School Board might OK teaching creationism

LIVINGSTON — The Livingston Parish School Board will begin exploring the possibility of incorporating the teaching of “creationism” in the public school system’s science classes.

During the board’s meeting Thursday, several board members expressed an interest in the teaching of creationism, an alternative to the study of the theory of evolution, in Livingston Parish public school classrooms.

The discussion came up during a report on the pupil progression plan for the 2010-11 school year, delivered by Jan Benton, director of curriculum.

Benton said that under provisions of the Science Education Act enacted last year by the Louisiana Legislature, schools can present what she termed “critical thinking and creationism” in science classes.

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Anti-vaccination group accused of harassing parents

The Australian Vaccination Network is an awful little organization that exists to spread fear and disinformation about vaccines, under the pretense of caring about children. They're getting an official comeuppance, though: the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission has put together a report condemning AVN. They're announcing that AVN's claims are inaccurate and misleading, and further, that AVN harasses people. There's a terrible story at that link of a couple whose child died miserably of whooping cough…and Meryl Dorey, head of AVN, responded by demanding medical records and insisting that the child couldn't have died of a disease preventable by vaccination.

An excellent report on ABC:

AVN is a couple of truly rotten people with an office. It's a shame that the only punishment the HCCC report is doling out to them is a demand that they put a disclaimer on their web site.

Amid Calls for Transparency, Pope Describes Dangers of Digital Age

A report by Margret Warner of PBS Newshour from the Vatican to investigate how the Catholic Church is planning to deal with the Child Sex Abuse scandal, and instead describes the dangers of people communicating their opinions more freely over the internet.

VATICAN CITY | We've come to Rome for a week to explore how the new wave in the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal is being seen and dealt with by the Vatican, the power center of worldwide Catholicism. Pope Benedict XVI is coming under increasing pressure, as hundreds of charges of alleged priest abuse of minors explode throughout Europe -- so we were eager to see him at the earliest possible opportunity.

It was the last morning of a three-day conference on how the church should use and deal with the digital media of today. "Have they talked about the sex abuse scandal?" I whispered to a young reporter for Avvenire, the country's dominant Catholic newspaper. She smiled and shook her head: "Not a chance."

So what did the Pope have to say to the masses of people wanting answers and guidance from their religious leader when he arrived?

"The times in which we living knows a huge widening of the frontiers of communication," he said (according to our Italian fixer/producer) and the new media of this new age points to a more "egalitarian and pluralistic" forum. But, he went on to say, it also opens a new hole, the "digital divide" between haves and have-nots.

Even more ominous, he said, it exacerbates tensions between nations and within nations themselves. And it increases the "dangers of ... intellectual and moral relativism," which can lead to "multiple forms of degradation and humiliation" of the essence of a person, and to the "pollution of the spirit." All in all, it seemed a pretty grim view of the wide open communication parameters being demanded by the Internet age.

We'll be keeping a close eye on what happens and what is said on this issue from the Vatican in the coming weeks.

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The Third Strike

This article by Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish is a few weeks old, but as I'm creating this blog by adding things that I found interesting from todays news, I figured I'd add a few things I've found interesting recently as well.

It explains why the media, and anyone with an ounce of compassion paying attention, was so angry at the Catholic Pope recently.

In fairness to his holiness it was not he who tied up and sodomized innocent children, it was a priest in America called Father Kiesle.

However, when Bishop Cummins who was in charge of this particularly nasty piece of work started to get complaints about this asshole, he wrote a letter to Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict) asking for guidance and permission to defrock this poor imitation of a man.

"It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this petition were granted and that as a matter of fact, given the nature of the case, there might be greater scandal to the community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active ministry," Cummins wrote in 1982.

Instead Cardinal Ratzinger concluded that removing this child molester from his position, even if it was temporarily for investigation, not as important the good of the universal church, which is bad enough but when added that this was the case because he didn't see the potential threat it could case particularly regarding of the age of the petitioner (sodomized child) it makes you sick.

This court, although it regards the arguments presented in favor of removal in this case to be of grave significance, nevertheless deems it necessary to consider the good of the Universal Church together with that of the petitioner, and it is also unable to make light of the detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke with the community of Christ's faithful, particularly regarding the young age of the petitioner.

This letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger (the now Catholic Pope) himself.

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Church scandal’s Next Wave: Abused girls

Can we please disband this collection of stone-age imbeciles? Has all compassion been lost in the Catholic Church.

"Father Charlie told the girl with the cascading brown curls and frilly frocks that she was pretty. Special. One of his favourites.

In the small Ontario town of Pain Court, a French-Canadian community near Chatham, Father Charlie’s attention was prized by devout Roman Catholic families like Cecilia McLauchlin’s. His interest in their daughter meant the popular priest, once described as “next to God,” publicly approved of how she was being raised.

So when a gynecologist examined the girl for recurring vaginal infections, it didn’t occur to anyone that Father Charlie was the cause of her physical pain.

Cecilia McLauchlin was only 5 years old."

Now I'm not perfect, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend myself as a people turn to me everytime they have a moral dilemma but why people continually turn to "the church" for guidance is beyond me.

"Now 32, the Chatham woman is the youngest known victim of Father Charles Sylvestre, the smooth-talking priest who groomed his young prey with candies, trinkets and praise. He was convicted in 2006 of sexually assaulting 47 girls over four decades in southwestern Ontario — despite abuse complaints from victims to police, school and church officials during that time."

Can someone tell me why this continues to happen?

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