Planned Parenthood: Keeping It Small in the Family

OpinionJournal's James Taranto has noted the Orwellian tone taken by an abortion advocate [scroll down for the item], the unfortunately named Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), as she assailed the The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, which passed the House on Wednesday. The bill would make it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines to avoid parental-notification laws. "The people of this country don't want the government intruding" in family disputes, Slaughter said.

As Taranto observes, "In fact, this bill would not intrude into family disputes; it does precisely the opposite: It would punish those who intrude into family disputes by helping girls procure abortions without their parents' knowledge."

But Slaughter isn't the only abortion advocate taking a page from Big Brother's book. The headline of Planned Parenthood's press release on the bill screams, "House Passes Dangerous Family Restriction Act." The mind reels.

When it comes to "dangerous family restrictions," the truth is that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger (who wrote of "the wickedness of large families") was quite in favor of them—especially when they restricted poor and minority families, as a damning essay on lifeissues.net attests.

Splendor in the Grass

Ladies, I am truly blessed.

I learned today that my beloved loves to mow the lawn.

LifeSite reports that Lousiana's rewrite of its crimes-against-nature law was upheld yesterday.

I was impressed just to learn that any state still had a crimes-against-nature law.

What would be considered a crime against nature in New York City? I mean, besides smoking.

P.S. Sorry again about the light posting—working at home again. Watch this space—there will be some wonderful news on Sunday.

This Song Really Winds Me Up

If you know Brett Taylor only from his acid-tinged satire and commentary on Saint Kansas, you may be surprised to discover his softer side. His original song "Victrola Girl" is a wistful, evocative hybrid of the Smiths and the Left Banke. It's also the best song I've heard in 6/8 time since the Turtles' "Grim Reaper of Love."

Loewe and Behold

The BBC Web site currently has a page commemorating the night in 1958 that Broadway's "My Fair Lady" opened in London, which links to a video of Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, and Stanley Holloway being interviewed after the show. Andrews is utterly lovely and gracious, as one would expect—it's easy to imagine how much she charmed audiences. It's a terrible loss that she wasn't allowed to reprise her role in the film.

Sorry for the light posting—been taking some work home (it's OK—I enjoy it). Expect a lengthier post or three late tonight.

Russ Never Sleeps

One of the cool things about 8-tracks is that you don't have to program them to "repeat"—just put one on and you have an endless loop. Right now, I am grooving on Russ Columbo's Legendary Performer collection...over and over and over. Ahhhh...

His Anxieties Have Anxieties

I recently met Joey McKeown a couple of times at social events in New York City, but didn't talk to him much because I didn't know him that well, plus he was on the shy side.

Now that I'm reading his blog, I wish I'd drawn him out. He has a wickedly sarcastic take on life as a New York City Catholic and social drinker, especially his Thurberesque perspective on women—be they dueling co-workers or ill-chosen lectors. (And no, I'm not the one who had the nerve to accept a Guinness from him and not say "thank you." I drink club soda with grapefruit.) Picture an over-21 Charlie Brown in deepest Gotham and you have a good idea of what to expect.

Scattershot answers today's pressing question: What is Bellerophon—and why do we need him/her/it right now? No, she doesn't mean the 1960s European record label.

Communists for Kerry has the sharpest take on mainstream-media clueless coverage of the papal election: a mock Time-magazine story on "a small chimney fire...at the Sistine Chapel in Rome." The piece concludes,

When the second blaze started crowds cheered. Such insensitive loudness in the face of tragedy, of course, could only come from vacationing American tourists, apparently Republican Red-Staters, once again putting American boorishness on display in front of refined Europeans. But when the elderly VCFD firemen reemerged, everyone gave a mighty cheer to one firefighter who, it seems, must have single-handedly quenched the flames.

[Another Dawn Patrol post or two to come in the early afternoon...]

Planned Parenthood Opposes Women's Right to Choose...an Ultrasound

What does ultrasound equipment mean to you?

If you answered, "machines [that] represent missed or messed-up priorities," congratulations! You are qualified to be Planned Parenthood's SaveRoe.com blogger.

The anonymous blogger, whom I call Ms. Curettage, lets loose today with a broadside against Focus on the Family's plan to spend $4 million in private money on ultrasound equipment for crisis-pregnancy centers.

That's private money, mind you. Not like the $265.2 million that Planned Parenthood received from American taxpayers in fiscal 2004 (as per its annual report).

Ms. Curettage notes, "Focus on the Family is placing 150 ultrasound machines in 'crisis-pregnancy centers' around the country this year, with plans to place another 650 machines in the next five years."

Ooh, scare quotes around "crisis-pregnancy centers." The idea of women giving birth to live babies is truly frightening to these people.

She continues:

These centers already counsel against having an abortion—by describing abortion as dangerous, wrong, and worse.

Well, it's certainly "dangerous" for the baby. And if that's not "wrong," then it must be something...worse.

Now the facilities will have an air of legitimacy with high-tech equipment that could belie their lack of medical expertise.

Let me get this straight:

If you counsel women to kill their babies, you are enshrouded in legitimacy.

If you counsel women to keep their babies—and are licensed to operate equipment that shows them their unborn child—you have a "lack of medical expertise."

Just checking.

Ms. Curettage continues:

For women with wanted pregnancies, ultrasound imaging has become a rite of passage, and a new reason to invest in refrigerator magnets.

Awww, says Planned Parenthood, look at the stoopid widdle would-be mamas, with their stoopid pictchas of their stoopid widdle blobs of tissue tacked to their jumbo Frigidaires. You just know those hapless happy Pollyannas who are so sickeningly fond of their parasitic clumps of cells all live out in the Midwest somewhere—away from us civilized city people who know better—and behind their fridge doors lurk humongous jars of Costco mayonnaise.

For women with unintended or unwanted pregnancies, these machines represent missed or messed-up priorities.

Huh?

Not the women's, but ours.

Well, I'm glad she cleared that up.

But how do ultrasounds represent "missed or messed-up priorities" not only for women with "unwanted" pregnancies, but also with "unintended" ones? Here we see Planned Parenthood's default logic at work: Baby is unintended, ergo baby is unwanted. End of discussion. End of baby.

Four million dollars is four million more than the feds currently spend in comprehensive sex education programs.

Again, note the logic. Planned Parenthood's official mouthpiece is hereby stating unequivocally that there is no good reason why any money—even private funds, for heaven's sake—should be spent upon encouraging people to keep their children. Then it throws out "comprehensive sexual education" as a red herring—as though a private organization has no moral right to help women whose sex education, "comprehensive" or not, has failed them.

Four million dollars could double the income of 160 families making $25,000—giving them something closer to a family-sustaining income.

Well, what can one say to this? Obviously, Ms. Curettage's located her computer's calculator function. The reference to a "family-sustaining income" is quite ironic—positioning Planned Parenthood as a sustainer of family. Somehow, I don't think its definition of "sustaining," at least with regard to life, is the same as the dictionary's. But maybe Ms. Curettage hasn't found her computer's dictionary—or else she's taken her curettage knife and hacked it.

The investment is focused on the wrong priority, putting one more hurdle in front of women who, for whatever reason, choose abortion, rather than preventing unintended pregnancies and providing more support for families.

And so, a woman's entirely voluntary choice to receive an ultrasound becomes, in Planned Parenthood's eyes, a "hurdle." As for the red herring about "support for families," Ms. Curettage is betting her readers won't know that privately funded crisis-pregnancy centers provide more support for young mothers than taxpayer-backed Planned Parenthood ever has.

I suppose it's just easier to single out the woman and focus on changing her mind—at any cost.

Ms. Curettage, you've got me there.

Glove Means Never Having to Fray Your Sari

There is something deliciously ironic about a product normally used to thwart God's purpose for men and women instead being used to protect women's modesty.

The folks at the Indian branch of International Planned Parenthood Federation must be apoplectic. It's bad enough that they don't have Gandhi on their side.

I've been reluctant to blogroll Dave Munger because he's a bit of a live wire, but after the way his blog made me laugh tonight, I owe it to him to highlight his recent thoughts on the origin of "dork" and the wrongness of shooting feral cats. On the latter, he writes:

For one thing, I don't trust any legislation that benefits songbirds. We'd have eradicated malaria by 1960 if it wasn't for YOU PEOPLE and your precious songbirds.

David Herrera, former guitarist of one of my favorite 1980s bands, the Cheepskates, is putting together a DVD of one of the group's performances at New York City's late, lamented Dive. In the meantime, fans of the Beau Brummels, the Left Banke, Big Star, and the dB's are strongly advised to visit the MP3 page of another Cheepskates member, Shane Faubert, which has free downloads of his wonderful song demos.

Why I will be watching my mailbox eagerly a week from now.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

I was so with Robert A. George on this one...until his very last word.

Flower Power

Walking through the Ninth Street PATH station at 12:28 this morning, just as I was thinking about Mary, I noticed that immediately in my own path was an impossibly huge, velvety rose petal.

I picked it up, held it between my fingers, and felt loved.

Would anyone else like to share a story of being encouraged by finding or receiving a rose in connection with Mary or the saints?

Twin Pique

"If you're 18 years old and having a date, it might be a youthful prank when you swap out your brother, but when you're running for mayor of a city with 1.3 million people and sending in your brother as an impersonator...I do see a problem with it." — Phil Hardberger on Julian Castro, his opponent in the San Antonio mayoral race. Castro sent his identical twin brother to appear on a parade float in his stead.

Help in the Blink of an Eye

Diane D'Apolito-May is a friend of my family who founded a charity, the Beyond the Rainbow Foundation, that has raised $250,000 for the sick and injured.

A mother of four, Diane started Beyond the Rainbow after suffering a brain-stem stroke one month after the birth of her youngest child. She is a quadriplegic and is fed through a tube. Unable to speak, she communicates through eye blinks. Yet, she has devoted her life to helping others—and considers her life to be, as she puts it, "pretty good."

Today's paper has a story about this remarkable and truly beautiful woman.

A Catholic Seminarian on Pope Benedict XVI

Roman Catholic priest-in-training Dennis Schenkel offers an excellent commentary on the new pope from one of his fellow seminarians:

...In the sixties and seventies, seminaries were a mess in the U.S. Our professors (who were students back then) tell us stories where classes back then would sit around meditating on a mushroom, etc. Vatican II was very dangerous for America because it coincided with our drug and sexual revolution. Americans likely felt that the Catholic Church was affirming the American revolution in that the Church was finally endorsing a liberation from ancient customs (such as Latin) and the sexual revolution endorsed a liberation from sexual repression. But now, after about a decade of noticing the absolute moral shambles that the sixties and seventies have left our country in, people are starting to realize that what we in America thought was the answer to happiness really isn’t it. So Catholics, on the whole, are beginning to get more fundamental. The guidelines of the Church are more and more once again being looked at as Truth as opposed to suggestions. Cardinal Ratzinger, as head of the CDF, is largely responsible for this....

Cardinal Ratzinger is not a bully. He laid down the pursuit of his own ideas in order to help bring the Church back on track. The fact that he has been so well known and controversial, especially given his proclivity to be a more progressive theologian shows two things. A) He has done one heck of a job (the more the students hate the dean of students in high school, the better dean he is). It also shows us that B) Cardinal Ratzinger has no problem laying aside personal ambitions in order to serve the Church in whatever role the Holy Spirit asks him to fill.

Read the whole thing, and leave a comment on Dennis's blog.

Congratulations, Christopher, you were with him all along!

Kevin Walsh is a friend of mine. He is also a genius.

He is the only writer I know who can post a series of photos of his apartment and make it seem like a fascinating historical excursion every bit as interesting as, say, paeans to cobblestone streets. Which is to say, very interesting. And very strange.

Michael Laprarie's blog, Mike's Noise, has a must-see series of posts today remembering the Oklahoma City bombing on its tenth anniversary. His photos of the aftermath are particularly affecting.

The Lust Battle

Oh, this is too precious.

Planned Parenthood's Web site currently features an article on its St. Louis chapter's "teen advocates"—fully indoctrinated children the organization exploits for its cynical campaign against "dangerous abstinence-only sex education." (Whoo, I'm scared.)

So what name does Margaret Sanger's bunch give this posse of prematurely porking pubescents? One that will be instantly recognizable to C.S. Lewis fans: Teen Advocates for Sexual Health, or T.A.S.H.

Aslan help us.

Planned Parenthood's Meat Idea

Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups have convinced the Illinois House to pass legislation criminalizing ultrasounds on pregnant women without a doctor's order—a move aimed directly at crisis-pregnancy centers that offer help to women wishing to keep their babies. The legislation is founded on the hypothesis that ultrasounds may in the future be shown to be harmful. A Planned Parenthood rep explained to the Chicago Tribune that Margaret Sanger's organization has always advocated "a high standard of prenatal care."

Such unusual concern from Planned Parenthood for that thing inside a pregnant woman forces the question: Is it a baby—or a fetus? A baby—or a fetus? Apparently, if you kill it, it's a fetus. If you give it "a high standard of prenatal care," it's a baby.

Planned Parenthood is to babies what Michael Moore's "Pets or Meat" lady is to bunnies.

The New York Times Hopes for Lesbian-Related Pope

On this Sunday, the ever-generous New York Times gives Lisa Fabrizio one less thing to confess. The journalist won't have any reason to regret writing, in the wake of the newspaper's ode to cafeteria Catholics, that the Gray Lady is on a crusade against Rome.

In fact, you could say the Times is working overtime to prove Fabrizio's accusation. It's hired a homosexual man to argue that the next pope should be, if not a friend of Dorothy, then at least a friend of a friend (and no, we're not talking about Dorothy Day):

If one were to give advice to these grand old men [of the College of Cardinals] -- and they are not, I notice, seeking advice -- it would be simple. Find a cardinal who was brought up with many, many sisters, who has a lesbian in the family, a cardinal whose life has been bound up and fully informed by women, who knows the problems and challenges they face in a church where they cannot minister. Even if the next pope and his cardinals were not to change the rule against female priests quickly, it might be important, as acts of witness and of love, to enter into real dialogue with women in the church, and to be seen to listen, to take heed, as St. Patrick did centuries ago, to the other's pain.

"Lesbian in the family"? Is this dude talking about St. Pat—or "It's Pat"?

St. Patrick took heed to the other's pain, all right—especially when the other was in danger of perdition. He is credited with writing these words in the prayer "St. Patrick's Breastplate":

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

But then, what did the great saint know of sensitivity? He didn't have a lesbian in the family.

Somehow, I don't think anyone's going to drive the snakes out of the New York Times anytime soon.

Maryland's Sex-Ed Pickle

The new Montgomery County, Md., public-school sex-ed curriculum—a homosexuality-positive affair that features a video of a blonde teen chirping about anal sex as she strokes a condom down a cucumber—is disturbing parents, for some reason.

A cucumber-friendly article by the editor of one of the county's high-school papers offers a curious quote from Christine Grewell, an advocate for the new curriculum:

"I think it's good not to marginalize [gay] students," [Grewell] says, adding that the opposition's fear of "normalizing" homosexuality is unfounded. "We study World War II, but we don't normalize the Nazis."

Comparing homosexuals to Nazis—who took a decidedly dim view of homosexuality—is not the language of a liberal with a whole lot on the ball.

Then again, anyone who'd support the cucumber video would have to be out of their gourd.

Thanks to Steve Harvey for the link to the video.

Thrills and Chills

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,         
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

                — Robert Frost, Harper's magazine, December 1920

It is a noteworthy fact that not one of the women to whom I have spoken so far believes in abortion as a practice; but it is principle for which they are standing. They also believe that the complete abolition of the abortion law will shortly do away with abortions, as nothing else will.

                — Margaret Sanger, Birth Control Review, December 1920

Robert Frost was as right as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was wrong. I have seen the end of the world and it does perish twice.

The first time, it ended in desire—with the sexual revolution that destroyed marriages, corrupted children, and caused generations of youths to founder in a world where their value was based upon their ability to score and please a sexual partner.

The second time, the world perishes in ice—the ice-cold, antiseptic, lab-coated absolute-zero nothingness of no-fuss, no-muss murder. And once again, Margaret Sanger's army leads the charge.

"Emergency contraception," the morning-after pill, is the latest weapon in Planned Parenthood's assault on life, a means of abortion that is almost completely bloodless—no more messy than a period. (Don't worry; Planned Parenthood has a "cure" for that too.)

At the same time, Planned Parenthood's slogan since Sanger's days, "Every child a wanted child," takes on an ever-more negative meaning in the age of prenatal testing for genetic defects. Nurse Dee Moser of Muncie, Ind., a Planned Parenthood volunteer since the LBJ administration, makes the plaintive cry in an op-ed, "Don’t most of us want the same things? We want the birth of every child to be an occasion for joy and celebration."

That's why Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers quietly destroy 80 percent of all children in utero who have Down syndrome. The children would not, in their parents' and Planned Parenthood's eyes, be "an occasion for joy and celebration." Therefore, they deserve to die.

Imagine if the Planned Parenthood motto, as interpreted by Moser, were applied to the rest of humanity: "The life of every person should be an occasion for joy and celebration. If it's not, kill it."

Who decides whether a life is "wanted"? Nearly every person, on some level, wants life for himself or herself. If he doesn't, he is deemed ill, and society reaches out to help him want to live, not help him die.

At least, that was what the world was like before the ice came.

Traveling Light

Walking to the PATH train after work last night, I was struck by the sight of the Empire State Building, which was flooded in a stunning shade of cobalt blue. The building's Web site states that the lights were commemorating Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Tomorrow, the Empire State Building's lights are slated to honor "Child Abuse Prevention," which presumably means the "April Is Child Abuse Prevention Month" campaign. The lights will be...cobalt blue.

In other words, two nights in a row, the building's lights will be the same color, but one night represents a cause that is completely different from the other. Call it Empire State transubstantiation.

Yes, I know there's no Real Presence of Jazz at Lincoln Center or child-abuse prevention amidst the building's lights. But there is a similarity to transubstantiation in that if one takes a spiritual view of things—which I can't help doing when I look at that hauntingly beautiful shade of blue—then a fundamental change takes place in the lights' nature. One night, they're shot through with cool, muted trombone sighs and a diva's smoke-tinged grace notes. The next night, they're infused with sensitive tones of compassion and concern for suffering youths.

Nothing about the lights' color changes over the two nights—and yet, everything changes, because its spiritual essence is transformed.

* * *
Speaking of Child Abuse Prevention Month, the organization behind the event, Prevent Child Abuse America, is offering a special Spider-Man comic book to promote its cause, with a storyline that sheds new light on Peter Parker's punishing past:

The Amazing Spider-Man and The Brace, the new villain in town, discover that they share a past as victims of the same school bullies. They come to understand that a witness who spoke out against Spider-Man's humiliation helped set the future Super Hero on a path of helping others, while The Brace, who had no ally, became a bully himself.

The organization's Web site also offers a PDF "bullying tip sheet"—that's as in preventing bullying, not a how-to—which, unfortunately, is loaded with questionable advice like, "Agree with the bully. Say, 'You're right.' Then walk away."

Back when I was Bully Target No. 1, I tried agreeing. It got me the standard bully reply: more abuse.

Better advice would be, "Have your mother call the bully's mother"—the only thing that worked for me.

Go ahead, say it; I don't care. So what if she did wear combat boots?

For another view on the Empire State Building's lighting and its meaning, read my friend Caren Lissner's classic New York Times op-ed "The Skyline as Headline."

Babies' First Condom

Two stories in college papers today highlight the ludicrous trend of prurient adults' foisting condoms upon stoopid college students.

All right, the kids aren't really dumb. But they sure as heck aren't mature enough to be sexually active—not that it matters to the administrators who seem to get their proverbial jollies from simultaneously infantilizing and sexualizing their hapless charges.

The East Tennessean reports that at East Tennessee State University's Well-a-palooza, students were offered a Velcro wall (left), upside-down spins on a gyroscope, door prizes from the disc jockey, HIV tests, alcohol screenings, blood pressure checks, outdoor games, makeup, and condoms. I'm sorry, but if kids are young enough to be lured by a Velcro wall, free condoms are not going to make them suddenly realize that they have to seriously consider the emotional consequences of sex before engaging in intercourse. Likewise, if they're already having sex, free condoms are not going to make them any more responsible with one another. They'll just give the big babies license to spread human papillomavirus while imprinting lifelong memories of ill-advised premature sex.

Meanwhile, the Five Cent Cigar reports that University of Rhode Island students were hypnotized as part of a "dating game":

The game was based on ordinary dating game shows, with a bachelor or bachelorette behind a divider and three contestants on the opposite side. The twist, however, was that the contestants were hypnotized while being asked questions, making their answers difficult to control....

Sophomore Ben De Palo, a Sigma Phi Epsilon brother, was the bachelor.

[The hypnotist] played soothing background music while asking the contestants to perform basic hand movements in order to train them to listen to his voice. Once hypnotized, the contestants were given cups of water and [the hypnotist] told them it was strong alcohol.

"It tastes like red wine," contestant Miriam Garber said....

After the final question, De Palo chose [Bekki] Davis as his bachelorette.

Afterwards Davis said, "It's like the filter's gone."

Davis said she knew what she was saying but had no control over it....

[Attendees were given] goodie bags, which contained condoms [and] key chains...

So this is how colleges are teaching teens to make responsible sexual choices: by hypnotizing them, making them believe they're drunk, and giving them condoms!

Good morning! Today's post is below, along with many from the weekend. With my new job, this must needs be a nighttime blog—posting will resume in the wee small hours.

Paul Simon's Greatest Hits Meets the Best of Bread

Roman Catholic seminarian Dennis Schenkel offers "Fifty Ways to Take Communion."

ME Swear ME Had Nothing to Do With It

AP: "Woman Says ME Took Her Brother's Brain"

[Yes, it's a light blogging day; more posts later tonight...]

Is the Secret Service Really Operating Out of a Duck's Nest...

...or is it just a base canard?

Please don't hit me...

'Terri's Friends' Save Woman From Starvation

BlogsForTerri reports that Mae Magouirk, the Alabama woman who was being starved after her granddaughter was illegally made her guardian, has been rescued. Magouirk's nephew, Ken Mullinax, writes to the blog in an e-mail:

THANKS TO THE SUPPORT OF ALL OF THE FRIENDS OF TERRI, MY AUNT MAE MAGOUIRK HAS BEEN AIR LIFTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA-BIRMINGHAM MEDICAL CENTER ... and receiving IV fluids, nourishment and some of the finest medical care available in the United States! Praise be the name of the Lord GOD... Thanks to Terri's friends... It would NEVER ever have been possible without bloggers who love life , and the truth!! I am racing from my home to UAB now and will type a detailed update after I see my Aunt Mae! Thanks guys, your calls, emails, blogs and prayers did it ALL!!! I so love you guys!!!!!!!!!!

The reason why Magouirk's plight should concern all Americans, and not just those who deplored Terri's starvation, is that the judge's decision allowing Magouirk's granddaughter to starve her went against the woman's living will.

Mullinax and other close relatives of Magouirk still have to fight the efforts of the granddaughter—the sole beneficiary of the woman's estate—to regain guardianship. If you would like to offer Mullinax support, his e-mail is mockingbird (at) compuhelp.net.

Cell's Angels

Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY sends this photo he took in the East Village, which he found "oddly affecting." I do too.

Today a former co-worker reminded me of the in-house nickname for my former employer: the Evil Empire.

The New Communist Royalty

Workers of the world unite—you have nothing to lose but $1,283.

And now, a public service announcement: Llamas may be hazardous to your heart rate. (Thanks, Kevin.)

Got an opinion on the Roman Catholic Church's positions on married clergy, female clergy, abortion, contraception, or homosexuality? Funky Dung wants to hear from you—even if you're not Catholic.

Planned Parenthood's Jailhouse Crock

The Arizona Republic's profile of longtime Planned Parenthood volunteer Terry Hanson shows how Margaret Sanger's eugenics agenda is still at the center of the organization's goals:

Hanson was the catalyst for starting a family planning clinic in Yuma that spawned other clinics across the Mexican border.

"Instead of being the great White emancipator, we helped the communities establish their own clinics," Hanson said.

Translation: We targeted Latinos in Arizona for race destruction, and then we showed them how to do it to themselves in Mexico—all the while pretending we were doing them a favor.

The group worked with promotores, strong women in the barrios, who watched out for other women..."We taught them about women's health, and people would see them for prophylactics and information," Hanson said.

Translation: We subverted their existing social structure, where women in authority oppose contraception, and replaced it with a new structure with diametrically opposite values.

Later the program was taken to Mexican prisons, where prisoners learned about birth control before having conjugal visits.

Translation: Planned Parenthood did its part to prevent the birth of future Latino criminals. Clearly, Margaret Sanger's bunch considers such measures far more important than helping Latino mothers with incarcerated husbands raise and educate the children they have. And people accuse conservatives of not caring about babies once they're born? Planned Parenthood doesn't care about them within or without the womb.

Holy Without Fear

Alarming News's pseudonymous token-liberal guest blogger Dawn Summers takes a break from agitating the blog's conservative readers to share her memories of witnessing Pope John Paul II speak at a Sunday Mass for youth in Poland:

His speech was short and he quoted biblical passages, but the thing I clearly remember him saying was that we as young people couldn't be afraid to be holy.

Hmm, not afraid to be holy? Didn't he know that God was so not cool? That my best friend, an atheist, always said that I was probably the smartest person he knew "except for that whole church thing?"

But for one moment surrounded by a million other Catholic kids, crying and praying, and I'm fairly sure that one girl just shouted "I love you John Paul," I could imagine not being afraid to be holy.

Read the whole thing.

The Credibility blogger's intriguing papal anecdote strains credulity. Anyone out there know if it might be true?

Luminous Mystery

OK, Dawn Patrol readers, if anyone can solve this mystery, you can. John Glassburner is trying to discover who was the mysterious "Harvey," an artist who did strikingly surreal covers for gospel and jazz albums in the 1960s. If you have any information, contact Glassburner at HarveyAlbums.com, a site he's created that features dozens of Harvey's album covers, including the one above.

For more retro-cool album covers, see JimFlora.com.

Big congrats to my friend Kevin Walsh, creator of Forgotten NY, who has finally gone public with the details of his upcoming Forgotten NY book, to be published by HarperCollins. Forgotten NY is a treasure, a must-read for anyone interested in the history, architecture, and oddities of the greatest city of the world.

Pope Springs Eternal

Protestant Christian bloggers Kevin McCullough and Pastor Ray Pritchard note that Protestants, particularly Evangelicals, are debating whether or not Pope John Paul II went to heaven.

What I find far more interesting than any such speculations is the fact that every Catholic blogger I've read on the topic of the pope's death has asked readers to pray for John Paul's soul. The Catholics' prayer requests not only displays their belief in prayers for the dead, but also their belief that, regardless of whether they personally believe a person is heavenbound, the decision rests with God.

I have noticed that this Catholic reluctance to judge whether or not a person is bound for heaven also affects their reaction upon the deaths of people who have committed great evils; they are far less likely than Protestants to assume that such people go straight to hell.

There is great humility in acknowledging that such judgment is reserved for God alone. I'm reminded of that in Catholics' reactions to the pope's death, and I would like to learn from it.

Fr. Rob Johansen has the disturbing story of a Georgia woman who, although not terminally ill, is being starved to death by a judge's order, even though she has a living will that says she would not want to be killed unless she is comatose or vegetative (she is neither). The starvation was requested not by the woman's closest relative, but by a granddaughter—who happens to be the sole beneficiary of the woman's estate.

BlogsForTerri has a news clip of the memorial Mass for Terri Schiavo that shows her brother Bobby displaying the Purple Heart his family received for her. It's apparently the medal that was sent to them by Vietnam hero James "Bo" Gritz, who had sent it to Terri's parents with a note stating, "I wanted you to have this for Terri. She's the one with the courage."

Will have more blog entries late tonight—the semi-vacation is over...

A Rogue By Any Other Name

Here's a performer with an image problem:

Rapper C-Murder, in jail after a murder conviction in the 2002 killing of a teenager, has changed his stage name because he thinks he's been misunderstood. "I am not a murderer," the rapper, whose real name is Corey Miller, said in a statement released Tuesday.

He will now go by C Miller, said his publicist, Giovanni Melchiorre of New York-based Koch Records. Miller's statement said people had misinterpreted the C-Murder name, which he intended as a reflection of his upbringing in one of New Orleans' most violent housing projects.
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"From the beginning, I have been a target because of who I am, my stage name and for my success as an entertainer and the success of my siblings," said Miller, whose brothers Percy and Vyshonn are also rappers. "People hear the name C-Murder and they don't realize that the name simply means that I have seen many murders in my native Calliope projects neighborhood."

I wish Samuel Johnson were around to comment on that one.

Vox Papa

An Associated Press poll says "most Americans—Catholics and non-Catholics alike—want the next pope to allow priests to marry and women to join the priesthood."

As if they really have a say. This is just one example of how the media doesn't get Catholicism.

Now, I don't know what kind of politics go into selecting a pope. But I do know enough about the Catholic faith to know that those cardinals in Rome aren't sitting in a room with freakin' Gallup polls spread out, going, "Well, 71 percent of non-Latino white North American non-Catholics want priests to marry, while 83 percent of northern African non-traditionalist Catholics are solidly against it, but male breadwinners of French interfaith families who attend Mass once every two months are a toss-up..."

eHominaHominaHomina

EHarmony has questions. Donna's got answers. (Via Dustbury.)

Further reading: Me on why there aren't too many fish in the sea—thank God.

Lance Salyers notes the chilling conclusion of a Dutch wrongful-life suit, where a disabled girl's parents won damages against the midwife who failed to order prenatal tests that would have prompted them to abort the child. The court ruled, "Kelly [the girl] was entitled to compensation for emotional damage because of the fact she was born. This was a predictable consequence of the midwife's mistake by which Kelly's interests as an unborn child were contravened."

The Passing of Greatness

My friend Dimitri Cavalli writes:

I choked back tears during 5:30 Mass earlier when we prayed, "Eternal rest, grant onto him, Oh Lord..."

Here's something I learned last week. When John Paul II was elected in 1978, there were 563 million Catholics in the world out of a total population of about four billion. As of 2004, there were 1.1 billion Catholics out of six billion overall. Under the pope's leadership, the size of the Church has nearly doubled.

Growth has been strong everywhere--even in Europe (where there are 100 million more Catholics today than in 1978) and the United States, where the number of Catholics surpassed the number of mainline Protestants not too long ago.

How did he do it? He followed Christ's dictum, "Go teach all nations." He had a simple, uncompromising message, and millions of people, young and old, responded to it, leaving the elites puzzled.

Charles G. Hill of Dustbury offers a poignant and angry poem about Terri Schiavo's murder, penned by my friend Brute Force, a legendary Sixties singer and songwriter who recorded for the Beatles' Apple label. It begins:"now that she's gone/take my heart why don't you?..."

Crime and 'Reason'

"We talked a lot about Terri Schiavo on my radio show Wednesday, and I concluded by remarking how ridiculous and revolting it was that we even needed to bring this up. And yet, here we are. A woman is dead, and the reasonable people are OK with it. It's just us fanatics that need our heads examined."

— Former Montgomery County, N.Y., Judge Robert N. Going

WINS Radio reports that Pope John Paul II's condition has worsened; he has lost consciousness, his breathing has become rapid, and his kidneys are beginning to fail.

Fool Disclosure

“As you may know, Terri Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state since 1990 with zero chance of recovery. When Republicans intervened into a private family dispute to get the Schiavo case heard in a federal court, do you think they did so because they fervently believe in a religious-right ideology that favors prolonging life, no matter what the cost or consequences? Or are they simply seeking to please their own extremely religious right-wing base?”

— CBS News/New York Times poll question, April 1, from the April Fool's edition of the Media Research Center's "Notable Quotables."

Readers are invited to post further April 1 Notable Quotables below—read the MRC's page first to see how it's done.

The Associated Press reports that the Vatican said today that Pope John Paul II is in "very grave condition," but is not in a coma, as had been previously reported: "[I]t said he was lucid and spent the morning celebrating Mass and receiving top aides, asking one to read him the biblical account of Christ's crucifixion and burial."

Massachusetts Legislature OKs Human Cloning

Kathryn J. Lopez notes dryly on The Corner that they did it "for the children."

One of the Massachusetts politicians supporting the cloning measure claimed that the cloned human embryos that would be created under it, would not, in fact, be human, because they would not be fertilized. Well, they wouldn't have to be; they'd already be infused with a full complement of chromosomes, as Wesley J. Smith has explained:

The primary cloning technique is called "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCNT). This is the technology used to create Dolly the sheep.

SCNT is easy to describe, albeit hard to accomplish. In the case of asexually creating a human, the biotechnologist removes the nucleus from a mature human egg (an oocyte). The nucleus of a body cell from the DNA donor is removed, and put into the place formerly occupied by the egg's nucleus. The genetically modified egg now has 46 chromosomes, the full human compliment. Meanwhile, the ability of the mature egg to transform and begin embryonic development remains fully potent.

A little shot of electricity comes next, and if all goes well, a new human cloned embryo comes into being and begins to develop in the same way as a sexually created embryo. At that point — and this is important to understand — there is no more cloning to be done since a new human organism now exists.

The only question remaining is what to do with it. If the cloned human organism is to be experimented upon and destroyed, the process is often called "therapeutic cloning." If it is to be brought to birth, the process is usually called "reproductive cloning." But it is important to understand these are not different types of cloning. They are different uses for the cloned human lives created via cloning. [Source]