March Archive

Dysfunctional ‘family guy’

Sheila Liaugminas | 31 March 2010

Anyone familiar with the Fox channel’s satiric show ‘Family Guy’ already knows how irreverent its writers are about real family values and things like respect and common decency. There was none of either in a recent episode of that show when they tastelessly and offensively ridiculed Terri Schiavo and her end-of-life ordeal that gripped the nation before she passed away, five years ago.

Church attacks and the facts

Sheila Liaugminas | 30 March 2010

The media mantra over the weekend, and they increasingly hyperventilated as the tone ramped up, was ‘What did the Pope know and when did he know it?’ Headlines by Sunday on the 24/7 news cycles were something having to do with ‘Calls for the Pope to resign! Yes, Benedict is beleaguered, as is the Church, but one casualty out of the public eye is truth.

Media’s semantic gymnastics

Sheila Liaugminas | 27 March 2010

The tactic of changing style books in different print and electronic media is to change how news consumers think about what they’re hearing. I recall the first tactic was making ‘pro-life’ a pejorative. Then the style books changed and they were not to be called ‘pro-life’ anymore, but ‘anti’-something, as in ‘abortion-rights’, or ‘opponents of abortion rights’. You know, plant the negative connotation about a social movement and turn public opinion against them as a bunch of activists who want to take rights away.

We don’t know Stupak

Sheila Liaugminas | 27 March 2010

Days after the Senate version of the health care bill was ceremoniously and victoriously signed into law, media people are still writing about the man who made it happen. Besides President Obama…

Electronic records may have merit…

Sheila Liaugminas | 26 March 2010

…..but they are not secure. Get used to the idea though. Starting with the fact that your records haven’t been as private as you may have thought.

The Stupak-Obama deal

Sheila Liaugminas | 25 March 2010

At the end of the day, it seemed vote-a-rama was the big political story. But then this came out… "Both sides in the abortion debate came to a rare agreement on Wednesday: The executive order on abortion signed by President Obama, they said, was basically meaningless."

Bishops: Fix the bill

Sheila Liaugminas | 24 March 2010

Well-intended and necessary as health care reform is, just expanding government programs to make more Americans insured to access a government controlled industry is not enough to affirm human dignity and serve the common good. At least not as mandated in the newly passed legislation, say the U.S. bishops.

Artists giving Last Supper more food

Sheila Liaugminas | 24 March 2010

Chalk it up to an abundance that didn’t exist in the time of Christ. Or an abundance of free time for art experts these days, time for them to take their fill of research into the oddly inquisitive. As Holy Week approaches, it’s a good time to look into the Last Supper.

Healthcare only a skirmish in something larger

Sheila Liaugminas | 24 March 2010

Seems like the prolonged and fractious battle over healthcare reform in America has been the political and social war of our times. Turns out, it may have been only one raging national conflict that preceded what’s to come. And, says Michael Goodwin in the New York Post, we’d best get ready for the sequel, and what follows that...

Headed for socialised health care?

Sheila Liaugminas | 23 March 2010

Even avoiding the usual sources of polemics in the political debate over the Democrats’ health care legislation, one continually encounters dramatic predictions of its consequences. Like this U.S. News & World Report piece proclaiming the U.S. is headed toward socialised medicine.

The day after

Sheila Liaugminas | 22 March 2010

Sunday night, Congress ended a dramatically long and intense weekend of backroom wrangling and avoiding the thousands of citizens who descended on Washington to protest the health bill and the majority of Americans who opposed it. So the deal got done, and some news analysts began saying immediately afterward that life in America has just begun to change.

Surprise, surprise

Sheila Liaugminas | 22 March 2010

Bart Stupak caved, after all. His press conference was brief and sounded like it was hastily put together.

Wink and nod politics

Sheila Liaugminas | 22 March 2010

No matter how things turn out in the fast-moving dealmaking on Capitol Hill to get the Senate health bill passed by the House, this AP story is just some strange reporting.

It’s all about abortion

Sheila Liaugminas | 21 March 2010

Abortion is the new civil rights movement, and people who believe in the sanctity of all human life and understand the centrality of human dignity to the making of all social policy are walking the same walk Dr. Martin Luther King, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and armies of human rights activists did to protect the class of people who had been denied rights for so long in this country by virtue of race.

Beware health care pitfalls

Sheila Liaugminas | 20 March 2010

Congress should take care in how they navigate health reform legislation and beware of pitfalls. Like….’Demon Pass’.

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