Daily Archives: May 18, 2011

Commentary on Religion

Come on Guys.

Leave a comment

Beltane                                                                                Full Last Frost Moon

file under:  Convenient

Sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the United States is a “historical problem” that has largely been resolved and that never had any significant correlation with either celibacy or homosexuality, according to an independent report commissioned by Catholic bishops — and subjected to fierce attack even before its release on Wednesday.

The report blamed the sexual revolution for a rise in sexual abuse by priests, saying that Catholic clerics were swept up by a tide of “deviant” behavior that became more socially acceptable in the 1960s and ’70s.

As that subsided, and as the church instituted reforms in the 1990s and 2000s, the problem of priests acting as sexual predators sharply declined, according to the study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

General

A Northern Night

Leave a comment

Beltane                                                                                      Full Last Frost Moon

The last legcom call of the session tonight.  I went into the Sierra Club office to make the call because I had to be in a meeting at 6 pm just down the block.  The legcom call is at 5pm.  Not enough time to make it into the city for a 6pm meeting.

I got a chili cheese dog (oh, I know…) and a blueberry smoothie at the Fast Freeze across the street from the Sierra Club offices.  Eating local.

The last meeting was interesting, but went over time.  I was glad when it ended.

I still had the drive back to Andover of course, but I have a new book on DVD, so I had a reward.  It’s a W.E.B. Griffith novel about the covert world.  He’s not very adroit at getting the backstory into the narrative, in essence he tells most of it rather than shows.  The real book starts somewhere well after the first few pages.

It was one of those northern nights when the modest heat of the day lingered atop the oncoming chill of the evening, a time when driving becomes mesmerizing, a trip back in time.  Nights spent cruising drive-ins, looking for girls.  Nights driving past the acres and acres of corn that grew in the fields that surrounded my hometown.  A night driving back to Kona from Kiluaea, a full moon in the sky and the air scented with jacaranda and jasmine.

General

Leslie

Leave a comment

Beltane                                                                                  Full Last Frost Moon

Warm and warmer.  Vegetables getting a needed shot of sun and improved soil temps.  Mark cleared away all the limbs from the cedar butchery this morning.  Now the  northern part of the garden gets a full dose of sun from early morning through mid-to-late afternoon.

Spent most of the afternoon with Leslie, our last meeting.  We discussed the nature of evil, humanism, humanists, approaching the UU fellowship process (the process by which UU students become ordained) and various other matters.  Lasted until 2:30.  That means there is little time to get a nap in before the next to last legcom meeting tonight and the meeting of the Conservation Committee that I will also attend tonight.

Still working on the Ai Weiwei matter, though things have slowed down a bit as the Minnesota legislature has begun to hit its crescendo.

Family, Garden

Andover Chain Saw Butchery (of a Cedar)

Leave a comment

Beltane                                                                      Full Last Frost Moon

Taking the local this morning meant cutting down the second cedar trunk and limbing it.  Mark worked very hard yesterday moving the downed and limbed trunks and branches in the front yard.  He went to bed early and slept hard.  Kate, too.  She weeded and weeded yesterday.  Her body mechanics have gotten better so her glutes tire instead of her back becoming painful.

This run of warm days will accelerate the growth in the garden.  The first planting of lettuce is recognizable now and the spinach almost so.  No potatoes coming through yet but they need a soil temperature of plus 50 degrees, so they’ve probably been tool cold.  Just hope they haven’t rotted.  The beans are up, the onions, carrots, beets and asparagus, too.  A lot of yard clearing work, weeding, maintenance chores have gotten done and will get done over the next few weeks.  Having Mark to help really moves things along.

Now I go see Leslie for our last visit, then a couple of Sierra club meetings in the evening.  The legislature has begun to wind down, but there’s a distinct  possibility that it is not all over.  Not quite yet.