1/11/25

 Saturday, January 11, 2025

D+67

2018 President Trump caused worldwide controversy when it is reported he called African countries "shitholes" during an immigration meeting

2021 House Democrats introduce one article of impeachment against President Donald Trump for "incitement of insurrection" at the Capitol

2024 South Africa begins its ICJ case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza

In bed by 9, awake at 4:52, and p at 5:30, from a dream of enjoying a discussion with Lydia Polgreen about polygamy's relationship with wealth and income inequality, envy, and greed.     

Prednisone, day 242, 5 + 2.5 mg, day 4.  5 mg. Prednisone at  5:00. and others at 11:30.  2.5 mg. Prednisone at 5 p.m.

Pelvic priesting policies.  In this morning's NYTimes we are informed that Pope Francis has approved a policy adopted by the Italian Bishops Conference that allows seminaries to accept candidates for Catholic priesthood who are gay so long as they can remain celibate and chaste and don't have “deep-seated” gay tendencies   The Catholic priesthood has long been a safe haven for gay men.  I had a Capuchin Franciscan friend who was clearly gay but also 'chaste', at least so far as I or anyone else knew.    I've known many other priests who may or may not have been gay.  My sister Kitty had a good friend who was an elderly gay priest who was ousted from the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Phoenix and stripped of his pension and health insurance benefits because he shared an apartment with another man.  She was so upset at what she perceived to be the injustice and cruelty of this punishment that she finally stopped attending weekly mass after a lifetime of mass attendance.  On my last visit to her, when she was in hospice care near the end of her life, this lifelong devout Catholic told me she did not want a funeral mass.  I hesitate as I write these words, remembering my last visit and regretting that I wasn't with her in her very last days.  The Church's inability to deal honestly and humanely with sexual and gender issues has exacted a toll not only on The GBTQ faithful but on straight believers like Kitty.  It has been a major factor contributing to the pedophile scandals that have rocked the Church and challenged the faith of many Catholics, both straight and not-so-straight.  Teachers of Church doctrine do a lot of tap dancing around perennially thorny debates over the all-male priesthood, celibacy requirements, homosexuality, birth control, surrogacy, and other issues but the issues never go away.  They inhere in the Church's traditional systems of patriarchy, paternalism, misogyny, and fear of sex.  I smiled, ruefully, on Wednesday when I noted the anniversary of Pope Pius X in 1904 banning low-cut dresses in the presence of churchmen and wondered what the old fellow was worried about.  Priestly lust?  Women as proximate occasions of sin?  Enjoying the beauty of women's bodies?  Quelle belle poitrine!😉😇😔

I also smiled as I read this:

“My reading of this — and it is only my reading,” added Father [James] Martin, who is based in New York, “is that if a gay man is able to lead an emotionally healthy chaste and celibate life, he may be considered for admission to the seminary.”

Isn't the same true for heterosexual men? 

Robert Frost wrote so many lovely, thoughtful poems that I admire, including The Ovenbird, The Road Not Taken, Mending Wall, and The Death of the Hired Man, but perhaps the one I most admire is his shortest:

"Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee  

And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me."

 The poem invites many interpretations about God and Man, about life's uncertainties and challenges and paradoxes, including surely the problems of evil, pain, and suffering.  I've long wondered however whether God's biggest joke on us is that he made us male and female? 

Fargo.  We've been watching this series on Hulu for a while.  We started Season 3 last night, having watched all of the first two seasons. The stories are entertaining and interest-holding, but only in the way of all noir mystery thrillers, i.e., with some sense of shame and guilt at watching bad behavior and grisly misdeeds.  I suppose it's a problem with watching and enjoying all the murder mysteries that abound on American, British, and European television.    I don't watch NFL or even college football on television anymore because I don't want to support, even indirectly, a sport that exacts such a toll on its players for the profit of a few billionaire owners or for universities that profit from the sport in different but somewhat similar ways.  Why then should I watch and enjoy murder mysteries, private detective stories, and police procedurals?  With Fargo, there is an additional problem: it's like long Norwegian jokes, Sven and Ole jokes.  The characters not only speak with a peculiar accent and with verbal mannerisms ("you betcha," and "OK, then."), They also seem dim-witted., good-hearted perhaps, but not too bright.  Is this a Hollywood swipe at small-city Minnesotans generally or all of us fly-over Midwestern folks who live in the upper Great Lakes? OK then, jeez, I'm glad I got that off my chest.  You betcha.

Sven says to Ole, 'Dijja hear about my nephew Torvald who won the gold medal at the Olympics?  Y'ah, he had it bronzed.'

Los Angeles fires.  We can expect significant negative impacts of these fires on insurance companies and on females.  I expect home insurance rates to increase across the country.  The Small Business Administration is set up to provide emergency relief to businesses affected by the fires.  Query whether safety net assistance like this will be on the chopping block for Musk and Ramaswami.  SBA has a Disaster Aid Program which provides assistance to homeowners, renters, and businesses of all sizes for private non-profits.