bit of a redesign here. i'm still working on getting a couple of kinks (and links) worked out -- but old comments, usually the first casualty of a new template, survived the change.

i am trying to think about something comprehensive to say wrt terri schiavo, although i suspect that most of it's already been said. in the meantime, more hideous irony than you (where by "you" i mean "i") thought possible in a single rainy weekend. if george w. bush ever calls me a champion of human dignity and freedom, please begin investigating my human rights abuses immediately.

louisa and i talked last night about how odd it is trying to decide how to feel about the death of the pope. one can pity an old man in pain, and be as sorry as for any other given death. i might even go so far as to say that, in some respects, this was a holy man. clearly, this was an incredibly gifted and, in many respects, thoughtful individual. but it is hard, very hard indeed, not to scoff at the pure-as-driven-snow, man-of-the-people eulogizing going on at this moment.

i'm glad that his influence helped bring down communism, and glad that he helped the church finally begin to come clean about the holocaust. i am especially glad that he opposed the war in iraq. but what about sexual abuse scandals in the united states and elsewhere? what about the position of women in the church? what about the autonomy, safety and rights of women in the world more generally? what about the innumerable aids deaths that might have been averted if condoms didn't seem so goshdarn icky and impure? what about my queer catholic friends, whom john paul routinely blasted as immoral and perverse?