I don't pay much attention to internal Catholic politics, but I do know that evaluating a pope really depends on a "long view". The time horizon is centuries, not next quarter. There's no doubt that Benedict lacks the charisma of JP II, and doesn't have the same enthusiasm for ecumenicism, but my understanding is JP was not a great administrator, and a lot of stuff needed to be dealt with that had been ignored for a long time. On the social stuff that is at odds with much catholic practice, I don't see Benedict doing anything different than JP II did.

To me, the oddest thing about the celibacy issue is that it has absolutely no basis whatsoever in scripture.

pacino wrote:There are multiple schools of thought within catholicism

"thought", heh

I enjoy this Catholic's work though

jerseyhoya wrote:I don't think their beef with the Church is centered on the priest abuse scandals or opposing condoms to slow the spread of AIDS in Africa or whatnot.

I know that, but the problem with the pope is he is the pope until he dies. And I've kind of thought that the sooner this one kicks it... the better.

TenuredVulture wrote:I don't pay much attention to internal Catholic politics, but I do know that evaluating a pope really depends on a "long view". The time horizon is centuries, not next quarter. There's no doubt that Benedict lacks the charisma of JP II, and doesn't have the same enthusiasm for ecumenicism, but my understanding is JP was not a great administrator, and a lot of stuff needed to be dealt with that had been ignored for a long time. On the social stuff that is at odds with much catholic practice, I don't see Benedict doing anything different than JP II did.

To me, the oddest thing about the celibacy issue is that it has absolutely no basis whatsoever in scripture.

Or even Holy Tradition, which of course carries equal weight in Catholic thought (and one of the reasons that he Protestant Reformation got going). But the idea that priests should be celibate only dates to about the split with the East, or the first century of the second millenium C.E., IIRC.

I feel bad that I felt bad that Murkowski lost. Go away. You lost.

TenuredVulture wrote:I don't pay much attention to internal Catholic politics, but I do know that evaluating a pope really depends on a "long view". The time horizon is centuries, not next quarter. There's no doubt that Benedict lacks the charisma of JP II, and doesn't have the same enthusiasm for ecumenicism, but my understanding is JP was not a great administrator, and a lot of stuff needed to be dealt with that had been ignored for a long time. On the social stuff that is at odds with much catholic practice, I don't see Benedict doing anything different than JP II did.

Problems with Benedict are twofold:

(1) His hands weren't SPARKLING clean wrt the child sex thing. Guess what? "Pretty clean," or "Innocent of any intentional wrongdoing" aren't goddamn good enough when it comes to a child sex scandal. When JPII died, the next pope had to be totally separate from that whole thing. They flubbed the initial choice in picking someone who was involved in Vatican administration for 20 years or more before becoming pope, and who was thus going to inevitably have had some prior dealings with the affair. They took a chance that he was "probably" mostly clean. Dumb, dumb, catastrophically dumb risk to take.

(2) Benedict is an old guy who thinks things were better before Vatican II. His kneejerk reaction to any attack against Church practice from rank-and-file Catholics, or outsiders, is thus, predictably, to get defensive. He has occasionally done an OK job of keeping that knee-jerk instinct in check, but the fact of the matter is there is only one appropriate response from the Church whenever and wherever a new pattern of hidden abuse comes to light: absolute, total, and outright contrition. They were WRONG, period. I need that Gene Wilder vid - YOU LOSE. YOU GET NOTHING.

I say this, by the way, as someone who, though he no longer goes to Church, still cares very much about the institution. I want to love it, it was an important part of my youth. I want to be proud of it. But they've made it damn near impossible, and Benedict has been a principle driver in the reactionary rightward shift of a Church that was getting healthily more progressive in its outlook until the mid- to- late-90s, when the abuse scandal really started to gain traction.

One of the little known things about the pope election process is that any male who is a baptized Catholic and not a heretic can be elected pope. I've long wanted to be Pope, but especially now. I'd lay down the LAW with those old codgers who need to go. I really should start a campaign to get the college of cardinals to vote for me.

mozartpc27 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I don't pay much attention to internal Catholic politics, but I do know that evaluating a pope really depends on a "long view". The time horizon is centuries, not next quarter. There's no doubt that Benedict lacks the charisma of JP II, and doesn't have the same enthusiasm for ecumenicism, but my understanding is JP was not a great administrator, and a lot of stuff needed to be dealt with that had been ignored for a long time. On the social stuff that is at odds with much catholic practice, I don't see Benedict doing anything different than JP II did.

Problems with Benedict are twofold:

(1) His hands weren't SPARKLING clean wrt the child sex thing. Guess what? "Pretty clean," or "Innocent of any intentional wrongdoing" aren't goddamn good enough when it comes to a child sex scandal. When JPII died, the next pope had to be totally separate from that whole thing. They flubbed the initial choice in picking someone who was involved in Vatican administration for 20 years or more before becoming pope, and who was thus going to inevitably have had some prior dealings with the affair. They took a chance that he was "probably" mostly clean. Dumb, dumb, catastrophically dumb risk to take.

(2) Benedict is an old guy who thinks things were better before Vatican II. His kneejerk reaction to any attack against Church practice from rank-and-file Catholics, or outsiders, is thus, predictably, to get defensive. He has occasionally done an OK job of keeping that knee-jerk instinct in check, but the fact of the matter is there is only one appropriate response from the Church whenever and wherever a new pattern of hidden abuse comes to light: absolute, total, and outright contrition. They were WRONG, period. I need that Gene Wilder vid - YOU LOSE. YOU GET NOTHING.

I say this, by the way, as someone who, though he no longer goes to Church, still cares very much about the institution. I want to love it, it was an important part of my youth. I want to be proud of it. But they've made it damn near impossible, and Benedict has been a principle driver in the reactionary rightward shift of a Church that was getting healthily more progressive in its outlook until the mid- to- late-90s, when the abuse scandal really started to gain traction.

One of the little known things about the pope election process is that any male who is a baptized Catholic and not a heretic can be elected pope. I've long wanted to be Pope, but especially now. I'd lay down the LAW with those old codgers who need to go. I really should start a campaign to get the college of cardinals to vote for me.

They shoulda chose an unknown to be pope. A fresh face, someone who would seem to be for the people, someone they could control and shape as they pleased...Pope Ralph!



Ah screw it, lets turn this religion thread into a politics thread to mess with the mods heads.

kopphanatic wrote:The Church is officially opposed to capital punishment too

IIRC, the Church isn't opposed to capital punishment per se, but that people are imperfect... can't completely seperate all emotion, bias, etc. from it... and thus are incapable of handing down such an ultimate sentence.

While I agree with Moz's contention that some kids might deliberately bomb the test, I don't think that should be the main concern. Most of you guys act like kids are somehow randomly assigned to teachers. That's not the case at all. We have one team in my grade that refuses to work with inclusion kids (how they get away with such a demand, I don't know) and my team is usually given those students along with kids with emotional problems because we are seen as being the "nurturing team." Now I finished 2nd in TCAP scores (our standardized test) among my peers, but how can we possibly compare across teams, schools, and districts when the population of those classes, schools, and districts are so different. If you do what Jeff says and do a pretest and postest, then you'll find ridiculous floor and ceiling effects at various schools. My school performed in the 99th percentile of TN schools. They have tied future earnings to how much your kids improve. How am I supposed to get my kids to improve beyond 99%? I would be better of going to a lousy school and doing a half-assed job and raising kid's scores a few percentage points.

More than that, despite cries that unions are this evil force standing in the way of reform, there have been MANY school districts around the country that have tried all sorts of teacher evaluation and reform. Guess what, they don't work for more than a year or two. There are too many gears moving at once. Texas, Iowa, Denver, Cincinnati, NYC, etc have tried various evaluation systems and they don't raise student achievement, which is supposed to be the main focus. [BTW, merit pay and other evaluation systems don't work very well in businesses either, and there's plenty of research to show that fact.]

For sure, we need reform. I would target tenure systems, as long as checks are kept in place to keep teachers at the upper end of the pay scale from being dumped for salary reasons. Stricter and more frequent evaluations with real consequences would also probably help. Paying teachers more would also help. Why should a guy with X education and knowledge teach when he/she can make twice as much in the private sector with more prestige and much less hassle? The result is what TV and Moz were talking about, the people in education don't know their subject areas very well. The science teacher down the hall from me has an english degree and the lower age certification, yet they let her teach science at the higher grade. It makes no sense.

Anyway, before I agree to vote yes on any measure, I want to see some evidence that it has worked elsewhere, or at least that the idea has a firm foundation in research. Maybe they've found the magic formula in D.C., but I bet the gains are short-term -- they usually are, even in places where the teachers are on board.

Also, on the union front, could someone show me some evidence that schools with unions perform lower than school without unions? I suspect the exact opposite is the case.

Since moving here, I have heard some horror stories of how the schools were before unions. Teachers were fired without recourse in favor of giving jobs to friends of administrators. Teacher's pay is already very low here... it was much lower before unions. It seems like some people are taking the actions of a few unions and using those examples to blast the whole idea, as if unions are going out of their way in some grand conspiracy to harm children. Is it possible that the unions disagree with the proposed methods of addressing the problem? Is there any chance that they've looked at the places around the country where this was tried and came to the conclusion that it doesn't work in the long term?

I really think most teachers would be happy trying different reform. The teachers I have met and work with are almost all interested first in helping their students. There are some who just sit around and whine about students, but they are the exception.

Holy yesterday, Batm... I mean Monkeyboy!

But I agree with the tenor of all of your posts, of course.

Let me get this straight, you're saying that paying people in the business world based on merit is the wrong thing? So you're saying...

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

Sheeeeeesh

Hey news flash, evaluation methods are never perfect. Doesn't mean the alternative, not evaluating, is better.

Hey folks, this libertarian is teaching this year. It's going swimmingly well, despite the fact that I'm making very little money. So much fun, even though it seems like I'm doing a lot of work. Of course, it comes with the territory of being a first-year teacher. And I'm coaching.

If I were to continue teaching, I would eventually become grossly overpaid, due to the pension benefits and summers off.

I wouldn't count on those pension benefits. Many state pension plans are seriously underfunded, having been used for years to paper over state budget gaps. So I'd start putting money into an IRA if I were. (That is unless you've already moved into a defined contribution plan.)

Also, summers off aren't really off--most states require you to spend a chunk of the summer learning new stuff.

TenuredVulture wrote:I wouldn't count on those pension benefits. Many state pension plans are seriously underfunded, having been used for years to paper over state budget gaps. So I'd start putting money into an IRA if I were. (That is unless you've already moved into a defined contribution plan.)

Also, summers off aren't really off--most states require you to spend a chunk of the summer learning new stuff.

Who was it amongst our cohort who was waxing plummish about their rosy future as a public employee, because they had health benefits and retirement benefits and they wouldn't likely be scrapped or reduced, especially retroactively?

Some states are already giving retroactive cuts a try: CO, SD, one other as I recall.

And the shenanigans going on with IL pension funding are a harbinger of things to come in that realm.

Anytime you hear someone suggest that an actuary's statement provides a definitive assessment of a liability (see the recent assertions about HCR impact, both pro and con) offer to crush their windpipe.

jamiethekiller wrote:i went to catholic school for 12 years of my life and i don't believe in god/religion. go figure.

me2

kopphanatic wrote:For the record, I'm a Catholic in favor of legalized abortion and capital punishment, so I guess that makes me a heretic in the eyes of the Vatican.

me2x2. most catholics are pro-life. i'm pro-death.

Hahaha, Murkowski called herself "one Republican woman who won't quit on Alaska."

Maybe I like her again. That's spectacular. Just don't lose us that seat please.

Monkeyboy wrote:Also, on the union front, could someone show me some evidence that schools with unions perform lower than school without unions? I suspect the exact opposite is the case.

Since moving here, I have heard some horror stories of how the schools were before unions. Teachers were fired without recourse in favor of giving jobs to friends of administrators. Teacher's pay is already very low here... it was much lower before unions. It seems like some people are taking the actions of a few unions and using those examples to blast the whole idea, as if unions are going out of their way in some grand conspiracy to harm children. Is it possible that the unions disagree with the proposed methods of addressing the problem? Is there any chance that they've looked at the places around the country where this was tried and came to the conclusion that it doesn't work in the long term?

I really think most teachers would be happy trying different reform. The teachers I have met and work with are almost all interested first in helping their students. There are some who just sit around and whine about students, but they are the exception.

I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I think it really depends on the area. For instance, someone living in Radnor is better off sending their kid through the public school system vs Archbishop Carroll. The opposite is probably true in Upper Darby. Parents would prefer to send their kids to Bonner/O'Hara vs the public school system.

and here's another great excerpt from o'donnel

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/18/chr ... itchcraft/

talks about how she practiced witchcraft.

jeff2sf wrote:Let me get this straight, you're saying that paying people in the business world based on merit is the wrong thing? So you're saying...

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

Sheeeeeesh

Hey news flash, evaluation methods are never perfect. Doesn't mean the alternative, not evaluating, is better.

I didn't say any of that. I'm saying that the ways that have been used thus far don't work, so I see no reason to change to a system that has been shown not to work. Do you have any idea how much it costs to institute a whole new system like the one you are talking about? Why in the world should taxpayers spend money on something that doesn't work? Just because the private sector wastes money hand over foot doesn't mean the public sector should do it even more than they already do. If we are going to do evaluation, I think we should have pilot programs of a bunch of different types and see what has positive results. We can then try the systems that work on a bigger scale. Your argument amounts to: "I have to deal with bad evaluation systems that don't work and reward the wrong behaviors by the wrong people, so you should have to deal with it, too." That's such a bad approach that I don't even know how to respond to it.

I think schools know which teachers are bad. I can tell you which teachers don't make a solid effort and have kids that aren't learning. We had one teacher last year teaching all the kids that weight and mass are the same thing. Once a kid learns something the wrong way, it takes many repetitions to undo the bad learning. It took me a full class to reteach that material the right way. When I tried to explain to her the difference, she said it was too hard to explain to 6th graders. You don't need a fancy evaluation system to discover who are the bad apples. What you need is a way to get rid of those people. Most of them are people who have been there a long time and are burned out. Tenure is the problem. Get rid of tenure and increase the number of evaluations (the ones that every school already has in place) and drop-ins and I think you solve as many problems as any new evaluation system would. And it would cost nothing.

And I'm going to ignore the socialist baiting nonsense. Nobody is saying that people shouldn't be held accountable or that every teacher deserves the same pay, etc.

Anyway, you'll also need to find a way to attract more people to teaching, if you are going to dump all this dead weight. Despite it being the easiest job a human can have and all the extra time teachers have (yes, I'm being sarcastic), there's already a teacher shortage. Dump all these teachers and it will get worse. That will lead to bigger class sizes and lower test scores, so good luck with that. I personally think teachers should be paid a good bit more in exchange for longer school years or something like that, but I'm not in charge of such things.