Follow-ups and/or updates to stories about which I've blogged here in the past:
1. Two psychiatrists interviewing the Norwegian shooter Anders Breivik have concluded he suffers from delusional paranoid schizophrenia, while the leader of Norway's Progress Party asks how someone who planned a mass murder over a long period of time can be insane.
2. Following the lavish 80th-birthday gala he threw himself in Rome recently, Cardinal Law resigned from his post as archpriest of the basilica of St. Mary Minor in Rome (that is, he submitted his resignation on his 80th birthday and Pope Benedict accepted it). But as Barbara Dorris of SNAP points out, Law retains his king-making power in Rome, insofar as he plays a major role in determining who is made a bishop around the world.
3. Tom Hayden and Joshua Holland think that Naomi Wolf, whom I quoted in a recent posting about the Occupy movement, vastly overstates her case for a nationally organized conspiracy against the Occupy movement.
4. Linda Katehi, chancellor of UC Davis, who has drawn critical international attention to herself after she brought in police to disperse peacefully protesting students and the police pepper-sprayed the students, has a history. She was previously on an advisory panel that pushed a controversial recommendation to reorganize Greek higher education in a more authoritarian and corporate-friendly direction that suppresses student involvement in university governance.
5. E.J. Dionne continues his ever-sharpening critique of centrism, as he argues that centrists predictably bolster the right wing while disempowering progressives--and so centrism isn't about moderation at all. It's about assuring that the right maintains control of political structures even in times when its power is waning.
6. Andrew Sullivan gives a shout out to Peter Steinfels, who finds the "new" liturgical translations of the English-language liturgy bearable,
7. While Michelle Somerville wonders about the "well-timed fanfare" of the "new" Mass and the possibility that its release is a "diversionary tactic" to shift "attention away from a pontificate mired in perversion."
8. Candace Chellew-Hodge deftly dismantles the argument of National Organization for Marriage's Maggie Gallagher that opponents of gay rights are the real victims at family gatherings around holiday tables.
9. Irin Carmon casts scorching critical light on the allegation that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was set up, and asks why it's easier to believe in fanciful conspiracy theories about a powerful man being set up than that said powerful man can engage in sexual assault.
10. And Terry Weldon brings us up to date on the recent meeting of Catholic Voices in England, which convened to discuss gay people and gay lives while excluding real-live gay people from the discussion. As he notes, it's rather difficult to convince people that you're all about serving the common good when you pick and choose who really counts, when it comes to the common good.
No comments:
Post a Comment