Hollywood unleashes superstars Mark Ruffalo (l) and Michael Keaton (r) on the Catholic Church
While Hollywood and the Boston Globe would want you to believe that the new movie Spotlight is an impartial dramatization of the paper's 2002 reporting on sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Boston, the truth is something else entirely.
As Spotlight slowly makes its way to theaters across the country, mainstream media movie reviewers are grossly distorting the truth about the Catholic Church sex abuse story.
For example:
"The Spotlight team found that those in power knew about the abuse. That included the head of the Boston Archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard Law, who continued the pattern of moving Father John Geoghan from parish to parish despite his history of serially molesting boys." (WBUR, 9/4/15)
Not even close. The mainstream media won't tell you this, but the Boston Globe's reporting routinely minimized the critical role that secular psychologists played in the entire Catholic Church abuse scandal. Time after time, trained "expert" psychologists around the country repeatedly insisted to Church leaders that abusive priests were fit to return to ministry after receiving "treatment" under their care.
Indeed, one of the leading experts in the country recommended to the Archdiocese of Boston in both 1989 and 1990 that – despite Geoghan's two-decade record of abuse – it was both "reasonable and therapeutic" to return Geoghan to active pastoral ministry including work "with children."
The Globe's rank hypocrisy
And it is not as if the Globe could plead ignorance to the fact that the Church had for years been sending abusive priests to therapy and then returning them to ministry on the advice of prominent and credentialed doctors. As we reported earlier this year, back in 1992 – a full decade before the Globe unleashed its reporters against the Church – the Globe itself was enthusiastically promoting in its pages the psychological treatment of sex offenders ‐ including priests – as "highly effective" and "dramatic."
The Globe knew that the Church's practice of sending abusive priests off to treatment was not just some diabolical attempt to deflect responsibility and cover-up wrongdoing, but a genuine attempt to treat aberrant priests that was based on the best secular scientific advice of the day.
Yet a mere ten years later, in 2002, the Globe acted in mock horror that the Church had employed such treatments. It bludgeoned the Church for doing in 1992 exactly what the Globe itself said it should be doing. The hypocrisy is off the charts.
The Church's secrecy that wasn't
Another example:
"'As soon as we discovered that the church had made secret payments to victims of other priests – which one of the attorneys referred to as hush money – we began to realize that of course the church did know, that it had to know, and that its sole interest wasn't in the children,' [ex-Boston Globe editor] Walter Robinson said, 'it was in keeping the story quiet'." (WBUR, 9/4/15)
While Hollywood and the Globe would want you to believe that the Catholic Church demanded secrecy from victims when doling out settlements, the truth is that it was the other way around: It was the victims who had demanded secrecy from the Church.
How do we know this? For starters, even the Globe itself has finally admitted this.
In an article on Monday June 3, 2002, the Boston Globe buried this crucial admission from Boston contingency lawyer Mitchell Garabedian: "Garabedian said he harbors no regrets about the settlements he negotiated in secrecy, often at his clients' insistence. 'They were embarrassed, and many victims thought they were the only ones,' he said."
In other words, Robinson's claim is simply bogus.
Just the tip of the iceberg
As a movie, Spotlight appears to resemble The Wizard of Oz more than anything factual.
Suffice it to say that the Boston Globe' dishonest and biased reporting could fill a book, and that book is Sins of the Press: The Untold Story of The Boston Globe's Reporting on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church.
Thoroughly detailed and footnoted, the fast-paced Sins of the Press will change your mind about the Boston Globe and its lauded reporting on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.
Yes Dan you are right. Let's all love Pub to death. Let's love bomb Pub.
P, your lengthy "brillant" rants should be turned into a movie. Call it: "Cred" the attack on religion by un-raped children. It's a shame the "Lil Rascals are all dead. (They'd be perfect casting) save for Robert Blake.( I think he might need work) It could be a catholic version of Children of the Corn.
I can only wish all the wonder you've shared with us here continues long long after you've left this vale o' tears.
I vote your posts be collected and placed in the bible, right after Revelations as an addendum, a continuation of the same sanity Revelation "reveals". You P truely are at that level.
So thank you P for all your exagerations; misnomers and blind "insights". You have shown me what true love really is.
Fresh from his pom-pom cheerleading and his declamation (if he does say so himself) that he finds no rationality in my material, JR (The 18TH at 958am) now puts the pom-poms aside and buckles down to his other favorite pastime – epithet – and the whole misch can stay right up where it was put.
One could drive a Mack truck through the holes in his assorted stories (to speak plainly).
About the only thing worth noting is – yet again – JR’s abiding effort to conflate himself and his stories: if you doubt the stories or assess them, then you don’t ‘love’ JR and it’s so un-Christian.
And it all would have worked so very well, if people just didn’t start asking questions. Which might also make a useful epitaph for the Stampede.
Dear P, Sorry. I assumed you had your Thesaurus at your side, "Smarmy", so I shall gladly define my description of your "Napoleon/Einstein complex". Did you have trouble finding it in the archives? Maybe Miranda can teach you how to do your research. Again, "Spotlight debunked", themediareport.com October 26,2015 Dan says 11/12@ 12:29 am.
Napoleon /Einstein complex (def.)- 1- One with a serious psychological condition when in reality of extremely short stature (possibly metaphorically). 2- A longwinded brainiac saying little, if anything, of importance to anyone. 3- (Einstein complex part) One who portrays themselves as the most intellegent person on the planet, having all the answers to everything and believing it to be so (glad someone does). P-Your posts are "evidence" in themselves. I wouldn't know where to start. 4-(bible def.)- Pride comes before destruction, an arrogant spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18 The Servant says he's sorry but he just couldn't resist. Now back to Dan.
Jim, Nothing P has had to say could ever warrant any place in the bible. Most obviously it would have to have some resemblance to the truth. Also, that would most definitely be a book I wouldn't ever want to read, let alone stake my life on.
Back to P (Have to make that clear, otherwise he can't figure out who I'm talking to) In regards to your "conducting a historical type of assessment of the catholic abuse matter", I would like to inform you that the history speaks for itself. There are way to many credible cases, far to many that should have been sent to the civil authorities, many more that are concealed in church archives, not to mention those undocumented through threats and church secrecy. There you go. I saved you from having to do your arduous historical type assessment.
Still with P- Maybe if you stopped attacking the innocent and channeled some of your frustration, anger and rage towards those who may deserve it, like molesting clergy members and laity, bishops and the hierarchy who protected them, people might want to listen to your opinion, rather than ignoring it.
I'm glad to see you "smile at some of this stuff", cause when I read your posts I have to laugh hysterically at the ignorance in your defending such horrible crimes. And that is truly no laughing matter.
P.S. In a previous post you sobbed because I ended; With Much Love, Dan and you cryed because you felt it directed to Jim and nobody else including yourself. I just can't bare to see a woman cry, it's heartbreaking.
On the 18th at 6PM ‘Dan’ returns, but not the rueful and semi-omniscient True Servant.
Wading through the nonsensical bit about finding something “in the archives” (a stab at some sort of epithet, apparently), and wading through the bit about ‘Miranda’ teaching me how to do research, we come to his definition of this new psychiatric or psychological diagnosis that he (and God?) created, called the “Napoleon/Einstein complex”.
And what we get in his second paragraph, couched in some sort of copycat of a DSM description, is basically, and heavily larded with the epithetical, ‘Dan’ running the familiar Abusenik gambit of I’m Not/You Are, familiar to anyone who has had to deal with squabbling kiddies and/or who has followed the Abuseniks as they have strewn their stuff on this site.
Through the wonders of clinical projection (a basic psychological defense mechanism) – which yet remains apparently invisible to Abuseniks – one claims to see most surely in someone else what is actually a deep aspect of him/herself.
The dynamic is, of course, far more useful in the recoil than in the projectile, meaning that it is far more useful in revealing the issues or problem-areas in the project-or than in gaining a better comprehension of the project-ee.
So one can read ‘Dan’s definition with that in mind and draw one’s own conclusions.
Continuing with ‘Dan’s of the 18th at 6PM:
Then, in yet another demonstration of that juvenile Abusenik gambit of holding a personal entre-nous on an open site, ‘Dan’ doth assure “Jim” that “nothing” I say “could ever warrant any place in the bible” (small-‘b’). Are we to infer that ‘Dan’s material would warrant such a place? What sort of a mind would even imagine that anybody’s material is Bible-worthy? And actually, we have only ‘Dan’s word for it anyway, based apparently on his being directly informed by (some, a, the, any, his own) god.
‘Dan’ needn’t worry about my not being able to figure him out. And he’s done a pretty nifty job of revealing himself all on his own.
But now the apparent True Servant of History (another Wig in his closet) doth declaim and “inform” me that in regard to the Catholic Abuse Matter (and the Stampede, no doubt) “the history speaks for itself”. Apparently neither he nor his personal divine interlocutor are familiar with the nature and principles of historical assessment; it is precisely when one encounters claims of absolute certainty as to a large phenomenon that accurate and comprehensive historical assessment is called-for.
He bolsters his assertion here merely by stating (on his own and/or his divine interlocutor’s authority) that “there are way too many credible cases” … perhaps he could proffer a specific one, because all of the cases we have had a chance to examine here have not turned out to be any such thing. And this riff of his goes on for a bit. He even asserts the existence of undocumented cases that – it apparently has escaped his attention – are by definition unknowable.
And the paragraph concludes with his declaration of self-satisfaction that thereby he has pretty much taken care of the need for any “arduous historical type assessment”.
I think not.
Continuing with ‘Dan’s of the 18th at 6PM:
He then deploys more of the familiar Abusenik gambits: questioning stories, claims and assertions is merely “attacking the innocent”; questioning is merely the psychological manifestation of “frustration, anger and rage”; and then he presumes – as Abuseniks ever so conveniently do – the guilt of clergy, laity, bishops and the hierarchy.
Followed by the implied assurance – conflating himself with all “people” – that people don’t read my material but rather they are “ignoring it”. And he knows this … how?
And where I smile at the whackery, he ‘has to’ “laugh hysterically” – which is surely yet another self-revelation he didn’t really want to make.
And – we can take the Bhagwan’s word for it – the Catholic Abuse Matter is no laughing matter. I can only agree.
He then reports that I “sobbed” and “cried” over some of his material. That may be the characteristic of somebody used to laughing “hysterically”, but he will have to come up with some accurate quotation of mine to apply such terms to me.
But then but then but then: demonstrating for all just how far along the garden path he really is, he apparently makes a gender-bendy epithet (if I am supposed to be that “woman”, and grammatically it certainly appears that’s where he’s going with this). Although – sublimely – he fails to use the proper term ‘bear’ and instead uses the term “bare”. A ‘bare woman’ may be what occupies his mind, but my advice is to deal with that directly rather than retreat into the empyrean realm of channeling (his, a, some, any) god.
It was so pleasant while you were gone P. Both sides said what they had to say here with brevity and clarity and charity with very lttle personal attack.
Now that you're back, the sewer, you always carry with you is also back. Though both Dan and Miranda have risen to put you in your place and done it rather well. You, like a bad penny, just keep coming back and at lengths that would make Thomas Pynchon weep. I don't even see support for you from your usual clown car. What's the matter? No counter imaginary stampede stampede?
But I stay too long on you and need to focus on what hasn't been done to compensate victims. Calif.; Oregon; Kentucky; New Mexico; and Texas Tenessee; Alaska; and Arizona may have settled some claims against the church but what about the rest of the states? Where's the overview for settlewments? New York state hasn't settled. What about the rest of the states?
Here's a link that shows how very few victims have been helped. SNAP's fake leadership of victims hasn't provided anything for victims. It's only served it's master the church. When have you ever heard SNAP talk of victims needs? When have they ever put victims first? Never. They only underline who the criminals were without identifying themselves as working for those criminals. See what little they've produced in over 25 years of "service".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlements_and_bankruptcies_in_Catholic_sex_abuse_cases
Any real victims' group would be organizing collectively state by state and nation by nation demanding the church take responsibility for it's criminal damaging actions towards it's own children; but no, not SNAP. It just whines on about the criminals in power. What's whining about them going to do to help the injured. Not a fucking thing. So nothing changes for the harmed as a whole. Just a few lucky like myself ever get anything. I intend to change that by hook or crook.
One day your, and Tom Doyle O.P.'s, false flagged machinations (SNAP VOTV TMR) will come to light as the frauds they are. And your church will never recover from that scandal. You think you have it bad now? You ain't seen nothing yet.
I repeat my analagy comparing the abuse and coverups to a train wreck. Bodies broken and bleeding, the dead all around and along comes the "rescuers" SNAP, VOTF, etc. And they step over the bodies of the dead and dying to "talk" about how to stop such terrible "accidents" from ever happening again. Which is exactly where the church wants the focus to be. Not on how they failed to protect us but what they are doing now to "Protect the children". How does that help the already injured? Why it doesn't. Does it? Church wins!
VOTF sorry!
I think P counts on the average Catholic not reading his lengthy bullshit. Bore them to death. Verbosity might appear as educated intelligence to the uninformed. "That P guy writes a lot of stuff. He must be sayin' something."
"There is none so blind as those who refuse to see." It's one thing to be so critical of others and yet quite a giant leap to infuse into that the outright mockery of the Almighty God. Not my exclusive God, but the God of all mankind. Time to wake up, for the day draws near. Maybe it's time to reaccess the things that occupy your mind?
For all the rest, I would like to clear up some of the misconceptions we have been poorly taught or come to think about the Creator, I've grown to know and love.
The New Testament teachings supersede those of the Old. It begins with God's gracious gift of His precious Son, who teaches us everything we need to know in regards to LOVE, and ends with His punishment for those who refuse to accept the gift.
In regards to some of those misconceptions:
1- slavery: God never condones slavery, though I believe He's speaking at times to slavery to sin. God knew man's desire for wrong and evil, and such was proven in much of slavery and the trade. In Ephesians 6:5-9 He demonstrates, knowing man's weaknesses, how to handle such a situation, survive it and keep peace. Knowing in the end we will all answer to Him for our actions, both good and bad, both slave and master.
2-polygamy: Christ's words, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two will become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What God has joined together, let no man tear apart." Mark 10: 7-9 No multiple wives or husbands. Period. This also is a picture of our relationship with God and Christ. 1+1=1- Love that math.
3- God says go and kill homosexuals: New testament teaching; "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. " Matthew 26:52 No place for war, murders, revenge and in the end, He even says to hate is to kill. "What a wonderful world it will be!" (Louis)
4- Don't eat shrimp(seafood)- "God wiped out the charges that were agaiunst us for disobeying the Laws of Moses. He took them away and nailed them to the cross. There Christ defeated all powers and forces." Col 2: 14-15 Evil thought it had succeeded, when in reality this was God's 'victory procession', opening the entrance to Heaven. "Don't let ANYONE tell you what you must eat and drink. Don't let them say you must celebrate the New Moon Festival, Sabbath, or any other festival. This is only a shadow of what is to come. But Christ is real! " Col 2:16-17 I Love to eat shrimp, lobster and crab. Who needs the manmade rules, when we have a God who makes wonderful rules and allows us to break the silly rules.
My hope is that someday all might come to know the truth of a loving God who is kind, fair, forgiving and above all loves us like no other. Wishing all well in their endeavors. Dan
P.S. Mock on! You know who. Feel free to corect my mistakes and misspellings. I know you will to prove your brilliance.
Had to leave in a hurry earlier and didn't have a chance to proof read my post so I wanted to point out to you my misspellings and typos. AGAIUNST and CORECT- That way you won't have to do a "historical assessment" or research to point out my errors. Earth to P- Humans make mistakes. I didn't corrrrrect them because I didn't want to steal your joy. Pretentious, simply pretentious. Oh! Did I forget to mention that your PRETENTIOUS!
Dan, Servant of the Only True God, and only human.
Oh! Threw you a bonus bone and didn't see it. Reaccess should have been reassess. Caught and corrected that one for you. Didn't want to over tax that brain of yours cause you have to save some cells for your "historical assessment of perverts", even though it's sad to think of the horrible crimes that have already been exposed.
On the 19th at 1123AM JR will continue with his effort to piggyback his familiar stuff on ‘Miranda’s running of some of the familiar gambits.
A pre-note: regular readers will notice quickly that JR’s style and grammar and spelling have suddenly changed. This can be attributed to a miracle, surgery, medication, or the fact that somebody else is also involved. Readers may consider it as they will.
Now to his content.
As to the “so pleasant” times for that length of 3 or 4 articles when I was otherwise occupied: a review of the Abusenik submissions – JR’s especially – indicates that all he put up were his usual stories (in his new, relatively improved style). It was no doubt “so pleasant” for him that he didn’t get the usual questions as to that familiar resubmission of his material, that has – as the record here indicates – prompted so many questions and continues to remain plentifully questionable.
Toss in, then, more epithets (“sewer”) while also again picking up his pom-poms in the attempt to piggyback his own stuff on the ‘Dan’ and ‘Miranda’ material.
As a reader, I am intrigued and will of course consider it (as I will). Who else is involved? Is this a case of demonic possession? "Somebody else", so mysterious.
Continuing with JR’s of the 19th at 1123AM:
His third paragraph attempts – without references for his assertion – to say that many “states” but not enough of them have settled “compensation” on “victims”. He then asks – of his own material, he apparently doesn’t realize – where the “master list” is for such settlements. It’s his material and he can answer his own questions about it if he can.
His fourth paragraph then attempts to work in his usual stuff about SNAP (and where in the record here does anyone doubt that organization’s mala-fides?). But he slides in – again without any material to support it – his oft-questioned assertion and highly improbable presumption that the Church runs SNAP.
And then he yields – remarkably – a Wiki link as to the number of allegations made in the Catholic Abuse Matter. Although, as always, the linked-material is submitted without any commentary from JR as to just what he finds useful and informative about it for the purposes of discussion here.
About which:
The number of claims easily supports my theory of Stampede.
The Wiki article repeats – accurately – that the Jay Reports have about 11,000 allegations against 4,932 priests, as has also been stated in the record here on many occasions.
And – it may not come as a surprise – the Wiki article’s section on “Church actions in dealing with sex abuse scandal” consists of a single sentence and the May 2009 Wiki editorial notation that this section “requires expansion”. Which, since that date half a decade ago, hasn’t happened.
On the 19th at 1143AM JR tries more plop-tossing with his ‘thought’ that I write at length here on the presumption that “the average Catholic” (curiously and properly capitalized, for once) would not actually read my material but rather would simply presume that if I wrote so much then I must have something to say. But – JR proposes – it’s all really just to “bore them to death” and to “appear as educated intelligence to the uninformed” (sic).
Thus I write my material to “bore” people and presume that they won’t read it.
Readers may consider the quality of his insinuation as they will.
But it does reflect a hardly-unfamiliar Abusenik dodge here: when you can’t deal with the content of the material, try to distract people by going after the style of the material. This has long been a ploy of JR’s and other Abuseniks in the record, and it is – handled with more éclat – what ‘Miranda’ is also trying to do with her ‘editing’ theme (about which, more in further comments today).
YAY!
On the 19th at 131PM ‘Dan’ returns with more Scriptural pericopes and Woes, apparently intent on emptying the contents of his Scriptural illuminations upon the readership here.
Although this time around, he acknowledges that “New Testament teachings supersede the old”; which is very true in most Christian Biblical praxis, although ‘Dan’ had spent quite a bit of time with many Old Testament quotations in a prior comment or two on this thread.
Readers may then consider his assorted Scriptural bits here as they will.
However, he continues to undermine himself: he insists on “a loving God” and so forth, while the tone and tenor of his usual Scriptural selections are more congenial to someone looking for the Woes and the ragey bits in the Old Testament. Go figure.
As for his “P.S.” about being ‘mocked’. Clearly, his own estimation of his own material submitted here – in content but even more so in the assorted and rather vivid discrepancies of tone – does not reveal to him anything ‘mock’-worthy.
‘Dan’ returns a few hours later (the 19th at 445PM) to report that he “had to leave in a hurry” and hadn’t had a chance to proof-read his post.
I would point out to him that such errors would not require a “historical assessment” but rather a grammatical and spelling assessment. But the loving ‘Dan’ can’t pass up a chance at epithet and there it is.
He then will try to justify that epithetical gambit by declaiming – accurately enough – that “humans make mistakes”. Which, as far as it goes here, is true. My point – often stated here on this site – is that when you have people making large assertions a) not only without grounding or demonstration but also b) with numerous spelling errors (my spelling corrections were made mostly about JR’s material, at least before its style and usage so suddenly improved just recently), then – as I pointed out in JR’s material – one has to wonder about the quality and characteristics of the mentation that produces them.
But from this effort to justify his gambit, ‘Dan’ will then proceed to further epithetical, claiming that I am “pretentious, simply pretentious”. And he knows that … how?
And would declaring oneself to be ‘the true servant ‘ of Christ and/or God, in caps, not be rather pretentious? He then puts the final nail into his own bit by literally signing himself here as “Servant of the Only True God” and – “only human”, albeit a human who receives illuminations and messages from God and also knows – we are to believe – when God is getting rather annoyed and irritated.
‘Dan’ then returns with more corrections, deploying the epithetical to – at least in his own mind – cover his tracks a bit further.
He then misquotes me – in a way very congenial to his own position – with his bit about “historical assessment of perverts”, given here in full quotation marks as if that were a phrase that I used. So much for the Servant of Truth.
On the 18th at 837PM ‘Miranda’ will continue here with her efforts to shift attention from the issues at hand to my style.
As to my noticing that she does like to ‘give orders’ she now claims that she doth “prefer to think of them as suggestions”. But a) the grammar was clearly that of the imperative and not the subjunctive and b) it still boils down to her effort to focus on style rather than on substance.
And – as we see from her exclamation points – she’s really into this sort of thing.
She then proceeds to re-write some of my sentences in ways she would “prefer”. Well, it’s an interesting gambit and she’s welcome to it, but again it’s nothing but a distraction.
But when I add phrasing it is to keep various factors that I see as relevant right up front. My purpose is to remind readers as I go along about the many elements involved. A too simple statement, and especially if it becomes a stylistic habit, tends to induce in readers the sense that the matter under consideration is as simple as the grammar and style that expresses it. And the Stampede is not in any way ‘simple’ nor will I deal with it ‘simplistically’.
But it is clearly expressed, at least to a mind not largely formed by Twitter style.
When simplicity of style results in a failure to convey an actual complexity of substance then the style must be made to support the substance. Otherwise, readers become more mis-informed rather than more informed.
That's the point, your prose is distracting and obstructive. You use verbiage like a smokescreen, obscuring detail. Not good.
I guarantee you I have more credentials in the English language than you do, unless you are a university dean. You write like Ignatius Reilly and garner about the same reactions. Thou dost find thyself in dire need of an editor. You are not expressing yourself clearly. You have a very fundamental inability to stem your own need to bloviate, and people have no idea what you're banging on about as a result.
Continuing in regard to ‘Miranda’s of the 18th at 837PM:
And, in her last example in the comment, about the McMartin and Fells-Acres matters, she gives herself away: while attempting to re-phrase my material, she adds her own epithetical: I have “inexplicably” chosen “to hold up those two cases as an example of false allegations”.
She is wrong on several counts here:
First, her “inexplicably” remains unsupported and merely epithetical, as well as being slyly hidden in what purports to be merely a re-phrasing of my material.
Second, those two cases are not only examples of false-allegations but of the dynamics of false-allegations.
Third, those two cases are not only examples of false-allegations but also of the dynamics of Stampede (as I have so often defined it in comments on this site). Thus the children were influenced by investigators looking for a pre-determined conclusion and ‘evidence’ from the children; the parents were indeed “panicked” – which is an element of the Stampede, and there were indeed “extremely misguided” so-called ‘experts’ who were ready and willing to put the authority of ‘science’ behind all of the phantasms that the highly-selective and highly-pressuring investigators elicited from the children.
I never said that the children did “lie”. They were very small children put under a great deal of pressure by adults who sought a pre-determined outcome.
Fourth, she then places in full quotation marks what she has re-written to be “my thesis”, which is that “children opportunistically lie, intending to get priests in trouble”. If this is an honest mistake on her part then she is challenged in the reading-comprehension department; if this is not an honest mistake and mis-conceptualization on her part, then she is deep into the dirty tricks here (while holding herself forth as the stalwart servant of Simplicity and Clarity).
The great majority of Stampede cases were made by adult-allegants, not by children. And in those cases of adult-allegants who were teen-aged when the alleged event happened, then we are not talking about “children” (i.e. the type of tykes involved in the McMartin and Fells-Acres cases) at all.
Again, you see intrigue where there is none ("gives herself away", pfft): I specifically note I'm editorializing, because upon editing your passage I realized you were tying yourself in knots and misinterpreting the satanic panic as a sign of children lying about abuse, rather than the influence of authority figures incentivizing false reports.
Now this is hilarious for multiple reasons. Firstly, your insistence that you are always clear and eloquent is obviously incorrect if you actually have been meaning all along that all false allegations have been made by children under misleading questioning by adults. Secondly, if the daft "the Stampede" moniker you've been whipping around is not only referring to the deluge of allegations but also the fact that the allegants were manipulated by authority figures into genuinely believing they'd been abused, then clearly you shouldn't be using "the Stampede" as an inaccessible shorthand for a much more encompassing situation. And lastly, you then proceed to this:
So… "The Stampede" is now inclusive not only of children who were misled by unintentionally biased adults, but ALSO the teenagers who apparently had different motives that are (I can only assume) less innocent in nature?
Do you see how "The Stampede" terminology that you've so confidently declared to be perfectly clear and reasonable is actually just muddying the waters? Command or suggestion: when you use your own made-up language to conduct discussions, you're introducing a complicating factor that will lead to confusion. This is why you should stop. It's like printing through a vanity press.
According to the John Jay report only 27% of us 81% male victims were over 15 when we were molested So all the old crap about the majority of the victims being sexually mature and not really children is, as is standard here, a lie.
Continuing in regard to ‘Miranda’s of the 18th at 837PM:
And in various places in her comment she will continue to complain (and give orders) about my use of “jargon”, i.e. my terms “Victimist” and “Stampede”. I have created terms here that I have long and often explained; that ‘Miranda’ doesn’t care to bring herself up to speed on this long-ongoing discussion which she has recently chosen to join undermines her various plaints in this regard. While they are not “common” terms with a “common definition”, yet I am not speaking to general readers here but to readers who have kept up with the site for years now. And those readers are familiar with the “context”, far more so than general readers on a more general site.
‘Miranda’ has walked herself into a chemistry class and is complaining about all those little bits like “Au” and and “Si” and “F” that are – to her – out of context, not-common, and so on and so forth. But they are a well-developed short-hand whose meaning is available to anybody who cares to bring him/herself up to speed.
So ‘Miranda’ has revealed some rather “questionable” aspects of her approach here, and its integrity in that respect demonstrates itself, I would say, to be “hardly-indubitable”.
Cute analogy, but not going far enough. It would be like if I walked into chemistry class and suddenly my lab partner starts going on about "shinyuminim" and "Valleyonium" and "Millicent". No books have these terms, none of the tables on the walls have these terms, the teacher of the class just shrugs in bewilderment because there's a perfectly good reference already available to everyone in the class - it's just this one guy who has a home chemistry kit and has decided that his names are more descriptive and insists on using them, even though it means it takes longer to complete labwork because everything has to be translated from his own personal language into something that is used by the rest of the chemistry world.
It's clear you like to view yourself as the teacher of this class, but you're not. You're just another student. No one is following your linguistic lead.
On the 17th at 735PM ‘Miranda’ put up a list of links.
Some are from the ‘Globe’ or its affiliated online site, Boston-dot-com.
The first link relies on the ‘Globe’ itself and NPR, both media outlets having been discussed at length on this site for their skewed reporting, and on an ‘activist’ named Saviano. And yet there is an interesting revelation of the ‘Globe’s particular twist in launching its efforts in 2002: it wasn’t the abuse (since the article reports that abuse appears “in line with the general population”); rather, the hook for the ‘Globe’ was in the “cover up”. But we have examined on this site many instances where – through document cache releases and such – we have been able to look at photocopy-reproductions of actual documents and those docs did not support or establish the “cover up” trope at all as well as Abuseniks would have hoped and as the Stampede doctrine declares. The article also presumes – in a now-standard trope in this sort of thing – that any allegant (it interviewed “30 or 40”) was a “victim”, as it later did when – by amazing coincidence – larger numbers of allegants suddenly came forward to proffer their stories and allegations after the Stampede had gotten started. And the actual editor of the paper, Baron, claims here that his major concern was that “it took the Church too long” to appoint a Tribunal to examine Bishops; this is a rather thin reed on which to base the Stampede (on top of the other problems already noted in prior comments on this site), and there is/was more than enough possibility – even then – to yield further and alternative possibilities as to why Ordinaries didn’t get a grasp on such legitimate cases as there may have been. But that editor, as I have said before, was not interested in a comprehensive examination of the whole Matter but rather was interested in becoming “the new gunslinger in town”, for which a sensational splash had to be made.
The first link names as sources: Variety, Boston.com, NPR, Boston Globe, O'Reilly Factor, Wall Street Journal, People.com, PrestigeHongKong, MovieFone, LAMag, and TimeOut. I'm sure you just missed those?
The rest of the links are links to videos, where the Spotlight Team or team members are interviewed. You asked to see them. I provided them. Can't help it if you have a grudge against the sources.
Continuing in regard to ‘Miranda’s of the 17th at 735PM:
The second link is to a video-interview with that editor. I can’t get my somewhat older computer to access it, but I will go out on a limb here and imagine that he isn’t going to be reversing his stance from the interview I discussed immediately above. Any readers who have listened to the interview are welcome to offer further thoughts for or against, preferably with quotations.
The third link is to a ‘Globe’-affiliated website, Boston-dot-com. This is a pre-release article examining why a fourth member of the actual ‘Spotlight’ team – the “data geek” – is “mostly missing from the new film’s marketing efforts”. The gentleman is no longer with the ‘Globe’ and says “I have a job”. Also, each of the other team members wrote an essay for the paper, but merely describing what it’s like to be portrayed by a movie actor. This fourth gentleman apparently put together a spread-sheet or data-sheet combining names of accused pastors with ‘victims’ interviewed by the rest of the team. And the rest of this article burbles about how coffee cups were placed on desks in the film just exactly like they were in real life.
The fourth link is to a short ‘Globe’ article, from Nov. 29th, 2014, apparently placed to prepare the public for the film (finally released on Nov. 6th of this year) and in this article there are links to the afore-mentioned essays written by the three team-members. Other than that, there’s not much to it except to set the template: heroic team and how-they-did-it.
Readers may follow ‘Miranda’s links and consider it all as they will.
You will recall that ALL of these links were provided based on your skeptical reception of my mention of reading or watching interviews with the team? As you said upthread:
I gave you the editor in front of a microphone and camera, then threw in some more on-camera interviews and an aggregated article as a bonus. As for Garabedian (who is I assume the "tortie"?) he's deliberately stayed away from the junkets. I know you don't trust the source, but for what it's worth: https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2015/10/29/mitchell-garabedian-seems-approve-spotlight/AJIARqpR1ktqt3jD5Its1M/story.html
If you're talking about MacLeish, here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2015/11/10/attorney-eric-macleish-who-represented-victims-spotlight-saga-objects-his-portrayal-but-hasn-seen-movie/qcvUdQTa84yvAqvKexV86K/story.html
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/04/18/the_hole_in_the_heart_of_a_star/
Well, we can only hope.
Really? With a God like that who needs enemies? He gives you a limited time alive. Refuses to end poverty and lack of education and starvation. Offers horrible diseases and eternal war. And then if you don't love him enough hell fire. Fear the Lord indeed!
Just riffing here.
I must apologize to my fellow victims out there that I never thought to look up the settlements and bankruptcies about this scandal on Wikipedia. I now have and realize out of the 11,000 U.S. victims only 2000 have received any compensation at all with figures ranging vastly.
Please show me another support group that can claim so low a settlement number to be a non issue for victims the way SNAP has? They made it a non issue.They never talk about compensating us at all.
SNAP, They've run the "survivor" show for 26 years Victims have had major publicity all that time yet less than 20% have been helped at all???!!!! This is total bullshit! And proves that fr. Tom Doyle O.P.'s plan's been working Full Tilt Boogie.
This also appears in the Wiki link that the figures of $3 billion are probably ( and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt) world wide comp figures. But since you said it; you could have just pulled that number out of your ass. P. Where it seems so much of your info and ideas come from. I'm sorry victims who read this. I wish I'd thoght about Wiki as a source for real figures that would tell the truth about SNAP's scam and here they are. Clear as day. The biggest scandal to hit the catholic church ever and SNAP can't do better than getting 18% of victims (more or less) help? WONDERFUL! Follow the lack of money and you'll know who's winning this fight; and it ain't the victims.
On the 20th at 550PM JR will just do some “riffing”, although we aren’t informed as to just which comment or idea he is riffing about.
His cartoonish-caricature of God in Christian and/or Catholic theology can stay right up where it was put.
He then assumes a familiar Wig and doth hereby “apologize to [his] fellow victims” (that familiar and manipulative and sly self-advertisement) because it has taken this long in his life to check (or be advised to check) Wiki.
But even when he tries to ‘research’, JR proves himself to be not up to the task: the chart including in the Wiki article only covers some cities, does not claim to be complete, and it only goes up to 2009; and that section further quotes an author whose figures are half a billion dollars “by the end of the mid 1990s” and one billion dollars by 2002.
More, then, on his usual SNAP bit.
I cannot find any reference in this Wiki article to the estimate of around three billion dollars. Entering some parameter such as “estimated cost to Catholic Church of abuse settlements” reveals, at the top of half a million search results, a Huffington Post article of April 4, 2014’ specifically, $2,744,876, 843.00 between 2004 and 2013; and another article from ‘USA Today’ from March 13, 2013 that says two and half billion; and on Feb. 8, 2012, John Allen gives a figure of 2.2 billion, although he points out that that figure is “likely low”.
And JR works toward his conclusion with more epithet, followed – in a nice demo of quick Wig-changing – by the Wig of Rue toward “victims who read this” that JR hadn’t “thought about Wiki before” while also rather too-generously presuming the absolute and complete (“real”) accuracy of the figures in the article. Yet he considers the figures to be “clear as day” (which, perhaps, to him, they are).
Thus JR’s research and his Wigs.
Fuck you! The figure of $3 billion seems to come from "Bishop Accountability"( the misnomer of all time.)
Bishop Accountability is another "committee" (Like SNAP and VOTF) created by fr. Tom Doyle O.P. and funded by who? Why would anyone think that BA had the correct "pay out" figures? Where would they get such numbers? No one else has such a number.
I was told (11 years ago now that Bishop Accountability and VOTF (Voice of the Faithful) were created in a drive by fashion by one man, who made both and then left. (Frank something or other I just don't recall) I spoke to this man on the phone many many years ago I was bitching then about SNAP's incredable manipulation of victims with my( then) not knowing that SNAP was and will always be the church.. He was supposed to come to L.A. I thought he might be sane and helpful and I wanted to meet and compare notes.; but after our conversation;he never showed up. He created the 2 "committees" then left the scene (hence my "drive by' analogy).
I'm not a detective . Nor am I a degreed person. I'm just a leftist with a radical history that was dumbfounded by the entire group of "supporters" I was introduced to, through my own lawyer. "Supporters" who were there to "help" me in this crisis.
One tiny problem they helped no one but themselves, always. It was always what SNAP wanted. What VOTF wanted. What fr. Tom Doyle O.P. wanted. Never, ever what victims needed. and that beat goes on.
On the 21st at 1222AM, ‘Miranda’ now asserts that she didn’t so any such thing as “give herself away” (and – in a giveaway – tosses in a snarky “pfft”; when Abuseniks start going snarky, it is in my experience an indication that they’ve got nothing else).
She claims she was merely “editorializing” when she wrote the passage that so profoundly altered the content my remarks and then tossed in her own take on my position in full-quotes as if it were mine. A review of the material in question on this thread indicates that her self-exculpatory effort here is unsupportable and contradicted by her own material; this type of ‘editorializing’ is precisely what has helped the Stampede along.
She can, if she can, proffer an accurate quotation of mine from which she “realized” that I was “tying myself in knots”.
And further, and again, I pointed out that the children were not of an age to be classically-defined as “lying about abuse” but rather that the tykes were pressured by assorted adults with agendas and issues of their own.
And she can, if she can, put up the accurate quotation from my comment that indicates I was in any way “misinterpreting the satanic panic as a sign of children lying about abuse”. The “panic”, I would say, caused the adults – for their own purposes or because of their own issues – to pressure the tykes into coming up with the numerous phantasms about dragons and tunnels and orgies and repeated beatings and rapes (although, as the course of the trials demonstrated, all of this alleged horror was carried out without any child demonstrating any physical marks and wounds).
When massively changing your paragraph, I specifically called out that I had done so with this:
No attempt to hide anything.
Don't even have to go into the archives for that one:
So which one is it, regarding the reporting of sexual abuse in Boston by priests - teenagers opportunistically lying, or young children being influenced by their parents?
Continuing with ‘Miranda’s of the 21st at 1222AM:
Her failure to accurately read my comment – whether through incapacity or design – she now attempts to put to her advantage: it was because – doncha see? – I write so unclearly. Yet she seemed quite well informed enough as to my material to create specific defenses against her interpretations of it – so go figure.
And we note the gratuitous epithetical “hilarious”.
I have not “been meaning all along” – and I specifically said so to begin with – that “all false allegations have been made by children under misleading questioning by adults”. I noted that the vast majority of Stampede allegations were made by adult-allegants.
She then tosses another shot at my use of “Stampede” – it’s been addressed and her keeping up with it without dealing with my explanation as to my use of such terms thus becomes simply a) another effort at distraction and b) another effort to provide herself with some twig upon which to base the appearance that she has substantive objections and counter-material to bring to the table here.
And she then, on the basis of her convenient and sustained misreading of my remarks in regard to children as opposed to adult-allegants, that I have somehow claimed that the Stampede allegants were “manipulated by authority figures into genuinely believing they had been abused”. I certainly did not say that in any way. The adult-allegants – barring any possible cases of hypno-therapy or ‘repressed memory therapy’ – were perfectly capable of going to the torties or their front-organizations on their own with their stories and allegations. The “deluge” of allegations, under the conditions of the Stampede that I have so often described at length on this site, would not be surprising at all.
Define "the Stampede", then. No evasions telling me to go look it up, no allusions to an impossible heap of scholarship encompassing a mind-bendingly complex background – just define it in less than 500 words. Here's your chance to shine.
If you choose not to define it, it means you're deliberately hiding behind a vague definition so you can't be pinned down and made to accurately defend your thesis. Because that's all I've seen here so far – a rather desperate effort to portray yourself as above is all, lecturing from on high with your extensive scholarly research safely tucked away in the archives, to be constantly referenced as a source of fact but never actually dusted off and defended. Go.
Continuing with ‘Miranda’s of the 21st at 1222AM:
“Children” could, in any case, not bring a Stampede case by law. And thus one immediately introduces “adults” and the various cases I mentioned raise the probability of some sort of influence. Teenagers are capable of making their own formulations, and beyond that the majority of Stampede cases were made long after the teens became adults. And adults are even more capable in that regard.
And ‘Miranda’ concludes by presuming that she has made it clear how “the Stampede” terminology … is actually just muddying the waters”. Admitting, then, that she may make the occasional “command or suggestion” – albeit without the subjunctive for the “suggestion” – she then comes back to her bit about the usage of my terms, with the definitions of which she has (proudly) declined to familiarize herself. But as I said, No – it’s not clear that she has established her position in this regard and she can, if she can, outline her process of demonstration clearly here.
The concluding “vanity press” epithet can remain where it was put, as is her bit that I “should stop”. Wouldn’t the Abuseniks like that?
This part's a suggestion: If you want to be taken seriously, stop using your own made-up language. But this part is a command: if you persist in using your own made-up language, define the terms precisely and be prepared to defend them.
You pride yourself in being a "questioner", but if you want to be able to present yourself as a valid conversational participant, you also need to have firm convictions and answers. As far as I can tell, you take refuge in the foggy idea that you've somehow already done what needs to be done in defining your position, and anytime I try to nail you down on a term, you hand-wave towards the archives. That's not actually how things work, if you want to be taken seriously – when you develop a theory, it develops and distills itself, it doesn't live in the footnotes.
It would be like Einstein saying "Just refer to the Theory of Relativity – go back and read everything I've ever written for clarfication". That's insane. Give me the elevator pitch, or you've got nothing.
On the 21st at 1228AM ‘Miranda’ asserts that my ‘chemistry class’ analogy does not go far enough.
Why would that be? She claims that my terms are not equivalent to generally recognized chemistry terms. But she has refused to bring herself up to speed on the extensive definitions that I created on this site for use on this site for regular readers of this site. So her bit here fails.
And this is supported by her “no books” bit: there is indeed a ‘book’ for all this, in the archives of this site. And that is a ‘book’ and a “perfectly good reference” source that she has declared herself unwilling to read (which would then give her the lead-in to keep on about not understanding the terms).
She then – after her numerous schoolmarm-ish orders – accuses me of being ‘clearly’ trying to make myself “the teacher of this class”. I put up the material I do; there are no instructions and demands made to readers to accept them or risk epithetical abuse because they refuse to accept them. Readers, as I often say, may make of material on this site what they will and they may judge as they will.
She complains of the difficulty of the “labwork”, but she hasn’t read the ‘book’. Is this a plaint to be taken seriously?
And – as ever with Abuseniks – she then channels everyone by claiming that “no one is following your linguistic lead”. She isn’t – that much is clear, and only that much is clear.
Yeah, you're not king, so your word isn't law. You're also not a moderator. As far as I can tell, the only credentials you have here are ones you've made up for yourself. No one else in this community appears to use your slang either – so why on earth would I adapt to your particular quirks when speaking about a general issue?
Again, hilarious: you think comments threads somehow make up a record. Written, piecemeal, by you. If you've been creating a reference book of record on this site for years, how is it that no one else uses any of your made-up terminology?
Let's see: you don't discuss, preferring to professorially speak of anyone you're addressing in the third person, as though pontificating to an audience. You constantly advise "readers", as though that audience is hanging on your every word looking for guidance. You use your own language and then loftily say the definitions can be found in your extensive past works. Yeah, you're trying to pop yourself above everyone else. It's not particularly subtle.
The "book" referred to would be the collected scrawlings my lab partner made in the back of his notebook. And more substantially: I don't NEED the scrawlings to complete the labwork, because there's a perfectly good set of definitions and procedures already available. Literally the ONLY person referencing the "book" is my lab partner – not even the rest of the class use his terms. To adopt them would mean nothing other than coddling my egotistical lab partner.
My apologies, do link me to a place where your slang is used by someone other than yourself. Try to find one where it's not being mockingly deployed.
On the 21st at 1233AM ‘Miranda’ turns to the links she put up. All the links, except the second one – as I noted – included printed text and I worked from the printed text.
Most of the sources I did not mention were movie-marketing sites or sources already rendered dubious by their connection to the marketing of the film (and marketing does not seek accurate assessment but seeks rather to make the marketed object look as attractive as possible according to the desires of the object’s makers).
And the video links to ‘Spotlight’ staffer interviews involved interviews with them – as I pointed out – that merely provide the fluff and puff of what it felt like to be portrayed by actors/actresses, as I pointed out.
I don’t have – her giveaway epithetical snark again – “a grudge against the sources”; I simply don’t consider them reliable sources of information for the matters under discussion here. She is welcome to demonstrate the opposite, if she can.
HA! Oh, man. You asked for people in front of a camera and microphone. No switching up your game now.
Why would I possibly bother trying to convince you to trust journalistic sources you've already decided to dismiss? It's like trying to get someone to like broccoli. No matter how stupid their bias might be, it's not a fight you'll ever win because there's never going to be proof that they've changed their mind – all they have to do is say "no" repeatedly. Ridiculous errand.
In regard to ‘Miranda’s of the 21st at 1242AM: in all of the material put out during the film’s roll-out on the 6th of this month, there was no attention paid to the editor or the tortie, certainly none that equaled the focus on the actors and the former team members. And readers can see from the links ‘Miranda’ earlier provided that the interviews made before the roll-out were ‘soft-ball’ interviews of the editor, more conformable to the ‘marketing’ aspect than hard-hitting queries about the actual issues and any problems arising from those issues.
I wasn’t referring to attorney MacLeish but it can hardly be ignored that the interview she proffers in regard to him (and to Garabedian) appeared not in the news or analysis section of the paper but in its “Lifestyle” section, which isn’t where the serious stuff (such as may be with the ‘Globe’) is placed and often where puff-pieces are placed.
Readers may consider ‘Miranda’s material as they will.
You literally asked for Baron in front of a camera and mic. I gave you that. Ta da. Can't help it that you don't like getting what you asked for.
And on the 21st at 1202AM, in another giveaway of snark, ‘Miranda’ tosses in her all-caps “YAY!”.
I was just so honored to be mentioned.
On the 21st at 1212AM ‘Miranda’ merely repeats her claim that my “prose is distracting and obstructive” and that I “use verbiage like a smokescreen”. At this point, readers have enough material regarding the exchanges on this point to consider for themselves.
I would add that words are like pixels on a TV screen: when they are working properly, the more pixels, the higher the picture’s resolution. ‘Miranda’ would claim that I have too many words, but I would refer to the record on this thread and let readers decide if her use of ‘words’ contributes to greater understanding and my use of ‘words’ is “distracting and obstructive” (which use of ‘distracting’ may also well be taken as yet another instance of the old Abusenik dodge ‘I’m Not/You Are’).
And then and then and then: she resorts to assertions about her credentials and qualifications (an un-falsifiable claim, unable to be corroborated, in this internet forum). She doth “guarantee” – if she does say so herself – that she doth “have more credentials in the English language than you do”.
As I wrote recently on this thread in regard to a similar bit of JR snark on this subject – and it is hardly an unfamiliar Abusenik gambit – it is only the quality of the material that constitutes “credentials” on this site and in the internet forum generally, and readers may consider as they will.
And since she has added the qualifier “unless you are a university dean” then we might infer that she has university level credentials, whether as a student or a faculty member. Readers may review the content of our exchanges on this thread and judge for themselves as they will.
And the epithetical snarky bits can remain right up where the schoolmarm-possible professor hath put them. As can the now-familiar Abusenik conflation of his/her own opinion and that of all “people”.
AWESOME. You're completely wrong, and it's totally amazing.
Higher resolution is not always a good thing – it can make a file much harder to ingest. The higher the resolution the more difficult it is to transfer, too: many transfer routes can't handle the file size and results in the process being rejected. The software on the other side also has to be optimized to accept the incoming file – again, lots of rejections at this point, driving everyone on the team insane. And then even when everything is note-perfect, the transfer can take hours. This is the exact reason that high-fidelity is the last phase of design.
In this case, not only are you creating a uselessly dense file, but you're using a program that NO ONE ELSE HAS on their machines. So you're waving a giant file and saying "this is all perfectly reasonable, but you have to download my own bespoke program to understand it". I don't want to clutter up my machine with your homemade graphics program, and besides, you're perfectly capable of translating your design into a format most of us use, you just WON'T. So can you be remotely surprised that I won't download your crazy homemade code just so I can understand something you should be perfectly capable of rendering in common tools (in this case, the English language)?
On top of that, you really aren't talking about pixels here – you're talking about Interaction Design (individual points of color versus the interlocking structures and shapes those pixels display). And not that I'd expect you to be remotely abreast of this field, but: simplicity is key. Good interaction design focuses on the user, and making sure the user can accomplish what you want them to accomplish. One of the first things done is stripping out nonsensical lingo and icons, organizing information the way the user expects to ingest it rather than the way the business organizes it internally, harmonizing colors, etc. User-centred design is the first piece of interaction design, and that's what makes the complex pixel placement possible.
Your mistake is thinking that good design is done in a vacuum; it's not. The designer makes the journey to the user, if you actually want to communicate your message rather than being a pretty-but-impenetrable billboard.
You mean, littered around randomly? I wasn't looking to move them anyway, but thanks for chipping in.
Maybe there is a "God" after all and she's called Miranda. :^)
"THERE ARE NONE SO BLIND AS THOSE WHO REFUSE TO SEE." (Caps to assist your eyesight). In your pretentiousness, do you even realize how condescending you are towards anyone not agreeing with your agenda? Or do you even care?
1- Not " 'mock'-worthy"? – "Bhagwan, (some, a, the, any, his own) god, using 'Servant' in a derogatory fashion(etc,)". Must you continue to attempt to paint all as stupid, except you and your cronies? Failure!
2- "historical assessment of perverts" All I did was use the appropriate synonym in place of "child abuse matters", somewhat in your insulting style. Geez, thought even you would be able to figure that out.
3- Bible study time for P- Unbeknownst to you, we're talking about two different things here; (a) Mentioned the New Testament supersedes the Old Testament. (b) When quoting the Old Testament, I was describing how Old Testament prophesies predict in fine detail New Testament happenings(i.e. Queen of Heaven, goddess of Babylon, Rome). In most other instances the New supplants the Old. This does not mean you throw out everything in the Old. "Oh, that the blind might see, and teachers may be taught." Book of Dan (purchase it today on Amazon).
Jim, Jim, Jim- For you, I explained with the appropriate Bible quotes how God feels about slavery, polygamy, homosexuals and shellfish. I wish I had answers for all your other questions, but to put it plainly, I don't. You mentioned He "refuses to end poverty and lack of education and starvation. Offers horrible diseases and eternal war. And then if you don't love Him eternal hell fire." You blame God for all these problems, when I see all of them as manmade problems. So the very one who would be willing to help you solve your problems, you would rather blame and criticize. Are you next going to tell me that it was God who molested you, when it was definitely evil, wicked man. Is it God's fault He didn't stop them and end all the problems in the world, caused by man. Is God to blame for all the annoying bickering and backbiting going on here, and then we wonder why there are wars. We're all very brave when we don't have to confront each other face to face. I'm sure when we stand before Him, He will answer all your questions. We all bear some culpability for our problems, but most definitely not those done to us as an innocent child. My wish is that you might get past your justified anger, read His word with an open mind and come to know He's there to help and not destroy. Ball is in your court.
Especially for you P, and anyone one with an ear to hear, I have one of those "illuminations and messages" from the Almighty God:
You protect me from the evilness in this world.
You will bring their darknes out of the closet.
They are so proud of how they sin against innocent people.
Your righteousness is shameful to them.
You see how they keep lying to the world and profiting off other people and Yourself.
They put their arms around people, holding them back from the truth.
But you see how they praise themselves.
You're our Lord, we should be humble and give you praise instead.
Thus saith the Lord.
Depending on your responses, you may be hearing more of these. I have close to 1000 of them. This is not a threat, but it is a promise. Dan
P.S. P- I only signed off with "Dan, Servant of the Only True God" because I know how much it annoys you and you enjoy MOCKING Him and the rest of us. We have all grown more than tired of your PRETENTIOUSNESS. I find it hard to believe, you don't even find yourself annoying!
Dan, Is "God' everywhere? If "he" is; wasn't he in the room with every molested child?
Where was he for the Jewish children at Auschwitz? Right there in the gas chambers?
What no miracles for them or us?
Your "God' must have wanted all our horror and theirs to have happened. With love like that who needs hate?
That's darkness for you P, our grand Smwarmy. No, that's not a misspelling. That's my new name for you. Swamy and smarmy all in one. Do I need to explain it? Back atcha. Don't tax your brain, it's not in your Thesaurus.
Had to laugh at wiki def.- Swamy- "He who knows and is master of himself."
On the 21st at 730PM ‘Miranda’ claims that “when massively changing your paragraph, I specifically called out that I had done so with this” and she then quotes an “Ed note” to the effect that she “was taking liberties with this paragraph to point out an apparent assumptive error on Publion’s part”. And so she did; she also simply substituted her own position. And her ‘editing’ generally oscillated between stylistic changes and the insertion of her own ideas – which is not editing at all, but rather counter-propositions masquerading as editing.
She then claims to have found an example of my “tying myself in knots”: the example is simply a complex sentence, extended grammatically, which apparently to her skill-level indicates that one is tying oneself up in knots. Once we get beyond simple sentences she seems to decide rather quickly that something is confused – when actually it appears that someone is confused, namely herself. The sentence she quotes is grammatically constructed and conveys several points properly.
She then tries to construct an either-or (simple minds like simply stuff simply delivered). My point was that the McMartin and Fells-Acres cases involved “children” in the sense of day-care pre-schoolers (“tykes”, if you wish); while the adult-allegants of so many Stampede cases were not at all “tykes”, even though they often made claims that went back to their own teenage years.
And your larger point here is…? That the adults are making things up?
On the 21st at 734PM ‘Miranda’ now – having refused to consult the archives here and come up to speed on the state-of-the-question as it has been developed on this site – wants to go back to square one. Regular readers here are quite familiar with my definition and explication of ‘Stampede’; ‘Miranda’ now wants to have her cake and eat it too: she refuses to go back over the archives, but now she wants the archives brought to her. One would expect more from one allegedly university-trained. She can go back and read it all for herself or not. The choice is hers. Will she then claim that since I won’t again define it for her, then I have no definition and there is no definition of explication from me in the record here? She’s welcome to run that gambit if she chooses. And at this point, I think it is becoming clear, gambits are all she has in order to avoid the content of the ‘question’ as it has been developed on this site.
“Here’s your chance to shine”, she snarks. I’ve already done it – she just hasn’t gone and read it.
But I spoke too soon. She already has taken that route in her next paragraph: she – so reminiscent of other Abuseniks who built their little constructions with their blocks – has set up a situation where “if [I] choose not to define it, it means you are deliberately hiding behind a vague definition so you can’t be pinned down and made to accurately defend your thesis” because – doncha see? – “that all [she’s] seen so far here”, since – it has to be added – she hasn’t read back in the record.
Her point fails, then, because to be accurate she would have had to say “If you choose not to define it for me …”. But to say that would merely draw attention to the fact that she – because of her refusal to familiarize herself with the record here – isn’t up to speed on what ‘Stampede’ means as I have defined it.
A sly bit but an obvious one.
Fantastic. I ask for a lengthy (500 word) definition for your made-up glossary term, and you genuinely won't give one.
It's obvious you don't want to supply one because then it could be used as a reference point to keep you accountable during a debate, and you cherish the blurry edges of argument where you can loftily insist you've made yourself clear… while refusing to clarify.
You're refusing to define a term that you claim has a perfectly reasonable, clear definition. You're going to have a hard time presenting yourself as a reasonable interlocutor when you simultaneously say "I have it, but I won't show it to you, so there".
In short, you're coming across as a windbag: a lot of hot air, but when you look for concrete proof, there's just a whole lot of whooshing noises.
Continuing in regard to ‘Miranda’s of the 21st at 734PM:
I would also say that her characterization of me as making “a desperate effort to portray yourself as above it all” is useful, if viewed through the lens of clinical projection. I have never made an assertion about my credentials or about how my asserted-status is higher or greater than another commenter’s. She has.
Does she seek to imply that I am “lecturing” without any basis for my thoughts? I have explained them in the record here, and thus what she sees as “safely tucked away” is only hidden from her … because she refuses to look in the archive. If you want to hide something from ‘Miranda’, just write about and explicate it at great length, and hide it in an archive on the same site. That will pretty much foil her, apparently. Such academic chops.
She is welcome to ‘dust off’ my material and I will be happy to defend it.
And her comment concludes with the imperative “Go”. Or does she “prefer” to call that a suggestion?
Think of it as a starting gun. Ready, set, go.
And that's exactly what I find so suspicious – you are putting a hell of a lot of effort into hiding what you keep claming is a clear, straightforward definition. And I maintain that what you're doing is trying to distract from the fact that you're unwilling to define your personal vocabulary because, on some level, you're aware that you'd then be held to those definitions.
On then to the 21st at 740PM:
Rather than deal with the substance of my observation about what she is up to, she will simply make an overt “suggestion” about my method (not in this instance my stylistic usage).
Apparently, she is assured (how is anybody’s guess) that I am not “taken seriously” … by … everybody? Or is this ‘Miranda’ again channeling ‘everybody’ in order to mask her own insufficient bits here?
And she once again goes on about my defining terms which I have already defined and explicated at length but which she refuses to read. This game of hers could go on forever, perhaps consoling her (however fatuously) that she is actually substantively participating in the discussion.
She then informs me about what is required to be a “questioner” and to be a “valid conversational participant” … as if I have never done so on this site. To which, on top of everything else I’ve said along these lines, she needs to brush up on the necessity of bringing herself up to speed with the conversation as it has developed in order to be a “valid conversational participant”.
In this thread, I see no one taking you seriously. Feel free to link me to evidence of support for your position.
I'm happy to read them if you would provide them (it's like pulling teeth.) Look, pretend you've been asked to submit these terms to the dictionary. Then write a definition. Then post it here. See? Easy! And then I will happily read them.
The weirdest thing about this is you're basically asking me to dive into a haystack looking for needles, while you presumably already have the needles in question right at hand. If you keep using these terms like "Stampede" as part of arguments, then you must have the definition in mind, right? So take the words in your mind, write them in a post, and post them.
Continuing in regard to ‘Miranda’s of the 21st at 740PM:
Nor is her characterization of my definitions and ideas as “foggy” anything more than epithet, until and unless she informs herself as to those definitions and ideas and then lodges whatever objections she chooses to make about those definitions and ideas. But that would then require her to deal with substance rather than style, and that really doesn’t appear to be her thing.
But it is clear by now that we are seeing a new variant on an old and familiar tendency: many Abuseniks here tend – when the fit is on them – to the faux-papal declamations, exhortations, denunciations and pronouncements. But ‘Miranda’ runs a variant: she will deliver the same, but with the accents of the university-trained (thus considering it necessary to insist overtly upon her credentials or academic chops). And this variant, as I have said before on this thread, then slyly seeks to concentrate on style rather than substance, so often avoiding substance and going on about style instead.
And ‘Miranda’ would sass Alfred Einstein himself (“give me the elevator pitch or you’ve got nothing”). Would she actually accost him and insist that he give her Relativity in a tweet-sized nutshell? One might imagine him replying: I’ve got Relativity, and it’s you who has nothing, and proceeding on his way, leaving her with her sass and none the wiser. It would seem that ‘Miranda’s education somehow gave her the impression that brassy-sassy substitutes for study and thought; that won’t work here.
You seem to have some fundamental confusion about they dynamics of a discussion. I am not petitioning you. If you want to prove your point, you actually have to bring proof to the table. When debate teams arrive at a meet, they do not stand at the podium and say "for my response, the Harvard team merely needs to refer to my notes from last year's Dartmouth debate". You need to back up your positions, or you flunk. Your effort to mire this discussion in a place where you hold knowledge but refuse to impart it, instead telling me the onus is on me to paw through your vast archives to winnow out what you already apparently know, is unreasonable and comes across as you trying to buy time.
What, you think Einstein didn't have to provide a summary or synopsis when publishing and presenting? You think he just said "I have a theory, and to learn more about it, you must read my entire scientific paper"?
On then to ‘Miranda’s of the 21st at 752PM:
In a re-run of one of JR’s gambits, she deals with my explication and conclusion that one of her assertions fails, by tossing out that classic bit of juvenilia: “Yeah, you’re not king so your word isn’t law”, even to the point of including that charming “Yeah”. I never said I was “king”, or “moderator” so she’s creating her own stuff here. I delivered an explication and a conclusion, and in academic discourse or any conceptual discourse her move would then be to object and refute my explication and conclusion. But she goes for the juvenilia. And, I think, is pleased with herself for doing so.
She then tries to enmesh me in her “credentials” bit by asserting – in another bit of juvenilia – that “the only credentials [I] have here are ones [I’ve] made up for [my-]self”. I’ve never raised the question of “credentials” here. For that topic she needs to confer with JR, and I expect they’ll get along rather well.
She then mis-characterizes my material (i.e. those terms “Abusenik” and “Stampede”) as “slang” – although she has refused to familiarize herself with their definitions that are in the record here. How quick she is to be dismissive, if it serves her purpose and saves her from having to deal with substance.
Nor have I ever asked (or ordered) her to adopt my terminology. And if she hasn’t read the record here, then how does she know that nobody else uses that terminology? Or is she only going by what she has seen on this thread (perhaps since – not to put too fine a point on it – nothing of value was ever really going on here until ‘Miranda’ arrived).
You're referring to your own collected works as necessary reading for any further discussion, which certainly implies some sort of authority. And no, you didn't deliver an explication and a conclusion in this thread - you've had some surface exchanges with me, then claimed that your archives hold all that I need, so I might as well go read all of that and then come back to you. You're not bothering to actually engage in the thread, which increasingly makes it look like you can't.
You've consistently used your slang in responses, suggested I familiarize myself with it in order to understand your points, then refused to define it when given the opportunity. How exactly is that not creating a requirement?
Yes, I'm going by what I see on this thread because this is where we're having the discussion. If something of value went on, summarize and restate it. Link to it.
Continuing in regard to ‘Miranda’s of the 21st at 752PM:
She then tosses out the epithetical “hilarious” again, but this time digging herself deeper down into the murk: do I really think that “comments threads somehow make up a record”? Well, yes, a record of the comments on a particular issue or topic. And that’s what has been going on here on this site. And she then – apparently to her own satisfaction – tries to justify that bit by insinuating that I am the only one who has written the record here. (She really does need to read it then.)
And if she wishes to object to my ideas, and my ideas are in the archive of the comment threads here, then in what way does the archive not constitute a relevant record for her (and everybody’s) purposes here?
She then asserts that I “don’t discuss”. This is a familiar Abusenik dodge: you either agree with them or you are not ‘discussing’. She then sets out on an extended list of plaints as to my style – and on her take on what my attitude is, and plaints about that. And it is nothing less than “lofty” to point out that all she has to do is read up on the extensive record. She doesn’t like any of that. That’s not my problem.
She then refers to my material as “collected scrawlings” that – in the terms of the metaphor – her “lab partner made in the back of his notebook”. And she knows this … how, if she hasn’t read the archives? What sort of sly whackjob game is she playing here? (Short “elevator pitch” answer: she’s trying to avoid substance and distract by going on about style, in a tone that oscillates between the school-marmish and the juvenile and the sassy brassy in-your-face; as I implied about ‘Dan’: a steering wheel with that much play in it, and unpredictable play, needs the services of a mechanic and other drivers are well-advised to keep their distance.)
In concluding, she continues on yet again about how nobody else uses my “slang” (and she continues on again about that too). How would she know if she hasn’t read the archived comments record?
What fascinates me is that you seem to be incapable of repeating your ideas. Surely discussion should have distilled them into a form that can be easily expressed – you've managed to get it down to a few syllables when it comes to the slang terminology. So just state your definitions when asked.
I'm interested in very targeted pieces of information, information which you apparently hold in your head, and your response is "read the archives". This is like wanting to know how to boil an egg, and being told to read through an unindexed, uncategorized recipe collection. You're deliberately creating a hurdle to discussion, and I find that incredibly interesting because it indicates that you are nervous about being held to definitions and discussion points.
On the 21st at 756PM she is reduced to grasping at straws, and tries to spackle that up with italics and boldface and “Ha!” (do I hear Lisa Simpson here?).
The term “in front of a camera and a microphone” meant being subjected to serious hard-ball questioning on the record. And it certainly didn’t mean being given a soft-ball interview for ‘marketing’ purposes (of himself as well as of the film). Would ‘Miranda’ like to score a point on literalness. OK. But we still don’t have that hard-ball interview and, as I said, I doubt he will reverse the practice of almost two decades by giving such an interview, or allowing himself to be subjected to such an interview, at this point.
She then reveals that for her “People” magazine is a “journalistic source”, along with some of the other sites she mentioned. I mentioned the main sites and they are the most significant. If “People” and online equivalents of movie fanzines are reliable journalistic sources then we are back to the world of grade-school weekend compositions. And that would surely be, for this site, a “ridiculous errand”.
But she is welcome to proffer her own preferred article(s) on the ‘Spotlight’ movie; or read the WSJ piece (that was very complimentary) and then take substantive issue with my remarks on that piece; then I could respond and then she could respond and … that’s how it’s done. That might actually be useful for readers here.
This entire post is just a jumble of justifications. "I don't like the TYPE of interview", "I don't like tabloids", "Give me a new list of sources". I provided third-party sources, can't do much about your retrospective refining of your criteria.
First the Cold War, now the Simpsons as a cultural reference. Your popcultural touchpoints and general style are chronologically placing you in a very interesting location.
On then to the 21st at 817PM:
We get a charming mixture of the juvenile and the school-marmish: “Awesome” (scream caps omitted) and “You’re completely wrong and it’s totally amazing”.
And what is she on about here this time?
I had said that “words are like pixels on a TV screen” and explicated that thought.
She then starts on about “files” and how with them high resolution is “not always” a good thing. (So much for “completely” and “totally”). I was specifically discussing the picture on a TV screen, and clearly was not talking about computer files. Anyone who remembers the old black-and-white round screens of yore, and has then experienced contemporary TV screen performance, would understand. Surely anyone who could read English would understand that when I said “on a TV screen” I wasn’t referring to the technical arcana of computer files. But her misreading gives her a chance to go on about something, though in that queasy Abusenik way of ‘filler’, when you have to put up something but don’t want to deal with substance.
The entire comment goes on about those technical arcana, and then snarks me for not making accurate comments about computer files.
We are deep into a swamp here. Its flora are faux-university/intellectual rather than faux-papal, but it’s a swamp.
And by this point on the thread, reviewing the entire record, I think it is clear that we have made little progress in dealing with the substantive issues, and instead have had to spend time (writing and/or reading) with a lot of distraction, albeit much of it somewhat differently costumed from the familiar Abusenik gambits that seek to distract and derail.
HDTV is broadcast as a compressed MPEG-2 file. But I see now you've picked an analogy that's beyond your reach, so I'll dial back and we'll just talk about physical hardware.
If you want your message to be understood, you need to broadcast it in the most accessible version possible – that's why core media channels are still available via antenna. As soon as you start adding stuff (picture-in-picture, HDTV, 3D, internet connectivity, smart TVs) you are crippling your message because, by definition, you're cutting off people who don't have the hardware to receive your transmission. You can create a high-def broadcast, but the fact is that it's not going to reach a whole lot of people because the complexity of the file is going to gum up both the broacasting avenues (analog, digital) and the receptive devices (cathode ray TVs, digital TVs).
In your case you're going a step beyond by creating a 3D broadcast that not only requires baseline reception hardware (for density of prose), but another piece of hardware in the form of 3D glasses (for translating slang). As you may have noticed, even though manufacturers made a big push for 3D a few years ago, no one owns those glasses. Much like Google Glass, it's a piece of hardware that's too intrusive and has been deemed a step too far.
That's where we are. You're insisting on 3D glasses, and your users are telling you that 3D glasses are a step too far.
You have created your own terminology to address matters concerning the Church sex abuse scandal. Despite requests not to, you insist on using this slang. I've asked you to define these terms on this comment thread, and you won't.
Who's distracting and derailing again?
‘Dan’ returns on the 21st at 145PM. Will it be The True Servant or will it be the juvenile and self-described ‘hysterical’ snarky or will it be the ‘with much love’ ‘Dan’? Let’s tune in and see.
In the first paragraph, we get two out of three, I would say: the Pronouncer of Woes (scream-caps included) and the epithet-tossing juvenile snark. (The steering wheel has a lot of play in it, no?)
I welcome people “not agreeing with” my material. I simply don’t treat juvenilia with kid gloves. Read my material, lodge your objections, explain them and I’ll be happy to respond. But that’s not how Abuseniks roll, and surely not ‘Dan’.
The further Scriptural excursions here can be taken by readers as they will.
Then the benevolent Eye is turned upon “Jim, Jim, Jim” and I think that little homily can remain for “Jim, Jim, Jim” to deal with.
As for ‘Dan’s shared “illuminations and messages” that he directs toward me: I am reminded of the marvelous Margaret Rutherford, in one of her early-1960s film romps as “Miss Marple”: confronted at breakfast by a man who confides a somewhat especially eccentric phantasm to her, she hears him out politely, purses her lips, and then pronounces with supreme Brit aplomb “That must console you”.
And he concludes in his “P.S.P.” with the self-exculpatory bit that he only “signed off with” that rather pretentious self-moniker because – doncha see? – he doth “know how much it annoys” me and because I “enjoy mocking Him” (i.e. some, the, a, any) god. Apparently to “mock” ‘Dan’ is to mock … “Him”. I have viewed that somewhat contrived association or equivalence from a clinical rather than a theological point of view; it seems to me much more relevant, if not also acute. And, I would have to say, pretentious as well.
And then too: he used that self-title before he ever knew it would attract my attention.
And in his other two comments (the 21st at 228PM and 234PM) he apparently is on about “Smwarmy” and then “Swamy” and then he tries to run the ‘Miranda’ play and then reports that he found the definition of “Swamy” on Wiki. He “had to laugh” – not “hysterically”, I hope.
“Swamy” is a Hindu suffix attached to deities in that religion. I’d say that ‘Dan’ has enough on his hands with the fact that he has semi-deified himself; he needn’t bother trying to deify me. Even as a compliment, it’s a bit queasy. Or hadn’t he noticed?
I hate to break this to you P but nobody buys your caca here. Not me or Another Mark or Miranda or Dennis Ecker or Dan.
Dan and Miranda et al, with their own words and insights have said exactly what I've said about your "work" here. It is simply inaccurate and mendacious and it serves an elite who don't deserve to be
You won't go away. So let's put you away. Put you back on the catholic screw ups shelf; along with the Crusades; the Spanish Inquisition; The st. Bartholomew's day massacre. The support of Hitler and Mussolini and Franco and Salazar etc. etc.; and the deep anti Semitism that was the matrix for the Holocaust. The same catholic anti Semitism that the hyper-conservative catholic, Mel Gibson still displayed in his masochistic revel "The Passion of the Christ".
Sit on that shelf with your own wigs of false morality and fake virtue and gather dust with the rest of the lies "the one true religion" has offered as "God's love" to this world.
I didn't even touch on the church's treatment of women as "sacred" workhorses. Nor did I mention the hypocricy of a largely gay priesthood (who act on it) being the very source for the homophobia taught by the church. But then these 2 truths aren't on that shelf yet. They are still on active duty.
Before going to see Spotlight I thought it was going to be another anti-Catholic movie. I wasn't disappointed. (I am not Catholic.) Spotlight made me think of the much better movie on priestly abuse, CALVARY, where the good priest is crucified for the bad priest. (That is what happens to Jesus.) I almost laughted out loud watching Spotlight when Ruffalo, a lapsed Catholic said, "Before this I had always thought that one day I would go back." That is pure self-righteous church hating non-sense. (We ought not to mention, too, that this team Spotlight was headed by "just the facts, man" Jew. That would be anti-semetic.) The other ovious attempted smear was to suggest that celebacy is the cause of sex-abuse. Most Christians at least give lip service to celebacy in singleness, fidelity in marriage. With that goes the family.
What do you mean by this? Most lapsed Catholics I know take this view.
Mark Ruffallo is what is called an "actor". He does not write the lines his character says. FYI
The old catholic anti-Semetism never dies. "Them damned Jews! First they kill Christ then they blow the cover off the cardinals' cover ups."
Mr. Milligan, you might want to check the beam in your own eye.
"Anti-Catholic movie"!!!!!?????? Could you tell me in what scene in Spotlight any mention of catholic dogma was raised? Where one negative word about the faith was ever mentioned?
If you think it's "anti-Catholic" to report on cardinal Law's(and others) transfer of known perpetrator priests to unsuspecting catholic families then you are a fool and a tool of pedophiles. Putting it bluntly.
So we get anti-Semetism and pro-child abuse in one post!!!??
Sir, You might want to shut your moronic pie hole.
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/tedpikepedophiliaorthodoxjudaism11feb13.shtml
I meant to include this site on the sex abuse in the Rabbinic community. You don't have to believe it, but you do have to consider it. The Rabbis have the added protection that any accusation must first come to the Rabbis for consideration.
What exactly is wrong with you , P? I had never called myself God's "True Servant." I appreciate the compliment, but I had never put "True" in my posts. You added that and then criticized me for it. Also, I had never semi-deified myself, and if you were at all astute, you would know the meaning of servant is a term of humility. I think you might need to go back to grammer school to learn how to use a dictionary. You have now stepped up a level and have become an obnoxiously pretentious human being (and I even question the human part). I'd like to start you off on your 1st dictionary lesson. I didn't think I had to explain it to you, as said in the previous post, but will.
smwarmy(def.)- That's smarmy and swamy all in one (this means combined). In other words, you're a greasy, sleazy, oily, not genuine or believable swamy. So you're not a deity, teacher or master to any of us, but only a master to yourself. Now I understand why it makes you feel queasy, MR. LEGEND IN YOUR OWN MIND.
Dan, servant to The Only True God- You might want to get used to it!