……CHA, the Catholic Health Association, has gotten in hot water lately over statements by its head, Sr. Carol Keaton, in which she supported the ‘health care’ legislation drafted in the Senate which will lead to federal funding of abortion-on-demand. 

Now, it turns out, many of the leading executives at CHA have been supporting pro-abort politicians for years.  

I contacted CHA a few times over the last several months to express my great dismay at their continued statements of support for federal health care legislation, even when it was readily apparent that legislation would lead to a massive increase in the number of abortions.  One reason for CHAs continued support is because they receive huge funds from the government, which would increase massively under ‘health care reform’ – making rich administrators even richer.  Having said that, it now appears there is another reason – the leaders at CHA are pro-abort themselves, so why should they oppose legislation leading to federal funding for abortion?

CHA  needs a complete overhaul.  I would start by insisting that all current top staff be dismissed, immediately.

Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis!

Just a quick update – I’m not dead, frightened, or sick of it all.  I was out for a week on a retreat to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, AL, and it…… was……. spectacular.   I will post more on that later, possibly Monday.

On the more political front, with regard to the retreat I’ve been concerned about, there has been much going on.  I will get into that over the next few days, and sorry for not updating sooner.  Suffice it to say, I am skeptical of what I am hearing from certain individuals involved with the Sr. Rupp retreat.  I need to check on a couple of things before I say more, but I can say now that I think my posting on this blog has definitely caused some concern, and possibly even a little panic,  with the conference organizers.  There are a couple of stories there that I can’t got into yet, but hopefully I will be able to soon.

 I thank everyone who has contacted me with messages of support.  Those have really helped me to maintain my determination.  I also thank all those who have contacted Fr. Petter, Cecilia Ladda, and Fr. Smith.  I encourage everyone to keep contacting these individuals with your concerns, and if you haven’t yet, you would do a great deal of good if you would do so. 

This issue may be about to get substantially more coverage than this one little blog can provide.  I can’t say more now, but stay tuned.

Disillusionment is a powerful theme that manifests itself over and over in contemporary Jewish life.  I can think of several events instantly that have caused significant existential anguish in people, events that have shaken the faith of people in their own ideals, their leadership and the symbols of stability that served as pillars of their Jewish identities.  The expulsion of the Jewish residents of Gush Katif by the Israeli Government, is one such example–although every pullback, land concession and settlement freeze has sparked feelings of betrayal by an entity many believed to be the modern salvation of the Jewish people, namely, the State of Israel.  Many a former Zionist has been shorn of his or her zeal for the State of Israel and has had to refocus onto something more transcendently Jewish.

What has come to be known as the “Slifkin affair” has been identified by Rabbi Aharon Feldman as one of the most damaging events to Orthodox Jewry in contemporary history (see The Eye of the Storm), his expressed ambivalence notwithstanding.  It has this dubious honor due to the fact that people’s faith in rabbinic leadership was seriously compromised, even destabilized by the facts of the affair.  This is particularly because of the about-face nature with which many of the rabbinic leaders who had given their approbations to Rabbi Slifkin’s books suddenly repealed them, seemingly under pressure from askanim, or what we might term “operators”, communal activists, within the precincts of these leaders.

To compound matters, Rabbi Leib Tropper, one of the key players  in bringing about the ban on Rabbi Slifkin’s books, has just recently been exposed for embezzlement of donor funds as well as gross improprieties with a prospective convert while in his role as head of the Eternal Jewish Family, an organization created to reach out to intermarried couples, and insure a strict conversion standard worldwide.  The other key player in the ban is currently serving an eight year jail sentence for mortgage fraud.

A few days ago, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin proclaimed to the Christian world that he viewed their deity as “a model Jewish rabbi”, and that his fascination with the personality of Jesus was such that he referred to him as “Rabbi Jesus”.  Rabbi Riskin, who has associated with Evangelical Christians in the past, explaining that,

“Our best friends in the United States are Christians, offering love, friendship, and partnership,” said Riskin, according to The Jerusalem Post, “We would be foolish not to take advantage of it, especially during these troubled times.” (The Christian Post, October 8th, 2007)

His recent statements certainly raise troubling questions about exactly why he chose to make these theologically dangerous statements now.

Of course, people who have fallen away from observance due to abuses at home and at school, or because they were ostracized by certain figures in their communities, or slipped between the cracks and became disillusioned, have plenty to say about how corruption at the level of leadership has contributed to a profound sense of alienation from Judaism and Jewish life.

I believe that these and other instances of “bad faith” constitute a category of existential anguish that is very much felt by Jewish people in relation to those items that personify the Jewish values they hold dear.  I know that the “existential vacuum” is felt by all human beings, but I think that there is a dimension of this feeling that is particular to Jews, especially in the face of everything that presents itself to us in our day.

What is the call to meaning in events like these?  If we simply want to complain, as many sharing the bandwidth do, and gloat about how these institutions and figures are all fake and phony, we are not detecting meaning.    If our consciences have been raised by this constant barrage of disappointment, it is because we are responsible towards the demands of this moment.  Retreating into the psychoanalytical shelter of a mechanistic view of people, one might simply dismiss these cases of corruption as manifestations of primal human drives towards lust or power.  After all, these people are just human.

Logotherapy gives us a new vocabulary to combat this dim view of humanity.  There is no “just human”! In the words of Victor Frankl, “no one will be able to make us believe that man is a sublimated animal once we can show that within him there is a repressed angel.”  (Frankl, Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, 2000)  A human being is not merely a higher primate who is simply predetermined by his drives, but is rather a majestic being who, when he rises to “full human stature”, he is recognizably created in the image of G-d.

The aforementioned statement perfectly sums up an idea in Logotherapy, that one can and must take a defiant stance against meaninglessness.  We can take such a stance by remembering the following three things.  First, G-d is eternal and unchanging.  He is the Source of everything, all holiness, and all purity.  He remains unaffected by the corruption that has reared its ugly head down here.  His Torah is not defiled.

Second, our neshamos (souls) are holy and pure, and they remain so no matter what, being as they are “a piece of G-d Above”.  Third, Eretz Yisrael remains precious, holy and pure. It is G-d’s land, and we have been invited to dwell in it.  It cannot be defiled by a corrupt government, no matter what.

Integrity.

Let us be defiant against the devolution of values and meaning, and not allow ourselves to become jaded, desensitized and sarcastic.  We can still connect to G-d, to our souls, to the Holy Torah, and to the Holy Land.  Although people at every level, and society, may disappoint us, we do not have to get dragged down.  We can take responsibility for our growth and striving towards a better state of affairs.

I’m sure Tiger Woods is thankful for this Episode in Charlie Sheen’s life.

Who made it legal that if a person becomes
famous, they lose their constitutional right
to privacy? The only thing we should ever
know about anyone famous, whether they be
a politician, an athlete, or a celebrity is about
their work, their charity affiliations, and anything
they may want to share. We forget, when
the press exposes all of a person’s private
affairs, their children suffer the consequences.
And that’s just not right. We need to change
this law, if it exists.

Miley Cyrus most annoying of 2009 on UK TV show.
Features Michael Buckley of WhatTheBuck Show from Youtube.

CREDIT: Sirg1006’s Youtube Page.

After weeks of running Tiger Woods stories on its front pages, the media has realized the gold mine of revealing the sex lives of athletes. Here comes TMZ.

As Tony Kornheiser said on ESPN Pardon The Interruption (PTI), athletes are physical people. It’s likely that there are many stories to be told that will rivet audiences. If people want to know about actors and actresses and they find out about politicians then of course they would want to hear about sports stars.

When Mets Manager Bobby Valentine said that Major League Baseball would be ready for a gay player, speculation ran rampant for days. Mike Piazza announced that he was not gay. Years later, the media ran the story of the accusation that Roberto Alomar had AIDS and the media recalled the Valentine statement and wondered if the Met he might have been talking about was Alomar.

Will this exposure hurt all athletes. As Sally Jenkins reminds us in her Tiger Woods piece, athletes are often spoiled and thought that they are invisible. A true recipie for exposure of their foibles.

There have been athletes that have relished exposure of their private lives. My top dog is Joe Namith, who enjoyed bachelorhood in New York City during his time with the New York Jets football team in the late 1960s. While it helped that Namith was a bachelor, the positive exposure might have also been because of the heyday of free love.

Titillation and scandal has always sold. There are more outlets for displaying this now. Gossip comes to sports on a regular basis—watch out everyone!

The current scandal involving Rabbi Leib Tropper is the latest in a series of “spiritual abuse” cases that have occurred in the Orthodox community in recent years, to the horror of all of us.

This case, however, is particularly intriguing for several reasons: first, it is the first instance that I know about where a major personality in the religious world was brought down via a headlining expose that ultimately originated in an internet blog. Second, it is a very dilated and distorted window on the relationship between Jewish organizations, their directors and their donors. Third, it clearly exemplifies the words of our Sages. “Rabbi Yochanan ben Broka said, ‘Whoever desecrates the Name of Heaven in secret, they will exact punishment from him in public’” (Avos 4:5). And were it not for the instantaneous speed with which information can be posted and sent to a virtually unlimited number of people via the internet, this problem may have gone on undetected and unnoticed for years. It appears that uncovering deception happens very quickly these days.

I don’t personally know Harry Maryles, or the authors of “the unorthodox Jew” or failedmessiah.com, but I do have a message for them and everyone who reads their blogs: instead of simply using our soapboxes to judge and castigate others with the rationalization that we are simply trying to restore honesty and transparency to the religious world, we should realize that these events happen in front of our eyes because they have a message for us; we have to take mussar from these events. We have to realize that “there but for the grace of G-d go I”. Quite literally.

Anyone who reads the accounts of the snake, Esav or Lavan, would be letting themselves off easy if they simply snarled, called these personalities, “bad guys”, and flipped to the next page. Hashem gives us detailed accounts of these people because He wants us to take it to the second level, and ask ourselves, “how am I like the snake, Esav, or Lavan?” From there, we can work to eradicate these personality traits.

Parenthetically, I am very dismayed at the proliferation of frum internet tabloids, blogs that symbiotically live off of systemic problems in the religious world and supply their readers with a type of Orthodox (or, really anti-Orthodox) pornography that serves to confirm their suspicions that every religious Jew or rabbi is actually an evil pervert, while eroding the emunas chachamim of others. Solutions or invitations to substantive discussion are rarely offered on these sites. Lots of people have an axe to grind; I suggest that maybe it’s not such a responsible thing to do in front of six billion people?

I say this because I am a therapist, and because I am essentially “one degree of separation” from many of the people who make it onto these unsavory lists. I am a YU musmach, I have been an assistant rabbi in Monsey myself, and I work with this underbelly of the frum world professionally. I consulted to NCSY leaders immediately after the Baruch Lanner affair several years ago, and I listen to the thought distortions of offenders on a weekly basis; it’s harrowing. But a person should thank G-d that he or she has not been given the impairments of conscience coupled with the overactive yetzer hara that have led other people down the path of destruction.

One addictions treatment expert has put it this way, “every single person who has come into my office has said initially that they never imagined this could happen to them.”

If you think about it, these high profile cases of corruption may simply be a very monstrous, pathological version of the “disconnect” that affects everyone according to their level, the incongruity that comes from knowing what is right and not doing it–or doing the opposite. How can people smoke, when the label on the box clearly tells them that doing so will kill them? They light up anyway. How can people talk in shul, insult people, cheat on tests, run cash businesses, overestimate accident damages, double park, ignore newcomers, drive over 25 miles per hour in a school zone, not call their mother, get to work late, submit restaurant receipts as tax write-offs, etc., etc., etc.?

On a clinical note: in these very awful cases that have surfaced in recent years, I propose that, if you examine each one, they probably all adhere to a set of diagnostic criteria for pathology that predisposes them in this direction. It does not excuse the actions of these people, of course, but it would be very beneficial to the Jewish community if some type of screening test could be developed and administered to people who would become the heads of our institutions.

Best couple of lines from Bradley Fikes in the NC Times (h/t WUWT):

A few years ago, I accepted global warming theory with few doubts. I wrote several columns for this paper condemning what I thought were unfair attacks by skeptics and defending the climate scientists.

Boy, was I naive.

Read the rest.

Cross-posted to VV

Earlier this weekend Peaches Geldof, tweeted about Miley Cyrus being dead and it being a rumor. The Mirror.co.uk posted an article today about the twitter post:

Peaches Geldof should think before she tweets.

Sir Bob’s girl told her fans in a tasteless joke that teen queen Miley Cyrus was dead. Then when she got in trouble she had to pull the message and apologize.

Fans will be pleased to hear Miley plans to return to the UK soon, where she has set the record for the biggest attendance at the O2 Arena in London.

Trying to say sorry to Miley, Peaches said: “Didn’t want to cause distress by tweeting that I’d heard that Miley had died. Turns out it was thankfully a rumour. Glad to hear that x”

We are too… idiot.

SOURCE: Mirror.co.uk.

By Ian Black

I don’t know Leo Shanahan personally, but I know his reputation and it ain’t flattering. And after reading his piece in that outlet of predictable middle class male opinion, The Punch, I know more about the type of guy he is and again, it ain’t flattering: Hey, what’s up with Tiger? Elin wants half.

Seems one bloke (Leo) is outraged that another bloke (Tiger) might have to give some money to his most-likely-soon-to-be-ex-wife (Elin). I can’t resist sharing some of his wisdom with you:

On what bizarre calculation of marital rights is Tiger’s soon to be ex-wife entitled to between $300 and $500 million?

And:

I’m sure most people don’t dispute Nordegren’s decision to end her marriage with Tiger (and if they do I guess it doesn’t really matter, it’s not our marriage).

Shanahan, you dolt, do you actually read what you write? It’s none of our fucking business.

The thing that seems to annoy Shanahan is not that Elin will probably get hundreds of millions from Woods because there are two children involved, but that she gets half. Over and over again, it’s the half that shits him. But you know what shits me more? That a twenty-something-year-old journo is writing an opinion piece about something he can’t possibly know about since he is neither Tiger Woods nor Elin Nordegren, with the aim of getting readers to comment on how much they think a woman is worth. Oops, sorry, how much she should get if they divorce.

I got to this reader comment and stopped:
The way it is says:
03:59pm | 22/12/09
No woman is worth half of what a man is worth unless she is directly (read: financially) responsible for earning that. Women that want half who didn’t contribute half (and no, ironing, cooking, cleaning and the kids aren’t earning half) are leeches, especially when you consider it from the standpoint of Elin.

Jim Hightower | Congress Ethics Rules Undermined by Weasels

By: Jim Hightower, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed Dec. 16, 2009

Scientifically speaking, the weasel is in the mustelidae family, but it is not the only burrowing rodent of its genus. There’s also the mustela congressa lobbyista, which is that mischievous grouping of Washington lobbyists who habitually team up with certain congress-critters to burrow loopholes in our country’s ethics laws.

You might recall the big ethics reform push of 2007. In January of that year, in response to public outrage over breathtakingly flagrant scandals involving Uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and several Republican members of Congress, the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House pushed through a widely ballyhooed set of reforms. Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised that the changes would deliver “the most honest, ethical and open Congress in history.

How’d that work out?…..   http://www.truthout.org/topstories/121609vh8

A new Miley Cyrus naked picture that was recently leaked! It looks legit, BUT with haters these days it may be fake. Thoughts.

***NOTICE: DO NOT LOOK AT THE VIDEO IF OVER 16, IT IS CENSORED HOWEVER. LOOK WITH DISCRETION***

SOURCE VIA, OMFGceleb’s Youtube.