C+C Music Factory – Do You Wanna Get Funky (Both 12″)
46 minutes ago
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
The Catholic Church's Secret Sex-Crime Files
The five co-defendants sit close enough to shake hands in the Philadelphia courtroom, but they never once acknowledge one another. Father James Brennan, a 47-year-old priest accused of raping a 14-year-old boy, looks sad and stooped in a navy sweater, unshaven and sniffling. Edward Avery, a defrocked priest in his sixties, wears an unsettlingly pleasant expression on his face, as though he's mentally very far away. He and two other defendants – the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, also in his sixties, and Bernard Shero, a former Catholic schoolteacher in his forties – are accused of passing around "Billy," a fifth-grade altar boy. According to the charges, the three men raped and sodomized the 10-year-old, sometimes making him perform stripteases or getting him drunk on sacramental wine after Mass.
Heinous as the accusations are, the most shocking – and significant – are those against the fifth defendant, Monsignor William Lynn. At 60, Lynn is portly and dignified, his thin lips pressed together and his double chin held high. In a dramatic fashion statement, he alone has chosen to wear his black clerical garb today, a startling reminder that this is a priest on trial, a revered representative of the Catholic Church, not to mention a high-ranking official in Philadelphia's archdiocese. Lynn, who reported directly to the cardinal, was the trusted custodian of a trove of documents known in the church as the "Secret Archives files." The files prove what many have long suspected: that officials in the upper echelons of the church not only tolerated the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests but conspired to hide the crimes and silence the victims. Lynn is accused of having been the archdiocese's sex-abuse fixer, the man who covered up for its priests. Incredibly, after a scandal that has rocked the church for a generation, he is the first Catholic official ever criminally charged for the cover-up.
"All rise," the court crier intones as the judge enters, and Lynn stands, flanked by his high-powered lawyers, whose hefty fees are being paid by the archdiocese. The implications of the trial are staggering for the church as a whole. In sheltering abusive priests, Lynn wasn't some lone wolf with monstrous sexual appetites, as the church has taken to portraying priests who have molested children. According to two scathing grand-jury reports, protocols for protecting rapists in the clergy have been in place in Philadelphia for half a century, under the regimes of three different cardinals. Lynn was simply a company man, a faithful bureaucrat who did his job exceedingly well. His actions were encouraged by his superiors, who in turn received orders from their superiors – an unbroken chain of command stretching all the way to Rome. In bringing conspiracy charges against Lynn, the Philadelphia district attorney is making a bold statement: that the Catholic hierarchy's failure to protect children from sexual abuse isn't the fault of an inept medieval bureaucracy, but rather the deliberate and criminal work of a cold and calculating organization. In a very real sense, it's not just Lynn who is on trial here. It's the Catholic Church itself...
Continue reading
Sabrina Rubin Erdely @'Rolling Stone'
The Secrets of Self-Control: The Marshmallow Test 40 Years Later
In the late 1960s, researchers submitted hundreds of four-year-olds to an ingenious little test of willpower: the kids were placed in a small room with a marshmallow or other tempting food and told they could either eat the treat now, or, if they could hold out for another 15 minutes until the researcher returned, they could have two.
Most children said they would wait. But some failed to resist the pull of temptation for even a minute. Many others struggled a little longer before eventually giving in. The most successful participants figured out how to distract themselves from the treat's seduction — by turning around, covering their eyes or kicking the desk, for instance — and delayed gratification for the full 15 minutes.
Follow-up studies on these preschoolers found that those who were able to wait the 15 minutes were significantly less likely to have problems with behavior, drug addiction or obesity by the time they were in high school, compared with kids who gobbled the snack in less than a minute. The gratification-delayers also scored an average of 210 points higher on the SAT...
Continue reading
Maia Szalavitz @'TIME'
PJ Harvey wins Mercury Music Prize for second time
PJ Harvey has become the first person to win the Mercury Music Prize twice, with her album Let England Shake.
The record, which was inspired by the horrors of war, was the bookmakers' favourite.Harvey won in 2001, when the ceremony was held on 11 September, but was unable to accept the prize in person because she was on tour in the US.
Accepting the prize the musician said she wanted to make something that was "meaningful" and "would last".
The 41-year-old, who was the first female Mercury winner in September 2001 with Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, said: "It's really good to be here this evening, because when I last won 10 years ago I was in Washington DC watching the Pentagon burning from my hotel window."
Corinne Bailey Rae, who was one of the judges, said the panel all agreed that Harvey should be crowned the winner.
"It was a tough decision, but were all in agreement."
The singer explained it the lyrics made the record stand out because they were "really imaginative, almost cinematic".
@'BBC'
Unraveling Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel
Part 2: The Trafficker and the Psychic
Part 3: Clear Skies and Cocaine
Part 4: Showdown in Sinaloa
The Sinaloa cartel was flooding cocaine across the border. The DEA was listening. A four-part series based on hundreds of pages of transcripts from intercepted calls, court testimony, and investigative reports.
Via
Toryism is dead in Scotland
My proudest political moment remains, aged five, starting a chant against the Tories. Along with 50,000 Scots, my family – then living in Falkirk – had taken to the streets of Glasgow in the spring of 1990 to march against the poll tax. Brandishing a small flyer, I precociously yelled the slogan "Kick the Tories out!" Not that I really knew who the Tories were (other than that they were "very bad people") but the surrounding crowd certainly did – and they repeated the slogan with passion, rage and defiance.
The Scottish people rejected Thatcherism at the polls time and time again, but suffered the imposition of the detested so-called "community charge" a year before the rest of the country. It triggered the most successful campaign of civil disobedience in British history. Millions – including my parents – refused to pay a tax that hit the poor far harder than the rich. Even when the British electorate unexpectedly failed to "kick the Tories out" in 1992, three out of four Scots voted to do exactly that.
Recalling those passionate scenes in 1990, the plans of Murdo Fraser – the frontrunner for Scottish Tory leadership – to relaunch his party under a new name aren't surprising. For most, it is difficult to imagine the Conservatives being anything other than a toxic political brand in Scotland. This is, after all, the country of Red Clydeside; of Willie Gallacher, the former Communist MP for West Fife; and of the hard-left Scottish Socialist party, which until four years ago had six members in the Scottish parliament.
But – despite the country's radical traditions – the strange death of Tory Scotland is more recent than many Scots would like to remember. Nearly half the British electorate voted Tory in 1955; but in Scotland, over half voted for the Unionist party – the then-sister party of the Conservatives. The Tories have the remarkable claim of being the only party to have ever won a majority of the Scottish vote. And yet at the last general election, the near-fringe party status of the Tories was confirmed when less than 17% of Scots voted for them.
It is certainly true that the crisis of Scottish Toryism began before Margaret Thatcher demolished the post-war consensus. In 1965, the national party took direct control of the Scottish Unionists, who were rebranded the "Scottish Conservative and Unionist party". This was a big mistake in a country with such a proud national identity. And as was once the case in Liverpool, working-class Toryism was inextricably linked with Protestantism and anti-Catholic sentiments. Indeed, when Scottish Toryism triumphed in 1955, record numbers of Scots were flocking to the Church of Scotland. But as active Protestantism and the sectarian Orange Order waned in strength after the 1950s, the base of Scottish Toryism was chipped away.
Even so, the death spiral of Scottish Toryism did not begin until Thatcher came to power in 1979. Her governments certainly found ways to affront Scottish national pride. North Sea oil was discovered a few years before the Conservatives came to power, but as Scotland was particularly battered by recession and de-industrialisation in the 1980s, there was growing resentment at the billions of pounds of revenue flowing straight to the treasury in London – no less than £300bn in the past 30 years.
But much of Scotland's passionate – and relatively recent – hatred of Toryism isn't as unique as some might think. It is shared with much of northern England, all of which repeatedly voted against the Tories but suffered from the worst excesses of their rule. Outside Tory England, it was like living under a foreign occupation: my Stockport primary school teachers dressed in black when John Major was returned to Downing Street in 1992.
The destruction of British industry – particularly in the early 1980s – had much to do with this shared resentment. In 1991, the number of manufacturing jobs in Glasgow was just a third of the level two decades earlier. Two years after Thatcher's election victory, Glasgow was 208th down the list of local authorities for economic inactivity; a decade later, it had risen to 10th place.
Northern industrial areas were similarly hammered in the two recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s. The trauma of mass unemployment under Conservative governments has made anti-Toryism a kind of folk hatred passed from generation to generation in parts of Britain. No wonder, then, that the north-east rejected the Conservatives almost as decisively as Scotland at the last election: less than 24% voted Tory, while Labour – facing its second worst result since 1918 on a national level – won nearly 44%. The legacy of Thatcherism has left the Tories with a glass ceiling of support – which partly explains why the party failed to win the last election despite a woefully unpopular Labour government and the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
What is unique about Scottish anti-Toryism is that it has fused with a powerful sense of national pride. Because New Labour accepted many of the key pillars of Thatcherism, it was unable to capitalise on it effectively. The SNP, on the other hand, reinvented itself as a social democratic nationalist party that drew on a renewed, anti-Tory patriotism. With a hard-line Thatcherite government back in office in London, the SNP can present itself as the protector of Scotland in a repeat of the 1980s.
The bottom line is that Murdo Fraser can call the Scottish Tories what he likes. The Scottish electorate, however, are neither stupid nor forgetful. Toryism is dead as a mass political force in Scotland, and it is unlikely to ever come back.
Owen Jones @'The Guardian'
The Scottish people rejected Thatcherism at the polls time and time again, but suffered the imposition of the detested so-called "community charge" a year before the rest of the country. It triggered the most successful campaign of civil disobedience in British history. Millions – including my parents – refused to pay a tax that hit the poor far harder than the rich. Even when the British electorate unexpectedly failed to "kick the Tories out" in 1992, three out of four Scots voted to do exactly that.
Recalling those passionate scenes in 1990, the plans of Murdo Fraser – the frontrunner for Scottish Tory leadership – to relaunch his party under a new name aren't surprising. For most, it is difficult to imagine the Conservatives being anything other than a toxic political brand in Scotland. This is, after all, the country of Red Clydeside; of Willie Gallacher, the former Communist MP for West Fife; and of the hard-left Scottish Socialist party, which until four years ago had six members in the Scottish parliament.
But – despite the country's radical traditions – the strange death of Tory Scotland is more recent than many Scots would like to remember. Nearly half the British electorate voted Tory in 1955; but in Scotland, over half voted for the Unionist party – the then-sister party of the Conservatives. The Tories have the remarkable claim of being the only party to have ever won a majority of the Scottish vote. And yet at the last general election, the near-fringe party status of the Tories was confirmed when less than 17% of Scots voted for them.
It is certainly true that the crisis of Scottish Toryism began before Margaret Thatcher demolished the post-war consensus. In 1965, the national party took direct control of the Scottish Unionists, who were rebranded the "Scottish Conservative and Unionist party". This was a big mistake in a country with such a proud national identity. And as was once the case in Liverpool, working-class Toryism was inextricably linked with Protestantism and anti-Catholic sentiments. Indeed, when Scottish Toryism triumphed in 1955, record numbers of Scots were flocking to the Church of Scotland. But as active Protestantism and the sectarian Orange Order waned in strength after the 1950s, the base of Scottish Toryism was chipped away.
Even so, the death spiral of Scottish Toryism did not begin until Thatcher came to power in 1979. Her governments certainly found ways to affront Scottish national pride. North Sea oil was discovered a few years before the Conservatives came to power, but as Scotland was particularly battered by recession and de-industrialisation in the 1980s, there was growing resentment at the billions of pounds of revenue flowing straight to the treasury in London – no less than £300bn in the past 30 years.
But much of Scotland's passionate – and relatively recent – hatred of Toryism isn't as unique as some might think. It is shared with much of northern England, all of which repeatedly voted against the Tories but suffered from the worst excesses of their rule. Outside Tory England, it was like living under a foreign occupation: my Stockport primary school teachers dressed in black when John Major was returned to Downing Street in 1992.
The destruction of British industry – particularly in the early 1980s – had much to do with this shared resentment. In 1991, the number of manufacturing jobs in Glasgow was just a third of the level two decades earlier. Two years after Thatcher's election victory, Glasgow was 208th down the list of local authorities for economic inactivity; a decade later, it had risen to 10th place.
Northern industrial areas were similarly hammered in the two recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s. The trauma of mass unemployment under Conservative governments has made anti-Toryism a kind of folk hatred passed from generation to generation in parts of Britain. No wonder, then, that the north-east rejected the Conservatives almost as decisively as Scotland at the last election: less than 24% voted Tory, while Labour – facing its second worst result since 1918 on a national level – won nearly 44%. The legacy of Thatcherism has left the Tories with a glass ceiling of support – which partly explains why the party failed to win the last election despite a woefully unpopular Labour government and the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
What is unique about Scottish anti-Toryism is that it has fused with a powerful sense of national pride. Because New Labour accepted many of the key pillars of Thatcherism, it was unable to capitalise on it effectively. The SNP, on the other hand, reinvented itself as a social democratic nationalist party that drew on a renewed, anti-Tory patriotism. With a hard-line Thatcherite government back in office in London, the SNP can present itself as the protector of Scotland in a repeat of the 1980s.
The bottom line is that Murdo Fraser can call the Scottish Tories what he likes. The Scottish electorate, however, are neither stupid nor forgetful. Toryism is dead as a mass political force in Scotland, and it is unlikely to ever come back.
Owen Jones @'The Guardian'
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
