Get Cynical

From The Washington Post:

CHICAGO — A prominent U.S. Catholic nuns group said Thursday that it was “stunned” that the Vatican reprimanded it for spending too much time on poverty and social-justice concerns and not enough on condemning abortion and gay marriage.

In a stinging report on Wednesday, the Vatican said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had been “silent on the right to life” and had failed to make the “Biblical view of family life and human sexuality” a central plank in its agenda.

A few famous nuns:?In light of the Vatican’s action on Wednesday, here is a list of nuns who have become known in the broader world. Two of the Americans listed have been canonized.

It also reprimanded American nuns for expressing positions on political issues that differed, at times, from views held by U.S. bishops. Public disagreement with the bishops — “who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals” — is unacceptable, the report said.

(via Poor Mojo)

From The Herald Online:

South Carolina taxpayers would not pay for abortions in the case of rape or incest, according to a budget proviso unanimously approved by a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday.

The proviso, sponsored by Sen. Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson, would only allow state taxpayers to pay for an abortion if the life of the mother is in danger. Lawmakers have tried, and failed, to pass this proviso for at least two years.

The proviso — which means a temporary, one-year law — would only apply to people covered by the state’s health insurance plan, which covers 417,000 people. But it has come to represent the broader abortion debate in general, sparking passionate debate in the House and Senate while slowing the budget process.

The dispute focuses on the definition of “victim.” Supporters, like Bryant, say the unborn child is a victim who has rights that must be protected.

“We’re focusing on the rights and the liberty of an unborn child, and I can’t understand why the life of a child that’s a victim ought to be terminated,” Bryant said.

I wish they would focus on the rights and liberties of the already born victims.

(via Buzzfeed)

From The Washington Post:

WICHITA, Kan. — The grandmother of a 4-year-old girl who became hysterical during a security screening at a Kansas airport said Wednesday that the child was forced to undergo a pat-down after hugging her, with security agents yelling and calling the crying girl an uncooperative suspect.

The incident has been garnering increasing media and online attention since the child’s mother, Michelle Brademeyer of Montana, detailed the ordeal in a public Facebook post last week. The Transportation Security Administration is defending its agents, despite new procedures aimed at reducing pat-downs of children.
The child’s grandmother, Lori Croft, told The Associated Press that Brademeyer and her daughter, Isabella, initially passed through security at the Wichita airport without incident. The girl then ran over to briefly hug Croft, who was awaiting a pat-down after tripping the alarm, and that’s when TSA agents insisted the girl undergo a physical pat-down.

Isabella had just learned about “stranger danger” at school, her grandmother said, adding that the girl was afraid and unsure about what was going on.

(via Boing Boing)

Today in Fuck TSA:

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – The Transportation Security Administration is once again the subject of national scrutiny, this time after aggressively screening a 7-year-old female passenger with cerebral palsy which caused her family to miss their flight.

The girl, identified as Dina Frank in a report by The Daily, was waiting with her family on Monday to board a flight departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York headed to Florida.

Since Dina walks with the aid of leg braces and crutches, she cannot pass through airport metal detectors, and must instead submit to a pat-down by TSA agents.

Dina, who is also reportedly developmentally disabled, is usually frightened by the procedure. Her family reportedly requests that agents on hand take the time to introduce themselves to her.

However, the agents on duty at the time began to handle her aggressively instead.

Air travel is difficult to the family due to Dina’s disabilities, but the nature of Monday’s inspection was especially traumatic for the child.

“They make our lives completely difficult,” her father, Dr. Joshua Frank, a Long Island pediatrician, told The Daily. “She’s not a threat to national security.”

Frank taped the encounter, which ended when a supervisor inspected her crutches and let them pass. But agents followed up and insisted upon doing a full inspection of Dina.

Ultimately, the family missed their flight.

From the HuffPost:

When Christopher Bryski, a Rutgers University undergraduate student, died from a traumatic brain injury in 2006, his family wasn’t thinking about his student loans. That is, not until KeyBank, a Cleveland-based institution with nearly $90 billion in assets, asked his parents to assume responsibility for his debt.

Last week Bryski’s older brother Ryan launched an online petition in an attempt to pressure KeyBank into forgiving the debt. By Wednesday afternoon, the site had attracted more than 78,000 signatures.

“When Christopher died, my family didn’t just lose a loved one — we inherited debt for an education that will never be used,” wrote Ryan Bryski on the petition titled “Key Bank: Stop forcing my family to pay my dead brother’s student loans.”

Christopher owed KeyBank roughly $50,000 upon his death, Ryan told The Huffington Post. “Since Christopher’s death in 2006, we’ve paid several hundred dollars a month,” said Ryan, declining to provide the specific amount owed. The family is now in negotiations with KeyBank.

The federal government cancelled its $5,000 loan to Christopher, according to the Wall Street Journal, in accordance with federal policy. But Christopher’s private lender, KeyBank, happens to be one of many private institutions without a clear policy about canceling the student loan debt of a deceased individual.

Lovely.