Speaking Truth to Power



This Reuters news story leaves me uncertain whether to call this tactless and rude, or what the Quakers used to call "speaking truth to power":

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Hip Hop singer Lauryn Hill, from a stage used by the Pope, has shocked Catholic officials at a concert by telling them to "repent" and alluding to sexual abuse of children by U.S. priests.



The broadside came during the recording on Saturday night of a Christmas concert attended by top Vatican cardinals, bishops and many elite of Italian society, witnesses said.



Hill made her comments when taking the microphone to sing at the concert, held in the same huge hall and stage Pope John Paul uses for his weekly general audiences and other events. The Pope was not present.



"I did not come here to celebrate the birth of Christ with you but to ask you why you are not in mourning for his death inside this place," she said according to a transcript of her statement run by the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.



...



"God has been a witness to the corruption of his leadership, of the exploitation and abuses ... by the clergy," she said.



This was an apparent reference to the scandal in the United States last year over the sexual abuse of children by priests.

Alas, not just in the United States. Yes, it was just a few Catholic priests engaged in these crimes against innocence--but too many of these crimes were covered over by archbishops. The Catholic Church needs to do some serious penance for ignoring these crimes.



The hierarchy also needs to ask why they were prepared to ignore and tolerate homosexual actions within the priesthood for so long, when the Church's public pronouncements clearly recognized that homosexual action is contrary to the Bible.

The Joys of a Good Refractor



I was just outside looking at Saturn with my Televue Ranger. It's in the low 20s, crystal clear, and not very turbulent. I hauled out the Ranger because Saturn is still too low in the east for me to get with my 8" reflector--the disadvantages of living in suburbia. This was also a chance to try out the 4mm University Optics orthoscopic eyepiece I just received in the mail. (I have been doing business with University Optics since 1971--I have nothing but nice things to say about them.)



I should explain. About ten years ago, I received a no-name 4mm orthoscopic eyepiece as a gift for helping a friend find a buyer for his Coulter 13.1" reflector. The no-name was a little dirty, and you could see the dirt when you looked at bright objects. I decided to take it apart, and clean it.



It turns out that there are many ways to reassemble an eyepiece. An orthoscopic, at least a true Abbe design orthoscopic eyepiece, consists of two chunks of glass: an eye lens, and a triplet field lens. Neither of these are symmetrical, so there are four possible ways to put the eyepiece back together.



When I was done, the lens wasn't really any cleaner--and it was no longer a 4mm focal length eyepiece--more like a 5.5mm. I bought a 4mm orthoscopic that someone had just bought--and discovered had too little eye relief for them to use while wearing glasses, so I was able to buy it for $10 off the new price.



I was about ready to sell the dirty no-name orthoscopic cheap to anyone with the patience to clean and reassemble it, when someone gave me directions on how to reassemble it correctly. I took the no-name apart, cleaned it, and reassembled it. Voila! It is not perfectly clean, but there's only one obvious dirt spot now, and it is again a 4mm orthoscopic. (I'll be quite happy to take $25 for it, shipped anywhere in the U.S. or Canada.)



Anyway, back to the story of chattering teeth and my dog whining about the cold in the backyard. As Saturn rose, and less and less atmosphere was in the way, more and more detail became apparent. The joy of a well-made refractor is that it gives such an astonishing image, even at relatively low magnification.



The 4mm orthoscopic (120x in the Ranger) was just beginning to give hints of the Cassini Division at the ansae when it became too cold to stay outside--and I could see differing cloud bands in the atmosphere of Saturn. This is a moderately demanding task in many reflectors of 6" aperture--and in a refractor of 2.7" aperture, all the more impressive.



Using a 9mm orthoscopic and a 3x Barlow took me up to 160x. The image was beginning to lose sharpness at this point, but not enough to make me give up on it. The contrast drops as you increase magnification, and so the Cassini Division was a little less obvious. The cloud bands in the atmosphere were a bit less crisp as well, but still noticeable.



The Ranger is a semi-apochromat--not completely color-free, but much better than a typical achromatic refractor, though a bit inferior to a true apochromatic (color-free) refractor. I am attempting to purchase a Vixen 102S from someone in Spokane at the moment--this should provide a dramatic leap up in resolving power and magnification. (Then I have to find a buyer for the Ranger.)



If you are at interested in refractors, you may find this review I wrote several years ago of the Televue Ranger of interest. Like nearly everything I write, I was unable to get it published anywhere.

Thanks For The Contributions



For those who are dropping the occasional small contributions into the tip jar (the button marked PayPal Donate on the left, a little below my picture)--thanks! It makes it a bit easier to talk myself into adding content here. The money is going to several good causes: I've made some contributions to the fund that is defending Missouri's new concealed weapon law, and I just used some of the money in the PayPal jar to buy a 4mm orthoscopic eyepiece over at astromart.com. (Astromart.com is a place where amateur astronomers buy and sell used stuff--I was able to pick up an almost new University Optics 4mm orthoscopic for $50--new they cost $59.95.)



I have an irrational hankering for a Televue 102 apochromatic refractor, so I guess I better put up a lot of valuable content here.



In case you have ever wondered about PayPal--it is a secure method of making or receiving small payments or contributions online--as little as one dollar. You can link your PayPal account to a checking account, a savings account, or a credit card. Balances in your account earn a pretty decent money market balance.



Amazon.com has a very similar scheme as well, and that used to bring in tens to hundreds of dollars a month for me, but I wasn't willing to have any financial ties to a company that sells books that promote child molestation.

I Sometimes Wonder If I Just Don't Enjoy Amateur Astronomy Enough



Especially when I see an ad like this one:

am selling my DarkStar 22" f/4.5 Dobsonian telescope. She sets up with absolutely no tools or ladders whatsoever in less than 15 minutes. (Although you will need a ladder for viewing at zenith, as she is 8 foot high at the eyepiece!) Unlike other big dobs, she nests together for just one easy trip from the truck to the field. She comes with high resolution digital setting circles and hardware (bring your own computer), 6' wheel barrel handles, 10" tires, black rip-stop shroud, and a Telrad finder. Pegasus primary and secondary. $6000 US dollars, if using paypal, add the customary 3%. Scope is located halfway between Detroit and Ann Arbor Michigan.



Before I get 100 emails asking, I have found a 30" dob, thus I must sell my baby to fund my further exploration of space.

Part of Why I'm Skeptical of the Claims Against John Lott's Work



It's because his opponents are clearly fierce anti-gun advocates, and not above a few tricks of their own. You read their work outside of the statistical area, and it's clear that the are either not very careful thinkers, or are playing fast and loose. As an example, consider this recent presentation by John J. Donohue III, one of Lott's strongest critics. The paper is ostensibly about the rise of non-discretionary concealed weapon permit laws (what Donohue calls "Right To Carry" or RTC). Donohue points to the recent example of actor Sean Penn, who has a California concealed weapon permit (apparently issued in violation of California law), and how two of his guns were stolen from his car. While Donohue acknowledges that Penn "succeeded in getting one of the relatively few gun permits in the non-RTC state of California," raising this issue as part of a discussion of RTC laws makes no sense at all.



Donohue also points to the now thoroughly discredited Violence Policy Center claim that in Texas, "41 permit holders were arrested for murder or attempted murder...." While admitting that some might have been falsely accused, Donohue never acknowledges that it is routine for Texas district attorneys to charge anyone engaged in a defensive shooting, and that many of these "arrests" never turn into criminal charges, because the grand jury refuses to indict. Donohue makes the claim,

During the first 5 and one-half years of the Texas RTC law, the Violence Policy Center was able to identify that 41 permit holders were arrested for murder or attempted murder (the number would be too low if the researchers didn’t capture every permit holder in their count or if some permit holders committed murder and didn’t get arrested, and would be too high if some were falsely accused). The Violence Policy Center, License to Kill IV (June 2002), http://www.vpc.org/studies/ltk4cont.htm. The current murder rate in the U.S. across all groups is roughly 5 per 100,000, so if one takes 150,000 as the average number of permits over the first five year period, one would expect roughly 7.5 murders per year from gun permit holders (if they killed at the same rate as the average American today), which totals 41 murders over the full period.

There are a number of misleading aspects to this statement. The VPC study claims 41 permit holders "arrested for murder or attempted murder" which Donohue then compares to "41 murders over the full period." Donohue's apples and oranges comparison is either a sign of carelessness, or dishonesty. Which does he want to cop to?



The VPC report also neglects to tell us how many of those murder and attempted murder charges involved guns. Doubtless, a majority, but what relevance would a murder committed with a knife, poison, or a blunt object have to the Texas concealed handgun license? Donohue has to know this. Where's the qualifying explanation?



Donohue acknowledges--parenthetically--that the VPC's number of murders and attempted murders "would be too high if some were falsely accused" but doesn't bother to look at the readily available evidence on this. Examining Texas statistics shows that as of May 17, 1999, there were 22 murder charges filed. Of these, 2 were convicted, and 4 were dismissed. The rest were still pending. Even making the unlikely assumption that every remaining charge would result in a conviction or guilty plea, this still means that VPC's "41" charges are going to be 33 or 34 convictions, and most likely, a good bit less than that. For the year 2001, there was one murder conviction of a licensee, and 157 convictions of non-licensees. This also suggests that the VPC's "41" charges overstates the actual number of murders and attempted murders committed by Texas licensees (unless, of course, 2001 was a very unusual year).



There are other problems with the VPC report that Donohue seems to have missed. The VPC report lists at least two murders that took place on the property of the killer (Jack Reynolds and Daniel Meehan)--where a concealed weapon permit makes no difference whatsoever.



The VPC also lists a kidnapping where no gun was involved, until the victim tried to get away from the kidnapper's home--at which point the kidnapper used a rifle. A license to carry made no difference in this case at all.



Some of the cases that the VPC points to seem to have left no tracks after the arrest. They list a Randy Phil Allen II who was arrested in 1999 for a 1988 murder (which would have been before the Texas RTC law took effect). But whatever happened? There is a Randy Phil Allen II who lives in Texas, but while he responded to my email, he refuses to answer my email inquiry if he is the same Randy Phil Allen II arrested in 1999.



1. It seems a bit hard to believe that this exact match of name is a coincidence.



2. If it is a coincidence, and he is not the guy who was arrested in 1999, why not respond with, "No, I am not the same guy."



3. If this is the same Randy Phil Allen II who was arrested in 1999, he clearly could not have been convicted, or he wouldn't be out of prison already.



If the claim is that John Lott has violated professional standards in how he has presented his information, Donohue is in no position to cast any stones. Using VPC's information, while not discussing its serious shortcomings, is clearly misleading. To quote Donohue:

It is also important for the political and scholarly audiences to be sensitive to signs of over-zealousness on the part of researchers as this may give clues that something more than the search for truth is motivating the research.

Vatican Set Policy on Secrecy Concerning Sexual Abuse by Priests?

This report from CBS News quotes from a 1962 document written in the Vatican, and claims that the document outlines a strategy for keeping sexual abuse by priests secret, under threat of excommunication from the Catholic Church.

The document, once "stored in the secret archives" of the Vatican, focuses on crimes initiated as part of the confessional relationship and what it calls the "worst crime": sexual assault committed by a priest" or "attempted by him with youths of either sex or with brute animals."

Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases "in the most secretive way...restrained by a perpetual silence...and everyone {including the alleged victim) ...is to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office...under the penalty of excommunication."

Larry Drivon, a lawyer who represents alleged victims, said, “This document is significant because it's a blueprint for deception.”

Drivon said the document proves what he has alleged on behalf of victims in priest-abuse lawsuits: that the church engaged in Mafia-style behavior -- racketeering.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am not impressed with the Catholic Church's behavior in this area; it is something of a toss-up as to which organization has done more damage to children: the North American Man-Boy Love Association, or the Catholic Church's cover-up of child molesting priests. No, I'm not being flippant when I write this. NAMBLA is pure evil, but their numbers are small; the Catholic Church's perpetually pederastic priests seem to be legion (I picked that word "legion" for a reason), and they have been abusing children for at least decades in North America.

Nonetheless, reading this news report, and what it quotes from the 1962 document, I don't see the smoking gun that the report suggests. I can imagine several other contexts for the quoted text that are far less damaging. The Catholic Church should release the entire document in question, immediately, for independent evaluation.

UPDATE: As I said above, it doesn't sound the 1962 document says quite was CBS says it says. Here is an alternative explanation that suggests CBS's problem was a bit more serious than just careless reading.

Need A #4-40 Thumbscrew



No, not the medieval torture instrument. There is a little set screw that holds eyepieces in place on my telescope. It's about 1/4-1/2 inch long, with a knurled head that makes it easy to tighten down on an eyepiece. A few months back, this little thumbscrew fell in the deep grass in my back yard, and has been MIA ever since. I am using a #4-40 screw as a replacement, but it's not quite as convenient. Unfortunately, local hardware stores don't carry anything quite this small with a knurled ending, or any other sort of easy to turn head on it. If you have one that fits this description sitting around your workshop--or can tell me where to buy one--I would very much appreciate it.