Disqus - Latest Comments for CStanley

Re: Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon Stewart Who….(Etc.)

HemmD — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:41:45 -0000

CS

The "also" was a break in point. The first paragraph was directed toward your comments about Stewart going back to the subject after Hannity's apology. That is a comics tactic, nothing more.

The tawdry connotation of teabagger not withstanding, this faux insult has been kicked around way too much here. My comments were directed toward those who are constantly offended. If you are not one of those, feel free to read it as not directed toward you. My mistake was to put both comments in the same response.

I'll be happy to stop using this term if the right side refrains from the list of pejoratives used to describe the left. In this thread, I believe a separate comment to AR would have made the implied distinction overt.

Re: Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon Stewart Who….(Etc.)

CStanley — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:00:18 -0000

Good gosh, nothing like a huge overreaction to my comments, Hemm. I don't need to 'get over' anything, as I was never in the least upset about this. Joe Gandleman posted his observations about Stewart's second jibe at Hannity and then in the comment section he asked for opinions about it. I gave mine, end of story. I wasn't in any way commenting on the initial Stewart piece about Hannity's faux video reel, and never in any way condoned the use of fake footage (nor do I think there was anything whatsoever wrong with his initial criticism.) I also already said I didn't think Stewart crossed any lines of impropriety, but simply expressed my personal opinion that the second clip wasn't very funny to me and was a bit tacky (again my opinion) to keep beating the drum after the apology.

I also didn't comment about 'teabagger' with outrage- I was responding to those who were puzzled at how the tea party participants could possibly not have known about the urban dictionary definition of teabag, and letting them know that at least among people that I know, no one understood what the juvenile joking was all about and I'm not ashamed to admit that because I have no shame in not being well versed in crass terms for sex acts.

Re: Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon Stewart Who….(Etc.)

HemmD — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:46:00 -0000

Good morning CS

I find it odd how you don't see the irony of Hannity's use of erroneous film clips to push a political meme. I distinctly remember how outraged you were that Oberman edited a Palin daughter clip. At least in his case, he actually used her words about abstinence.

As to Stewart "milking" the apology, get over it. Stewart is a comedienne who lives on the milk of other people's hypocrisy. Hannity and fox in general slice and dice raw footge to produce their meme on a regular basis. Stewart caught him and called him out by using humor to make his point. Any time Hannity wants to guarantee that this episode is his last attempt to shape the news through purposeful editing, I'm sure Stewart will leave him alone.

Also, as to the teabagger "controversy", I suggest you watch Robert Wuhl's "Assume the Position."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgddY5OO4fY This jumps into themiddle of his talk, and I suggest you watch all four parts. You will find yourself laughing at the lies we've told ourselves.

Yankee Doodle was a homophobic slur first used by the British. It took Americans to make it a battle cry. My point is simple, instead of taking umbrage with a an opposition's intended slur, use it, ignore it, or make it mean something you want it to. Being offended is a waste of everybody's time.

Re: Why Should Public Dollars Pay for the Vanity of Old Men?

CStanley — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:09:32 -0000

Kathy, I don't have time to continue the discussion but just wanted to thank you too for this response. I find it so much better to speak in ways that help us understand each other instead of impugning motives...wouldn't you agree? We'll probably never agree on the substance of the issue, but we can better understand each other's perspective.

Just one brief comment and then I have to run- about the part where you agreed that your position is based on a desire to 'level the playing field' since women are the ones who bear more natural consequence of sexual activity- this really just speaks to our fundamental, philosophical disagreement over the role of government. I don't think it's desirable nor even close to being possible for government to do that in so many instances, so I never consider that as the role that government should play. Life just isn't fair, and there's no way that we're going to make it that way by fiat.

Re: Can We Please Just Tax the Churches Already?

CStanley — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:00:36 -0000

Not outraged, GD, though I am a bit appalled at the level of managerial misconduct and board ineptitude that has been displayed even through what is currently known. And I thought perhaps you should make yourself more aware of it before declaring that ACORN keeps its books in order- you may well end up with egg on your face when all of the investigations are through.

Re: Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon Stewart Who….(Etc.)

CStanley — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:57:51 -0000

Actually, neither I nor anyone in my social circle had ever heard the term used as sexual entendre before this came up. I find it odd that we're supposed to feel embarrassed to not know this lexicon. Sorry if you think that people are rubes for not being in on the joke, but perhaps you should realize that not everyone is as well versed in crassness as others apparently are.

Re: Can We Please Just Tax the Churches Already?

GreenDreams — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:18:12 -0000

sorry, CS, i nodded off reading that article. So ACORN was a VICTIM of embezzlement. So? And management didn't inform the board. They could get fired for that, but it's not against the law. This is such a snore, but have fun stoking your rage with it.

Re: Why Should Public Dollars Pay for the Vanity of Old Men?

kathykattenburg — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:30:47 -0000

Christine,

First, thank you for this thoughtful comment -- it does help me understand your position a bit better.

That said....

The other (much more common) situation does not regard the fetus as a growing child at all and makes a choice to dispose of it- even if there is some thought process there too to determine what the quality of life would be for a child under the circumstances, making that decision after the fetus already exists is treating it as an inconvenient ball of tissue instead of an actual human, living being. And its that capriciousness that is morally repugnant to a lot of people.

If you've been to the Guttmacher site, which it appears you have, then you also know that the statistics on contraceptive use show that the overwhelming majority of women of childbearing age who are sexually active and do not wish to become pregnant are using some form of contraception. This hardly strikes me as defining "capriciousness" or having "no regard for the fetus as a growing child at all." It strikes me, actually, as demonstrating strong awareness on the part of women of the potential consequences of sex and taking responsibility for preventing that.

And yes, obviously contraceptives sometimes fail, but that does not mean the woman has been irresponsible. And if you're suggesting that sexually active women who use contraceptives still do not have the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, then you are actually saying women who don't want children should not have sex, ever, at all. That, in my view, violates a woman's basic human rights, and just as a practical matter, is a complete non-starter.

It appears to me that the crux of your argument really is that it's unfair that women have no choice by nature but to be the ones who can get impregnated during an act of intercourse, so that they can't just walk away from the consequences like men can.

This is true. And perceptive on your part, since I never explicitly expressed that.

With abortion rights in place (meaning abortion on demand, not just abortions which are medically necessary for a woman's health, or rape/incest, or severe fetal abnormalities), I feel that men are actually MORE absolved of responsibility than ever before.

I don't see how, Christine. Men can walk away regardless, and they have done exactly that since the dawn of human history (as a general statement, obviously -- I don't want this to be taken as male-bashing). Whether abortion is legal or illegal, men can walk away and often do. Furthermore, even if the law catches up with a delinquent father, it's not going to help if he is unemployed and penniless, too. If you can point to statistics that show men were more responsible about the unwanted children they fathered before Roe v. Wade, please do.

...many women bear emotional scars about a choice that they really didn't want to make but felt coerced into (either by other people or by circumstance.

It seems to me the solution to that problem is to make choice more meaningful by restructuring society so that women who DO want to keep their babies can do so even if the fathers take off for parts unknown. The problem you are pointing to is not that women who want abortions regret them later, but rather that women who don't want abortions, or who are not clear and confident about their choice, are conflicted, have mixed feelings, etc., often are pushed in the direction of ending the pregnancy because they have no one to turn to and no way (at least that they can see) to make an independent, financially stable life without being dependent on the man who helped create the baby. Going back to criminalizing abortion and depending on unenforceable, un-realizable fantasies of a world in which men step up to the plate and women have someone to take care of them makes no sense at all to me. Why not think outside of the box and actually make it possible for women to have, raise, and support children on their own if such are the circumstances they find themselves in?

Re: Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon Stewart Who….(Etc.)

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:22:09 -0000

So if you watch the shows from "there" then you are "petty". [stay with the herd]. That was a nip from TMV's own heeling dog.

Um, no, it wasn't a 'nip', nor did I say that people who watch The Daily Show are petty. I simply answered Joe's question with my own opinion of this particular clip from Stewart, and personal opinions were what Joe asked for. Funny how a few commenters here react as though there is only one correct answer to a question about opinions, and yet somehow simultaneously are trying to claim that we who might have a contrarian opinion are trying to nip at heels to herd people into agreeing with us.

Re: Why Should Public Dollars Pay for the Vanity of Old Men?

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:15:42 -0000

Which still sounds like this whole discussion is about something that won't make a bit of difference in the real world.

Quite true. Unless next up we'll have a congressional bill introduced to ensure that all women have publicly funded transportation to abortion clinics, and escorts who will ensure that no other person will attempt to influence her decision to abort.

Re: Why Should Public Dollars Pay for the Vanity of Old Men?

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:11:24 -0000

Abortion is NOT a way to take responsibility. It is a way to SHIRK responsibility.
Adoption is a way to take responsibility. Not having sex or having safe sex are ways to take responsibility.

I would phrase that a little differently. I do understand why roro and other abortion rights proponents see the abortion decision as a means of taking responsibility. However, it's a means of doing so after the fact when other decisions could have preempted the need to make that decision (at least in most cases except for rape.) And combining that with the fact that the majority of people don't view abortion as a medical treatment performed on a woman's own body (without considering that another human life is ended in the process) is obviously the reason that there is objection to taking responsibility in this delayed fashion rather than during the time when the pregnancy could have been prevented by other behavioral choices.

The bike riding and junk food eating analogies don't hold up well, either, because neither activity is as directly related to the negative outcome as is pregnancy related to unprotected sex. Most people could ride their bikes on a daily basis for life without having any injuries necessitating medical treatment, and there are so many other factors in diseases like heart disease that you can't directly say that eating french fries will result in a heart attack for the majority of partakers.

Re: Can We Please Just Tax the Churches Already?

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:38:56 -0000

You obviously haven't been following the Rathke story, GD, which goes well beyond that one article I cited. You'll need to do your own research to get up to speed, but here's one brief recap. The coverup that I'm referring to was that only a small number of the executives knew of the embezzlement by the founder's brother, and they cut a deal with him without even notifying the board of directors. The deal specified a payback of close to a million dollars, but now there are some reliable sources saying that the amount embezzled was actually closer to $5 million.

Frankly I find it breathtaking that you don't have a problem with organizations covering up internal crimes from their donors either, but this was on another order of magnitude because even the board of the organization was prevented from knowing about it (which resulted in the perpetrator remaining in employment of the organization for a number of years, and never facing any legal consequences for his actions either.)

I should add that in my initial comment I misstated this as a coverup 'by the organization's board members' when what I meant to write was that the coverup was perpetrated by the executives of the organization who withheld information from the board.

Re: Can We Please Just Tax the Churches Already?

GreenDreams — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:14:10 -0000

"Coverup"? Where did you get that nugget? It's not what the article you linked says. Corporations, whether for-profit or nonprofit are not obligated to disclose embezzlement, and many do not as it could affect their ability to raise money (from stockholders and donors respectively). It is quite possible for embezzlement to occur without "defrauding taxpayers" unless 100% of ACORN's funding is from taxpayers. It isn't, unless you mean voluntary donations by individual taxpayers. For example, if a million was skimmed off of what the Democratic party gave ACORN, the party could sue, or press charges. But the idea that every line of their financials has to be disclosed or there's a "coverup" is not how it works. You should know that, since the payments to victims of priestly abuses by your church was kept secret for many years.

Re: Can We Please Just Tax the Churches Already?

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:05:27 -0000

Actually the 'basis in fact' for questioning whether laundering has taken place was in the basis for the warrant for the raid. And the investigation isn't about an individual embezzling, it's about the alleged coverup of the embezzlement (which could extend to defrauding taxpayers) by the organization's board members.

Re: Can We Please Just Tax the Churches Already?

GreenDreams — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:55:06 -0000

I hope so too, but individual lawbreaking, such as embezzlement which is alleged in the article at your link, has nothing to do with tax exemption. Employee theft is the leading cause of corporate bankruptcies, and plagues nonprofits as well as for profits. And of course you have no basis in fact to question whether "laundering" has taken place. After all, there were no suspicious fires like at Cheney's office.

Re: Can We Please Just Tax the Churches Already?

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:10:19 -0000

carefully keeping tax exempt and taxable activities separate, just like ACORN.

Well, hopefully we'll soon see about that (if the financial records haven't already been laundered before the raid.)

Re: Can We Please Just Tax the Churches Already?

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:30:21 -0000

Indeed, Dr. E. I feel we've been blessed with a very honorable archbishop in Wilton Gregory, and his predecessor was upstanding as well. I guess that's why I get a bit defensive even though I realize that criticism is warranted in many locales but I don't want a broad brush used.

Re: Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon Stewart Who….(Etc.)

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:23:34 -0000

Hamhanded referred not to the original 'calling out' but the repeat segment which I referred to as 'milking' after the subject of the complaint did the right thing and apologized. Hannity's extremely biased, partisan, and I'm sure this isn't the first time his show has engaged in 'creative editing'. But when someone is called out for it and owns up to it, that should be duly noted and not ridiculed IMO- and I'd feel the same if Stewart had called out liberal pundit or journalist and then that person apologized. I realize in some alternate universes the liberals are never guilty of this, but here would be a good example of what could have been lampooned by Stewart (and I have no idea if he did in fact do so....but had he done so and then the anchor apologized for the way they edited the clip, I would also have considered it bad form if Stewart went on the air the next day and kept harping on it instead of acknowledging the apology.)

Re: Can We Please Just Tax the Churches Already?

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:57:17 -0000

Respectfully, Dr. E, I think you are mistaken in some of those comments. Catholic Charities is a separate 501(c)3 organization and its funds have nothing to do with the general Church funds where certain archdioceses have had to pay out the massive lawsuit settlements. And like all 501(c)3 entities, Catholic Charities is required to make public its audited financial statement each year (here is the link to the statements from '07 and '08).

As for money put in the parish collection plate and given directly to the archdiocese (we have an annual archbishop's appeal to support various missions here in Atlanta), I guess some parishes and dioceses are doing a better job with transparency than others. We receive an annual summary of revenue and expenses from our parish, and the archdiocese posts general information online and will provide more detailed statements upon request. They've also pledged that none of the money donated to the archdiocesan appeal has been or will be used to settle lawsuits.

Re: Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon Stewart Who….(Etc.)

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:30:47 -0000

The issue is Stewart's bit: was it good, lousey? Out of line?

Not out of line considering Stewart does comedy, but I didn't think it was very funny and it came across as hamhanded. Hannity did the right thing in this case by admitting the error and apologizing (and from that clip, I didn't think he was apologizing to Stewart- he just said that Stewart was right and then he apologized, presumably to his viewers.)

Anyway, I say hamhanded because it's a silly thing to make such a big deal of, and it seems a bit petty to keep milking the gag after the correction was made by Hannity. Stewart is talented and funny and capable of coming up with better material than this.

Re: Why Should Public Dollars Pay for the Vanity of Old Men?

CStanley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:31:40 -0000

What do I mean by existential? I mean that when a woman is pregnant, she is carrying another life inside her body. People who say abortion is murder "get" the first point quite well. But they do *not* get the second point, at all. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say they don't respect what that point means, in the deepest sense.

Kathy, in this comment you repeatedly refer to prolifers as not 'getting' this point or not respecting it, but you fail to realize that the flip side of that is completely true for you. You, in this comment, after being pressed on it, say that you intellectually understand why some people consider abortion murder- but you show no understanding of how that concept motivates a deep, unwavering commitment to protect the fetal life. Instead, your initial comment to me was that unless I can prove otherwise, people who say that they believe in right to life for the fetus are actually motivated by a desire to repress women. That's incredibly offensive, but until several people pushed you into it you refused to state your position in less obnoxious ways.

What you seem incapable of is understanding that people can SEE your viewpoint but disagree with it. It seems that unless people hear you out and decide that you are correct and they are wrong, that you will continue to believe that they (we) are oblivious to your viewpoint.

It means that no matter how fervently and sincerely one believes that a fetus or a fertilized egg is a human being, or a child, or whatever, that "human life" or "child" is inside of the body of a woman. If a fetus has rights equal to a woman's, then the very least one can say is that the fetus's rights and the woman's rights are in conflict. Those rights are always in conflict, by definition. So it has to be an issue of whose rights prevail.

Of course there is a conflict between the rights of the pregnant woman and the fetus. I don't know anyone who denies that or ignores it. Most prolifers feel though that the right to life is such a primary and inalienable right that it trumps other concerns (which doesn't mean necessarily that we take those other concerns lightly.)

And making abortion illegal or very difficult to get is telling a woman that her body rights don't matter -- that the law can do whatever it wants to her body and she has no right to say no.

But 'the law', in the case of legal restrictions on abortion, doesn't 'do' anything to a woman's body- it proscribes what she can or cannot do to another individual. She and her sexual partner were the ones who 'did' something to her body. This is one emotional touchpoint that I see in your beliefs (and those of many other ardent abortion rights supporters, particularly female ones.) It appears to me that the crux of your argument really is that it's unfair that women have no choice by nature but to be the ones who can get impregnated during an act of intercourse, so that they can't just walk away from the consequences like men can. You seem to feel that the law should step in to remedy that by providing her with the choice of abortion. I think that's wrongly reasoned, and I also think it is a mistake for feminists to look to this as a solution. With abortion rights in place (meaning abortion on demand, not just abortions which are medically necessary for a woman's health, or rape/incest, or severe fetal abnormalities), I feel that men are actually MORE absolved of responsibility than ever before. A man is free to have sex and let the woman then bear the burden of 'choice' if she becomes pregnant as a result. So, there's a levelling of the playing field theoretically, to give the woman options to undo a pregnancy, but she is the one on whom the burden still falls and many women bear emotional scars about a choice that they really didn't want to make but felt coerced into (either by other people or by circumstance.) The leveling of the playing field is first of all in the wrong direction (trying to absolve both parties of dealing with the consequence of an unplanned pregnancy instead of getting both parties to take more responsibility for it) and it's ultimately unsatisfactory because for many women the choice of abortion has negative consequences potentially as bad or worse than carrying the pregnancy to term would have had.

One final point is in regard to several comments you've made about the reasons that women choose abortions. A few commenters have mentioned that the vast majority of abortions are NOT for the reasons that you had, and you've argued that they are incorrect in that assertion. Have you ever actually read the Guttmacher stats? By far, the majority of women who have abortions state the reasons as things that are called 'social' reasons- they feel they can't afford a child, or the child would inconvenience them, or they don't have a partner who is willing to help raise the child. Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with thinking along those lines- but the point is that for many women and the men that they were involved with, those choices are being made after a pregnancy has occurred instead of beforehand when the decisions wouldn't have necessitated the termination of a fetal life.

Anyway, my point here is that you seem to believe that your own situation is the norm with regard to abortion. No one denies that there are many women who face similar circumstances- but as a percentage of the 1 million plus abortions in the US each year, it's a very small fraction. I think you have to realize that most people have a much different reaction to the choice that you made vs. the choice to electively abort a fetus that is unwanted. Your situation shows compassion and care about the child you would have been bringing into the world, and the quality of life that he/she would have had. The other (much more common) situation does not regard the fetus as a growing child at all and makes a choice to dispose of it- even if there is some thought process there too to determine what the quality of life would be for a child under the circumstances, making that decision after the fetus already exists is treating it as an inconvenient ball of tissue instead of an actual human, living being. And its that capriciousness that is morally repugnant to a lot of people.

Re: Why Should Public Dollars Pay for the Vanity of Old Men?

roro80 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:03:13 -0000

I got that number from the Guttmacher Institute.

Re: Why Should Public Dollars Pay for the Vanity of Old Men?

AustinRoth — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:39:32 -0000

When I read it, I chuckled and thought it was a good point- and that it's the opposite of misogynistic since it pointed out that women enjoy better sex as much as men do.

Thanks CS. I was satrting to wonder why it wasn't obvious what I was saying, and that I meant it in an absolute positive way towards women.

The only thing I can think of is what Polimon said - she is obessising on the words 'their men'.

Oh well. She seems to be off her meds today. I guess it is time to drop it, because she is neither going to admit she misunderstood the post, nor say what she found so offensive.

btw - I learned something new this weekend after years of owning dogs. They can pull muscles in their butt just from wagging their tail too hard! I never would have thought it possible.

Re: Why Should Public Dollars Pay for the Vanity of Old Men?

AustinRoth — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:17:12 -0000

drugs like Viagra being vastly overused

No doubt. But the misuse of drugs, even if you concede by the majority of people who take, and that is likely true, doesn't negate the positive it provides for those who have a medical need.

Re: Why Should Public Dollars Pay for the Vanity of Old Men?

CStanley — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:54:42 -0000

I'm not sure where you got the 30% figure- my understanding is that the privacy laws prevent the kind of reporting that would allow for that kind of determination, and since the number of women who have had repeat abortions is quite high (I believe almost 50% of women who have abortions have had at least one previous one), you can't extrapolate from the number of abortions overall to the population of women in general.

At any rate- I imagine that the status quo with Medicaid patients would prevail if this bill passes with the Stupak amendment, and that means that medically necessary abortions would still be funded.