Editorials
Contents Volume CXIII, Number 7 Correspondence 194 Editorials 195 Patron & serpent: Clara HamphiU 197 Donkey serenade: Benedict DriscoU 199 Infectious incivilitis: Abigail McCarthy...
...But what are we to make of the timing of last month's series of deliberately provocative events staged by the U.S...
...Yes, Libya proclaims a highly fantastical notion of territorial waters, but Washington deals from both sides of the deck in its now-you-see-them, now-you-don't attitude toward the contras in Honduras...
...Carlin, Jr...
...They threw in their lot -- the blind one bearing the lame, the lame one shouting out directions -- and they both ended up dancing...
...They were highly political actions, taken to"teach Qaddafi a lesson," and to bolster the administration's support of a contra war against the Sandinistas., They must be judged in part by the merits of those larger aims...
...Contents Volume CXIII, Number 7 Correspondence 194 Editorials 195 Patron & serpent: Clara HamphiU 197 Donkey serenade: Benedict DriscoU 199 Infectious incivilitis: Abigail McCarthy 200 Thucydides, et al.: DavidR...
...Since the official posture of pure innocence can never quite measure up to the ambiguous details, the press is kept at a distance -- allowed to examine a selected handful of corpses as evidence of the hundreds claimed to be dead in Honduras, or fed a fast-food diet of unverifiable military reports...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must 9 be paid in U.S...
...The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee charged that President Reagan had probably violated the War Powers Resolution of 1973 in the Libyan case, but who is going to make a great fuss about that during a "crisis...
...That, indeed, is the first deleterious consequence of such manipulated crises...
...Did our March muscle-flexing send any effective message to Qaddafi or Managua or the contras...
...There is still popular support for the Mafia: when the city awarded the street maintenance contract to a Rome firm, five hundred unemployed workers picketed City Hall with signs saying "We want the Mafia" and "The Mafia provides work...
...Undoing the years of painstaking diplomacy that produced the ABM and SALT agreements would be nothing less than an ill-timed tragedy...
...Nonetheless, these were manipulated crises...
...We should be expecting the Soviets to lunge for the bargaining table tout de suite...
...on the part of a superpower -- whether the U.S...
...but this is either childishness, belied by history, or a form of sophisticated double-think in which one goes through the motions of registering official explanations without believing them...
...They are determined to root out what they call the Mafia mentality: the intricate system of exchanged favors and political patronage which makes it impossible to carry out the simplest bureaucratic task in Sicily without the help of the Mafia...
...in the face of the Soviet Union...
...AGENT PROVOCATEUR In comedy, timing is crucial...
...military buildup including the vision of a space-based defensive shield, had brought the Soviets back to Geneva...
...Nor was any concession made in January when the experts on both sides met in relative peace and quiet...
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...The coalition is fragile...
...Bruce Russett 209 Offensive in nature: Patrick Jordan 210 The longest mile: Robert H. Bell 212 Screen: Tom O'Brien 213 Verse: Penelope Leavitt, Zona Teti 220 Books The Nature and Logic of Capitalism/ The Zero-Sum Solution: Charles K. Wilber 214 The History of Southern Literature: Victor A. Kramer 216 Emigrants and Exiles: T. Patrick Hill 219 Staff Editor...
...The diagnosis is wrong, and the remedy is dangerous...
...Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Pubfic Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's arid July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...They were part of a pattern that George F. Kennan, some years ago, called the militarization of American politics...
...One ends up belittling international law on the grounds 11 April 1986:195that the devil can quote it for his purposes...
...We are not sure where Jesus gathered the inspiration for washing his disciples' feet...
...Such an approach rests on the conviction that it is, above all, a failure of will which has afflicted American foreign policy...
...and that is how we should think of him...
...9 March 22, despite the recommendation of sixty-three members of Congress, and over 160 national religious leaders, to forego nuclear testing and adhere to the Soviet's moratorium, the U.S...
...201 The fetus & fundamental rights: Joan C. Callahan 203 Star Wars: a moral mirage...
...Luckily, he was a tentmaker, not a podiatrist...
...Bishop Bevilacqua has suggested perhaps some other, more inclusive symbolic action could be substituted, one with no likely sexist ramifications, such as a washing of the hands...
...they are likely to end by producing an addiction...
...We do know that Jesus' first miracle was set in motion by a woman, and that although the Samaritan woman may not have been a Winifred, she did gather many to Jesus at the well...
...So far, the discussion has not inched beyond agenda-setting...
...Winifred's Well...
...One way or another, the end result is cynicism and distrust...
...It is fair to say that the sacramental effect of the first feet washing did not take hold until much later, perhaps after Pentecost when the apostles finally stood up...
...and the Soviet Union to agree upon a set of achievable goals: a new verifiable nuclear test ban treaty, a clear distinction between research and development of space-based weapons systems, and the elimination of intermediate range systems in Europe and in Asia...
...it has been an inability to match ends and means, and to live with complex and intractable problems...
...bank...
...In realizing that, perhaps both were freed...
...But what is the rightful proportion of taxcollectors to fishermen for the approved group...
...pilots to ferry Honduran troops into the combat zone...
...Yet, when the summit adjourned not one point of agreement on arms control had been reached...
...Commonweal: 196Feet and reason at other times stumble...
...ECCE VIR Yeats loved to retell the story of two pilgrims to the miraculous waters of St...
...Gorbachev...
...These small doses are meant to develop what the administration considers a healthy tolerance for the necessary use of force...
...In those terms, the crises of March were ominous...
...Planning for action against Libya has been underway since the beginning of the year -- following terrorist attacks in the Rome and Vienna airports...
...Progress on securing vital goals would vindicate the administration's feisty tactics...
...That is Bishop Bevilacqua at his best, feet shining on the mountain...
...But quite apart from their impact on Qaddafi or the Sandinistas, these actions must also be judged by their impact on America, on our political processes at home and our conduct of policy abroad...
...Paul, of course, was often wrong...
...v - ' - " I I THE GUNS OF MARCH I II I I II I I I I I II T HE LAST WEEK of March found the United States directly engaging in mili~" strikes against Libya and Nicaragua...
...Orlando, a Christian Democrat, is widely seen as Palermo's first honest and competent mayor since World War II...
...Undoubtedly a message was sent to the American public, and it was the wrong one: that there is a swift and painless military resolution to whatever irks us...
...Gorbachev until 1987 or a summit that fails to accomplish genuine arms reductions is perilous...
...Vir, of course, as distinct from the Latin homo, which signifies mankind, is the male person, one known for virtus, that is, his deeds of manly excellence...
...For many of the administration's supporters, the War Powers Resolution is in fact part of the problem, part of the web of restraints, institutional and psychological, on the use of military force that constitutes the "Vietnam syndrome...
...The president's resort to the armed forces, wrote a New York Times correspondent, were part of a "measured activism" meant "to inch the United States out of its deep, post- Vietnam aversion to using military power...
...Ruth E. Taylor Publisher...
...One was lame, the other blind...
...It seems that half or more of the feet around have a congenital chromosomal impairment, an impediment which excludes them from the Holy Thursday rite...
...foreign, $33...
...Gorbachev -- that five years of U.S...
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...Certainly we did not invent Colonel Qaddafi (who could...
...Lest the mandate be too broadly interpreted, misguiding the faithful, the bishop of Pittsburgh set the record straight...
...One can always proceed on the assumption that our government only speaks the truth...
...Nobody had done that before...
...Looking down the road from here, one wonders what future course events might take in Pittsburgh...
...government went ahead with Glenco, an underground nuclear explosion in Nevada, inviting the Soviets as observers...
...Invoking the Latin text of the sacramentary, not often enough referred to in these days of simultaneous translation, Bishop Bevilacqua directed that this year in Pittsburgh only real men, viri, need apply for the event...
...Two years ago the bishop of Pittsburgh told the religious of his diocese, most of them women, that "The interrelationship between the bishop and all the faithful stems from our baptism, which is the basis for interdependence of all the people of God...
...Orlando's support in city council meetings has dropped since he took office six months ago and he risks losing his majority in the city council...
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...Perhaps she.was a she, clear of sight but hobbled by pretext, custom, and convention...
...But then, the Passion narrative makes clear it was a man who washed his hands, and a strict interpretation of the sacramentary would likely disallow women from such a Pilate program...
...A huge naval force had been assembled in the Mediterranean by mid-March...
...Report from Palermo PATRON & SERPENT THE MAFIA GOES ON TRIAL Rome S OMETHING very strange happened in Palermo not long ago: the new mayor, Leoluca Orlando, sent the city's contract for street maintenance out to bid...
...Granted, this behavior taken as a whole is consistent with the administration's boast last November -- before the first summit meeting between President Reagan and Mr...
...Is that necessarily bad...
...dollars by International Money Order or by cheek on a U.S...
...But even if they do, the real test of the president's aggressive strategies is whether they provide enough leverage to enable the U.S...
...As Sophia Loren said about such matters, "Sex appeal is 50 percent what you've got, and 50 percent what people think you've got...
...the same type of calculated move inflamed Libya's Colonel Qaddafi...
...Surely, if provocation and threat of arms escalation are what lures the Soviets into dialogue, the staging of last month's five concerted actions coupled with the president's proposal to increase the defense budget is not merely a show of perfect timing...
...demanded a significant cutback of Soviet personnel employed at the United Nations, ostensibly to thwart possible espionage activities by the Soviets...
...Both crises were real but rigged...
...9 New interpretations of the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) are being considered by the president's advisers which would allow levels of testing missile defense devices previously understood as prohibited by treaty -- all with a view to overriding the treaty itself when necessary...
...We assume the sacramentary excludes all those authentically diagnosed with virilescence...
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...No doubt some will suggest he did so from the then recent scene of Mary Magdalene squandering the money of the poor...
...but he did say later there is neither male nor female in Christ...
...In Central America, the Sandinista incursion was evidently not unprecedented in size, nor did it seem to pose a special threat demanding Honduran response until Washington insisted on a $20 million shot of military aid and assigned U.S...
...9 March 10-17, maneuvers by the U.S...
...Furthermore, whatever the range of the apostolic age group involved, we can surmise all twenty and four feet were osteopathically sound, i.e., capable of running the good race...
...In both cases, Washington chose to orchestrate and escalate long-standing conflicts into sharp military confrontations...
...and his "line of death," nor did we make up the Sandinista incursion against contra camps in Honduras...
...However, a postponement of the meeting with Mr...
...Given the current thrust of discussion among the president's advisers -who lean toward fudging on existing weapons treaties -- the president's sixth year could become a giant step backward...
...He is part of an odd coalition of honest Christian Democrats, Communists, trade unionists, priests, teachers, policemen, judges, and journalists united against the Sicilian Mafia...
...After all, that is the true water that washes away the layers of encrusted dust which weigh on us all...
...or USSR -- it can mean racking up a series of easy victories that lead to one big, disastrous miscalculation...
...We know this to be a fact because by the time the evening was over, at least twenty-two had extricated themselves from a ticklish situation in the Kidron Valley, while the other two were left to a sadder fate, following a precipitous fall in the price of silver...
...1111111 9 . l . . . . . - - l l - r v . ~ , 8 . ~ , i v . ~ 9 m 9 mmmmmm...
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...We can only wonder whether Veronica's kindness led to the stunning rending of the veil in the Temple on Good Friday, that sign of the New Covenant...
...Neither could get there for the moving of the waters, being either lost or immobile...
...m . - l i l l l l...
...Last month they tripped up badly in Pittsburgh...
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...Alas, on future Holy Thursdays we may simply have to settle the matter by shaking the dust from our feet, but, as is prescribed, only after the collection...
...When the blind man finally had his eyes opened at Winifred's Well, perhaps he found the lame guide was not really a man...
...Worse is the belittling of American law...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
...But in 1986, at least in Pittsburgh, it is easy to understand why some males might have refused the honor, and for better reasons than Peter himself...
...The blow-ups in the Gulf of Sidra and along the Nicaraguan-Honduran border have their own separate histories, but they also have certain disturbing elements in common...
...What we have to fear in the 1980s is not the "Vietnam syndrome" but the "Grenada syndrome...
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...The abiding weakness of American foreign policy has been failure of intelligence not will, lack of brain not brawn...
...In foreign policy, too, timing is crucial...
...9 Voluntary compliance with the 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) stipulations may be eroding as the Defense Department pushes to drydock rather than to dismantle two Poseidon submarines which, according to SALT II, must be dismantled once the Trident submarine is deployed...
...It can happen, even in Pittsburgh...
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...for forty-seven years, the contract had been awarded routinely to a company controlled by the Mafia...
...Consider what followed on the heels of the last round of Geneva talks which adjourned March 4: 9 March 7, the U.S...
...Canada, $53...
...In mid-March, police used tear gas to break up a violent demonstration by thousands of unemployed workers in Palermo...
...The church has always taught that the twenty-four feet washed in the Upper Room that first pivotal feast were not only those of viri, but newly ordained and genuinely apostolic...
...By episcopal order, women were excluded from the washing of the feet on Maundy Thursday (the original mandatum having been the "new commandment I give you . . . . If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, how~ much more ought you to wash one another's feet...
...Navy were carried out in the Black Sea half way into the twelve nautical miles claimed as territory by the Soviets...
...Some of its members have been murdered...
...Not by the standards of military strategy alone: why let an adversary always choose the moment or ground for taking the initiative...
...11 April 1986:197...
...Finally, we know it was the foot of a woman who crushed the head of the virulent serpent...
...Can the president be serious about negotiating an arms control agreement with Mr...
...An unexpected slap in the face when a handshake is underway inevitably draws a chuckle...
...If truth limps away on crutches from such crises, so does legality...
...If there are not enough fishermen, do they need to be flown in from Maine...
...But these confrontations were not simply, or even primarily, matters of military strategy...
...An addiction to military intervention not only leads to a neglect of all the other dimensions of international relations...
...Of course, the facts about these confrontations are.murky -- and will probably remain murky...
...Maybe, and maybe not...
...Those restraints, as much as Libyans or Sandinistas, were the targets of last month's attacks...
Vol. 113 • April 1986 • No. 7
