Author Archives: Andrea

Church ‘failure’ in abuse scandal

Deutsche Welle: Thousands of sex abuse cases in German Catholic Church – report. “More than half of the victims were younger than 13 and predominantly male. The study’s findings were based on documented cases that occurred over more than six decades.”

Deutsche Welle: Jahrzehntelanger sexueller Missbrauch in Bistümern. “1670 Priester haben 3677 minderjährige, meist Jungen, im Zeitraum von 1946 bis 2014 vergewaltigt oder missbraucht. Laut einer Studie vernichteten Bistümer viele Beweise. Die Dunkelziffer liegt wohl höher.”

“Mehr als die Hälfte der Opfer war demnach zum Tatzeitpunkt maximal 13 Jahre alt. In etwa jedem sechsten Fall kam es zu unterschiedlichen Formen der Vergewaltigung.
[…]
Für die Aufarbeitungsstudie wurden mehr als 38.000 Personal- und Handakten aus 27 deutschen Diözesen untersucht und ausgewertet. Diese Zahlen würden als konservative Annahme betrachtet, man müsse wohl von einer hohen Dunkelziffer ausgehen, heißt es in den Medienberichten.

Das der DBK vorliegende Datenmaterial war nämlich nur lückenhaft. So sind nach Informationen der Katholischen Kirche Akten über den sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern und Jugendlichen vernichtet worden, berichtet “Die Zeit”. In der Untersuchung heißt es demnach: “In einigen Fällen fanden sich eindeutige Hinweise auf Aktenmanipulation.””

Zeit online: Sexueller Missbrauch: Das Ausmaß des Verbrechens. “Über vier Jahre lang haben die deutschen Bischöfe sexuelle Gewalt in der Kirche systematisch erforschen lassen. Wir veröffentlichen erste Ergebnisse der Studie.” Von Evelyn Finger und Veronika Völlinger.

” Zum ersten Mal gesteht die katholische Kirche in Deutschland ein, was sie erst jahrelang vertuscht und dann weiter beschönigt hat. Zum ersten Mal ließ sie den Kindesmissbrauch in ihren eigenen Reihen flächendeckend untersuchen. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung liegen der ZEIT exklusiv vor. Sie zeigen: 1670 Kleriker wurden zwischen 1946 und 2014 als Missbrauchsbeschuldigte innerhalb ihrer Kirche aktenkundig. 3677 Kinder und Jugendliche wurden nach Lage der Akten mutmaßlich zu Opfern. 4,4 Prozent aller Kleriker sollen im genannten Zeitraum Minderjährige sexuell missbraucht haben. “Diese Zahl stellt eine untere Schätzgröße dar”, heißt es in einer offiziellen Zusammenfassung der Studie. “

“Den Bürgern wurde eine Reihe von Lügen aufgetischt.”

Die Zeit: “Die EU wird einfach die Uhr anhalten”. “Je eher Theresa May geht, desto besser, sagt der britische Politiker Nick Clegg. Er hat eine Idee, wie Großbritannien in der Europäischen Union bleiben könnte.”

“Laut einer aktuellen Umfrage sind mittlerweile 59 Prozent für einen Verbleib in der EU. Gerade unter den jungen Wählern spricht sich eine überwältigende Mehrheit für eine EU-Mitgliedschaft Großbritanniens aus. Und diesmal würden wahrscheinlich auch mehr von ihnen ihre Stimme abgeben.”

“How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad.”

Vox: Read the full transcript of Obama’s fiery anti-Trump speech. “This is not normal.”

“People ask me, what are you going to do for the election? No, the question is what are you going to do? You’re the antidote. Your participation and your spirit and your determination, not just in this election, but in every subsequent election and in the days between elections. Because in the end, the threat to our democracy doesn’t just come from Donald Trump or the current batch of Republicans in Congress or the Koch brothers and their lobbyists or too much compromise from Democrats or Russian hacking. The biggest threat to our democracy is indifference. The biggest threat to our democracy is cynicism.

Cynicism led too many people to turn away from politics and stay home on Election Day. To all the young people who are here today, there are now more eligible voters in your generation than in any other, which means your generation now has more power than anybody to change things. If you want it, you can make sure America gets out of its current funk. If you actually care about it, you have the power to make sure what we see is a brighter future. But to exercise that clout, to exercise that power, you have to show up. […] This whole project of self-government only works if everybody’s doing their part. Don’t tell me your vote doesn’t matter. “

Link via MetaFilter.

Science Podcast

Motherboard: Science Solved It podcast.

“I grew up on shows like The X-Files and Unsolved Mysteries. I checked out books on UFOs and Bigfoot from the library. I was fascinated by all of the wondrous, unexplainable things in the universe. And I still am. Only now, as an adult, a science journalist, and a skeptic, I’m much more interested in the explanations behind these mysterious phenomena.

That’s why I created Science Solved It, a new weekly podcast from Motherboard. Each episode, I explore one of the world’s greatest mysteries that was solved by science. I talk to the actual, real live scientists who cracked the case, while also indulging in some of the bizarre conspiracy theories that accompany these mysteries. Throughout the season, you’ll hear about unexplained, underwater noises, floating lights, moving rocks, and even a cartoon that gave people seizures.”

I found the podcast via this MetaFilter post: Science Solved It: theories and solutions to strange occurances, which has links and summaries to all the episodes in the first two seasons. I especially liked the episodes about the underwater flies at Mono Lake and the moving rocks in Death Valley, because I’ve been to those places years ago – plus, now I want to go see albino redwood trees (which probably won’t happen, as their location is being kept secret for good reasons).

I’ve got a cold at the moment and spent the past two days on the couch binge-listening to all 14 episodes in the first two seasons. Highly recommended!

“[I]t’s a universal dream state”

NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert: Penguin Cafe. (YouTube, 15:55min)

“The music of Penguin Cafe is like no other. Its origins date back to the early ’70s, within fever dreams Simon Jeffes had that were brought on by food poisoning. In those dreams he imagined a dispassionate world “where everyone lived in big concrete blocks and spent their lives looking into screens. In one room, there was a couple making love lovelessly. In another there was a musician sat at a vast array of equipment, but with headphones on, so there was no actual music in the room.” Eerily accurate. But he also imagined a place, the Penguin Cafe, where folks could gather, for pleasure, cheer and music. He wanted to hear what that music would sound like, and so created the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. I was always a huge fan of that original music; listeners of NPR may have heard it often in-between news stories during the many years I directed All Things Considered. While Simon Jeffes died in 1997, his son Arthur has been creating new music infused with his father’s original inspiration. He calls his group, simply, Penguin Cafe. You can hear Brazilian sounds in the rhythms, classical and minimalism in the strings, Asia in its harmonium, African sounds in the kalimbas. But honestly, it’s none of these; it’s a universal dream state.”

Penguincafe.com is their official website.

One of the pieces by The Penguin Cafe Orchestra you’ve probably heard is Perpetuum Mobile (YouTube, 4:29min, audio only)