My Thoughts on Sharing the Photo of the Drowned Bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and His Daughter Valeria

We must force ourselves to keep seeing.

Yesterday, on social media, I shared a photo of the bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Valeria who drowned recently trying to cross the Rio Grande and enter the U.S. after weeks of waiting to enter. As I shared the photo, I stated that, though some media outlets had chosen to hide it behind a click-screen, in my view, we must not let ourselves look away: we are doing this to fellow human beings, and we need to see what we are doing.

National Catholic Reporter Announces It Will Restrict Its Commenting Services, Due to "Dramatic Increase in Trolls and Disruptive Comments"

Last week, I pointed you to some valuable (and worrisome) commentary about how trolls are trashing open discussion spaces online and causing some news sites to shut down their commentary threads. 

Glenn Greenwald on Jonathan Chait: "What Made the Indignity So Much Worse Was That the Attacks Came from People These Journalists Regard as Nobodies"

As Joan Walsh notes in her valuable critique of Jonathan Chait's recent oy to the universe about, well, the astonishing way in which all those other people (black ones, brown ones, female ones, gay ones) now dare to talk back in the sight of God to well-placed hegemonic straight white men like him,

Thanks to Fred Clark for Recommending Bilgrimage in Slacktivist's "Daily Blog of the Day" List

I am very grateful to Fred Clark for recommending my Bilgrimage blog in his new year's list of "daily blogs of the day" to which I pointed Bilgrimage readers a few days back. In his lead-up to his overview of my blog, Fred writes, 

Shutting Down Discussion at Catholic Blog Sites and Amanda Hess on Why Women Aren't Welcome Online: Making the Connections

Some eye-popping statistical data from Amanda Hess's magisterial essay about why women aren't welcome on the internet (each bullet point is a direct quote from Hess's article): 

Suspension of Comments by National Catholic Reporter: An Update

My posting Monday noting that National Catholic Reporter had suspended comments due to a proliferation of "vile and demeaning" discourse at some threads at the NCR site has now had over 1,000 reads. Due to the fact that the posting was widely read, I think it's important that I now take note of an update that Dennis Coday posted yesterday at the NCR site.

Bilgrimage Coverage of Papal Resignation Archived by Library of Congress

A bit of good news I'd like to share with Bilgrimage readers:

NPR Continues to Publish Erroneous Information about 2009 Pew Study and U.S. Catholic Affiliation Data: I Continue to Contact NPR

Speaking of scholars or media outlets that won't answer inquiry letters when they have gotten their facts wrong: 

Warning Message about Malware?

Dear Folks,

Two readers of Bilgrimage have notified me that they're now receiving warning messages when they try to access Bilgrimage.  If I understand aright, the message tells readers that there's malware at a site to which the blog has been linked in my blog list--the Killing the Buddha site.

A Donation Feature: An Explanation

As the weekend goes on, I wanted to post a quick note to tell readers about a change I made to Bilgrimage yesterday.  Some of you may have noticed that I added a donation button to the blog.  I want to explain why I decided to take this step.

Note on VOTF Analysis of John Jay Report: Gratitude to VOTF for Linking to My Posting

I'm grateful to Voice of the Faithful for linking to my posting re: their analysis of the John Jay report, in the latest issue of VOTF's newsletter "In the Vineyard."  I'm grateful because I think VOTF is a fine Catholic organization, and I'm pleased that they find something I've written worth recommending.  My internal stats counter tells me that particular posting has now had nearly 300 readers, and that's before VOTF just linked to the article in its newsletter.

All in a Week's Work: A Sounding of the Level of Intellectual Civility on (Some) Catholic Blogsites

Things I've been called in blog discussions with fellow Catholics this week:

Recent Blogging Bugs?

Dear Readers,

I've had emails from two longtime readers of Bilgrimage in the past few days, telling me of difficulties they're encountering trying to post comments on the blog.  I appreciate readers telling me about these bugs, and am, of course, very concerned to hear about them.

Media Misrepresent Jeremiah Wright Sermon, Accuse Him of Describing Obama Detractors as Psychopaths

I've just posted the following to my Facebook page:

Comments Section of Blog

Dear Readers,

A good friend and faithful reader of the blog has emailed to let me know the comments section of the blog disappeared yesterday when I revamped the look of the blog.

I hadn't realized that the comments feature disappeared with the renovation.  I apologize for the loss of that feature, and will work today to remedy it.

Right now, headed off to church to hear Rev. Jeremiah Wright preach, so I can't attend to that matter immediately.  But I will definitely do so upon my return.  Meanwhile, sorry for this hiatus in the comments feature, and I hope you're all having a good weekend.  I do hope I can somehow retrieve all the lost comments on past postings!

Later in the day: I think I now have the comments working again, and I apologize for the hiatus.  If anybody experiences problems commenting now, could you please email me (my address is given at the profile tab for this blog) and let me know?  Re: comments: since the last spate of heavy attack threads, I've added a feature that permits me to review comments before they are published on the site.  I've done this simply to have a degree of control over outright, unhelpful attacks on me as the blog-keeper, or on others commenting here.  I have never censored any comments on this blog.  I have in one case and one only blocked a blogger who refused to adhere to my request that he stop the constant personal attacks on others and on me.  

If you sometimes experience a gap between posting your comment and seeing it pop up on the blog, the reason is that I have not yet seen a notice that you've posted and that the comment requires my approval.  Thanks for your understanding.

Later, later the same day: a reader has pointed out to me that the comments on the blog prior to today's changeover of template haven't migrated along with the new template.  I have contacted Disqus for help with that problem, and hope to have a solution for that problem soon.  Thanks, all of you, both for your patience and for helping me spot bugs that have come along with the change in template.

Marty Kaplan on the Failure of the Mainstream Media in the Shirley Sherrod Debacle

Vis-a-vis the Shirley Sherrod debacle, more important takeaway, this time from Marty Kaplan at Huffington Post, focusing on the failure of the mainstream media to do its journalistic job (and the damage this  failure does to democracy):

Our free press has been so intimidated by right-wing pressure groups and their media enablers that the job of fact-finding has been replaced by the grotesque practice of "balancing" charges with countercharges. Are Sarah Palin's "death panels" fact or fiction? Our press says, here are both sides -- you're on your own, kid. Afraid of bad names like "lamestream" and "liberal," our news media, rather than treating Andrew Breitbart like Lee Atwater -- a partisan propagandist and smear-merchant -- instead amplified his lies about Shirley Sherrod and turned what should have been a story about how easily knaves can play the press for fools into a story about the Obama administration's fear of Glenn Beck.

Corporate Responsibility and Consumer Relations: What the Big Boys Might Learn from Small Business (with a Catholic Application)

I blogged back in February about the dismissive response I received from a major chain of stores, Target, when I sought to provide them with some feedback early this year about purchasing patterns in their local store.  As my February posting notes, I think it's important for us as citizens and consumers to try to keep holding the feet of corporations to the fire, no matter how big they are. It's important, it seems to me, that we exercise our rights as consumers by insisting that corporations listen and respond to us, and provide accurate information about their marketing practices when we request it.

I haven't been back to Target after my shoddy treatment by them earlier this year.  I don't intend to return to them after the way they handled my valid request for information in the first part of the year.

More Congratulations: Michael Bayly's Progressive Catholic Voice Also Makes Top Catholic Blog List

Yesterday, when I congratulated Colleen Kochivar-Baker whose Enlightened Catholicism blog just made the top 50 Catholic blog list at Online Christian Colleges, I didn't realize that another blog I very much admire (and recommend here) also made the same list.

This is Michael Bayly's Progressive Catholic Voice blog.  As with Colleen's blog, you'll find a link to Michael's in the blog list on the right side of the Bilgrimage page.

Congratulations: Enlightened Catholicism Makes List of 50 Best Catholic Blogs

News that brings delight to me as this day begins: a blog I very much admire, Colleen Kochivar-Baker's Enlightened Catholicism, has just appeared in Karen Anderson's list of the 50 best Catholic blogs.

Opening the Tabernacle: More on the New Progressive catholic Blog

Dear Readers,

Although I may be somewhat slow in posting here for the next several days, please don’t think I’ve abandoned Bilgrimage. I’m working double-time these days, both to write new postings for this blog, and to provide material for the exciting new collaborative project in which a group of us are now involved, about which I posted on new year’s day.

This is the Open Tabernacle blog, a link to which you’ll now see permanently at the top right of my Bilgrimage homepage. I encourage you to check out Open Tabernacle, if you haven’t already done so.

You’ll find articles by various insightful authors, all of whom are interested in working together on building a conversation space for people discussing religious, political, and cultural issues from a progressive catholic standpoint. And so you’ll find commentary that complements (and probably corrects and expands) the commentary on Bilgrimage, but from valuable perspectives different from my own.

I will occasionally be posting new material on Open Tabernacle, to support that project, and then re-posting the material at a later point on Bilgrimage. And vice versa: as the project gets underway and gathers material, I’ll be posting pieces from Bilgrimage over at Open Tabernacle, often with new editorial commentary. If you visit Open Tabernacle today, for instance, you’ll find that I just posted a piece there entitled “Bishop Spong’s ‘The Time Has Come’ Manifesto and New Conversation Spaces.”

We invite your response to the new site, and we certainly welcome your readership and support. And please be patient with me as I divide my time between these two blogs, particularly in this period when Open Tabernacle is getting onto its feet.