Be.neath. con.tempt.

Cowardice. Buck-passing. Blame-shifting. Hiding. Bullshitting.

Refusing to take responsibility.

A report on the child abuse scandal in the US Catholic Church has provoked condemnation for concluding that the permissive society of the 1960s was to blame for the rise in sexual offences by priests.

The investigation commissioned by Catholic bishops said that the peak incidence of sexual abuse by priests in the 1960s and 70s reflected the increased level of other deviant behaviours in American society in the period, including “drug use and crime, as well as social changes, such as an increase in premarital sex and divorce.”

Right, because raping children is exactly the same kind of thing as sex without marriage. That’s high-class episcopal-level moral thinking, … Read the rest

What unites dashing open-shirted Bernard-Henri Levy and dreary “Expelled” “comedian” Ben Stein? Jason Linkins knows.

Levy and Stein find themselves offering up the same response — two of the World’s Most Interesting Men, defending another Interesting Man, on the grounds that the privilege all enjoy makes the crime inconceivable on its face.

Beautifully put, I think. They matter, so they think their friend, who also matters, must be officially Not Guilty, regardless of what he may actually have done. If he did anything, it was Her fault.

And so while it can be acknowledged that the possibility exists that DSK is the perpetrator of a crime (Levy: “I do not know what actually happened.” Stein: “…it’s possible indeed, maybe even

What’s wrong with this picture?

A guy commented on a Facebook thread about Carmen Callil’s boycott (as it were) of the Booker International prize over its decision to give it to Philip Roth:

So much to love about that story. Virago indeed. [plus some more that’s not relevant]

I said

“Virago indeed”?

Oy.

He said

@Ophelia — no offense intended. Just reading the article, and following up with a visit to Webster’s.

Sigh. Whether intended or not – it’s sexist. Never mind “offense”; it’s both less and more than that.

But I couldn’t say that, on someone else’s FB page, so I was more diplomatic.

[His name] – sure, but sex- (or race etc) specific epithets are just that.