Weekly Update: 9-Mar-2019 to 15-Mar-2019

Here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for 9-Mar-2019 to 15-Mar-2019.

• [6-Mar-2019] First Nations elder says sacred medicine pouch was ‘desecrated’ when airport security forced her to open it

  I have very little tolerance for infringing fundamental freedoms in the name of the security theatre that goes on at airports, but in this case, I have zero sympathy for this woman. She was obviously a candidate for extra screening – not only did she set off the metal detector, her own telling of the story reveals she was acting strangely. She even admits that she wore the pouch by accident, and you wanna know the surest way to get some article you’re carrying flagged for intense scrutiny? Just tell the security officer that you’re not 100% responsible for it. “Oh, I don’t know how that got there,” is like screaming at the inspector: “There may be something wrong with this, because I’m not willing to take full responsibility for it being here.” I’m a big proponent of reasonable accommodation, but there’s a reason it’s not just called “accommodation”: you have to be reasonable about it. If your faith requires you to carry around shit that you don’t want people inspecting or touching, you have to take responsibility for making sure there isn’t a need for other people to inspect it or touch it – or if that can’t be avoided, you need to make alternate arrangements beforehand; you can’t just show up at the airport and expect them to figure out how to accommodate your bizarre requirements.

• [6-Mar-2019] Woman alleging sex abuse by priest wants search of Kamloops diocese offices

  I feel for Anderson, but I suspect that in this case, the church is telling the truth. It’s very likely they don’t have secret files about her abuse… it’s very likely they destroyed all the evidence years ago. But she might get lucky; there may be some lingering evidence. That being said, Exner’s position on the whole affair is fucking revolting. He says that since both Molon and Anderson are no longer part of the diocese, it’s not the diocese’s problem. Except the abuse happened while Molon had authority granted by the diocese – and happened due to that authority – and there’s the implication that Anderson was kicked out of the diocese for complaining by Exner.

• [6-Mar-2019] Canadian government will stop paying for homeopaths to go to Honduras

  Good news, sure, but Global Affairs originally defended the funding of the homeopathic quacks. We’ll probably never get any kind of explanation for that, or accountability. We’ll also probably never see any reimbursement of the $200,000 already given to the quacks, or get any explanation of how they got funding in the first place. So I’m not really satisfied.

• [10-Mar-2019] From sacred to secular: Canada set to lose 9,000 churches, warns national heritage group

  I think I may have torn something rolling my eyes at the melodramatic tone of this CBC piece. But even in the piece itself, there’s a lot of groan-worthy notes. Like, while trying to spin a sad tale of a little town losing its churches, Allen casually breezes over the fact that the town had a population of 197 … but seven churches. And let’s be clear that nothing is really being “lost”. The churches fall into three categories: historic buildings which will get preserved and reused whenever possible; crumbling rat-traps that need to be razed in any case; and buildings that are poorly designed and can serve no other useful purposes, and thus will be demolished and replaced by something better. The churches may be disappearing; the buildings are not. People will just find better uses for them, as the article itself illustrates.

• [12-Mar-2019] Appeal dismissed for former Tecumseh priest

  A rare story of a Catholic priest facing justice for crimes that don’t involve rape. This dude embezzled upwards of $170,000 from his parish, and used it to fund trips to Europe and Disneyland, and fancy dining. Here’s the thing: the dude’s salary was already $85,000. So much for the Catholic church being bankrupt.

• [13-Mar-2019] Appeal court reserves decision on funding for non-Catholic students in Sask. Catholic schools

  This week the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan heard the appeal in the Theodore case: the case where funding non-Catholic students attending Catholic schools was found to be unconstitutional. This case is a huge deal, that might end the public Catholic school system in Saskatchewan, as well as Alberta… and possibly even the rest of Canada. Now comes the waiting game until the judges release their decision. The decision could be massively important, but I suspect that this case is destined for the Supreme Court regardless.

• [14-Mar-2019] Around the World, More Say Immigrants Are a Strength Than a Burden

  Now this is something to be proud of. Firstly, it good news that most countries recognize the value immigrants bring… but day-am, check out where Canada is in the data.

• [15-Mar-2019] Accused New Zealand Shooter Had Canadian Mass Murderer’s Name On Weapon

  The big news story this week was the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand. At least 49 people were killed by an asshole hopped up on far-right, anti-immigrant, white genocide bullshit in a series of attacks, starting at a mosque. If this sounds familiar, that’s not a coincidence. The killer live-streamed the attack, and posted pictures of his arsenal, much of which was labelled with numerous references to other attacks against Muslims, immigrants, and non-whites. I want to caution Canadian Atheist readers following the story to be aware that the shooter was an 8chan edgelord shitposter, which – translated to English – means that a lot of what he said and did, in his pre-massacre messages, on the live-stream, and in his manifesto, is coded language. The code is designed to trick regular people – “normies” – into misreading the references, and drawing the wrong conclusions… while those in the know – other 8chan shitposters – laugh at their mistakes. (For example, it has been widely reported that just before the killing began in the live-stream, the shooter said “subscribe to PewDiePie”, a notoriously antisemitic YouTuber. That might seem to imply that there’s some connection between the killer’s actions, and the YouTuber. However, the line is a reference to an ongoing joke war about YouTube subscription numbers.) The truth about the killer’s motivations is there, but it’s camouflaged by all the memes and random shitposter bullshit that is consciously and deliberately calculated to obfuscate it, and to act as traps to ensnare people not hip to all the details, and create plausible deniability about the true motivations. The trap is that you misinterpret some obfuscated in-joke, then get piled on by assholes who will derail the conversation by making it all about the injustice of you criticizing the wrong thing… meanwhile the very valid point you were originally making gets forgotten. So be very careful when interpreting or commenting on the killer’s words and actions.

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