Sunday

I had planned on doing a medium workout but my throat felt "oh so slightly scratchy" and decided that, this close to the race, some caution was in order.

So I am blogging intstead.

I spent time on the Daily Kos and here are some of the discussions:
Joe Lieberman is probably the most hated politician over at the Daily Kos; probably more hated that either Bush or Cheney. I think that part of the reason is that he is seen as a turn-coat, and as a war supporter. But there are other Democrats who were war supporters; it is just that, maddingly enough, his votes are acutally quite good on domestic issues, and he usually scores 75 percent or so on standard "liberal" scales.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/11/234042/242#172

Provides an example.

Next, there was an interesting "rant" diary against PC'ism. I joined in on the "fun" and drew some ire from loud, obnoxious feminists.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/11/221243/916

The thing to remember here is that most feminists are actualy quite reasonable and merely desire basic fairness. But the loud obnoxious ones are the ones that get remembered; one should remember is that their obnoxiousness says more about them than the movement that they have chosen to align themselves with.

Now, more about the Vagina Monologues:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-02-12-catholic-performances_x.htm

I wrote some background for this here:

http://blueollie.blogspot.com/2005/11/vagina-monologues-guide-for-clueless.html

Back to the USA today article:

It's a discussion more Catholic universities are having as The Vagina Monologues becomes a kind of unsolvable riddle for the schools. Allow the performance and they are criticized for going against church teachings. Ban the play and they're accused of stifling academic freedom.

"When you put Catholic university in your title and your website looks like the Bells of St. Mary's, you set up an image that students expect," said Malcolm Kline, executive director of Accuracy in Academia, a non-profit watchdog group based in Washington. "What I get from parents and students is, 'I thought I was going to a Catholic school and they're showing the V Monologues."

The play, usually performed around Valentine's Day, is being put on by students from about 20 Roman Catholic schools this year, including DePaul and Georgetown universities and Boston College. But several schools — including Providence College — have banned it, saying it sends the wrong message.

"A Catholic university that sponsors a production of The Vagina Monologues would be running at odds with its Catholic mission by promoting and providing time, space and money ... to a production that is so deeply anti-thetical to the way Catholics think about sex," said the Rev. Brian Shanley, Providence College's president.

Walsh, now a civil rights lawyer in Chicago, said she understands the dilemma the universities face. "They do have a responsibility to follow the values of the morality of Catholicism," she said. "That is incredibly important."

At the same time, she said, Catholic schools are still "100% a university. And a university is meant to be a place of learning, a place of ideas, a place where you can say what you want and learn from what others say and what others think."

Shanley said the play has little redeeming value.

"There's really not much you can work with in the play from a Catholic point of view," he said. "All the sex in the play is immoral. It's same-sex, it's autoerotic and extramarital. So it's not like it's a work of art that has the voice of the Catholic woman and her experience in sexuality."

Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, a conservative group that wants the play removed from Catholic campuses, agreed.

"If we're going to discuss homosexual activity, why don't we have a display of it on stage and then we can discuss it," he said. "At what point does that stop?"

"The question here is, 'What are the limits?' At a Catholic institution, when it comes to moral issues, the limits are probably going to be more strict than at another institution that has no understanding of moral truths."

Regina Bannan, an assistant professor of women studies at Temple University who has researched Catholic women, said the play helps spark important dialogue about women's sexuality. "It takes a woman from an object position to a subject position, where the woman is actually expressing her own ideas about sexual experiences," she said.

"If the church hasn't learned anything the last three years about stifling discussion about sexuality, that's a shame," she added, referring to the clerical sex abuse crisis.

Jenkins, who became Notre Dame's president July 1, said he doesn't want the university viewed as endorsing a play that goes against its Catholic teachings