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Things I more or less believe:
God is Love.
Confession is good.
Tripartate Divinity/Dual spirit of God.
Purgatory
Good works
The mission of man should be to help your neighbor
People are entitled to love each other
Men and women are equal
Things I want to believe:
Transubstantiation is real
God can choose to make someone infallible
There are/were Saints
Here's one of my favorite coincidences. When I first met my wife, she and I were on the same page of the DC telephone directory, which in 1988 was probably a lot bigger than it is today.
I once quasi-dated a girl who had the same last name as my first name (though spelled differently). Had naming conventions upon marriage been reversed, and had we actually got married, that would have been interesting. I would have been like noted New York chiropractor Dr. Bobby Bobby.
I'm the only person in the U.S. with my name. I've never encountered anyone with our spelling of my last name who wasn't a relative, and even then there's only 11 of us, and we have a fairly small online footprint. There was an article online that quoted a person with my last name in Prague a few years ago, but I am guessing that was a typo.
I am almost certain that La Dernière is the only person of her name in the US, and probably in the world.
True, but you might, just might, get a Pope who is open to Priests being allowed to marry and have consensual sex (since there is no biblical support for the Church's ban on priestly matrimony)
Plus the Church's ban on contraceptives might be open to revision because frankly it's just so irrational- most Priests don't "get" it either, and it gets questioned WITHIN the church constantly - so basically it's never going away as an issue (within the church).
Abortion/gay rights? Basically off thet table for now and the foreseeable future
"There are 1 or fewer people in the U.S. named Zoopitybop Szymborski."
"There are 1 or fewer people in the U.S. named Chili Dog."
"There are 1 or fewer people in the U.S. named Generalissimo Analprobe."
"There are 1 or fewer people in the U.S. named Francoeur Sucks."
"There are fewer than 1,577 people in the U.S. with the first name Fullonrapist."
"There are fewer than 1,577 people in the U.S. with the first name Helpmeobiwan."
"There are fewer than 1,577 people in the U.S. with the first name Pooperscooper.
"There are fewer than 117 people in the U.S. with the last name Analprobe."
"There are fewer than 117 people in the U.S. with the last name Aaaaaa."
"There are fewer than 117 people in the U.S. with the last name Howmanyofme."
"There are fewer than 117 people in the U.S. with the last name Asdfjklasdfjkl."
"There are 2 people in the U.S. named Daniel Szymborski."
Upper Midwest Dan Szymborski: You have no chance to survive make your time.
I'm sorry. Did you say fullonrapist?
Africans, dyslexics, children, that sort of thing.
Vatican Defends Pope’s Conduct in 1970s Crackdown
Sounds like the same language they used against Galilleo. Yes, it's the facts that are wrong. The Church is always right so we all must reject these facts.
Color me unimpressed with the new guy. Another closet fascist. Hide your children.
Small correction. The Church may at some point allow more married men to be ordained (they already do in the Eastern/Oriental Catholic Churches, and in the Latin Church for Protestant ministers who convert).
They will not allow a man who is already ordained to marry. Holy Orders is an impediment to marriage. Even permanent deacons (who are almost all marry) can not marry again if their wife pre-deceases them.
Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!
I still have the torn-out page from the phone book where I was first listed as an adult with his own phone number. It felt like such a big deal at the time, my name in there with a whole sea of people. Plus I was the only one with my last name, so that was even better. Now 6-year-olds have their own cell phones, and none of them will grow up knowing what a phone book is.
And I think a big ol' no-prize should go to the first BTFer to name his son (or daughter) Generalissimo Analprobe Fullonrapist.
Pretty cool. My name is way too common(most common first name, 26th most common last name) there are 9,924 of me. Actually seems low to me. But the saddest part is that none of them has been famous. :( Ok, there was one guy, who shares my first, middle and last name and is famous for being the Tylenol killer.
I'm not in the religion but since they have a broad influence on the world, I would hope whoever was pope would reinforce the notion that being gay is not a sin to being a target of violence, that god accepts all his children etc. I don't expect the Catholic church to allow gay marriage, but I fully expect religions to teach them to be accepting of a persons orientation, (even while saying it's a choice)
As to the other points, I agree, I would love to see the church be more progressive on their actions with their leaders, as pointed out they have in the past led in other actions, why should they be stuck being behind the times, instead of being ahead of the times when it comes to social issues.
From this article in Slate, which has some nice links.
One of the considerations which isn't spoken of or written about wrt priests marrying, and presumably having families, is the cost of all that. Of course, other sects and religions support their ministers, but other religion don't have the trappings that the Catholic Church has. But there is a component to this that kind of tracks what Harry Truman said about the Democratic party becoming more like the Republican party: voters are likely to choose the genuine article rather than the imitation. The Catholic Church is distinctive among religions in some ways--becoming more like them may not be a winning strategy on the whole as compared to the present state of affairs, even giving full value to the downside of that.
I have a copy of the Manhattan Yellow Pages from the year (1950) before my parents moved from New York to DC. It's exactly 1900 pages thick, and for some reason it was known as "The Red Book", probably due to its red cover. No cellphone stores, but six pages of cellophane dealers.
Its a practical matter, they need to recruit more men (and women) into the priesthood, and that's not going to happen until you remove a major barrier such as not allowing marriage. Besides, the church already allows priests who are already married to attend to the flock, if they came from another Christian sect, or they took the rites after they were married. So its not the concept of marriage they take issue with.
former Eagles RB Anthony Toney.
In college I was trying to hook up a distance runner named Stella Klassen with a linebacker named Randy Stella. That would've been one of the best names.
The right has long had an empathy problem. It's evident in much of the rhetoric, which is routinely some form of "I want".
She'd be Stanley Kowalsky's dream girl!
Yeah, well. (1) Let it f@cking suffer, and (2) the notion that it's a good thing to dazzle the ignorant masses with this shaman, witch doctor BS, is disgusting, so (3) let it f@cking suffer.
Is she related to long-distance speed-skater and 6-time Olympic medalist Cindy Klassen?
I heard a funny joke on the radio. When the billowing black smoke changed to white smoke, one observer asked another "What does the white smoke mean?". And the second observer squinted and answered "Bring more boys.".
Noted theologian Jack Chick has repeatedly commented on the flamboyant pagan roots of Catholicism. Some commentary is better drawn than others.
I think this is a real problem though. The "expression of sexuality" has spilled over far too often into a form of clerical rape, particulary of teenage boys. I don't think this sort of thing is something to be proud of. And that's without yet getting into the pederasty angle, which is nothing short of wicked and perverse.
This was right before the sniper starting shooting the rack of oil cans.
The Dignity movement I linked to couldn't be further from condoning pedophilic priests. Dignity is an organization of adult, sexually active, often happily paired gay Catholics who want to participate in the Church. Abusive priests (and other abusive Church officials) are 100% opposite: predatory, power-obsessed, in deep denial, closeted inside the closets of closets, convinced that they're Teflon-coated: like Penn State only on a universal-church level. Dignity is just a bunch of normal everyday people who have religious beliefs.
All of these things are inexplicable, particularly the hideously user-unfriendly song lyrics websites.
But I simply don't look up phone numbers anymore. Most of the time I'm emailing or texting anyway, and if I'm texting it's because the person already gave me their number. Cell numbers aren't listed in phone books, anyway, and people are using landlines less and less. And when people send emails for business they've got their phone numbers right below with the contact information.
And it's a confounding, mystifying nuisance when they don't. There's a special place for commercial folks without an email signature/contact info block.
He's not universally popular, though. I just hope there's never a personal scandal relating to him.
Come to think of it, perhaps he should think the same.
:)
I don't think it's inexplicable at all --
Phone books were a "service" that the phone companies effectively had no choice but to provide in a paper world -- they certainly tried and wanted to monetize them into a commodity, but in a paper world, no one would have accepted needing to flip through hundreds of pages of ads to get to a phone number. The internet makes that commoditization of the information much easier -- they're not "bad" in the internet world, they're simply presented in a way that presents optimal opportunities to get you to click on or purchase something else.
The song lyric websites are the same way -- with digitization of music, the sites are awful because they can make bank by getting you to buy everything from ring tones to the song itself.
If she had a gun, she could have shot the bad guy and had a good old fashioned gun fight with her kids watching and in harm's way.
Actually that describes paper Yellow Pages pretty well. The Yellow Pages were an ingenious and durable concept: a directory comprised of nothing but ads, but arranged in such a highly useful way that people came to depend on them for lots of basic consumer information.
You're certainly right about the economics of "internet yellow pages" and why they're a conspicuous failure. Old-fashioned Yellow Pages were a creature of the old-fashioned phone monopoly, making it vital for a business to buy Yellow Pages space. In the dying years of print phone directories there were tons of competing yellow pages, creating a major paper-recycling problem but also collapsing of its own competition: as people used them less, more and more companies produced them, and fewer businesses thought it worthwhile to take out ads in every one. Still less when every mope with a server can start a Yellow Pages service, and every business can easily set up its own webpage. I imagine the model will continue to evolve. Google emulates yellow pages in interesting ways; say, if you want to stay in a motel near Sioux Falls, and with a couple of clicks you get a map with the equivalent of the old Sioux Falls yellow pages for Motels. (Plus reviews: I got bedbugs! The sheets were stained! Nice if you like a fleabag full of hookers and meth addicts!)
The Internet really does white pages badly: there's no profit in them, and as noted upthread, most people now use cellphones, and don't want to be listed. (Which is part of another fascinating transformation: from phone calls costing only the caller, but scaled to how far one was calling, to them costing both parties, but at flat rates on a national scale. That's changed people's behavior, or rather has allowed behaviors that people really did always demand to flourish.)
If funky means reactionary, American Catholicism is totally mainstream, far less conservative than the SBC not to mention the smaller Church of Christ and some (not all) of the non-sectarian evangelical churches. The church is no more conservative than those churches on social issues and is far less conservative on economic issues. And Catholics, as opposed to the church, are far more moderate than members of those churches.
If funky means a seemingly anachronistic vision of women's roles, again, the church fits within others. Many evangelical denominations (not all) forbid female pastors (though not always evangelists) and obvious Orthodox Judaism takes the segregation of women to a different level.
If you mean rituals and garb and the like, the comparisons change a lot, as the Southern Baptists and most evangelicals are strongly anti-ritual, but the Catholics are much more like churches that in other ways are far, far more liberal not just than the Catholic Church but than America like Episcopalians and ELCA Lutherans.
Celibacy of priests is almost a sui generis category among large-scale religions in the US.
Catholicism is not unusual in its components--other than celibacy you can find like practices in many other churches as you say-- but the aggregate is unusual in the US as it shares many (not all) political positions with evangelicals but rituals and theology with very liberal mainstream churches.
Andy, it sounds sensational, but the problem is that restraining orders are relatively easy to obtain - as they should be. But the right to bear arms is a constitutional right. And constitutional rights should be difficult to take away.
I am ok with trying to find a reasonable solution, but if you can't recognize this structural issue, your opinion on the matter isn't objective enough to be taken seriously.
And the article makes the classic mistake of assuming that a guy who has no trouble shoving a gun in a woman's face will somehow find it morally wrong to obtain a gun illegally. Or that he will find it difficult to obtain a gun illegally -- he's a guy who has a stockpile of weapons, right? Will he have no clue how to obtain a gun illegally? No desire? Among other errors.
In typical liberal media bias fashion, the article is written to assume the validity of all the anti-gun and womens' groups arguments, while presenting the opposite arguments as inherently unreasonable. It also presents single data points as representative, which it re-tells as vignettes. But where are the vignettes where the judge didn't take away the guy's weapons while granting a restraining order - and the guy didn't return to attack the woman with the gun? Where are the vignettes where he returned without a gun and tried to strangle her, or hit her, or use a knife, or ram her with his car a la Larry Bird's son, etc.?
This is an issue that needs attention and the NRA's arguments shouldn't be blindly followed -- but neither should the opposing arguments, and that's why the article is a mess.
Point of technical fact: in Catholic teaching, it's not a sin to be gay. It's a sin to have gay sex.
This, though, is less persuasive. Should we only pass laws if they are guaranteed to be 100% obeyed? Laws don't make behaviors impossible; they make them more difficult. It seems pretty clear to me that in much of the country it is far easier (and cheaper) to buy guns at WalMart or the sporting goods store or pawnshop than to buy an illegal gun. If your first criteria is satisfied (that the right not be taken away haphazardly) then making buying a gun significantly more inconvenient and expensive is valid even if it doesn't make buying a gun impossible.
If you read the article as you say you did, you'll see that the problem is that those restraining orders often don't take the guns away from violent aggressors. Your argument rests on the logic that "if guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns", which is a classic half truth, and somehow doesn't seem to apply to other laws.**
But go ahead and try to pretend that this is all "liberal media bias", and have a seance with the late Diane Dye to tell her that her late husband's 2nd amendment rights were rightfully more important than her life.
**"If murder is outlawed, only outlaws will murder" doesn't fly too well, does it?
The problem is not the guns. The problem is the people.
Shoving a gun in the woman's face is a crime of opportunity and passion. Take away the opportunity by making it difficult to acquire the gun, you reduce the likelihood dramatically.
The problem is people with guns.
You know what a temporary injunction is in law? Nothing, in the long run. That's the court taking the person asking for it at her word. For it to continue she would have to go to court and get a permanent one--and that means proving a case. Yeah, yeah, I know, in those cases cited at the beginning of the article, we know what happened, but someone asking for a permanent injunction would have to prove her case before something like that happens. You don't just take someone's word for it (except temporarily) based on nothing more than allegations. You can see why that would be so, I would hope.
Asking for a temporary protective order in domestic cases is de rigueur. Yet, how many people follow up and try to get a permanent order? Much less expanding into something like forbidding a person to possess firearms? How many ask for a temporary order and nothing untoward happens to them? All these variables make these things dicey—and unsatisfactory to all parties. You need more than a selection of anecdotes.
(And it is the same thing, more or less, when someone has been charged with a crime but not convicted.)
Too, how do you take away someone's guns with the confidence that all of them have been taken? How do you keep that person—well, everyone can’t be issued their personal policeman. Life is hard and it is messy.
Trotting out a victim in order to use her to score points in a political argument is the worst form of bad argument. Don't try to imply that I bear some responsibility for her murder. She was murdered by her husband who she was seeking divorce from, not by me, and not by the NRA, and no matter what you may say otherwise you haven't the foggiest clue whether taking away his guns would have changed the ultimate outcome. Why would it have? He was hell bent on killing her.
But you wouldn't take away the opportunity at all, nor the passion. There is no "the" opportunity. There are endless opportunities. One of them is "using his gun." What are you going to do about the other 12 bazillionthousand of them?
You continue to insist that gun violence is identical in nature to knife violence or physical beatings. This is simply false. There is a world of difference, psychologically, between pulling a trigger in a detached moment of rage, standing feet away from the victim, versus close quarter hand to hand assault. Which is not to say removing the gun from the equation would have made any specific person not commit violence. Clearly, there are people in the world who will cross that threshold regardless of the type of violence. But in the aggregate, removing the gun will reduce the statistical quantity of violence, because there are significant numbers of people in the world who will pull a trigger but would not beat or stab someone.
Now, I haven't asked Joe Ferguson for an alibi for mid-June 1994. But I don't really think I need to.
- - - - -
To those upthread who were pondering what alternate denomination to pursue, I will say this. Each year I attend a conference of religious folk active in the administration of their particular church. Mostly it's UCC, Lutheran, a few Episcopalians, an occasional Unitarian, and one family (mine) of Catholics. I was surprised to find out two years ago that the vast majority of attendees - among the most active participants in their churches - are lapsed Catholics. You'll fit in fine, wherever you go; you just need to find something that feels right.
(My own search, around a couple decades ago, eventually brought me right back where I began, with Catholicism.)
-------------------------------------------
But you wouldn't take away the opportunity at all, nor the passion. There is no "the" opportunity. There are endless opportunities. One of them is "using his gun." What are you going to do about the other 12 bazillionthousand of them?
Both of these arguments are variants of the "if we can't prevent a crime with 100% certainty, let's not even try to make it less likely". And yes, Ray, it's easier to kill someone with a gun than with a knife or a sledgehammer.
Of course if you think that people who've had to have ####### restraining orders placed against them should still be allowed to possess guns, there's really not much to say in response.
That is odious.
There isn't one. Does that shock you? Some things can't be solved by legislation. Liberals have never understood that.
How do you stop people from drowning? You don't. A percentage of people will drown no matter what you do. Yes, there are efforts that make sense. Put a lifeguard in public pools. Etc. Put gun legislation in place to try to reduce violence. Sure. But at some point, you hit up against reality, the point at which tweaking gun legislation doesn't amount to a hill of beans difference in further reducing gun violence, and when weighed against the fact that bearing arms is a constitutional right and it should be difficult to strip constitutional rights, it makes sense to just stop the silliness, already.
Isn't this what you guys argue with abortion rights, that it should be difficult to take them away, and things like waiting periods and parental notification infringe on them?
Restraining orders are basically granted because the judge takes what the woman says at face value. I think that's fine. But do you want to change that? Because once you start hooking other things to them, judges will be less likely to grant them.
This is functionally true. The problem is that we are nowhere near the point where gun control regulation has bumped up against reality. You seem to think regulation is currently stronger than it is.
Drowning is an interesting example since it involves hard-to-control human behaviors, but the record is extremely clear that 1) you can't take it to zero, but 2) you can cut it dramatically by simple steps. There are plenty of examples from beaches on coasts and islands where inexpensive steps drop drowning dramatically. Detailed signs, floatation devices, publicity all work and cost very little. You can't prove how many people have been saved but you can see stretches that lost 5-10 people a year now fluctuate between 2 and 5.
So water safety illustrates the upside of public safety efforts against guns. Given that gun safety has worked in other nations, there's no reason to think 1) it wouldn't work here and 2) some people would still die by guns no matter what.
Going from 0 lifeguards on a stretch of beach to 1 or 2 or 3, or whatever, is reasonable and has real effects. But going to 100 lifeguards on the same stretch of beach would have virtually no further effect on lives saved. That is the point I am trying to make (well, one of them) with respect to gun legislation.
True... though, I'd say it's just another instance of the RIAA continuing to hold its breath until it turns blue, not recognizing that the world has changed.
I mean, ultimately -- what's anyone going to be doing with "just lyrics" -- besides looking up a song they either own or intend to own? The lyrics themselves (without the tab/music) are fairly pointless. Don't get me wrong - I understand that the lyrics truly "are", in the legal sense, just like any other content that people create and want to get paid for... I'm just saying if the RIAA was smart (and big picture, there might not be a dumber group on the planet) - they'd recognize that the publication of song lyrics really ought to be seen as a sort of loss leader.
Let anyone who wants to publish them - but require the inclusion of a link to a legitimate source for sales (be it itunes, amazon, or whatever). Hell, the RIAA itself could probably produce such a site at relatively minimal cost -- make it free, and people would flock to it.
Instead, though, they want to keep pretending that resurrection of their old brick-and-mortar model is only another lawsuit away from happening.... good luck with that.
I am for much more gun control than we have now, but I'm not naive enough to think that it is a panacea, or that it should be applied unthinkingly. I also realize that guns also solve problems. That's the way it goes. Sorry. Life is tough and people are #######--and bastards. Your predicament is not sui generis--and neither is mine. So, let's not pretend everything has bow before your interests and sensibilities.
I'm always up for a snicker.
We can't even get the federal public health officials to start that process with guns, much less move on to trying things that have worked other places.
Anecdotally, a major cause of drowning appears to be going in to save someone else who is drowning. Which is understandable, although going in to save a dog from drowning is not; I read a story a few weeks ago in which almost an entire family was wiped out because one of them went in to save the dog, and another went in after the initial person, and another went in after the second person... all of them died leaving a sister or something living - and the dog survived, because of course most dogs can swim anyway. The pet cult(ure) in this country is very bizarre.
#1 is right, and a reason why some public health people put an increasingly emphasis on these tubes you can post at beaches with big signs saying if you see someone in trouble GRAB THIS TUBE FIRST. There are all kinds of saves on them, and at the least they reduce the tragedy you're talking about where swimmer #2 drowns trying to save swimmer #1.
There was another drowning story last week where a poor teenager was trying to save her six-year-old brother. She drowned, the man who went in after HER is missing, but the six-year-old managed to survive unharmed.
People actually manage to have as strong emotions for living animals in their care as they do for children, Ray. That you are unable to experience those same emotions is not a compelling argument for their invalidity.
I would like to make clear that I do not feel that anyone is required in the slightest to feel these emotions
I'd go in to save my dog. I'd watch the lot of you die while sipping a cool drink. Priorities.
I can grok this. I also wonder about people and swimming. I was on the swimming team for 15 years as a youth and I admit it is really REALLY hard to imagine myself either a.) jumping in waters where it would be clear I would drown or b.) drowning in waters I chose to jump into. I often wonder how many people are just really really really bad at it. Or just generally bad.
I have to echo Sam here. I'd be much more likely to risk my life to save my pets than a stranger.
[edit - or what Lassus said]
The thing about swimming is you either can, or you can't. There's no middle ground. I'd bet that most drownings (outside of infants) occur in waters with currents, where people really don't understand they're not in an above ground pool. Riptides are brutal forces and I'd wager that the majority of beach swimmers across the nation have no idea what they are.
QFTx3
Really? I'd have to think the gap in ability to life save between Michael Phelps and your average 50 y.o. beachgoer is pretty huge.
Not even a strange fetus?
The operative difference between "can swim" and "can swim really well" isn't the key. And Micheal Phelps doesn't swim in the ocean very often, I'd bet.
Hmmm... not me.
I've had pets, lost pets, cried over losing pets - I don't have any currently, I do understand what it means to have a pet that's like "a member of the family".... but I would probably NOT jump off a Lake Michigan pier to save a pet (even my own) if I thought the risk was too high (calm day, knowing the area of the lake well? maybe). I think - or at least, I'd like to think that I would regardless of risk for a stranger. I suppose there are people I "know" (famous or 'known' by me for other reasons) where I might make a more considerate estimation of the risks before diving in, and perhaps even a few cases where the best I could muster would be a promise not to impede rescue by by other means.
Sam's name is Legion; for they are many.
Just because I think children shouldn't be murdered doesn't mean I like children. Hell, I don't think you or Sam should be murdered either ;-)
I hate to say this, but it's gotta be a (very fast) judgment of the job involved. I'd like to think anyone under 115 pounds I'd be fine. In rough or secluded waters, when you get to full-grown and larger adults I'm going to be a lot more reticent due to chance of failure and my own death.
Strawmen are always easy to smack down... and on occasion, they even manifest themselves in reality (step on down, Mayor Bloomberg).
However - taking something like the NYC Big Gulp ban - while I can absolutely concur with the stupidity of a heavy-handed ban, this would be an area where some amount of 'legislation' I feel I could live with.... Generally speaking, I don't like consumption/sales taxes because they're terribly regressive -- but, rather than an outright ban, this is an area where I wouldn't mind something like a $0.25 tax slapped on a soda over, say, 20 oz.
Go ahead and have your big gulp -- but ingesting 48 ounces of soda on a regular basis isn't good for your health... I absolutely believe people have every right to do plenty of things aren't good for your health, but I also believe in quasi-public health care, and, that has to be paid for somehow. In my perfect world - we wouldn't apply sales taxes to certain beverages, with higher taxes on others.
I think the vast majority of liberals concur with the idea that we're not looking to run lives -- just have the government's fingers on the scale to encourage better behavior wherever suboptimal behavior has a deleterious impact on society as a whole.
I've yet to meet a liberal who doesn't understand that.
I also have not met (in person) a conservative (or libertarian) who doesn't understand that some laws/legislation are helpful/necessary (though some online personas seem to come close)
Word. A tax on processed sugar/corn syrup on the other hand ...
Of course they do.
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