Austism and Touch Starvation

Leah Libresco writes on the topic of human touch and how the sexual revolution has robbed us of the ability to touch each other without it being sexual. But for the autistic, either high functioning or low functioning, Sensory Perception Disorder often robs us of the same joy. I used to say I only had two emotions, angry and happy. A large part of that is the SPD I experience in my skin- it wasn't until Christopher was born and I experienced, in my "Daddy nappies" the ability to just hold another human being. And at times, that can be itchy or even painful if I'm in sensory overload to begin with.

This is a real danger to the autistic community- craving touch, fearing touch, and acting inappropriately because of the push-pull of human touch. I don't have a solution this time, I'm just identifying the problem.

Homosexuality is inherently unjust

Procreation should be not just a right, but a basic good afforded to all human beings. One can voluntarily give up the right to procreate, one can give up that good. But homosexuality claims that procreation isn't a basic good at all- and forces the partners in a homosexual relationship to give up that right and deny that good. This is inherently unjust to homosexuals to claim that once they have a gay relationship, they can never have a straight one, and it is wrong for homosexuals to force the person they claim to love to never procreate.

This isn't important to teenagers, but it is important as people grow older. In my extended family, I know at least four heterosexual couples who have gotten divorced over infertility issues. I expect the same, now that same sex marriage is legal in Oregon, will happen to homosexual couples at a much higher rate.

The 5 most common arguments for abortion (and how to refute)

I had reblogged this earlier, but then the link started working, and the original article is so much better. I leave in place the below references however:

1 Operation Rescue

2 Hillary Clinton on abortion

3 Five bad ways to argue

4 Five minutes

5 Unborn Victims of Violence Act

Junque and Jewels sale setup

7pm on Friday, June 13 we will set up the Gym floor. Saturday, June 14th, we'll set up every table we can find starting at 8am. Volunteering for 4 hours for this enables you to go to the early shopping day. This is a whole family volunteer opportunity, bring teenagers!

Insurance Open House

Meet our new insurance agent. There will be a district wide open house at St. Anthony's O'Reilly Hall in Tigard 10am-2pm on Saturday May 31st.

One more way modern America is more barbaric than ancient pagans

Found in the Swansea University Archives, a small sarcophagas with a 12 week from concpetion fetus inside. Legal to kill in modern America, treated like any other dead human being in Ancient Egypt.

A better attack

Consent removes dingity- what a powerful idea. It is exactly what I was trying to get across with my "sex outside of marriage is rape" idea, that was rejected by so many. Consent doesn't bring dignity- consent to evil DESTROYS dignity.

Of course, to understand this, you have to be working in a framework of objective right and wrong.

Fitness video

My wife is always into fitness videos. I, however, can't seem to get into them.

Here's one I think I could get behind:



(and given the pain when I genuflect, such that my knee can't touch the floor anymore- it's one I need).

When Catholic politicians are better at science

When Catholic politicians are better at science than people who believe in science without question, I think we have a problem here.

Where the LCWR is headed

A playlist of my favorite Spirit of Whatever guy- Stanford Nutting (Stands For Nothing)

The church exists

Because somebody has to say yes when the entire rest of the world is saying no.

Just start the Society of St Pantsuit

Just start the Society of St. Pantsuit and leave the rest of the church alone already.

Using Logical Fallacies in argument online is an Appeal To Authority

All human knowledge, no matter what anybody says, is either an appeal to authority or anecdotal. In fact, in a way, anecdotal is only a special case of appeal to authority where your own lived experience (or the lived experience of somebody else) is the authority. EVERYTHING is thus an appeal to authority, including the appeal to logical fallacy fallacy, which is of course, just an appeal to the authority of logical fallacies.

On Scandal, a new perspective

A priest offers a few thoughts on scandal and how to deal with it philosophically (page 5 of that church bulletin).

Authoritarian Limits

Juliet Lapidos, in normal left wing format predicting the demise of a politician's career over denying global warming, asked these questions:

Does Mr. Rubio think scientists are lying? Or that they don’t know what they’re talking about? Either way, what leads him to believe that the “portrait” of climate change offered by scientists is inaccurate?

.

The answer to your questions are: Yes, Yes, and because they have been unable to accurately predict the climate change over the past 15 years- our observations do not match their models. In fact, there is a distinct possibility that while climate change scientists have been playing the blame game on causes, we've hit a tipping point beyond which killing off the human race isn't a solution anymore.

The window of opportunity on this closed sometime between 1995 and 2003. What we need to do now is stop arguing over the *cause* and start adapting to the *observed effect*. Not the effects the climate change models predict, but the effects we are *observing* in our own neighborhoods, farms, villages, and cities.

Observation beats modeling any day of the week. And journalists like Labidos whose only science is a mere appeal to authority? They don't know anything at all.

The Church is not a democracy, Cardinals are from Mars Edition

No matter what modern feminist nuns think the church is neither misogynistic nor a democracy.

CDF: “Sisters, do you believe and affirm that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of the Father, begotten and not made, the second Person of the Holy Trinity?”

LCWR: “Why are you asking us that question? What gives you the authority to ask it?”


CDF: “Again, Sisters, do you believe and affirm that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of the Father, incarnate by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary?”


LCWR: “You have no right to pick on us simply because we’re women. You arrogant misogynists! We believe that hierarchical structures must be dismantled!”


CDF: “Sisters, you seem to argue that you are ‘beyond Jesus.’ Do you in fact believe that man may be saved in the name of Jesus alone? That Christ alone reveals the Father to man, and man to himself?”


LCWR: “Why are you using sexist language? We are offended by your pronouns.”


CDF: “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of the Father?”


LCWR: “We have advanced degrees in theology. We have received awards from our friends – we mean, from prestigious theological societies. Why are you suggesting that we are incompetent? Is it because we’re women?”


Of course, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the United States isn't a democracy either, and the congitive dissonance of that may be what is driving these nuns.

In American Politics, overreaching is common

Joe Scarborough claims that The Left has overreached on climate change, to which I say, absolutely. And on gay marriage. And on abortion. Dissenting opinions are demonized.

But it's not just the Left. It's the Right as well, but largely on economics. No hint of actual social justice is allowed. Have compassion for your fellow neighbor? That's foolishness.

This is why I'm a Catholic first, and an American second.

A challenge to atheists

We're all familiar with the well deserved atheist critique of fundamentalist Christianity. Heck, Catholics even share in it.

But there's a much harder, and more important nut to crack. Fundamentalist Christianity can't withstand the light of the internet- in fact, many of the smaller churches actually forbid their members to go on the internet.

But fundamentalist Islam is the bigger threat, and its theology is even more logically incoherant. And it is on the rise- in a very violent way. So I suggest that perhaps a better use of time would be in disproving Allah, rather than Yahweh. Try the Koran on for size next time you want to criticize a scripture.

Busting the Biblical Money Code

Yep, it's a hoax or at the very least, the wisdom gained is pretty common sense, and the lies are huge. This is the Prosperity Gospel wrapped up in a get rich quick scheme.

But this busting article points out something I have been trying to get across for a long time: anonymity leads to immoral ethics. Publically traded companies will NEVER be pure Christian investing.

How a lie, became the only orthodox truth allowed

The destruction of Aristotle's Telos has led to an entire generation being lied to:

Why I am Pro-Life, and autism

The article yesterday in Crisis Magazine about them finally finding a prenatal test for autism, reminded me of this Letter from a Mother I once found at George Tiller's Abortion Clinic Website.

If there is any doubt left that prenatal testing is pro-abortion and that abortion is a genocide, I offer those two links as my proof.

Just one more link in the chain of why I am the unfit and why I oppose the bigotry against the unplanned.

Fantasy Island was pro-life

Pretty daring for 1978:

Distributist version of a minimum wage law

Another in the Papal Economics series, though my review of the book is completed.

There will always be bad corporate actors. Maybe not as bad as this McDonald's CEO but bad all the same. And there will always be entry level jobs, done by people who are at the very bottom of society.



The moral argument for a minimum wage is clear. But is a dollar value minimum wage, in a large country, where cost of living varies greatly is a single minimum wage just?

Also, when thinking about, how do we encourage a living wage instead of a minimum wage, perhaps a better question would be "what is a just wage?". I'd like to steal something from Plato in this. In The Republic, he suggests that a minimum wage should be a percentage of the maximum wage- 10%. But he was dealing with a simpler time, not a time of abundance, but a time of scarcity. So I'd like to suggest that this equation should be used *instead* of a minimum wage- and that it is both impersonal enough to be used by the most impersonal public corporation, yet personal enough that a business based on justice can change it:

The minimum wage should be ((LastYearCEOSalary+LastYearCEOBonus+LastYearCEOExpenseAccount)/2080)*.01). A more just business might adjust that .01 to some higher percentage based on what they feel their people are worth, but that should be the minimum.

The only thing I can't decide is, based on that bloomberg article I linked to first, whether McDonald's should be paying a minimum wage of $42/hr, or a CEO compensation package of $1.716 million. Most likely something in between.

Cross Reference Catechism of the Catholic Church 2426-2436

Apparently, nobody in South Yarmouth, Mass has heard of a magnet.

Ok, so you want an "environmentally clean" bonfire for a civic event. You have some shipping pallets you want to get rid of, and of course, since they're not painted or have preservatives, they're clean wood to burn, right? Well, somebody forgot about the nails. That's bad enough- let's pollute a beach people go walking barefoot on with a large circle of nails. But worse, I think they've been hiring ex-Oregon Department of Transportation employees for the cleanup. Not quite as bad as trying to remove a dead whale with dynamite, but almost. They tried to pick them up with a garden rake. Which of course, just spread the nails all over the beach.

Ever hear of an electromagnet? Wonderful invention for separating ferrous metal from sand......

Why feminism scares me

BTW, if you're wondering who Mrs Slee is (I kept hearing Sleen and thinking about the Slitheen- monsters who wear human skins on Dr. Who) then this Wikipedia article may be in order- especially note in the right hand section under husbands. Interesting that she also exemplified the modern form of a gold digger- used up the fortune of one husband, became estranged from him, divorced him, then found another sugar daddy to finance her dilettante with death.

One important link for special needs parents in Oregon

If you have an intellectually disabled child in Oregon and are Catholic, you want this link. The Office for People with Disabilities runs adaptive mass around the state and a retreat for the families every year.

Convention time, going off line

It's in my city, so I'll check in from time to time, but for the most part, I'm off line until Sunday night.

On invisible disability

This is for post.
There is a great deal of pain involved in being disabled. You get excluded from all sorts of social opportunities. But with an invisible disability (I grew up with undiagnosed Asperger's) there is additional pain involved because nobody ever tells you WHY. WHY you are picked last for every team sport, WHY you aren't invited to parties, WHY you can't date. NONE of that is ever explained, all you get are the jokers and the bullies.

It took me until I was 28 to live that down and get married, and it took until I was 30 before I had the diagnosis that turned my life around.

So I guess the moral of the story is, get your kids screened. The knowledge you give them about themselves is invaluable.

Slavery would be more Just than the Death Penalty

There was poetic justice in the botched execution of Charles Lockett of a sort. He shot a teenaged girl twice, she didn't die, so he buried her alive. The delay at his execution by injecting the drugs into muscle rather than the bloodstream fit his murder, even if unintentionally.

But his execution did not include penance, did not include recompense to the family of his victim. And I've got to say, having a doctor step in to interfere with the execution was a mercy he didn't give to poor Stephanie.

For this reason, I would still prefer slavery over the death penalty- the inmate should be made to work, hard, and all profit of his work should belong to the family of his victim, until he can work no more and dies of exhaustion.

The interesting thing is that in certain industries, that sentence might actually be *quicker* than the death penalty as currently practiced in the United States.