The pope and condoms

The news has been gnawing away at me for days. In one way, Pope Benedict XVI's statements on HIV/AIDS during his Africa trip were not a big surprise to me. Nevertheless, they hit me like a ton of bricks--an effect that surely was felt by countless people all over the world. (The UN reports that 75% of AIDS deaths in the world in 2007 were in sub-Saharan Africa. About 22 million of the inhabitants of this area are infected with HIV.)

A reminder, if any reader needs one: Pope Benedict said (while on his way to Camaroon) that HIV/AIDS is "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem".

One of the strongest public reactions to the pope came from the British medical journal The Lancet. Their editorial said the pope "publicly distorted scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine on this issue." It continued: "Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear." And it called for a retraction: "When any influential person, be it a religious or political figure, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record. Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/Aids worldwide."

I'm proud to belong to the same religious order, the Redemptorists, as Kevin Dowling. who since 1990 has been the bishop of Rustenburg, South Africa. For years he has been a leading Catholic voice in Africa calling for the Church to reverse its ban on the use of condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS.

America's remaining racists

This is indeed a wondrous time. Countless folks like myself never ever expected to see a black President of the United States in our lifetime

But we as a nation still have a long march ahead of us. .

Xenophobia and racism are constantly stoked in the national media and in some state legislatures. Millions listen to firebrands like Lou Dobbs, MIchelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. Smooth-talking spokespersons from anti-immigrant organizations are guests on national TV shows without letting on that their patriarch is the infamous racist John Tanton. Here in Arizona, we have the showboat, racial-profiling sheriff Joe Arpaio (now under federal investigation) and the ever-ranting State Sen. Russell Pearce with his xenophobic friends Glenn Spencer, Rusty Childress, and Chris Simcox. In Congress there is Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia who said, "I'm not comparing him (President Obama) to Adolf HItler. What I'm saying is there is the potential." (AP last Nov. 10)

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that there are at least 926 hate groups in the US. (That is more than a 50% increase in the last nine years.) And there are at least 630 hate websites. Our country is plagued by 173 nativist, anti-immigrant groups (17 of them here in Arizona.) The Ku Klux Klan, which began in 1865, presently has 186 groups and 52 web sites. There are 196 US Neo-Nazi groups with 89 web sites.

It is less than fifty years since legions of Americans listened to the call of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez and took to the streets. Now a black family calls the White House home. In some ways, that is amazing. Maybe brushing aside the remaining racists, xenophobes and nativists won't take such a long march after all.

(For ongoing detailed information, go to the Southern Poverty Law Center's web site: www.intelligencereport.org)

The march of the pigs

The pigs march on. (See my entry for Jan. 31) And any reader of this blog surely knows that the primary pigsty right now is called AIG.

Remember what Rep. Barney Frank said to the CEOs who claim they need bonuses to do their job? "Why do you need to be bribed to have your interests aligned with the company?" The response amounts to unmitigated gall: they say that they are the only ones who can handle the job. Astounding. The honchos actually responsible for all the unimaginable havoc, loss and destruction are telling the country that they are needed? It's beyond astounding.

The AIG rip-off has enraged the whole nation. Their executives have reached into the corporate cookie jar that has been filled with taxpayers' bailout money and they have run off with bonuses worth $165 million. The top porker got $6.4 million. 73 lesser porkers got over $1 million each. (And 11 of them don't even work at AIG any more.)

80% of AIG now belongs to the people of this country. The clamor grows each hour: There has to be a way to get this money back.

For sure there is a way to turn the tide. It's called genuine regulation.

Of hypocrites and clowns

If your window was open, you may have heard the howls coming all the way from Washington... Republican Senators having apoplectic fits over President Obama and the Omnibus spending bill that he signed (just short of the federal government otherwise shutting down.).

It was all about that venerable Congressional custom of earmarks -- project funds for the folks back home. Some of those funds do a lot of good and some are like the now-proverbial Bridge To Nowhere. Presently they make up between one and two percent of the total budget. And President Obama says he will work to eliminate the earmarks that have no public purpose.

But back to that fierce howling. 35 Senators (27 of them are Republicans) voted no on the bill. But, hmmmm... 28 of the 35 had inserted their own earmarks, worth some $240 million.

Hypocrites. Big time.

Oh yes, and in the next ring under the big tent, we find at least three clowns, er, governors, talking about turning down the stimulus funds that their states need so urgently. The faces under the clown makeup belong to Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.

Hypocrites and clowns. Oh great.

Vigils for migrants

Every Thursday evening for almost nine years, people have gathered at Tucson's El Tiradito shrine for an interfaith prayer vigil. There they reflect on the human cost of border and immigration policies that have resulted in the death of more than 5,000 men, women and children. (Just on the Arizona-Sonora portion of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border, there have been 1,654 known migrant deaths since the year 2000.)

On Feb. 19, the Tucson vigil was one of 167 taking place across the nation during the Congressional recess - to pray for the protection of migrant families (constantly being separated through deportations) and for President Obama and Congress to enact humane immigration reform. The Interfaith Immigration Coalition informs us that over 7,000 people took part in 133 cities in 31 states.

The photo above was taken at the Feb. 19 vigil here in Tucson.

Repulsive Sheriff Arpaio

Saturday's four-mile march through the streets of Phoenix in protest of Maricopa County's gruesome, racial-profiling sheriff Joe Arpaio brought people from as far away as Florida. Here is what a friend who participated wrote: "A member of the press told us there were at least four to five thousand. By the time we got to the front of Arpaio's office, we took up two lanes and went as far as the eye could see."

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon had already asked for a federal investigation of the arrogant, showboat sheriff for “discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches, and arrests” of Hispanics. Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and other members of Congress are now also asking for an investigation..

Arpaio has cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in civil lawsuits filed by employees, inmates and the families of dead inmates.

March participant Zack De La Rocha, former lead singer of the rock band Rage Against the Machine, said it well: "Arpaio has brought shame on the state of Arizona (and) he is bringing shame on the entire country."