Cindy Sheehan Is A Sanctimonious Didact

We have to look to Europe to find media who will state this obvious fact?

More Things To Not Call 911 About

Have It Your Way

Call To Arms

Lots of Activity

Another writer and I have been very active at Oval Office 2008 over the past couple of days. If you have interest in politics, Loyal Reader, go ahead and check it out.

A Farewell to Wigs

Solicitors in the UK, and the judges they practice before, will no longer wear their traditional wigs and colorful court costumes, at least for civil and family law cases.  Efficient and practical, to be sure, but also kind of sad, if you ask me.  If there’s one thing the British do better than anyone else, it’s pomp and circumstance, and the wigs and the robes and the ceremonies and all the rest were a source of delight for me to learn about over here on this side of the Pond.  Apparently, though, full Stuart-era court dress will be kept for criminal cases, including the nice little detail about the chief judge in a capital case having a triangle of no hair on top of his wig, so that he can don the headsman’s hat if necessary to perform the execution himself.  I wonder how long it will take before the sobriquet “My Lord” addressed to the judge will be replaced with the American equivalent of “Your Honor”?

Two-Thirds Of A Billion Dollars

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles won judicial approval yesterday for a settlement of $660 million to be spread out amongst 508 plaintiffs who claimed they had been raped by priests as children.  Note that I use the term “rape” rather than the somewhat more clinical “sexual abuse.”  “Rape” is exactly what happened to these children, mostly boys, at the hands of 247 trusted parish priests.  The Archdiocese is responsible because, allegedly, it knew of these priests’ propensities to do this sort of thing but nevertheless put them in positions where they would have close, unsupervised contact with children.

 

Let’s get a few misunderstandings out of the way here.  First – Catholic priests are no more likely than any other segment of adults to rape children, right?  An interesting question; to understand what’s going on here involves getting into the minds of the rapists to some degree, which is a distasteful although illuminating process.  It is widely thought that men who suffered molestation themselves as children, once in a position of power and maturity, will act out on the psychological trauma of the rape by becoming rapists themselves.  Does the priesthood attract a disproportionate number of former child rape victims?  Do the kinds of men who want to do those sorts of acts put themselves through seminaries in order to gain access to their victims, or do they have other, less onerous means at their disposal to realize their criminal goals?  I have no way of answering that question.

 

I do have a strong understanding that a great many priests are gay – back in the day, society was less tolerant of gay men, and it used to be that this was one sort of job that a man could be both unmarried and in the constant company of a bunch of other men with a powerful “cover story’ to provide a (thin) veneer for their homosexuality as well as providing a socially positive role in society.  But this isn’t about men who have consensual sex with other men, whether wearing Roman collars or not – it’s about men who rape children, and that’s a different sort of thing entirely.  In any event, we’re looking at 247 priests raping 508 children, which averages out to just over two victims

 

Second, I must make the mandatory caveat that the vast, overwhelming majority of Catholic priests are not child rapists and have entered the priesthood because of sincere religious faith, sincere desire to help peoples’ lives get better, and a sincere desire to encourage people to make good moral choices.  Their desires are no different than the impulses that make Protestants want to become ministers or Jews want to become rabbis or Muslims want to become imams.  Catholicism does not cause child rape.  Criminals do.  There are some priests who are very bad people, true, but there are some lawyers, some doctors, some accountants, some truck drivers, and every other profession you can think of, who are also bad people.  This sort of thing happening in the church is interesting and saddening not because it forces us to learn that there are bad people out there.  Rather, it is interesting and saddening because it takes away a place of refuge from that badness – even within the Church, a place many people look for safety and moral guidance, one must be aware of the possibility of wrongdoers – both the rapists themselves and the people in charge of them who covered up and enabled their crimes rather than confronting and calling out their misdeeds.

 

Finally, this is a lot of money – an average of nearly $1.3 million to each plaintiff.  If, as Steve Lopez argues in today’s Fish Wrapper, this settlement was reached to prevent Cardinal Mahoney from having to testify about his involvement in the massively sordid affair, that’s a LOT of hush money, and I can’t imagine any CEO (and that’s what Mahoney really is) approving more than half a billion dollars to be paid out simply to avoid personal embarrassment, no matter how severe.  You authorize that kind of payment of money for one reason only – because not authorizing it creates a substantial risk of losing even more.  At that level, it’s about cutting financial losses and nothing more.  I notice that it was paid right before four of these cases were ready to go to trial, and my experience is that settlements happen most frequently – and at a price dearest to defendants – on the eve of trial.  Smart plaintiffs push the case right up to the edge in order to maximize their recovery.  That’s what I think has really happened here – some smart lawyers knew what they had on their hands and pushed as hard as they could, for as far as they could, to get as much as they could.  That, after all, is what litigation is all about.

New Atheism, Old Morality, and Harry Potter

Not a lot of thoughts recently about religion or atheism.  But things have a way of popping up again in multiple references, closely clustered together in time.  Yesterday, I saw a very amusing movie about kids in an evangelical high school.  Although the movie was critical of hypocrisy and fanaticism dressed in religious clothing, I did not find the message to be anti-religious; the sympathetic characters who reject the strident evangelism nevertheless retain faith and are seen to pray and ask for God’s help in difficult decisions.  I also came across a few people theorizing about what will happen in the seventh Harry Potter book, but continued to be amazed that no one but me seems to have noticed that no character in the series – not the good guys, not the bad guys – seems to possess any kind of religious faith at all and indeed, there is a universal rejection of the concept of an afterlife.  (Why am I the only person who thinks that this is remarkable in so wildly popular a series of books and movies?)  And in today’s WSJ, Peter Berkowitz offers some ideas (in bold, below) about why contemporary atheists are different than their predecessors, before going on to defend religion from these “new new atheists”:

 

“Profitability is not the only feature distinguishing today's fashionable disbelief from the varieties of atheism that have arisen over the millennia. Unlike the classical atheism of Epicurus and Lucretius, which rejected belief in the gods in the name of pleasure and tranquility, the new new atheism rejects God in the name of natural science, individual freedom and human equality. Unlike the Enlightenment atheism of the 18th century, which arose in a still predominantly religious society and which frequently went to some effort to disguise or mute its disbelief, the new new atheism proclaims its hatred of God and organized religion loudly and proudly from the rooftops. And unlike the anti-modern atheism of Nietzsche and Heidegger, which regarded the death of God as a catastrophe for the human spirit, the new new atheism sees the loss of religious faith in the modern world as an unqualified good, lamenting only the perverse and widespread resistance to shedding once and for all the hopelessly backward belief in a divine presence in history.”

 

Berkowitz is sort of right.  But while some atheists do clearly hate organized religion, I wouldn’t say that the hatred is directed towards God (atheists don’t hate the Easter Bunny, either, and for the same reason).  And I agree with Berkowitz that religion has done, and does continue to do, some very good things like encourage people to think deeply about moral right and wrong, to do charity and show compassion for others, and to serve as a social nucleus for communities.  But I think he is wrong to suggest that modern atheists are new in basing their world views on rationalism – Epicurus did not reach his atheism as a sophistic means towards the end of justifying a sybaritic lifestyle (and read properly, Epicurus condemns sybarism despite his claim that that pleasure and pain were all that existed as objective measures of the value of things).  I’ve not read much Lucretius.  Nor are concerns for the rights of the individual new – the very Enlightenment atheists who Berkowitz rightly describes as going to great pains to conceal their religious beliefs from others. 

 

I would also suggest that atheism is nothing particularly new at all; it’s getting noticed right now for some reason, perhaps as a tonic in response to the deep religiosity that the country has gone through in the past decade or so.  I was an atheist before it was trendy and will continue to be so after it ceases to be fashionable – and hopefully, after it ceases to be remarkable.  At the end of the day, what counts in life is a theme likely to be repeated, again and hopefully very forcefully, in the upcoming seventh Harry Potter book – we are defined by the choices we make as individuals, not by our external identities.  You can choose to do right or you can choose to do wrong; that is more important than how you look or what faith you (claim to) possess or how rich you are or what kind of group you think you belong to.  Because that seems to be the central theme of the whole series, I expect that Harry’s constant antagonist Severus Snape will be proven to be an ultimately good person, and that at least one central character – my bet is Ron, who has offered his own life for Harry’s at least twice before – will make the supreme sacrifice and give his life at the end of the book so that good (Harry) can triumph over evil (Voldemort).

Biltmore Boredom Blues

I presently sit in the lobby of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, consuming the wireless internet available here before my employment law symposium, set to begin in a few hours. I had an appearance in the downtown Los Angeles courthouse this morning, and records to search in a different courthouse here in the city later on, and then I had lunch with one of my former law partners in Manhattan Beach. I got to meet his two new associates, too, and that was all very pleasant.

I had considered seeing a movie between now and the start of the conference, but in contemplating that thought, I figured I should see a movie that The Wife would not really want to see, and that would be Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard. I can't even write that without the title inducing a giggle, it's so cheesy. But actually, a friend said it was really good, and someone else said that Transformers was worth the price of admission, too. I didn't think this person would recommend a movie like that, but she was quite enthusiastic about it. I guess it must be a tender, touching movie about killer robots from outer space that disguise themselves as airplanes and trucks; the killer robots do a lot of sitting around talking about their feelings.

But, there is only one movie theater in downtown and it's not showing either of these until a point in time too late for me to realistically be able to make it back here in time for the conference to begin. So much for that plan. So here I sit, teaching my class and blogging, awaiting the time that I can go in to the symposium. It's quite loud here -- there is beautiful woodwork and architecture, but of such a nature as to amplify and reverberate sound, and this is the lobby of a busy hotel in the heart of the financial district of the country's second-largest city, after all -- so there are people walking in and out all the time, kids yelling and whooping as they play, bellhops wandering about, and the sounds of traffic going by outside.

A few thoughts as I wait for something to do.

This trip down into the city reminds me that the city is actually kind of an unpleasant place. Traffic is heavy, all the time. Parking is scarce and expensive. It feels crowded and rushed here. It's not without its charms -- certainly the buildings are impressive and the high concentration of professionals here provides a lot of support for sophisticated consumer businesses like high-end bars and restaurants; there seems to always be the smell of something good being cooked somewhere nearby. And (don't tell The Wife this) the high concentration of well-dressed women is easy on the eye. But despite these charms, I'm glad I don't live here in the big city anymore. A suburb -- or rather, an exurb -- is just fine with me.

I could think about the trial I have on Monday morning in Stinking Bakersfield, but the fact of the matter is that I don't need to -- it will be a pretty easy case, and it's on the verge of settlement anyway.

The bar isn't open yet, either, not that I would want to have an alcoholic drink. There will be sports to watch in an hour, so that could help pass the time. I had to get up at 5:00 this morning in order to get to court on time and despite trying to go to bed at 9:30 last night, I'm still pretty sleepy. So I've got little choice but to sit here and wait and read the news for a couple of hours.

An Interesting Fact About Immigration

“Send ‘em all home” is not a realistic part of immigration reform.  They won’t go willingly.  And if we were to double the available immigration law enforcement resources (time, money, labor) that are being used to deport the over 600,000 aliens who have already received deportation orders, the process would still take twenty years.  Assuming, of course, that no new illegal immigrants come in to the country in that period of time.  There just isn’t infinite money to do this, even if we would really want to.

Easily The Weirdest Campaign Video Ever

From who else but Mike Gravel?



(Keep watching; something happens after about ninety seconds.)

Now, he says that this was a metaphor. I say, it's absolutely bizarre.

Reason #2669....

...not to ever get a tattoo.

All-Star Break

I don’t write about baseball a lot here, because I may be the only one interested in it.  But I am interested in it so I’m going to write about it.  It’s the All-Star Break and a good time to step back and see how half the season has gone.  The best ball is being played in the NL West.  Only one team has a winning percentage below .500, which gratefully is the San Francisco Giants.  The second-best ball is being played in the AL West, again with only one team losing more than it’s winning (but with one fewer teams in the division, this is less impressive than in the more venerable NL).  The Dodgers and the Padres have been dueling for first place all season and neither team has had any breathing space pretty much the entire season.  Russell Martin is turning into a fine young catcher – the third such to come out of the Dodgers in recent memory.  Maybe they can hang on to this one.  The Milwaukee Brewers, led by Prince Fielder, seem like they can’t lose at home.  The Red Sox are blowing away everyone in the AL East, the Yankees are a hugely disappointing squad with the biggest names in baseball and a .494 record.  In a sign of the impending apocalypse, the Detroit Tigers are looking really good for the second year in a row and I think they will play the Angels for the AL pennant.  But some things never change; the losingest team in baseball is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  While they aren’t the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, they’re still the varsity squad from Glassjaw University.  Barry Bonds has 751 career home runs, still five short of his godfather’s record.  It’s not for lack of opportunity – opposing teams are pitching to him.  It still seems certain that he’ll break the record this year.

Stuck

Over the weekend, The Wife and I drove down to Beverly Hills to have dinner with some friends we hadn’t seen in a while.  We had a wonderful dinner – as I wrote last week, good food and good wine shared with good friends is what it’s all about.  Unfortunately, despite leaving a two-hour window of time in which to travel to BH, we were still an hour late.  We got caught behind this brush fire, identified as an “accident” that closed down the freeway.  Now, I know this area well enough to know alternative routes.  There are two other ways to get through Agua Dulce other than the Antelope Valley freeway – there is Escondido Canyon Road to the south, and there is Sierra Highway to the north.  And that is it.  Other than that, you’ve got to take Angeles Forest Highway, which will put you in either Tujunga or Pasadena – neither of which are particularly useful when you’re trying to get to Beverly Hills.  As we approached, I could see the tower of smoke – at least a thousand feet high – and I could tell that it included both the freeway and Escondido Canyon Road, so I knew the only way through would be Sierra Highway.  But I waited one exit too long to get off the freeway and wound up stuck in the traffic stop.  People behaved very badly, forgetting all courtesy and permissiveness with regard to merging, creating four lanes on a two-lane highway, and driving on the shoulders and in some cases blocking emergency vehicles using the shoulders to try to get to the problem area.  Everyone was special and no one let anyone in to merge.  I lost my temper once when a guy would not stop tailgating in order to prevent me from merging in at one point.  This reminded me of the fact that there are only seven major highways and two major rail routes that service the entire Los Angeles metro area – going clockwise, you have Highway 1, Route 101, Interstate 5 to Sacramento, Highway 14, Interstate 15, the Union Pacific Line, Interstate 10, Highway 60, Interstate 5 to San Diego, and the Southern Pacific/Amtrak Line.  If all of these were to be cut off at the same time, for some reason, seven million people (or more) would be unable to get out and supplies would be unable to get in other than by sea or air.

Moatdiggers

An emerging constituency within the GOP is people opposed to immigration.  Some of them go through the motions of distinguishing between illegal and legal immigration, especially when accused of racism, but generally the distinction between legal and illegal immigration is blurred for these folks.  To prove this contention, I offer a sample of local opinions from this sort.  One of them literally does advocate a moat.

This Sort Of Thing Only Happens In Los Angeles

Chewbacca fondles Marilyn Monroe at Harry Potter movie premiere.

I wonder how the police sketch artist is going to handle that one. "I realize he was quite hairy. Were there any other distinguishing characteristics, ma'am?"

Sad Comment From The Internet

I logged in to my YouTube account, and here's what I saw:

Kind of sad when the company that's getting sued by everyone in the universe insults my social skills.

Punt

In law school, I was taught that when a case involves something really awful the government is doing, but the court doesn’t want to actually speak out on the issue, it spends a lot of time explaining why the plaintiffs don’t have standing to complain about the government behaving badly before throwing the case out of court, without ever reaching the merits of the suit. That’s exactly what the the Sixth Circuit did today – the judicial equivalent of punting.

Scooter Pays Up

As usual, The Smoking Gun is there.

I've seen and handled bigger checks than this, but it's kind of cool to see anyway.

Lucky or Just That Good?

Hillary Clinton, for all her national prominence, name recognition, lightning-rod fame, and not inconsiderable legislative experience, seems to step into a room that's had all the air sucked out of it whenever she gives a speech.

But somehow, Barack Obama found a way to resonate with transcendental meditation enthusiasts in Iowa with his regular stump speech. Maybe that's why he raised more money than his primary rival for the Democratic nomination last quarter. I'm starting to wonder (and hope) if a Clinton nomination isn't as inevitable as I had thought. Not that I want any Democrat to win, but if it must be a Democrat, let's at least not have another Clinton, just to avoid creating the historical impression of a two-family dynasty running the country for a quarter century or more. Besides, Obama is getting all kinds of support from hotties singing very amusing hip-hop love songs.

(Cross-posted, without my personal opinions, at Oval Office 2008.)