be presumed to have been killer bees). They now appear to be vanquished, and I am on the verge of getting back into my house full time.

That means a return to regular blogging as well.

Prayers are also welcome, as I wouldn’t want a straggler bee to put me into anaphylaxis due to a previously-undiscovered bee allergy.