Catholic leader says some children seduce pedophiles into action

To which God replied: “That’s just pathetic, Catholic leader, and you need to drop to your knees and pray for wisdom, and forgiveness.”

And thanks, everyone — and there were many — who sent me this link.

We built that. We did.

And thanks, DickG., for the link.

First day of school, first school shooting

Leftover sends this, yet another disturbing story about gun violence.

So. Do we toughen our gun laws? Do we severely punish those who break them? Do we have more no-questions-asked gun collections by police? Do we look at how our entertainment glorifies gun violence? Do we increase economic opportunities and decrease hopelessness in neighborhoods most affected by gun violence? Do we gather up all the guns and melt them into a big sculpture?

 

God’s blessings under a bridge

The Hartford Homeless Outreach Team leaves at 6 a.m. every Thursday, from South Park Inn, a homeless shelter downtown.

Yesterday, the team was Dave and Tony, two guys who obviously love what they do and who love one other, though when I suggest that, the vulgar (and funny) jokes came flying at me sitting there in the backseat.

That’s OK. I’ve got Dave and Tony pegged. They’re two big-hearted guys who somehow manage to cover that up with a pretend shell of world-weariness. They’ve certainly seen enough to make them world weary, yet here they are again, handing out bagged lunches, socks, and conversation to a part of the population you might just walk right by. To the untrained eye, the chronic homeless may look like nothing more than a pile of quilts scattered on a bench. They are gone by the time most people go to work, circulating like ghosts among the rest of us. They’re invisible because that’s how everyone wants it — both the chronic homeless, and us. If the police find them, they will roust them, so they keep moving and come back to settle in only after things get quiet at night.

Life doesn’t have to be this way. The team is offering rides to a shelter, though every shelter in Hartford is full. Somehow, they’ll find a spot if one of these folks will just come inside.

The team knows the spots people flop — under a bridge, squirreled into a corner of a church step, nestled behind busted-down boxes. We find one guy near a dumpster shooting up. Keep driving, Dave says, we don’t want to interrupt him, and just to mess with Dave, Tony slows down.

They hand a lunch bag to an old man, who opens the bag immediately and begins eating. There must be street protocol for this. Though some of these people  haven’t eaten in a day or more, most wait until the van is pulling away to open their lunches. Not this guy. When Tony sees him quickly chewing, he hands him another bag.

Dave bumps fists with One-Eyed Carl, a guy who can be the sweetest thing going, or a really scary dude.Today, he is sweet, and earnestly tells Dave about a job he has working construction.

See that guy? Tony asks, and he nods to a youngish man with wild hair, walking down the street having a conversation with himself. He sees us and is talking to us, but we’re not in the conversation yet, Tony explains.

You can come inside, Tony says. We can find you a bed, says Dave. The people may want to come in, but all decline. These are the hard-cores, the people who will stay outside even on the worst winter nights. They’re outside because they don’t trust the shelters. They’re outside because they can’t use if they come in. They’re outside because the voices in their heads tell them to stay outside. They’ve blown through families, friends, and acquaintances, and sometimes, shelter workers, too. One guy looked like he was going to get into supportive housing, but then he masturbated in the lobby of a shelter, so it was goodbye, opportunity, and he was back to his place leaning against a band stand.

Who does that kind of thing? Someone with some pretty significant mental health issues.

The team finds mostly men, but they recently found a pregnant woman out on Hartford’s streets. She insists she’s only 3 months along, and she insists that she’s not using. Neither of those statements is correct, and still Tony and Dave treat her with dignity, encourage her to come in, maybe get some prenatal care.

Imagine a 5-year old looking at his mom saying with all seriousness, “I want to grow up and live on the streets of Hartford, Conn.” That doesn’t happen, and you can feel your heart break as you push through tall weeds to carry yet another lunch — sandwich, fruit, snack, juice, and water — under yet another bridge. And standing there, like a specter, is a tall, gaunt man who gravely takes the bag you offer, and says quietly, “God bless you.” What do you say back to that? “You, too?” Living here under a bridge? God bless you? And find you a home?

How to tell your white terrorists from the rest:

From Juan Cole, at Informed Consent:

1. White terrorists are called “gunmen.” What does that even mean? A person with a gun? Wouldn’t that be, like, everyone in the US? Other terrorists are called, like, “terrorists.”

2. White terrorists are “troubled loners.” Other terrorists are always suspected of being part of a global plot, even when they are obviously troubled loners.

3. Doing a study on the danger of white terrorists at the Department of Homeland Security will get you sidelined by angry white Congressmen. Doing studies on other kinds of terrorists is a guaranteed promotion.

4. The family of a white terrorist is interviewed, weeping as they wonder where he went wrong. The families of other terrorists are almost never interviewed.

5. White terrorists are part of a “fringe.” Other terrorists are apparently mainstream.

You can read more here.

And thanks, Cynical, for the link.

Using the law to suppress the vote

See and read what Bill Moyers has to say about new voter ID laws and other legislation that shrinks the entrance to the voting booth to a teeny-tiny hole.

And thanks, DickG., for the link.

Cheeky of me, linking to my own stuff.

But I wrote this for Salon today, about Joplin’s burned mosque.

Good people of Joplin? Step up.

Prayers for the Sikhs, and prayers for the rest of us, too.

On Sunday, a gunman went into a Wisconsin Sikh temple and shot and killed six Sikhs before he was shot and killed, himself, by a police officer arriving at the scene.

One of the quotes from a family member was that when he heard of the death of his loved one, “the heart just sat down.”

The news prompted someone I know (an ex-pat no longer living in the U.S.) to write on Facebook: “Another day, another mass shooting in the U.S.”

So this is what happens next: The news media, led by Anderson Cooper, goes to the scene. Bit by bit in the coming weeks, as it was in Aurora, Colo., as it was in everywhere before that, we parse out the killer’s biography — which as of this morning remains sparse. Heavy-set. Lots of tattoos. May have used an alias. Please, Jesus, let us find something about the killer that sets him apart from the rest of us — belonged to a hate group, maybe? –because that will allow us to neatly place this crime into a box and move on.

We will hurt for the dead, and mourn with the living, and bemoan the fact that somewhere, someone could have stopped this — say, a mental health professional, or a friend of the killer.  Ironically, those people will be thinking the same thing. And we’ll soon start reading stories of the sad and sorry funerals coming our way — the dedicated family man laid to rest, the good citizen cut down simply because s/he was worshiping in that time and in that space.

All that will be conjecture and much of it will be worthless. Yes, we should have better mental health treatment in this country, a system that allows freedom of choice while also providing help to those who are most likely to hurt themselves or others. Yes, yes, yes. All that.

But once we have the killer neatly boxed, and once we’ll feel Wisconsin’s loss, we’ll take a page from our politicians’ playbooks, and we’ll avoid talking about gun violence in any meaningful way because whether we’re card-carrying members of the NRA or whether we think guns are of the devil, it feels like there’s no space to have a rational discussion about what we do about the nuts. The battle lines are already drawn, and another painful opportunity will go by the wayside. Tell me we’re all talked out on that. Tell me there’s nothing to be done, that there’s one in every crowd — “one” being a nut with a gun.

Tell me, but I won’t believe it.

And finally, this meditation, from the Hindu American Foundation:

Dharma traditions–the Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Hindus–hold non-violence and peaceful co-existence as paramount values. It is a cruel irony that Sikhs, donning the turban as among proud symbols of a spiritual mandate to serve humanity as defenders of dharma against all onslaughts, find themselves sought out and victimized by ignorant assailants on too many occasions.

We call on all Americans today to join Sikhs in mourning a senseless attack. And to take this opportunity not only to learn about the sublime teachings of Sikh gurus, the Sikh faith, and the meanings of its external symbols, but also to join hands to ensure that the gurudwaras remain sanctuaries of joyous worship and celebrated sharing of langar, or community meals, for generations to come.

How we gonna do that? Huh?

Imagine if we spent this money elsewhere…

Like roads. Or schools. Or affordable housing. Or daycare centers. Or healthcare.

And thanks, Mother Jones, for the graphic.

Which is more important: The First Amendment? Or the Second?

Florida Gov. Rick Scott plans to appeal a court ruling that struck down his state’s 2011 ban on doctors asking patients about guns in their homes.

It’s called the Docs vs. Glocks rule, and was a piece of legislation heavily favored by the National Rife Association.

The announcement comes less than a month before the GOP meets in Tampa, to, mostly likely, nominate Mitt Romney as their presidential candidate.