Dream of the Dragon

Tag: ignorance

May 13, 2010

Time to grow up.

by Justin

Anyone hoping the recent tidal wave of bad press and flagrantly sinful abuse within the Catholic Church might dismount the Pope from his high horse is, unfortunately, wrong. Condemnation still rests comfortably on the tip of his holy tongue.

I’ve kept my distance writing about the revelation of scandal in Europe that runs deep enough to warrant the resignation of Bishops. Our man Benedict XVI, in his less holy days, has even been implicated for turning a blind eye and by negligence being complicit in several specific cases. Specifically in a German archdiocese with a younger Benedict as its Archbishop (read about that wonder here and here among other places). This is all obviously terrible. The abuse of a priest, of a trusted representative of congregation member’s god, is about as egregious as it gets. It’s a spectacular betrayal of trust. A violation of “God’s law” and plain ol’ secular law. Also, really disgusting. The caliber of this crime can’t be overstated, I don’t think. But it’s pretty well covered territory and I don’t have anything to contribute to the discourse.

Except that I hoped this was an opportunity for an extremely influential and archaic institution to grow up a little.  Read the rest of this entry »

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May 11, 2010

What To Do About Symbols That Are Not Okay

by lbej

Every time I drive to pick up my kids from school in the afternoon I pass by this one particular house that is taking an interesting approach to life in the United States.  Not the house itself, probably, but the residents.  This house is so notable because it is very well-kept and socioeconomically congruous except for one thing: it has a flagpole of the sort you see at post offices and schools on which is hoisted, always and only, the battle flag of the Confederacy.  This is very striking and, in my opinion, not okay.  I want to ask the residents of this otherwise unassuming house what they are trying to say.  Perhaps they would say something like “Southern heritage” or “states’ rights,” but the incontrovertible historical meaning of that flag is a call to take up arms against the United States.  Also virulent racism, but treason first and foremost. Read the rest of this entry »

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May 10, 2010

The heart of it.

by Justin

News of Elena Kagan’s nomination to replace that magnificent dissenter John Paul Stevens just isn’t as thrilling as I may have hoped. The tedium of the news flow – the mounting disaster in the Gulf, car bomb incompetence, and the labyrinth of British elections – while interesting and important, isn’t moving me to write. The benefit of a blog is that I can be as indulgent as I like and don’t for the moment need to cover Ms. Kagan, though Supreme Court Justices are in many ways more important than presidents. So I’m going to wax a little poetic and remind myself what I want to do and why I believe in journalism. This one’s more personal than the usual scathing account of Ahmadinejad’s antics or excitement about the latest NASA future science. Read the rest of this entry »

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