Journalists, priests and truth
Bruce Tomaso posted a news items on The Dallas Morning News religion blog a few days ago about a statement from the Vatican about journalists' responsibility to tell the truth. Tomaso said the first thing he thought was that "child-abusing priests have an obligation to tell the truth", too. Today Tomaso tells us that his "snark" barely drew a whiff of response on the religion blog but a lot of comments elsewhere.
I remember reading his original article and thinking, what a hypocrite. Weeks before I posted a comment to another story, that one about Catholic indulgences, and pointing out that the money raised from selling indulgences could be used to pay court judgments in child abuse lawsuits. Mr Tomaso censored my comment, explaining:
"If you're commenting on an entry about, say, indulgences, and you choose to rail about, say, child abuse by Catholic priests, well, who knows what my arbitrary hand will do? Very possibly, it will click 'Delete.'"I complained about Tomaso's arbitrary standards of moderation. Now that he's raised the subject of child abuse in a story about journalism, my early impression is reinforced. I've pretty much given up on commenting on Bruce Tomaso stories because of it. Perhaps others have, too, which might explain why stories that generate a lot of feedback in other forums draw barely a whiff of response on the The Dallas Morning News religion blog.
P.S. Of course, maybe the hopelessly broken CAPTCHA system they run on the The Dallas Morning News might explain the dropoff in comments, instead. ;-)
Wimberley ISD Refuses to Pay
Bill Murchison, of Dallas Blog, is cheering on the Wimberley ISD school board vice president who says they are not going to pay their school tax assessment. He claims the ISD's teachers are low paid, its schools are in need of repair, and they can't help running a deficit. Meanwhile, school districts receiving money are giving teachers raises and buying buses for the football team.
If true, he has a point. The so-called Robin Hood school funding system is designed to meet Texas' constitutional requirement for equalization of school funding across Texas. If Robin Hood causes Wimberley to have less funding per pupil than other districts, something is wrong. More likely, Wimberley is experiencing the same funding shortages that every district in the state is experiencing and blaming it on Robin Hood. Texas doesn't spend enough on education. Robin Hood was not designed to address that. It was only designed to spread the misery evenly.
Don't look to the likes of Bill Murchison for relief. He argues that equal funding creates social tensions. (Presumably, before, with unequal funding, everyone was happy.) He argues that funding doesn't correlate with results. (Contradictorially, he sympathizes with Wimberley's argument that they need to keep more of their money to provide better education. Go figure.) Murchison doesn't offer any alternative that meets the constitutional requirement for equal funding, either. Maybe it goes without saying that he's fine with rich kids going to better schools than poor kids.
Finally, A Year when the Primary System Worked
Tara Ross, of Dallas Blog, is whining about the presidential primary system, saying she's downright mad that seven states, Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, Wyoming, and Florida, have such a disproportionate influence on the presidential selection process. Granted, the primary calendar is archaic, but this is not the year to single out as an injustice. This is the first time in, what, forever, that the nominations haven't been essentially settled after the first two or three states. The Democratic nomination just might not be settled even after the first 29 states and, there's an slim possibility that the Republican nomination won't be, either. No, this year, the primaries are giving many more people a chance to play, more than ever before. Fix the system, sure, but your argument will be stronger if you raise it any year except 2008.
Tara Ross twice singles our Mike Huckabee as a candidate disadvantaged by the current system because he's been marginalized before 43 states have been allowed to vote. So, Ms Ross wants to have simultaneous primaries in all 50 states. Why she thinks that Mike Huckabee, who had no name recognition and no money, wouldn't have been buried in an avalanche under that scenario, is a total mystery. Huckabee's ability to travel around Iowa, meeting voters face-to-face, allowed him to win Iowa, which in turn gave him an enormous amount of free national publicity, allowing him to contest states like South Carolina. No, Ms Ross, if you want to doom candidates like Mike Huckabee, the best way to do it would be to adopt your 50 state simultaneous primary.
Tara Ross' real complaint is that the Republican candidate emerging from the current system is John McCain, whom she considers to be a "complete disaster." Ironically, if Ross's 50 state primary system had been used, John McCain, the early frontrunner and the candidate with the greatest name recognition, would have been the big winner anyway.
Tara Ross once wrote a blistering attack on suggestions to reform the Electoral College system to eliminate its anti-democratic features that tend to favor states with lots of cows over states with lots of people. She was all for tradition in that case, presumably because it favored conservative candidates of liberals. Now, tradition is not so important. If her candidate doesn't win, toss the system. Don't worry about consistency or principle. A little sophistry can explain things away in any case.
2 comments:
Ed,
You are correct about the DMN religion bog ...er.. blog. Tomaso and Jeffery Weiss don't seem to understand the level of hypocrisy they engage in.
I'm not a big fan of Dawkins but one thing he has recently gotten right is the immunity of religious opinion from normal social norms. Religious justifications are often an excuse to engage in behaviors or speech that would usually be considered hateful. However, when these actions or attitudes get a theological justification then criticism seems to vanish or are dismissed without thought.
That is exactly what Weiss and Tomaso do on their bog. They frequently censor or point out reasonable criticisms of religion as "over the line" or "Barely acceptable" or they censor them all together. However, many times when what would otherwise be considered hateful attacks are posted with a theological justification they get not a word of criticism from Tomaso and Weiss and sometimes they even defend them.
Bob
My comments were directed at Bruce Tomaso only. I haven't done a study or anything, but my perception is that he is more likely to censor criticisms of a specific religion than censor an adherent of a religion criticizing others. Except, of course, when he himself is the one leveling the criticism. That's where the hypocrisy sets in.
Thanks for commenting.
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