It’s Raining Men, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld
Forgive me, but I have a head cold. My face hurts, and the medicine makes me feel like my brain is covered in Vaseline. Which is a shame, because there are some good stories this week. Stories that might inspire a good writer, that might incite civil action to improve society, or at least a laugh.
Sorry. You’re stuck with me.
And I see a common motif of men, unused to thinking of women as anything other than semen receptacles (and, possibly, baby incubators), doing stupid shit. Really, really stupid shit. Please note: I’m not saying women don’t also do stupid shit. I, myself, spend an inordinate amount of time asking questions of my cat, even though I know she won’t answer me. However, when I do this, I in no way inflict any hardship on the rest of the populace.
Which brings us to the Catholic Church.
The New York area was shocked this week to learn of the sad fate of Monsignor Kevin Wallins, a popular priest who was found to be, among other things, a sex addict and a meth dealer. What’s horrifying about this story is not the man’s weakness, but the way the system protected him from confronting his problems. Because he was a “man of God,” everyone assumed he was also a man of virtue.
At least, in his case, the Diocese took action when his behavior became known to them. He was relieved of his position.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Roger Cardinal Mahony, the former Archbishop of Los Angeles, faced no such consequences. Although there is a massive amount of evidence that he protected pedophile priests who were under his supervision, he is preparing to go to Rome to help select the new pope. And when he was confronted by angry parishioners, the article in my link says:
“Mahony wrote Thursday in a blog post about Lent that he has been publicly humiliated numerous times by people angered by his handling of the clergy abuse crisis. ‘I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage – at me, at the Church, at about injustices that swirl around us,’ he wrote.
“‘Thanks to God’s special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them.’”
In other words, he was forgiving them for being victims of the crimes he abetted.”
And then, there’s the Republicans. In their zeal to obstruct President Obama, no matter what he wants to do, they will believe any damn thing. This week, we learned that one of their pet peeves, that Chuck Hagel, Obama’s choice to be Secretary of State, had allegedly received payment for speaking to a gathering of “The Friends of Hamas,” was untrue. In fact, the source of the rumor was a sarcastic conversation between a reporter and a Senate aide. The reporter also asked if Hagel had received money from the ‘Junior League of Hezbollah.”
Within a day of the reporter’s call, the story was presented, as fact, on a right-wing web site. And, as I write this, that same web site is refusing to acknowledge that they got hosed.
As a gender, men in our society don’t like to admit that they’ve made a mistake. They think it makes them look weak. In fact, it only makes them look more wrong.
My third example doesn’t fit in quite as neatly with my first two, but it does illustrate how susceptible some men are to delusions.
In a video, Jean Kilbourne vividly illustrates how the media torment women with a constant parade of images that make us feel like failures. Through images of female beauty that don’t exist anywhere but on a computer screen, they tell us that we won’t be good enough to get a man, a job, a happy life, unless we consume products that might let them approach that impossible, thin yet busty dream.
But women aren’t the only ones who fall for this propaganda. In a video that my kid’s blog assures me all the cool kids are watching, The Women of LA, a young man laments the fact that he isn’t rich enough, or famous enough, or pretty enough to get laid in Los Angeles.
You know what? All the women who reject him are gorgeous. Some of them brag about the plastic surgery that gave them the impossible bodies they saw in the magazines tow which Jean Kilbourne referred. And the guys? They’re nice enough looking, but nothing spectacular. Yet they only want the gorgeous starlet-types, not the women who are nice enough looking, but nothing spectacular.
Believe me, if I starved myself down to an impossible body size, then had surgery to enhance what I couldn’t achieve naturally, plus spend a fortune on makeup and hair extensions, I’d expect to get a rich guy, too. That kind of commitment is a career, and I’d want to get paid.
All the men described above should meet a few real women. Not for the purpose of having sex, or making babies, or squiring around town, but for the purpose of meeting people different from themselves.
Learn to listen to another point of view without getting defensive (women are, as a rule, really good at that, at least to your face).
Women are excellent at apologizing. My own mother would apologize if you stepped on her foot. And she never even met Cardinal Mahoney.
Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, probably couldn’t get laid in LA either.
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February 23rd, 2013 at 7:34 am
When I screw up or make a mistake, I have no problem admitting I’m wrong (though I do try to find excuses before I admit it.
). I just don’t get the whole strategy of ‘doubling down’ when you do something wrong. I don’t look at bubble media, but did they refute any of the ‘Friends of Hamas’ stuff? They also worry about this: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/02/wwe-tea-party-real-american/62344/
February 23rd, 2013 at 9:49 am
Jon Stewart pointed out that if you were to establish a PAC, you’d hardly call it “Friends of Hamas” or “the Junior League of Hezbollah,” and he’s right: there’s a reason why the NAMBLA PAC is not called “Men Who Fuck Boys.”
The problem with talking about how the various genders tend to react as a whole is that we reinforce very damaging stereotypes that can not possibly apply to any one person. It is not the least bit unusual to find women who have a hard time apologizing; in fact, I know one who wouldn’t apologize if she crapped on the stage during the live Oscar broadcast. And it is not the least bit unusual to find men who do apologize for their mistakes. The problem is that, as a society that has grown even more cynical (largely to the efforts of people like me; sorry about that) we no longer believe apologies can be sincere.
As for men thinking of women as anything other than semen receptacles and baby incubators, that’s not only sexist, it’s patiently ridiculous. Women are also vital as maids, cooks, breast-feeders, seamstresses, babysitters, and nuns.
When a man makes such a statement, he is defined as evil but it’s perfectly acceptable for women to make such wildly prejudiced gender-specific responses. Egalitarianism is redefined by whose ox is being gored and by latest cultural fashion.
Let’s face it. People suck. And I don’t mean that in a semen receptacle way, because not all people swallow.
February 23rd, 2013 at 12:05 pm
All of Mahoney’s actions over the years are easy to understand; the s.o.b. didn’t want anything to screw up his plan to become Pope. Growing up in the LA broadcast market, I was able to observe the Cardinal over the years. The man is the basest of politicians. If he ever had a true calling to the priesthood, it crumbled before his political ambitions decades ago. His career became the glorification or Rodger Mahoney. Any scandal covered up so he wouldn’t be linked to bad press. I wish that his upcoming depositions were going to be televised. Watching him squirm would delight me to no end.
February 23rd, 2013 at 12:12 pm
Yeah, not all men are like that, not all women are unlike that, but Martha is on to something.
More males than females have what I’d consider the “conservative mind” (that is not exactly the same as being politically conservative): in love with order and control, paranoid, success-oriented, very loyal to their own side, etc.
The guys in the Vatican and the GOP definitely have the conservative mind. Apologies are for those who are actually worried about other people’s viewpoints and desire to fine-tune their own behaviour. Not for them. To them, every time they apologize, the “enemy” is scoring a point.
February 23rd, 2013 at 12:45 pm
What puzzles me is why law enforcement agencies don’t actively investigate and prosecute sexual predators and those who shelter them and actively obstruct lawful due process – regardless of religious affiliation.
I guess I’m just a Christian. Sue me. Er…forgive me?
February 23rd, 2013 at 1:51 pm
Oh boy. George will appear at any minute now to defend the Church.
Whitney, my understanding is that a lot of cases are not even reported to civil authorities and that the Church’s priority has always been its own reputation.
February 23rd, 2013 at 2:05 pm
In Australia we have Tony Abbott, the leader of the opposition party, who trained to be a priest, then decamped the seminary for a singularly uninspired career in politics. He, too, has sheltered/supported a pedophile priest. It’s a fact local journalists prefer to ignore having unanimously decided Abbott is the best person to lead the country from September because, well, our current Prime Minister is a woman and a liar…
February 23rd, 2013 at 2:45 pm
Sorry you’re under the weather, Martha. A week ago when my brain was still fudge from antibiotics, I couldn’t have even written thisss-s-s-zzzzzzzzzzzz…….
February 24th, 2013 at 6:45 am
Catholics are not alone in covering up abuse. There is evidence that certain fundamentalist Jewish groups in Brooklyn have done similar horrific things to children. The difference is that there is not the international hierarchy propping them up.
The similarity is that both groups marginalize women.
February 24th, 2013 at 10:06 am
And some religious leaders of both groups suck the penises of children. Literally.
February 24th, 2013 at 3:49 pm
“Oh boy. George will appear at any minute now to defend the Church.”
Well, if I must.
I hadn’t heard about the Kevin Wallins story. I read the link Martha provided and it is a sad case but as Martha points out the diocese took action when they became aware of the situation. I don’t think he was protected from confronting his problems. The article says, “The diocese decided it had a priest who had committed a sin but not a crime.” He was sent to Johns Hopkins is Baltimore and later to St. Luke Institute, a psychiatric hospital in Silver Spring, Md., that treats Catholic clergymen and others. Then later to St. John Vianney Center, a behavioral health treatment center for the clergy and religious. That is three different attempts to help him confront his problems. It wasn’t until he was arrested for drug dealing that diocese became aware of the crimes.
The Mahoney story is another situation entirely. The abuse scandal has been written about here before and as I said then “It is a terrible thing obviously, but child abuse among the clergy is commensurate with that of the general population, (about 4%). Nevertheless, it has become the go-to argument against the moral authority of the Church for every other subject. I can’t blame critics for using it. But that 4% is low-hanging fruit.”
http://mdwp.malibulist.com/2012/05/tax-free-by-martha-thomases-brilliant-disguise-mdworld/
The comments section of the Huffington Post website that Martha linked to is certainly a bastion of civil discourse. Several of the commentators link Mahoney to the story of the Church being pro-Nazi in WWII which the kind of lie that people want to believe because it supports their biases. The opposite is actually true.
There is book coming out called “The Pope’s Jews” by British author Gordon Thomas, (a Protestant by the way), that states: “Priests were instructed to issue baptism certificates to hundreds of Jews hidden in Genoa, Rome and elsewhere in Italy. More than 2,000 Jews in Hungary were given fabricated Vatican documents identifying them as Catholics and a network saved German Jews by bringing them to Rome. The pope appointed a priest with extensive funds with which to provide food, clothing and medicine. More than 4,000 Jews were hidden in convents and monasteries across Italy.
During and immediately after the war, the pope was considered a Jewish saviour. Jewish leaders – such as Jerusalem’s chief rabbi in 1944 – said the people of Israel would never forget what he and his delegates “are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters at the most tragic hour”. Jewish newspapers in Britain and America echoed that praise, and Hitler branded him ‘a Jew lover’.” Everyone, the Nazis, the Allies and the Jews, knew where Pope Pius XII stood during the War. Pope Pius was regarded as a hero by all who opposed the Nazis and the Nazis regarded him as a bitter enemy.
This reminded me of St. Louis Archbishop Ritter who in 1947, seven years before Brown vs the Board of Education, integrated the St. Louis Catholic schools. This action was met with resistance but Ritter stood firm. Here is an article from Time magazine. September 27, 1947.
“In St. Louis Jim Crow walks on one leg: Negroes ride the streetcars and buses with the white folks; a portrait of Dred Scott has a prominent place among the historical monuments in the Jefferson Memorial. But in St. Louis, as in all Missouri, public schools are Jim Crow schools. So, in practice, have been the Roman Catholic parochial schools. There was no actual color line, but it was always well understood by Catholic Negroes that their children were to go to the overcrowded all-Negro schools in the crowded Negro districts.
Last week St. Louis’ Archbishop Joseph Elmer Ritter ripped down this racial bar. He announced that Negro children could attend any diocesan school within their parishes. More than 700 white Catholic parents banded together to protest the seating of Negroes next to their children. They knocked at the Archbishop’s door; he would not see them. They threatened court action; they would hire a lawyer and ask for an injunction against the Archbishop.
This week the protesters got a shock. Archbishop Ritter, a mild but positive man, gave them a warning in a pastoral letter, read at all Masses throughout his archdiocese. If they carried through their threat of action against the Church, he said, they would be open to the gravest penalty the Church can exercise—excommunication. “Obedience to ecclesiastical authority, said his letter, was a cardinal principle of their faith. So, he reminded them, was “the equality of every soul before Almighty God.”
That night the protesting group met again, decided to take no action that would jeopardize their church standing.”
The Hagel story of a rumor being reported as fact reminded me of earlier this month when the Washington Post reported that Sarah Palin was joining Al-Jazeera. The story originated on a satirical website, “The Daily Currant” but that important bit of the story escaped the reporter, Suzi Parker, who reported it as Palin desperately needing to stay relevant.
Sorry for the long post but Rene expected it.
February 25th, 2013 at 10:17 am
It’s kind of sad how anti-church folks take whichever church du jour protected one of their fallen to task, but forget that almost every other organization’s reactions are often quite similar — even organizations beloved by the anti-church crowd.
One would assume the church would be especially sensitive to any scandals because they are supposed to be beholden to a higher standard.
That doesn’t make church officials right — it ony makes them human.
February 25th, 2013 at 1:06 pm
It doesn’t make them human. It makes them monsters.
Trust me, my child. Join me in holy worship, my child. I will help you get into heaven, my child. Just take off your pants, my child. And don’t tell anyone.
Despite the religionists’ zeal to paint us otherwise, I am not in the least anti-church. I’m anti-monster. And it takes a particularly HOLY type of monster to use his power and authority to fuck children. You may think there’s a special circle of your hell for these people. I think there’s a special type of baseball bat.
February 25th, 2013 at 1:48 pm
I’m not anti-church. I’m anti-Rodger Mahoney.
February 25th, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Is Rodger actually Jerry’s son?
February 25th, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Russ is not wrong here.
Organizations are quite alike. Almost all of them believe that misdeeds by their own, even monstrous misdeeds, are excusable, and it’s a greater crime to give ammunition to the “enemy”. Often, when forced to admit to their misdeeds, they even blame said enemy.
That is why I’m not loyal to organizations, nor will I ever be. I find that mindset to be very alien. If any organization I belonged to covered up one half of what the Catholic Church did, I’d be out of there in a second.
February 25th, 2013 at 2:34 pm
My point is that all-male groups, specifically those with lots of power, are especially susceptible to corrupt, monstrous behavior. I can think of no groups of women that cover up the sexual abuse of children perpetrated by other women.
February 25th, 2013 at 2:59 pm
Really? I take it that boarding school you were at wasn’t run by nuns.
February 25th, 2013 at 3:14 pm
Well, there are few all-female groups with a lot of power. But I’ve seen females making excuses for the vile behaviour of male-led groups they approve of. There are women among the Catholic apologists, you know.
But, if I may indulge in a bit of stereotyping, I think women are, on average, more inclined to be pragmatic than idealistic, so they’re not as prone as men to the seduction of twisted idealism, that led so many people to make excuses for pedophile priests, communist purges, wars hawks that tell us that they have to destroy something in order to save it, or other such atrocities.
Once I read one guy trying to bash women by saying they make decisions based on their own wombs (i.e. their day-to-day needs, their kids, their families), while men make decisions looking at the stars (i.e. grandiose ideals). I have to say that I don’t find that to be disparaging of women. Quite the opposite.
When I talk politics with my wife, I’d go on and on about the right, and the left, and whatever, while my wife knows a lot more about the practical results of government policy for our day-to-day lives.
The world would be a lot better if we listened more to women. It’s the males and the grandiose ideals, like saving the souls of all mankind and all that rubbish, that leads people to commit, cover-up, or excuse attrocities.
February 25th, 2013 at 3:50 pm
My girls’ school was Episcopalian, and run by men. It’s the men with power who are (generally) the problem. Alas, there are always plenty of women who are happy to be house slaves — and apologists.
February 25th, 2013 at 7:54 pm
I’ve spent much of my non-freelance, non-broadcast career working for women; Jenette at DC, the Conspiracy Trial chief-of-staff, and most of the social service stuff. These women were neither house slaves nor apologists. In fact, just about the only difference I’ve noticed between the genders is that women dress in a more interesting manner. This also applies to the politicians I’ve worked with. I’ve had limited contact with “the mob” and with the police, but back then virtually all of those in power were men. Generally very dumb men.
As for the CIA, one-third of the agents I know are women. I think you’ve met two, but we won’t go into that here.
Heh heh heh.
February 25th, 2013 at 8:06 pm
Mike,
Although your reference is way, way, way before my time,
I do understand it. To answer your question, I’d have to say that its highly unlikely. Jerry wasn’t a soulless bureaucrat, toadding up to his bosses for political gain. Yes, I am saying that a block of wood had more morals and scruples than Rodger Mahoney. (I really don’t like the S.O.B.)
February 25th, 2013 at 8:19 pm
And Jerry was toadying up to the guy who designed the prototype artificial heart.
February 26th, 2013 at 12:32 am
Well; considering where the gentleman’s hand was, you really can’t blame Jerry.
February 26th, 2013 at 8:03 am
@Mike and Rene: I’m not saying that all women with power are toadying (although I bet a bunch are, and that would be an interesting column, one I’d read but don’t care to write). I’m saying that women who, for example, defend the Catholic Church do not have any power in the Catholic Church.
Nor do women who defend the baby-raping Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn.
Do nuns molest children? Has anyone done the research? Are these crimes systematically covered up by other nuns? I have no information on this. Does anyone? That’s not a stubborn rebuke — I’m curious.
February 26th, 2013 at 8:14 am
Also, this: http://www.theawl.com/2013/02/cardinal-ou
February 26th, 2013 at 9:46 am
Growing up in one of the most Catholic cities in the known universe, I have had a number of friends who went to Catholic grade and high school who report such behavior on the part of nuns. But, to further your point, I suspect many/some of the coverups were abetted or conducted by the male hierarchy. Not unlike the Sons of Anarchy, actually.
And, of course, there’s also Jack Chick’s research.
February 26th, 2013 at 9:55 am
I believe we all have common ground here:
People who sexually abuse children and those who conspire to assist them must be subject to the law.
In these circumstances, all other labels – Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Boy Scout, Male or Female – become subordinate to one:
Criminal.
Agreed?