Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Back in 2007, Christopher Hitchens penned an article for Vanity Fair titled Why Women Aren’t Funny. In it he wrote:
Men are overawed, not to say terrified, by the ability of women to produce babies. (Asked by a lady intellectual to summarize the differences between the sexes, another bishop responded, “Madam, I cannot conceive.”) It gives women an unchallengeable authority. And one of the earliest origins of humor that we know about is its role in the mockery of authority. Irony itself has been called “the glory of slaves.” So you could argue that when men get together to be funny and do not expect women to be there, or in on the joke, they are really playing truant and implicitly conceding who is really the boss…
If I am correct about this, which I am, then the explanation for the superior funniness of men is much the same as for the inferior funniness of women. Men have to pretend, to themselves as well as to women, that they are not the servants and supplicants. Women, cunning minxes that they are, have to affect not to be the potentates.
So—according to Hitchens—women are really “the bosses” because they are the baby makers. Men are the funny ones because they mock the authority of women who have wombs…and, therefore, the power! Who knew?
I get it. I think this explains why so many men in the GOP these days are proposing reproductive legislation. These male vagina vigilantes—“uterati” is what I call them—must believe that their extreme legislation will give them (the funny guys) authority over women (the humorless baby makers). They’re trying to gain authority over the opposite sex by taking control of contraception…and women’s bodies.
The uterati’s strategy seems to be working because women have been getting their “funny” on lately. They are using social media and sarcasm in order to get their point across that they will not stand by humorlessly while proposed legislation that could have a negative impact on their lives is being discussed and voted upon. That must mean that women will soon be seen as the supplicants and servants—at least according to the Christopher Hitchens equations:
funny people = supplicants and servants
unfunny people = authority figures
Unfortunately, the vagina vigilantes just don’t seem to find much humor in what these women are doing.
So…let’s take a look at some some of the sarcastic things that women are doing, shall we? You can let me know if you think they’re funny.
In Mockery: Women’s new weapon, an article that appeared in Salon, Tracy Clark-Flory wrote:
From a proposed sex strike to mock legislation restricting access to Viagra, women are coming up with increasingly creative ways to respond to attacks on reproductive rights. Many of them are relying on something ladies are often said to be without: a sense of humor.
In case you didn’t catch on, the sex strike is tongue-in-cheek. Annette Maxberry-Carrara, founder of Liberal Ladies Who Lunch — the group that proposed the “Access Denied” protest — tells me with a laugh, “We’re not looking at it as a literal strike.” But they are making a serious political statement. The event’s tagline reads, “If our reproductive choices are denied, so are yours.”
Here are some examples of the mock legislation being proposed by women–and some men who respect women (God love them!)——courtesy of ThinkProgress:
EVERY SPERM HAS A RIGHT (OKLAHOMA): To poke fun at a “personhood” bill that gives full rights to a zygote, state Sen. Constance Johnson (D) introduced an amendment that would also declare every sperm to be sacred. “However, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child,” her amendment stated.
NOTE: Senator Judy Eason of Tulsa, Oklahoma, attended a protest of the state’s extreme “Personhood” bill at the State Capitol recently. She borrowed a sign from another poster that read: “If I wanted the government in my womb I’d fuck a senator.” (Freak Out Nation)
CHILDREN DENIED BIRTH BECAUSE OF VASECTOMIES (GEORGIA): State Rep. Yasmin Neal (D) introduced legislation that would limit vasectomies. “Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies,” Neal explained. Her measure is in response to a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks on the grounds that a fetus can feel pain — a claim disputed by doctors.
MORE HOOPS TO CLEAR FOR VIAGRA (OHIO): In response to Ohio’s so-called Heartbeat Bill, which would prevent abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, state Sen. Nina Turner (D) will introduce a bill that would make men jump through hoops, like a psychological screening, before they could obtain Viagra and similar drugs for erectile dysfunction. “All across the country, including in Ohio, I thought since men are certainly paying great attention to women’s health that we should definitely return the favor,” Turner said.
Note: A man would also have to get a notarized affidavit that was signed by his sexual partner affirming his impotency.
RECTAL EXAMS FOR A VIAGRA PRESCRIPTIONS (VIRGINIA): To protest Virginia’s bill requiring women to receive an ultrasound before an abortion, state Sen. Janet Howell (D) attached an amendment to the bill that would have required men to receive a rectal exam and pass a cardiac stress test before doctors wrote them a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication. “We need some gender equity here,” Howell said. The Virginia Senate rejected her amendment, but both chambers passed the ultrasound requirement after clarifying that women would not be forced to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound.
KNOW THE SIDE EFFECTS OF VIAGRA (ILLINOIS): State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D) decided to push back against GOP attacks on women’s health by offering an amendment that would require men to watch a “horrific video” about the side effects of Viagra before they received a prescription for the drug. His bill is in response to a measure requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion. “If we are going to do this, we need to do it in a way that is applied equally,” Cassidy said.
PROTECT ALL SPERM (DELAWARE): Mocking the “personhood” measures, the town council in Wilmington, Delaware approved a satirical resolution “that asks state legislatures and U.S. Congress to enact laws that forbid men from destroying their semen.” The resolution notes that if lawmakers think a female egg has full rights, then they should say the same thing about sperm.
Women have also taken to leaving sarcastic comments on their governors’ Facebook pages. It was reported in The L Magazine that women had begun “wall bombing” and “sarcasm bombing” the pages of politicians who were attempting to “roll back women’s rights.”
Written to Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia
Dear Doctor Governor-I have an issue with my vagina. I’m having a terrible flow and cramping. This happens every month. I’m not sure if it is related to the lack of an ultrasound or the lack of a pill (I know one is mandated but my poor addled lady brain can’t wrap my head around this issue). I’m guessing that it may be the ultrasound since I heard the men folk on the teevee telling us that contraception and the like is one step from abortion. What do I do Dr. Gov? Should I come to your office for the exam?
Written to Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania
I know this has nothing to do with this, but being a woman and all, I can’t stop thinking about my lady parts. You suggested women close their eyes when getting a transvaginal ultrasound, or Wand of Light, as we lovingly call it in some places. Do you also close your eyes when getting a mandatory anal probe for unrelated legal medical procedures? What else do you close your eyes for? I’m curious, your advice is so fascinating!
Written to Gov. Sam Brownback of Tennessee
I just called your office, and they wouldn’t let me schedule a pap smear. I’m confused, aren’t you taking care of all this now?
And
Governor, maybe you can help me. I have a funny rash on my labia. If I send you a photo, can you tell me what it is? I’m asking you because you seem to be an expert on women’s health, and I know I can’t be trusted to know anything about my own body. I’m just a woman, no better than livestock. It says so in the Bible…
Written to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas
I promise to vote for you during the next run if you’ll allow me to incorporate my uterus.
Another tactic being proposed by a group called Government Free VJJ is the “Snatchel Project.” Government Free VJJ is encouraging women to knit uteruses and send them to male members of Congress. One of the group’s slogans is “If they have their own, they can leave ours alone!”
I’m a woman. I think this is all quite hilarious. How about you? Who do you think are the potentates now? Which do you think is the funnier sex?
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Mockery: Women’s new weapon (Salon)
Why Women Aren’t Funny (Vanity Fair)
As Anti-Abortion Bills Gain Steam, Legislators Push Back With Legislation Mocking The Extreme Bills (Think Progress)
Women Knit Uteruses For Lawmakers (Think Progress)
Georgia Republican Compares Women to Cows, Pigs, And Chickens (Think Progress)
‘Dear Doctor Governor … ‘: Women Protest On GOP Govs’ Facebook Walls (TPMDC)
4 Ways To Combat the GOP’s War On Women (The L Magazine)
The 10 Most Ridiculous Things Old White Men Have Proposed About Women And Vaginas (The L Magazine)
10 Reasons The Rest Of The World Thinks The U.S. Is Nuts (Huffington Post)
Nursing Chastity (Bangor Daily News)
Sen. McIntyre holds a sign at protest: ‘If I wanted the govt in my womb I’d fuck a Senator’ (Freak Out Nation)
Colorado House Passes “Personhood” Bill Despite Widespread Public Opposition
by Jodi Jacobson, Editor in Chief, RH Reality Check
March 19, 2012
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/03/19/colorado-house-passes-personhood-bill-despite-widespread-public-opposition
Excerpt;
There is one thing about fanatics. They are so convinced of their righteousness or their invincibility or their power that they are not apt to stop pushing for something even when it tramples on the rights of others.
That is apparently the case in Colorado where the House of Representatives today gave final approval to House Bill 1130, a bill backed by Colorado Right to Life that would allow criminal assault and homicide charges to be filed for causing the injury or death of any “unborn member of the species homo sapien.”
You may recall that extremist anti-choice groups in Colorado have now twice tried and failed to pass a so-called personhood amendment via ballot initiative. Egg-as-person proponents want to use these bills to declare that fertilized eggs have the same rights as living, breathing people–and in effect more rights than women–and to make illegal many common forms of birth control, in-vitro fertilization, and of course abortion. It might be fair to ask: What part of *no* does the legislature not understand? The decisive defeats of these initiatives in both cases kinda suggest that the people of Colorado are not fooled and are not interested in eggs-as-people.
But, you know…. fanatics.
So the Colorado House, the majority of which is apparently under the sway of the anti-choice groups like Personhood USA and Americans United for Life and others that have created the “model” legislation that feeds these efforts, passed the bill despite the wishes of their constituents.
ProChoice Colorado notes:
Although anti-choice backers of this bill claim HB 1130 is an “abortion-neutral” bill, the truth is Assistant House Majority Leader Mark Waller has said of the bill, “The goal of this bill is not to protect women. The goal of this bill is to protect unborn children.”
In response to this bill, Toni Panetta, political director of NARAL Prochoice Colorado said, “It’s not acceptable to separate pregnant women who are victimized when a crime results in the unlawful termination of her pregnancy.”
anon nurse, Because Texas has the highest number of uninsured, the state desperately needs the services of Planned Parenthood. It is the only place that some women can get healthcare. Perry and the republican legislature have eliminated planned parenthood’s funding so these women have no where to go. Some are undocumented.
lottakatz 1, March 24, 2012 at 7:51 pm
“Debates like these wouldn’t even be had if the this country wasn’t brainwashed to feel that insurance=health-care. It doesn’t. Health-care is what happens between you and your doctor and the labs/hospitals/pharmacy’s your doctor sends you to. Insurance is how it gets paid for as is ‘out-of-pocket’ and ‘do-without’. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if the two were divorced as they should be. Single payer is the force majeure in the war on women.”
=======
What lottakatz said bears repeating.
The following NPR segment is short and worth a listen:
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/19/148939368/texas-has-highest-percentage-of-uninsured
“Last year, we spent around $2,700,000,000,000 on health care. That is more than the entire economy of France or Britain. Our national health care tab is huge.”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/19/148920950/one-nation-two-health-care-extremes
Elaine, they made your point for you. They simply do not understand sarcasm, or the power of sarcasm. The joke blows right over their head, I guess in part because they do not realize they are the butt of the sarcastic joke. Some jokes just write themselves. Some jokes are elected.
Richard Hanna, GOP Congressman, Tells Women To Give Their Money To Democrats
As the only Republican Congressman at a rally for the Equal Rights Amendment on Thursday, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) gave women an unexpected piece of advice: Give your money to Democrats.
“I think these are very precarious times for women, it seems. So many of your rights are under assault,” he told the crowd of mostly women. “I’ll tell you this: Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it. And you need to send your own message. You need to remind people that you vote, you matter, and that they can’t succeed without your help.”
The Equal Rights Amendment, which Congress passed in 1972 but has not yet been ratified by the necessary 38 states, simply says that equality under the law “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) reintroduced the legislation this year in hopes that it would finally become a part of the Constitution.
“If equality had been enshrined in the Constitution for these past 40 years, I wonder if we would still be hearing today from right-wing presidential contenders that women should not serve in combat, that women should think twice before they seek to work outside of the house, that women should not use birth control, and that women who do are called names that are not fit to repeat here,” Maloney said at the rally.
Hanna, a pro-choice Republican and co-sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment, acknowledged that women’s continuing fight for equality is meeting some resistance among his Republican colleagues. He urged women to become more politically active on their own behalf.
“This is a dogfight, it’s a fistfight, and you have all the cards,” he said. “I can only tell you to get out there and use them. Tell the other women, the other 51 percent of the population, to kick in a few of their bucks. Make it matter, get out there, get on TV, advertise, talk about this. The fact that you want [the ERA] is evidence that you deserve it and you need it.”
When HuffPost asked Hanna after the rally whether he was bucking his party by encouraging women to give their money to “the other side,” he said that he wasn’t.
“I’m trying to help [the GOP],” he said. “I think it’s the appropriate thing to do.”
Related on HuffPost:
ekeyra,
“Male, female, hermaphrodite, eunuch, irrelevant. Anyone who thinks that introducing legislation is a laugh riot should have their head examined. Why waste your time, when you could just advocate the government leaving everyone’s genitalia alone? Why do you suggest the government put its hands down more people’s pants, even if your just joking? ”
*****
It’s the GOP who is attempting to put its hands–and ultrasound wands–up women’s skirts and into their lady parts. Women and many liberals/Democrats have been advocating that the government leave women’s genitalia alone…have been saying that women have the right to control what happens to their own bodies. Unfortunately, some members of the GOP aren’t listening to women and keep forging ahead with this extreme type of reproductive legislation, which is being proposed and voted on in many states across this country. Women have decided to speak out and to use humor and sarcasm and mock “male parts” legislation in an effort to show how intrusive the “lady parts” legislation is. I guess many fellas in the GOP just don’t understand the sarcasm–and the serious points that women are trying to make about an extremely important issue.
“idealist707” wrote…
“Wrote the following just a few days ago here at Turley’s.
—–With current technology, women can reproduce using clone techniques.
—–With some advances in cell tech, gene crossing will be achieved, which gives us a heterogenous gene pool (of women), without other clonal disadvantages.
—–With additional advances, the production of the X (male) chromosome WITHOUT the presence of men will become possible.
—–With additional genetic advances, rendering men more pleasurable sex toys can be achieved also. Think of having men smelling like roses. Or in lovely shades of pink skin. Lilac hair colors. Your choice ladies.
—–And in a corrected society: harems with male inhabitants.
Such is within th reach of science, really and truly. Less than 50 years.
So maybe this knowledge of sceince’s potential produces the fear which is driving the uterati just now.
As an added scientific note on nature’s reality: the male Y-chromosome is the smallest and simplest of the 23 chromosomes for producing humans.
So remember, it takes very little to produce a man, a helluva lot more for making a woman. That’s nature’s proof staring us in the eyes.
Nice job, Elaine M.”
Lots of wishful thinking here??? Our best scientists today can’t even produce a simple twig out of nothing in the labratory. And you’ve got them basically creating life without any help. (Hey, I have some oceanfront property in Iowa for sale, really cheap!!!)
There wouldn’t be females, if it weren’t for males. The males determine the sex of the child. Like it or not, and it sounds like you don’t like it, but man has a very important part in reproduction, and without both, procreation doesn’t happen. Get-over-it.
Hitchens was warped anyway, so it’s not surprising that he would write such garbage for that magazine.
“Frankly” wrote…
“bettykath – EGGS-ACT-LEE!
The rest of the civilized world has government run health care and none of those are mandating the sort of insane crap the GOP is trying to pull here.”
What insane crap is the GOP trying to pull??? It’s obama and his ilk who are forcing obamacare and mandated contraception on the country, not the GOP. It’s the GOP that’s raising the red flags about this BS – other than it’s unconstitutional, lots of folks don’t agree with obama’s BS in the first place.
You’re upside down, you need to read up on what our idiot-in-chief is doing.
Anytime government gets involved in a doctor patient relationship…. Nothing but trouble is ahead…..
Seems to me that if a patient is going to commit a future criminal act a doctor is required to inform authorities…. Elaine, if what you suggest from the article…. Then if the act is based on tracking causation then they have no duty to report now….. Stretching the logic but it could happen….
Male, female, hermaphrodite, eunuch, irrelevant. Anyone who thinks that introducing legislation is a laugh riot should have their head examined. Why waste your time, when you could just advocate the government leaving everyone’s genitalia alone? Why do you suggest the government put its hands down more people’s pants, even if your just joking?
Sit down and think really hard about whether or not the next time you decide to use contraception you want someone from the TSA to inspect it before it adorns your junk. You arent being funny, your just throwing out terrible ideas that someone else in power will think is a good idea. If the loss of your reproductive rights is such a terrible plight, why do you feel giddy thinking of ways to inflict that suffering onto other people?
To look at it another way, if you were black and you saw the police harassing a hispanic guy, would you think it was hilarious that someone else got treated a way you dont wish to be treated, or would you just want the police to stop treating everyone that way?
And to close out a repeated lesson about why people in power arent goddamned funny
Has anyone read the comments from conservative web sites? These people don’t realize the women are using humor. They react like every word of the ‘sacred sperm’ bill was to be taken seriously…so of course, they think those women legislators are demented for proposing ideas for men.
Humor is great, but don’t expect anyone on the right to get it.
Wrote the following just a few days ago here at Turley’s.
—–With current technology, women can reproduce using clone techniques.
—–With some advances in cell tech, gene crossing will be achieved, which gives us a heterogenous gene pool (of women), without other clonal disadvantages.
—–With additional advances, the production of the X (male) chromosome WITHOUT the presence of men will become possible.
—–With additional genetic advances, rendering men more pleasurable sex toys can be achieved also. Think of having men smelling like roses. Or in lovely shades of pink skin. Lilac hair colors. Your choice ladies.
—–And in a corrected society: harems with male inhabitants.
Such is within th reach of science, really and truly. Less than 50 years.
So maybe this knowledge of sceince’s potential produces the fear which is driving the uterati just now.
As an added scientific note on nature’s reality: the male Y-chromosome is the smallest and simplest of the 23 chromosomes for producing humans.
So remember, it takes very little to produce a man, a helluva lot more for making a woman. That’s nature’s proof staring us in the eyes.
Nice job, Elaine M.
Off Topic Again:
For Pennsylvania’s Doctors, a Gag Order on Fracking Chemicals
A new provision could forbid the state’s doctors from sharing information with patients exposed to toxic fracking solutions.
—By Kate Sheppard | Fri Mar. 23, 2012
http://motherjones.com/environment/2012/03/fracking-doctors-gag-pennsylvania
Excerpt:
Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction—but they won’t be able to share it with their patients. A provision buried in a law passed last month is drawing scrutiny from the public health and environmental community, who argue that it will “gag” doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public.
Pennsylvania is at the forefront in the debate over “fracking,” the process by which a high-pressure mixture of chemicals, sand, and water are blasted into rock to tap into the gas. Recent discoveries of great reserves in the Marcellus Shale region of the state prompted a rush to development, as have advancements in fracking technologies. But with those changes have come a number of concerns from citizens about potential environmental and health impacts from natural gas drilling.
There is good reason to be curious about exactly what’s in those fluids. A 2010 congressional investigation revealed that Halliburton and other fracking companies had used 32 million gallons of diesel products, which include toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, in the fluids they inject into the ground. Low levels of exposure to those chemicals can trigger acute effects like headaches, dizziness, and drowsiness, while higher levels of exposure can cause cancer.
Forty Years Later, We’re Still Fighting ‘Eisenstadt v. Baird’
Jonathan D. Moreno and Frances Kissling
March 20, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/article/166922/sex-and-singles-forty-years-later-were-still-fighting-eisenstadt-v-baird
Excerpt:
While efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade or chip away at abortion access are frequently covered in the media, a longstanding, under-the-radar effort of a number of social and religious conservatives to limit access to contraception has escaped notice—until now. In fact, until recently, any mention of these efforts has been taken as a sign of paranoia or Catholic bashing. Contraception, used by 99 percent of women at some time in their reproductive lives and approved of by just about everyone except the Catholic bishops and the most extreme social conservatives, has for 40 years been considered a settled issue. The FDA approved the birth control pill in 1960 and in 1965 the Supreme Court affirmed the right to use contraception in Griswold v. Connecticut.
The healthcare reform process has inadvertently undermined that comfortable assumption. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Republican Party and Rush Limbaugh have all claimed that the inclusion of contraception among a long list of preventive services that employers must insure without cost or co-payments by employees violates religious freedom. For a few weeks it seemed America’s pundits and even some liberal Catholics, like E.J. Dionne, bought the argument. A deft accommodation by Obama that left religious employers with clean hands and turned the provision of the coverage over to the insurance companies did not, however, end the effort to get contraceptive coverage out of the Affordable Care Act. Nonetheless, state legislatures and the most extreme members of the Senate have introduced legislation that would effectively overturn the mandate and grant wide latitude to both religious and secular employers to refuse to provide coverage for contraception. Arizona is considering a bill that would not only require female employees to assure the employer they want birth control for other than contraceptive reasons but would also permit the employer to fire them.
The commonplace belief that the debate over contraception was settled is now unsettled. Perhaps that’s because the settlement is both socially and legally more recent and less assured than we think, especially for the rapidly growing number of singles.
Griswold only granted the right to to use contraception to married couples. Unmarried sexually active women (and men) gained the same right only on March 22, 1972, when the United States Supreme Court decided that unmarried couples had the same right as married couples to possess contraceptives.
The case was Eisenstadt v. Baird, which, as the historian David Garrow has pointed out, is “relatively unheralded” as a link between Griswold and Roe v Wade. Eisenstadt was a Massachusetts case (yes, the one state that gave its electoral votes to George McGovern later that year), triggered by activist Bill Baird’s act of civil disobedience, providing contraceptive foam to a woman at Boston University. It was only one of a number of arrests Baird had invited during his multi-year crusade on behalf of legalization of access to contraceptives. While working for a medical supply company, on a visit to a hospital where he was demonstrating equipment, he had seen a woman die with a piece of coat hanger stuck in her cervix.
Had Eisenstadt not been so quickly followed by Roe v Wade, surely those morally opposed to unmarried sex would have been more engaged in public efforts to overturn that decision, but their horror over the affirmation of a right to chose abortion took precedence.
And Eisenstadt was left alone. But it is Eisenstadt—which created the right of unmarried people to use contraception—that social conservatives are now attacking. It is sexual activity by certain groups that is unacceptable. In the early twentieth century, those with poor genetic prospects were the ones whose sexual activity and reproduction was unacceptable. The eugenics movement dominated. Before World War II, many opposed contraception both because it violated “natural law” but also, openly, because it would likely mean a decline of the relative numbers of white people. C.S. Lewis, an iconic figure among conservative Christian intellectuals, whose Chronicles of Narnia have charmed so many children, was at best poorly disposed to contraception because, he reasoned, it represented the tyranny of the living over those not yet alive, as well as the prospect of promiscuity. But another skeptic of “family planning” was that exemplary anti-fascist George Orwell, apparently out of fear about the decline of manliness following the catastrophic losses of the best male British stock in the Great War. Eugenic arguments are now focused on race rather than mental disabilities. Single black women are especially targeted.
Gene,
That is just what I was thinking.
Women are 51% of the general population. Get enough of them riled up and a real revolution could occur in November. I suspect that is what the Republicans who run in McCain’s circle think might just happen. And it is possible.
There’s a “perfect storm” forming out there … and the Republican party just might go under.
“Single payer is the force majeure in the war on women.” (lotta)
Truth … women are beginning to fully understand that.
Blouise,
In the words of Napoleon, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
SwM,
I think McCain knows the trouble they’re in. And if he knows and is willing to speak out about it, the higher echelon Republican party people know. But I suspect it is way too late.
Catholic Bishops are concerned that their campaign is faltering in the public square. “When there is a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit making fun of a bishop, you may have lost the framing issue,” said Michael Sean Winters, a liberal Catholic writer close to some bishops.
Woosty,
Yep … finally
Off Topic:
Jerry Sandusky Called A ‘Likely Pedophile’ By Psychologist In 1998
The Huffington Post | By Melissa Jeltsen
Posted: 03/24/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/24/jerry-sandusky-psychologist-likely-pedophile_n_1377156.html
Excerpt:
Penn State police were warned Jerry Sandusky fit the profile of a pedophile in 1998, an internal memo has revealed.
The memo, published by NBC News, was written by Alycia Chambers, who was a psychologist for an 11-year-old boy who knew Sandusky through his charity for troubled boys, Second Mile Program.
The boy is not named in the report, but is now known as Victim 6. He is one of 10 boys allegedly molested by the former Penn State coach over a 15-year period. Sandusky denies the allegations against him.
The boy’s mother contacted Chambers after he returned home from a night of weightlifting with Sandusky, the memo says. He had wet hair, and explained to his mother that Sandusky asked him to take a shower with him. When they were naked, he came up behind him and tightly squeezed their bodies together, according to the memo.
The mother called Chambers early the next morning on her emergency line, and relayed the story to her, wanting to confirm she was not overreacting by calling the police.
From Chambers’ report:
He reported that Jerry played a game, coming up behind him, saying he would “squeeze his guts out” and hugging REDACTED from behind. REDACTED wanted his mother not to say anything because Mr. Sandusky had promised to take him to the movies and to let him sit on the bench with him at Penn State football games.
Chambers met with the boy, who reported being worried about what to do next, the memo says. He also spilled a detail that he hadn’t told his mom: Sandusky had kissed him on the head and said “I love you.”
The memo adds that Sandusky promised the boy he could come to his house and play on his “cool computer” while sitting on his lap.
Chambers reported the incident to the Pennsylvania child abuse line and wrote a detailed report for the Penn State police. In it, she concludes that Sandusky’s actions matched those of a “likely pedophile”:
My consultants agree that the incidents meet all of our definitions, based on experience and education, of a likely pedophile’s pattern of building trust and gradual introduction of physical touch, within a context of a “loving,” “special” relationship. One colleague who has contact with the Second Mile confirms that Mr. Sandusky is reasonably intelligent and thus, could hardly have failed to understand the way his behavior would be interpreted, if known. His position at the Second Mile and his interest in abused boys would suggest that he was likely to have had knowledge with regard to child abuse and might even recognize this behavior as typical pedophile “overture.”