The Hound Of Ulster

American Papist linked to this Grey Lady ARTICLE on the “ever interesting, ever controversial” Tom Monaghan. And there is plenty of controversial, troubling material here, to be sure.

One veteran board member — Charles E. Rice, an emeritus professor of law at Notre Dame University — tried to make the case against the move. But he said that Mr. Monaghan and other board members, including the law school’s dean, Bernard Dobranski, “did not want a contrary voice,” so last fall they adopted term-limit bylaws and ejected him from the board.

Kate Cousino, the 2004 salutatorian of Ave Maria College, said she would not be writing any checks. In fact, she said that she and other Ave Maria graduates recently started an alternative alumni group because they didn’t want fund-raisers for the Florida campus asking them for donations.

Course, it is the Times, and I can’t imagine they want this endeavor to succeed. So, I was reading the article with that in mind. But American Papist adds his own personal twist to the whole story:

As full disclosure, I graduated from Ave Maria College in Michigan and know personally almost everyone who is quoted in this article. Edward Peters is my father, and I am his son that is mentioned in the article. In my opinion, this story gets most of the major points right. I realize that this is a very heated topic, but I think it is important to get the facts straight.

He also provides a few more THOUGHTS, and a ever-so-slightly shortened version of the entire article. I’m really not sure what to think. I’ve never been a huge Monaghan fan, but that’s always been as much my fault as his. Not exactly sure what to think of all this. Is it a bumpy beginning? Or is it a sign of some more serious problem?

I believe the statement I am about to make falls somewhere between 11 and 16 on the “Top 20 Ways To Know That The World Is Ending” list.

I love Bill Plaschke’s quote:

In a move that crushes all those Dodgers fans who would rather have a good farm system than a good team, Ned Colletti trades one kid for a better kid. How dare he try to win this year!

Yes, yes, I know.  Dodger Thoughts is RIGHT.  Plaschke is being unfair.  (What else is new).  Still, part of it is true.  If you eliminate the straw man he creates about the farm system, the fact that Ned may have traded a kid for a better kid is a good point.  Course, Betemit might not turn out to be better.  But he’s been improving a lot.  And we didn’t have to give up any top prospects.  (And Baez is a complete after-thought.)

Dodger Thoughts’ LATER thoughts are very encouraging.  That is a young, and potentially superb team.  Martin is amazing.

Teddy is UNHAPPY.  He feels like he’s been lied to.  Which he hasn’t.  But it’s a fun feeling none the less.  FRANCK, WHELAN and ADLER have some more complete thoughts.  And yes, TK really is that easy of a target.  (Not sure what the Post was thinking, to be honest.)

Archbishop Wuerl mystifies me. He plays a major part in the recent (and deeply disappointing) USCCB “whiff” concerning pro-abortion politicians and Holy Communion. And then he writes THIS.

Our basic human obligation to respect human life comes into force even when we are dealing with the initial stages of human life. Once we place into law the presumption that we can take innocent human life at whatever stage we determine, we put in motion a destructive force. That process can empty technology and scientific advancement of moral and ethical restraint. If our society announces that it will determine at what point a human life can be used for the benefit of another, then all that is left for the next generation to do is decide when – at what age – that principle is applied.

Already there are those who argue that since the embryo is going to be destroyed anyway, we should feel free to do with it what we will. Would that principle apply to anyone who is terminally ill? It is the same offensive principle that was used to exonerate human experimentation on prisoners in concentration camps.

There are those who maintain that scientific advances should not be restrained by moral compunction. We hear over and over the claim that much good will come from this research. The end, we are told, certainly justifies the means that are used. To abandon the longstanding moral imperative that the end does not justify the means puts us on a fast track careening towards moral anarchy.

The issue of embryonic stem cell research brings us face to face with a fundamental human moral principle and decision. We cannot allow our technology to outstrip our ethical reflection. The two need to move forward together. All our capability to develop and use technology and science must always be done within the context of God’s plan – the natural moral order. To be truly human means decisions should reflect the moral order and not be based on the appeal of what seems to work for me right now.

(HT: PIECE OF THE PUZZLE)

A friend of mine passed THIS on to me. Definitely a “teaser,” because it shows nothing. Doesn’t even get into the actors, though it does suggest a nice visual flair. But the film’s IMDB page has some interesting information.

First off, Keisah Castle-Hughes plays Our Lady. Could be an inspired choice. She was superb in Whale Rider, and she has the look (and age) necessary to pull it off. Olivia Hussey is pretty much the only cinematic image I have in my head for Mary, and that doesn’t really work.

Also of note is the fact that the rest of the cast contains some excellent actors. Ciarán Hinds, for example, plays King Herord. (Talk about a thankless role.) And Shohreh Aghdashloo, who plays Elizabeth, is a fine actress.

Another intersting factoid: The director is a woman. I’ve always thought that films have a different feel to them when directed by a woman; something more subtle, more restrained. This seems like the perfect project for a woman, even if her other films were about promiscuous teenage girls and skate/surfboarders. Plus, the writer is a Christian. Or at least that’s what people are saying.

But the think that has me the most excited about the entire project - despite my grave doubts that New Line will do this properly - is the fact that Joseph is young and manly. I’m sick and tired of the “Joseph who protects Our Lady’s virtue easily enough, since he’s 70+ years old” portrayal that seems all too common. Give me a young, virile Joseph any day. Much, much better.

(Official site HERE.)

THIS is something that happened earlier in the week. Interesting, but didn’t seem to grab a lot of attention. But go back over the story and look for the Hillary quote. Pretty shocking.

“We’re going to sacrifice a lot of girls’ lives,” said Sen. Hillary Clinton.

No, the idea behind the quote is not shocking. It’s the sort of silly REASONING that the Pro-Aborts use all the time. But the person is a bit more surprising to me. Hillary’s been trying to move to the middle. And this is not “middle.”

Someone named “Dales,” over at REDSTATE, latched on to that very quote. And drew the same conclusion. Except he had a lot more information, and a lot more details. Plus, he’s not an amateur, like I am. So, he actually knows what he’s talking about. ENJOY.

I have a bone to pick with Eric Scheske. Right HERE.

The original article he references is HERE. And it’s ugly. A taste:

The trouble for a mother like me is that not being completely and utterly enthralled with, dedicated to and obsessed with one’s children is a secret guarded, if not until death, then until someone else confesses first. When I mentioned this article to my friend Catherine Fairweather, travel editor of Harpers & Queen, the relief on her face was instant.

For years she’s listened to her friends proselytising on the sublime act of mothering. ‘But no one ever told me how boring it is,’ she moaned.

When I brought it up at lunch yesterday, my friend June, a stay-at-home mother of three young children, admitted that ‘children are mind-numbingly boring’ and the act of being with them all day and night is responsible for many mental breakdowns. ‘Looking after children makes women depressed,’ she concluded.

That is wrong - deeply and profoundly wrong. Looking after children does not make women depressed. Looking after children when you think you’re rather be doing something more “meaningful” makes women depressed. If you are not really committed to what you’re doing, anything will be boring. That’s not just true of parenting, it’s true of life in general.

And so is Eric’s response wrong, in my opinion - though probably not deeply and profoundly so. In fact, maybe it’s just a matter of approach. He seems to say: “So? Everyone with lots of kids knows that. But we move past it.”

And I’d like to say that we don’t know it. We don’t know it because it’s not true - so, there’s nothing to move past.

Scheske, who dearly loves Chesterton, should know that. To put it in GKC-speak: my kids’ boring activities are not boring to me because my kids are not bored by them. And that’s fascinating to me. Straight from The Ethics of Elfland, I think. The sun comes up every day at exactly the same time. And yet, a child is excited about it every time. Heck, we should be excited by it. And if we properly understood that, we would never, ever be bored. By anything.

But perhaps I’m not understanding his point. Is he saying that the actions are actually boring? Or just that we jaded, post-modern parents have come to see them as boring? Because the first is an agreement with “Ms. Hyphenated Last Name.” And the second is turning her point on its head.

She says that her kids bore her, and that’s perfectly fine with her. Can Scheske actually be agreeing with that? Maybe what he’s really saying is that kids bore parents, and that’s perfectly not fine. That it’s our fault, and a fact that it must be struggled against.

Could that bewhat the exercise example is for?  Exercise is hard, and we must battle to make ourselves like it. But that’s only because we have allowed ourselves to become flabby. If we were in shape from the beginning, we’d enjoy it from the beginning. And being out of shape is our fault, not the fault of the exercise machine.

Read this way, Scheske is being truly critical of Ms. Hypen. Might my objection boil down to the fact that he seems to be selling the farm for the sake of a little unnecessary agreement? Perhaps he is actually just protecting it in a difference way than I would. I wanted to come out with my guns blazing, and he wanted to make it a teaching opportunity. (Or maybe I was just irrationally irritated by the title and by the “fork” story.)

Still, it’s a very fine line to walk. I think it is far too easy (and far too common) to think of children as burdens. I think Ms. Hypen thinks of her kids as burdens, and thinks of her women friends as slaves to their children’s boring little lives. And I think Eric thinks nothing of the sort. The unexpected sounds of agreement threw me off.

Which means I probably don’t understand what he’s really getting at.

An assortment of links and topics that never quite made their way into a post:

Bolton picked up some Lefty support in his efforts to be re-confirmed to the UN: Alan Dershowitz, no LESS. (HT: GOPBLOGGERS)

I have observed Mr. Bolton’s performance with regard to Israel and its conflicts with Hezbollah and Hamas. On many other fronts he has proved himself a staunch advocate of freedom and human rights — specifically in Sudan, North Korea and Cuba. Some critics have argued that Mr. Bolton is better in his public role as advocate than in his behind-the-scenes role as conciliator. But at this point in history, the United States needs a public advocate who can further its case in the court of public opinion. No one does that better than John Bolton.

Course, they’re still giving him a really hard time. Apparently, his haircut TROUBLES people. Absurd. Or at least it should be absurd. (I’m thinking of Bork. So perhaps there is some precident. And yes, that’s a straw-man.)

Captain Ed takes on Warren Christopher’s recent comments, and WONDERS why the “it worked so well in the past” approach is being presented as an argument. Since it didn’t work in the past. (He also has an unrelated, but fascinating PIECE on McCain’s recent “quietness.”)

Lastly, a bit from Michelle Malkin on Jill Greenberg and her PHOTOS. Disturbing stuff. The question as to how this would be received if it came from a “different political perspective” seems like a pretty easy one to answer. Ugh.

Ned Lamont is running for Joe Lieberman’s Senate seat. And he just picked up a new FRIEND in his battle against Ol’ Ordinary Joe.

With friends like that…

I must admit to being a bit amazed as just how badly the Further Then Far Left wants Lieberman to lose. Seems counter-productive, in a lot of ways. And they’re not exactly providing a unified front, either. Billy Clinton made an appearance for Lieberman, remember? Mixed messages, for sure.

(HT: WONKETTE, via CALIFORNIA CONSERVATIVE)

THIS story has been flying around the Catholic blogs today.

Wow.

I’ve always heard that RC chanceries are a mess. And I’ve always half-believed it, while also dismissing it as a case of “partial sour grapes.” But it definitely seems to have grains of truth.

I’m really confused by several things, though. Why did she wait a year to “expose” herself? Did she think the Cardinal would be fine with it? Why did she use a fake name? Didn’t she just want to “have her cake and eat it, too?” Why is dissent cool? And why is “secret, undermining dissent” even cooler? What exactly should be done in response, other than sending up the disapointingly typical, mealy-mouthed spokesman?

We greatly appreciate Ms. Marchant’s many years of service in healthcare ministry. The archdiocese greatly values the ministry of lay and religious women. Their contributions are vital to the life and mission of the church…the cardinal has imposed no penalty on Jean Marchant, because, according to church law, she separated herself from the church by her own action.

Blech!

Why can’t anyone take a hard line on this sort of thing? Is it because the Cardinal is worried about “public perception?” This sort of thing?

Polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of American Catholics supports the ordination of women, but church officials say their policies are not determined by popular vote.

That’s not going to change any time soon. But some fights are worth picking. This one definitely seems like one of those. A teachable moment. Instead, it feels like they’re hiding from it.

Oh, and here’s something that would be a huge red flag to me:

A 61-year-old native of Waltham, Marchant now lives in Framingham with her husband of 19 years, Ron Hindelang, a one-time Marist priest who left the priesthood for their relationship.

Sigh.

(AMY has more. And so does DOM. The comments to both posts are pretty interesting. Emotions are running fairly high.)