On the latest Global Pulse episode, host Erin Coker reviews global coverage of sexual abuses in the Catholic Church. Watch the episode below and share your thoughts!

It seems some Catholic commentators who refuse to criticize the Catholic Church are using the myth that homosexuality and pedophilia are one in the same. While researching the subject for this week’s “Global Pulse,” I expected to find outraged Catholics lashing out against the church’s handling of allegations of sexual abuses by priests. While I did find many Catholics who were appalled by these crimes and how the church has often hidden them, I also found former Senator Rick Santorum and the advocacy group The Catholic League, who have taken a different route. Instead of seeing the crisis as an opportunity to root out elements of abuse in their church, they have used the scandal in an effort to cynically link pedophilia and homosexuality.

Back in 2002, in an article for the website catholic.org, Santorum admitted his dismay at the long string of sexual abuses, but saw it as a reflection of the liberal corruption of society. “It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning ‘private’ moral matters such as alternative lifestyles.” There should be no confusion as to what Santorum means when he says “alternative lifestyles." Somehow, the senator reasoned that homosexuality was the primary motivating force in pedophilia.  As an argument, it benefited his agenda in two ways. By equating homosexuality with pedophilia he was able to demonize all homosexuals, a group he clearly sees as abhorrent. More importantly, by using this argument he was able to portray the priests not as perpetrators of heinous crimes but as victims of a society gone wild. After all, he stated, “Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected.”

More recently, the Catholic League, a far-right advocacy group, took up the theme. The group recently took out an ad in the New York Times responding to an earlier Times article stating that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) helped cover up the abuse of over two hundred deaf boys by a priest in Wisconsin. The League ad countered the Times article by saying, “The Times continues to editorialize about the ‘pedophilia crisis,’ when all along it's been a homosexual crisis,” and justified its denial of pedophilia by stating, “most of the victims were post pubescent.”

So let me get this straight. Because some of the abuse victims were 13 or 15, instead of 7 or 9, it’s not pedophilia? Of course it is…but are pedophiles gay? According to one of the few studies that has attempted to understand the sexual orientation of pedophiles, the answer is, mostly no. “…child molesters cannot be meaningfully described as homosexuals, heterosexuals, or bisexuals…because they are not really capable of a relationship with an adult man or woman. Instead of gender, their sexual attractions are based primarily on age.”
 
In any case, the hetero-homo debate is meaningless in this context. Instead of focusing on the mental illness that is pedophilia, commentators like Rick Santorum of the Catholic League are confusing the issue by framing it in terms of homosexuality. With this kind of denial and blame shifting, the chances of constructive action are diminished. I guess we should expect they will continue to make excuses for church officials, lash out at legitimate media attention, and blame homosexuality (not pedophilia and church secrecy) as the root of the problem.

On the latest Global Pulse episode, host Erin Coker talks about the evolving world of Islamic fashion. Watch the episode below and share your thoughts!

When I was studying in France a few years ago, I taught at a high school in a largely Muslim suburb. One of the most profound rituals of daily life at Voillaume high school happened during the few minutes immediately before and after the school day. Many Muslim girls would arrive at the school gate wearing the traditional Islamic head covering called the hijab, (Arabic for “scarf”). Seconds before entering the gate, they would whip off their hijabs, and they would just as rapidly reapply them as they exited through the gate when the school day ended. The speed and grace with which these girls would take off and put on their hijabs, within feet of the school entrance, fascinated me.

But, why did they have to take them off? Because restrictions passed in 2004 disallow religious head coverings in public schools in France. The French government argues that the wearing of hijabs in public schools is an affront to the concept of “laïcité,” and threatens secular government. The vast majority of Muslim youth I encountered in France, many recent immigrants, cherished the personal liberties that France gave them. In fact, students I spoke with who objected to the policy didn’t frame the headscarf controversy in terms of the government suppressing Islam, but rather as a kind of hypocrisy - the French government limiting the same personal freedoms it claimed to defend.

Nonetheless, they understood the secular nature of the French government and would find the idea of replacing it with an Islamic version as preposterous. Compare this to Iran, where the hijab is compulsory. A new generation of Iranians wants increased freedom from a stifling dress code that has been in place since the Islamic revolution. Simply put, many young women in Iran are sick of religious modesty laws and other limitations on their personal freedoms. Some women are fighting the dress code by following it to the bare minimum. As opposed to wearing the chador – a traditional loose garment covering the entire body (and still worn by Iran’s most religious women), many young Iranian women have adopted modifications that comply with the law but allow a degree of fashion and mobility. These modifications include jackets that sufficiently cover the body but are form fitting and stylish. Some wear hijabs in bright, lively colors instead of traditionally modest monotones. An Iranian journalist who has worked for increased rights for women in Iran, responded to these newer fashions by saying, "It signals that we obey the law, but nothing more than that." 

The objectives of women who want to wear hijab in France, and those who would like to moderate it in Iran, are different. But the desire to have freedom to dress as one sees fit is essentially the same. When governments mandate how people can and can’t dress, they aren’t just trying to control what people wear, but how they feel. But does the Iranian government really think that easing restrictions on Islamic dress would instantaneously lead to a rise of Paris Hilton clones, promiscuous activity and the forsaking of Islam? Does the French administration really believe that allowing Muslim schoolgirls to wear the hijab will lead to a sort of “Franganistan,” where women lose all rights and Islam replaces secular governance?

The fact that many French girls reapply the hijab as soon as they leave the gates of school, and that many Iranian women see modesty laws not as a symbol of their relationship with God but as an imposed annoyance, shows the ultimate failure of the social engineering schemes in these two countries. While governments can dictate how people dress, they ultimately can’t change how people feel.

On the latest Global Pulse Episode, host Erin Coker examines media coverage of rising obesity rates around the world. Watch the episode below and share your thoughts!

I, like many (well, most) Americans have had issues with my weight. After going off to college in 2004, I noticed my weight beginning to climb until I started feeling unhealthy. I tried dieting and adding more exercise to my daily routine, but the extra weight stayed on. Then something miraculous happened: I left the country. During my year of study abroad, my waistline shrunk. Was I beating myself up about keeping to a certain number of calories a day? Did I take up an intensive exercise schedule? Not at all. So, what explains the weight loss?

In a word, culture. Although diet, exercise, and body chemistry are the critical factors in determining body weight, there is evidence that one's culture plays a huge role (pardon the pun) when it comes to obesity. While America is known worldwide for obesity problems, it isn't technically the most obese nation on earth. According to Forbes, that distinction goes to the tiny island nation of Nauru with a remarkable 94.5 percent of its population overweight. In fact 8 out of the top 10 overweight nations are located in the South Pacific. Part of the reason for this may be genetic, but part of the cause is the widespread poverty on these islands and the dependence on imported foods. Highly processed foods imported from the west are a cheap sources of calories; unfortunately they're also the unhealthiest. Cultural factors, including, "[the] notion that 'bigness' is a sign of wealth and power" also contribute to a culture of obesity which has left the South Pacific the fattest region in the world. Is America, like the South Pacific, a victim of having a culture of obesity? We certainly don't equate 'bigness' with wealth and power - quite the reverse, if our celebrities and icons are any indication.

Which brings me to France, the country in which my weight-loss miracle occurred. While the United States and the South Pacific are two of the world's fattest regions, France is championed for its low national obesity rate. How do the French, with a diet rich in carbs, fats, and oils, stay so thin? Researchers have called this the French paradox.

But the French paradox really isn't much of a paradox at all. When it comes to how French citizens stay thinner than Americans, both the quantity and quality of food consumed makes the difference. French consumers typically eat less processed food than their American counterparts, and when they do indulge in fats and sweets, they generally eat smaller portions. In my personal experience, I found processed junk foods to be more expensive in France than fresh fruits and vegetables - where in American supermarkets, the situation is often the opposite. America also has a 24 hour fast food culture with opportunities to eat just about anything at anytime, anywhere. In France, the majority of supermarkets are closed by 9PM - and you can't get a decent burrito anywhere.

So do I really attribute my weight loss to a geographical change? In many ways, I do. When I was surrounded by a culture whose values about food and eating promoted a healthier way of life, I found myself behaving like those around me. Think of it as positive peer pressure. This is not to say that all is perfect in the land of foie gras and baguettes. The French, like many cultures worldwide, are beginning to grapple with their own obesity problem as the fast-food culture spreads.

So how is my weight now that I'm back in the US? In 1.5 years, I've gained back most of what I lost in France. I can't blame America, though. In France I was able to change my lifestyle so I could eat fresher, smaller, and more slowly. I learned the right way to eat, but I just started to get lazy once I returned to a culture where it's a little harder to do so. Oh well, I gotta go... the pizza delivery guy is here.

In this week's episode of Global Pulse, host Erin Coker asks if the U.S. and Russia could be entering a new arms race. Watch the episode and share your thoughts below!

As a young child in the mid-1980s, thoughts of total nuclear annihilation at the hands of the Russians would occasionally prevent me from sleeping. On one family holiday to Maine, I actually wondered if we were far enough away from major cities to be safe from an atomic blast.

Looking back on the decade it is easy to see why a little kid would be so uneasy. The threat of nuclear war was ingrained in popular culture, lurking in everything from movies to songs. In 1982, Time Magazine devoted nearly 3,500 words to an article entitled, "thinking the unthinkable."

Today such fears seem nearly as dated as the all-out nuclear panic that resulted in this 1950s public service announcement that acknowledged the imminent threat of the bomb, while advocating questionable albeit, hilarious, blast survival techniques. Picnic blankets and newspapers, anyone?

However, with negotiations on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) stalling in recent months, the global media have taken notice. As Ariel Cohen points out in a New York Times editorial, the failure to agree on a new treaty by the December 5 deadline, has left the two countries in "uncharted waters."

Or has it?

Calling Cohen's argument "alarmist and misleading," William D. Hartung argues that despite the delay in sorting out the new START agreement, Russia and the U.S. are still “abiding by the basic principles of the agreement”  as they craft a new one. 

The director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, Hartung notes that even if both sides chose to ignore START's provisions, "it is absurd to suggest that either side could gain a strategic advantage in the few weeks (or in the absolute worst case, months) it will take to hammer out a new treaty."

Hartung is also quick to dismiss what he terms the "unsupportable notion that there is a resurgent Russian bear out there, and that it cannot be trusted and should not be cooperated with in any substantial way." Such thinking, according to Cohen, is obsolete—the detritus of the Cold War—and is no longer relative today.

So are the media overreacting, then? Is it only a matter of time before the U.S. and Russia iron out the details of the new START, or is Hartung being cavalier about the whole thing? In today's world, how crucial is U.S.-Russia arms control to global security?

In the latest episode of Global Pulse, host Erin Coker looks at global media coverage of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Watch the episode and share your thoughts below!

I remember a talk I had with Danuta Pawlowska, the Polish grandmother of a good friend of mine, in her Warsaw apartment several years ago. A member of the Warsaw resistance during the Nazi occupation, Danuta was closely monitored after the communists took over in the mid 1940s.

She recalled a long gossip-filled phone conversation with a close friend. Two hours into the conversation, a booming male voice suddenly burst through the receiver. "Would you just shut up already?" the man groaned. "How much more of this must I listen to?!"

I had laughed at the time. For a young American with roots in Warsaw, the idea of a government agent listening to a banal chat with a friend was amusing – something fit for a dime store spy thriller. In Warsaw's meticulously reconstructed Old Town, today's foreign tourists purchase T-shirts and shot glasses; bursts of bad American pop music filter out of the same fashion chain stores that line Paris' Rue de Rennes or Copenhagen's Strøget. The stylish, boisterous students crowding the bars and cafes have no memory of life in pre-1989 Warsaw. 

Yet, if you venture outside of the city center, the medieval architecture gives way to monotonous tenements, the color of diesel exhaust. Passing by some of these buildings at dusk is an unnerving, somewhat melancholy experience, and I'll admit that I glanced over my shoulder more than once. For Danuta and millions of others, that reality was life.

I was a child when the Berlin Wall came down.  I remember the now-iconic images of jubilant Berliners  rushing the wall with pickaxes, but I was too young to grasp the larger significance of the event and what it meant to Germany, Europe and the world.

I would like to say that I left Poland with a greater understanding of what day-to-day life must have been like for Europeans, such as Danuta, who had lived under the Soviet regime. Like Warsaw's younger generation, however, that second-hand knowledge can only resonate so much.  The generation gap in Poland has resulted in a new type of barrier, between those who remember and those who came of age in a different time.

In the flood of anniversary coverage this week, the most telling, perhaps, is a BBC special report.  Amidst the frenzy of anniversary festivities, Walls Around the World is a sobering reminder of the barriers, from North Korea to Botswana, that have yet to topple.

I think of Danuta and of the magnitude of what she witnessed. I wonder which other walls will come down over the course of my lifetime.