Is Religion to blame? Abuse of our Children

My opinion: Sexual abuse by Catholic priests appears to be a world-wide practice. Church leaders have gone to extremes to cover up these atrocities. Governments should take all available means to prosecute the perpetrators and those who protected them.

MAUREEN DOWD

An avenging altar boy takes on the Church

PHILADELPHIA – The district attorney is burning a eucalyptus-spearmint candle on his desk.

“I think the press looks down upon the DA drinking Jack Daniels during the day,” R. Seth Williams says with a broad smile, “so I light my little stress-relief candle.”

It’s understandable if the former altar boy at S10 Carthage in West Philly needs to light a votive. The 44-year-old Catholic, who still attends Mass with his family at the same church, now called S10 Cyprian, is the first U.S. prosecutor to charge a church official for a sickeningly common7 place sin: endangering children whom the Roman Catholic Church was supposed to protect by shuffling pedophile priests to different parishes where they could find fresh prey.

“I grew up treating the hierarchy of the church kind of like rock stars,” he said in his 18th floor aerie, where he keeps a small iron crucifix and a cross fashioned from Palm Sunday fronds.

“There’s no get-out-of-jail-free card for raping, sodomizing, groping, doing anything wrong to kids.”

Monsignor William 1. Lynn, who served from 1992 to 2004 as the secretary of clergy reviewing sexual abuse cases for then-Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, appeared in court Monday. He is charged with felonies for allegedly helping the cardinal cover up molesters and transferring them to other parishes.

“It was a conspiracy of silence to ensure the church’s reputation and to avoid scandal,” said Assistant District Attorney Evangelia Manos.

Lynn, a round, ruddy man in black priest’s garb, sat silently in court behind his two lawyers paid by the archdiocese – as a cheering squad of priests and parishioners watched.

Lynn’s co-defendants sat beside him: a rabbity-looking Rev. James Brennan, 47, charged with raping a 14-year-old boy in 1996 in his apartment; and the unholy alliance of a priest, the sepulchral Charles Engelhardt, 64, a defrocked priest, Edward Avery, 68, and a former Catholic schoolteacher, Bernard Shero, 48 – all charged with raping or sodomizing the same lO-year-old altar boy 12 years ago.

Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, told reporters that the charges against his client were “a stretch” and that he was pleading not guilty.

And Richard DeSipio, one of Brennan’s lawyers, went on the attack against his client’s accuser, now 29. “Their witness is in prison in Bucks County for stealing his sister’s credit card and using it,” DeSipio told Mensah Dean of The Philadelphia Daily News. “He’s a convicted liar.”

It tells the story of a fifth-grade altar boy at S10 Jerome School given the pseudonym Billy. Engelhardt plied him with sacramental wine and pulled pornographic magazines out of a bag in the sacristy and told the child it was time “to become a man,” the report says.

A week later, after Billy served an early Mass, the report states that Engelhardt instructed him to take off his clothes and perform oral sex on him. Then the priest told the boy he was “dismissed.”

“After that, Billy was in effect passed around to Engelhardt’s colleagues,” the report says. “Father Edward Avery undressed with the boy, told him that God loved him,” and then had him perform sex. “Next was the turn of Bernard Shero, a teacher in the school. Shero offered Billy a ride home but instead stopped at a park, told Billy they were ‘going to have some fun,’ took off the boy’s clothes, orally and anally raped him and then made him walk the rest of the way home.”

Billy fell apart and turned to heroin.

The report says Brennan knew Mark from the time he was 9. When he was 14, the priest arranged with Mark’s mother for a sleepover. “Bl:ennan showed him pornographic pictures on his computer, bragged about his penis size and insisted that Mark sleep together with him in his bed.” Then the priest raped him as he cried, according to the report.

Mark also fell apart and attempted suicide.

It’s tragically past time to send the message that priests can’t do anything they want and hide their sins behind special privilege.

In Seth Williams’ city, the law sees no collars, except the ones put on criminals.

Maureen Dowd is a columnist for The New York Times.

San Andreas Fault

March 14, 2011 from the Orange County Register in California. “The southern San Andreas fault could perhaps produce a quake in the 7.8 magnitude range in the area between the Salton Sea and San Bernardino, said Bob Dollar, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey. There is also a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate is diving beneath another, running from northern California to British Columbia.”

There was no words on when this might occur.

California Earthquakes

I remember the Tehachapi Earthquake when I was a boy. We lived in Inglewood, California (near LAX). It was a magnitude 7.5 (Richter scale) earthquake (USGS, SCEC) on the little known White Wolf Fault. Cracks in the living room wall were filled with newspaper before my father plastered over the filling and repainted.

Then I got married and there was another earthquake. As I recall I was shaking in 1969. It was 1971 and my wife and I lived in Hollywood in a second floor apartment. The deadly Sylmar earthquake was 6.6-magnitude temblor according to the USGS, http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1971_02_09.php.

The magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake started on January 17, 1994 at 5 seconds before 4:31 a.m. My family was a mere five miles away from this event. No one was hurt. Dishes were broken.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) states that the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906 was between 7.7 and 8.3 magnitude. Equipment was not as sophisticated as today’s technology and that accounts for the range. Different seismologists have developed different conclusions.

The start of the third game of the World Series between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants and the city was rocked and rattled by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. Buildings and bridges collapsed, fires broke out, and 59 people were killed.

On June 28, 1992, the most powerful quake to hit the U.S. in 40 years struck Landers, California. It measured 7.4 on the Richter scale.

From Wikipedia: The University of California study on “the next big one”

A study completed by Yuri Fialko^[9] has demonstrated that the San Andreas fault has been stressed to a level sufficient for the next “big one,” as it is commonly called; that is, an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 or greater. The study also concluded that the risk of a large earthquake may be increasing more rapidly than researchers had previously believed. Fialko also emphasized in his study that, while the San Andreas Fault had experienced massive earthquakes in 1857 at its central section and in 1906 at its northern segment (the 1906 San Francisco earthquake), the southern section of the fault has not seen a similar rupture in at least 300 years.

How big will the “big one” be in California? No one seems prepared to give an estimate.

Will H-P Dump Its PC Business?

There is a rumor going around that Hewlett-Packard Company is planning to sell or simply close its PC computer business. The rumor was consequential enough for HP to issue a denial.

“Irresponsible reporting by Taiwan’s Commercial Times, suggesting that HP might sell its PC business, should be dismissed as market rumor and speculation. HP runs the world’s largest PC business and it is core to HP’s strategy for the connected world.”

A Morningstar contributor wrote “HP ships more PCs than anyone, but we still dislike the deteriorating economics of this business.”

Steve Wildstrom on Tech (former tech editor for BusinessWeek) just sent me his take on the situation with these words in the subject line: “Ditch That Remote: Tablets and Smartphones Are Taking Over.”

H-P doesn’t have Tablets and Smartphones.

I have an HP desktop computer and a Dell laptop. When they fail and finally they will, I am not likely to buy another laptop or desktop.

Perhaps HP sees the light.

Project Management

In my working life my favorite function was (and still is) project management. As a material manager at a computer game company I took the reins in developing a project management process to ensure all new games were launched in accordance with management’s goals. Today that skill is still highly desired both in the public and private sectors.

New mixed use shopping and residential projects being built in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere will be using project management to ensure on time completion. Los Angeles MTA has a few new additions to its growing public transportation system. Those construction projects have time lines and project management will be used to ensure on time completion.

Projects@Work has been sending me their information for years. Now that our economy is starting to grow again this might be a good resource for education and jobs.

We must seek agreement on gun reforms

This commentary written by President Barack Obama appeared in today’s Arizona Daily Star and on the newspaper’s website.
—
It’s been more than two months since the tragedy in Tucson stunned the nation. It was a moment when we came together as one people to mourn and to pray for those we lost. And in the attack’s turbulent wake, Americans by and large rightly refrained from finger-pointing, assigning blame or playing politics with other people’s pain.

But one clear and terrible fact remains. A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a gun.

He used it to murder six people and wound 13 others. And if not for the heroism of bystanders and a brilliant surgical team, it would have been far worse.

But since that day, we have lost perhaps another 2,000 members of our American family to gun violence. Thousands more have been wounded. We lose the same number of young people to guns every day and a half as we did at Columbine, and every four days as we did at Virginia Tech.

Every single day, America is robbed of more futures. It has awful consequences for our society. And as a society, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to put a stop to it.

Now, like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. And the courts have settled that as the law of the land. In this country, we have a strong tradition of gun ownership that’s handed from generation to generation. Hunting and shooting are part of our national heritage. And, in fact, my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners – it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.

The fact is, almost all gun owners in America are highly responsible. They’re our friends and neighbors. They buy their guns legally and use them safely, whether for hunting or target shooting, collection or protection. And that’s something that gun-safety advocates need to accept. Likewise, advocates for gun owners should accept the awful reality that gun violence affects Americans everywhere, whether on the streets of Chicago or at a supermarket in Tucson.

I know that every time we try to talk about guns, it can reinforce stark divides. People shout at one another, which makes it impossible to listen. We mire ourselves in stalemate, which makes it impossible to get to where we need to go as a country.

However, I believe that if common sense prevails, we can get beyond wedge issues and stale political debates to find a sensible, intelligent way to make the United States of America a safer, stronger place.

I’m willing to bet that responsible, law-abiding gun owners agree that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few – dangerous criminals and fugitives, for example – from getting their hands on a gun in the first place.

I’m willing to bet they don’t think that using a gun and using common sense are incompatible ideas – that we should check someone’s criminal record before he can check out at a gun seller; that an unbalanced man shouldn’t be able to buy a gun so easily; that there’s room for us to have reasonable laws that uphold liberty, ensure citizen safety and are fully compatible with a robust Second Amendment.

That’s why our focus right now should be on sound and effective steps that will actually keep those irresponsible, law-breaking few from getting their hands on a gun in the first place.

• First, we should begin by enforcing laws that are already on the books. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is the filter that’s supposed to stop the wrong people from getting their hands on a gun. Bipartisan legislation four years ago was supposed to strengthen this system, but it hasn’t been properly implemented. It relies on data supplied by states – but that data is often incomplete and inadequate. We must do better.

• Second, we should in fact reward the states that provide the best data – and therefore do the most to protect our citizens.

• Third, we should make the system faster and nimbler. We should provide an instant, accurate, comprehensive and consistent system for background checks to sellers who want to do the right thing, and make sure that criminals can’t escape it.

Porous background checks are bad for police officers, for law-abiding citizens and for the sellers themselves. If we’re serious about keeping guns away from someone who’s made up his mind to kill, then we can’t allow a situation where a responsible seller denies him a weapon at one store, but he effortlessly buys the same gun someplace else.

Clearly, there’s more we can do to prevent gun violence. But I want this to at least be the beginning of a new discussion on how we can keep America safe for all our people.

I know some aren’t interested in participating. Some will say that anything short of the most sweeping anti-gun legislation is a capitulation to the gun lobby. Others will predictably cast any discussion as the opening salvo in a wild-eyed scheme to take away everybody’s guns. And such hyperbole will become the fodder for overheated fundraising letters.

But I have more faith in the American people than that. Most gun-control advocates know that most gun owners are responsible citizens. Most gun owners know that the word “commonsense” isn’t a code word for “confiscation.” And none of us should be willing to remain passive in the face of violence or resigned to watching helplessly as another rampage unfolds on television.

As long as those whose lives are shattered by gun violence don’t get to look away and move on, neither can we.

We owe the victims of the tragedy in Tucson and the countless unheralded tragedies each year nothing less than our best efforts – to seek consensus, to prevent future bloodshed, to forge a nation worthy of our children’s futures.

“Ring of Fire”

Ring of Fire

From the U.S. Geological Survey: Volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin form the so-called Ring of Fire, a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The trenches are shown in blue-green. The volcanic island arcs, although not labelled, are parallel to, and always landward of, the trenches. For example, the island arc associated with the Aleutian Trench is represented by the long chain of volcanoes that make up the Aleutian Islands.

While there is no trench along the Pacific coast of the lower 48 and most of North America there have been some significant earthquakes. The most famous being the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. It had an estimated magnitude of 7.9. Los Angeles’ most recent significant earthquake was called the “Northridge Earthquake” that occurred on January 17, 1994, at 4:31 a.m. hitting the San Fernando Valley and resulting in widespread devastation that impacted the freeway system throughout the city.

Today I saw a spokesperson for the USGS on CNN who said we would not have an earthquake greater than 8.0 magnitude. However, there is some contradicting opinion. The Los Angeles Times had an article on October 10, 2010 about a study “of a magnitude 8.1 earthquake that could run 340 miles from Monterey County to the Salton Sea.”

My home is in the San Fernando Valley and I do have two cabinets in my back yard holding emergency supplies. In addition I have a propane barbeque that could act as a stove. I will be reviewing those supplies this weekend.

Oligarchs Control Mexico

Forbes magazine now lists Mexico’s Carlos Slim as the wealthiest man in the world. His wealth is estimated at $74 Billion. Poor Bill Gates has a mere $56 Billion and Warren Buffet is at $50 Billion.

According to Forbes, Slim’s wealth grew by $20.5 Billion last year. The Associated Press reports “Mexico has such a highly concentrated economy — in which one or two firms control a sector such as cement, tortillas, beer or television programming.”

“It is like watching a battle between Godzilla and King Kong,” said Daniel Gershenson, a founder of the consumer advocacy group Alconsumidor. “The truth is that we consumers can’t find a good guy in this battle. We hope they both lose.”

The Associated press reports that Slim built his fortune in a country where most people — 59.5 percent — are paid $15 a day or less, and 38.7 percent get $10 or less.

Meanwhile the United States has received an estimated at least 12 million illegal aliens from Mexico thus relieving their population of poor uneducated people. Mr. Slim and his compatriots couldn’t be happier.

Buy American!

ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer has been running a series titled “Made in America.” Buying American made products is a wonderful idea that every American certainly wants to support.

Jon and Anna Usry and their two kids opened the doors of their house, in Dallas Texas, to World News with Diane Sawyer’s David Muir and Sharyn Alfonsi, who promptly backed up the moving truck and emptied their house of everything not made in America. There was nothing left except the kitchen sink.

World News went on to find that even the gift shops in the Smithsonian Institute are stocked with most things made in China. They do not stock American made products because the cost is high.

The replacement products in that house with American made items for the most part were about the same price with the exception of the really expensive items like television, and kitchen appliances. Televisions aren’t made in America and the Viking and Wolf kitchen appliances are both expensive compared to imported brands.

Coffee makers, like televisions, are no longer made in the United States.

Consumer Reports just issued their annual Cars report. Overall ratings by manufacturer are as follows:

#1 Honda

#2 Subaru

#3 Toyota

#5 Ford

# 12 General Motors (next to last place)

#13 Chrysler (last place)

Can we afford American made products that are difficult to find, relatively expensive, and in some instances poorly made?

“America’s best days lie ahead”

Warren Buffett is Investing in America

Warren Buffett’s annual letter to his company’s (Berkshire Hathaway) shareholders.

“…for the purpose of estimating our current earning power, we are envisioning a year free of a mega-catastrophe in insurance and possessing a general business climate somewhat better than that of 2010 but weaker than that of 2005 or 2006…

Last year – in the face of widespread pessimism about our economy – we demonstrated our enthusiasm for capital investment at Berkshire by spending $6 billion on property and equipment. Of this amount, $5.4 billion – or 90% of the total – was spent in the United States. Certainly our businesses will expand abroad in the future, but an overwhelming part of their future investments will be at home. In 2011, we will set a new record for capital spending – $8 billion – and spend all of the $2 billion increase in the United States.

Money will always flow toward opportunity, and there is an abundance of that in America. Commentators today often talk of “great uncertainty.” But think back, for example, to December 6, 1941, October 18, 1987 and September 10, 2001. No matter how serene today may be, tomorrow is always uncertain.

Don’t let that reality spook you. Throughout my lifetime, politicians and pundits have constantly moaned about terrifying problems facing America. Yet our citizens now live an astonishing six times better than when I was born. The prophets of doom have overlooked the all-important factor that is certain: Human potential is far from exhausted, and the American system for unleashing that potential – a system that has worked wonders for over two centuries despite frequent interruptions for recessions and even a Civil War – remains alive and effective.

We are not natively smarter than we were when our country was founded nor do we work harder. But look around you and see a world beyond the dreams of any colonial citizen. Now, as in 1776, 1861, 1932 and 1941, America’s best days lie ahead.”