Cardinal Christoph Schonborn

June 28th, from CNN.

"Pope Benedict XVI slapped down Cardinal Christoph Schonborn on Monday over comments earlier this year in which he was seen as criticizing a fellow cardinal.

Schonborn – the archbishop of Vienna, Austria, and a former student of the pope – had said that Cardinal Angelo Sodano had blocked an investigation of sexual abuse charges against a former archbishop of Vienna, according to the Catholic News Service. Sodano was the Vatican's secretary of state at the time."

The full article link can be found HERE.

This story wasn't something that made big headlines. In fact, I just happened to catch it on in a very small news brief on the last page of the Scranton Times sports section (you read that correctly...the Sports Section). So much for rabid anti-Catholic media, Scranton style.

Anyway, I have two questions related to this story.

Question 1: Is it the wrong for the Vatican to criticize one of it's own?
I think the answer is no. In a hierarchy there are always rules for relating to/with your peers, subordinates and superiors. When you live and work inside that hierarchy you have to respect those rules or there will be consequences. That's as true for the Vatican and it is for the U.S. Marine Corps. It's also true for me: I have a chain of command that I work within for my vocation, and if I violated the rules associated with it there would be consequences.

Question 2: Is there a larger moral issue at play here?
Yes. Even in a very hierarchical organization like the U.S. military, there are instances where things like rules and orders can...and should...be disobeyed. In fact, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (articles 90 to 92...you can read a summary HERE), a member of the military is required to disobey unlawful orders or face prosecution. Now let's up the ante just a bit and consider what Cardinal Schonborn was reprimanded for criticizing, namely the actions of another Cardinal who actively blocked the investigation of sexual abuse charges. I am not a Priest or a religious scholar of any sort...a point that has been repeatedly documented here...but in my Catholic high school educated brain I could make the case that Cardinal Schonborn had a moral obligation to criticize the actions of another, regardless of their title, if those actions ran counter to the teachings of the Church. In essence, wasn't Cardinal Schonborn actually defending the faith by criticizing the actions of another?

It seems to me that Cardinal Schonborn violated the rules in order to support a greater moral obligation. That's not something that should be criticized, rather it should be celebrated.

My Kind of "T" Party

In the "Even a small step is a good step" Department...

...we have the borough of Dunmore canceling a summer youth program. Article link HERE.

Now before I get labeled a bitter middle-aged man (better that than a bitter "old" man I suppose), I want to note that I have nothing against summer youth programs in concept. What I am opposed to is spending money that simply doesn't exist. Yes, 125 kids will now not benefit from a few hours of structured activity per day, but the simple-but dirty little fact is that Dunmore doesn't have the resources to pay to pay its employees and the light bill, let alone run a summer program. $25,000 isn't going to break the bank, but the road to fiscal hell is paved with small payments.

This is one small step for Dunmore, but maybe...just maybe...one giant leap towards eventual fiscal sanity. Good job Dunmore council. Get your sea-legs by making a few of these small but difficult decisions, then get ready for the big one: you simply can't afford your paid fire department.

Sports & Athletics

Joe Paterno was in my head as I was reading a few comments about school athletics from a prior post. This reminded me of a great article on the whole Bobby Bowden vs. Joe Paterno "winingest coach" story from last year. You can link to it HERE.

Anyway, the story ends with the following terrific statement:

"While Bowden will undoubtedly insist the academic scandal never be mentioned when his grandkids are in the house, I guarantee you Paterno doesn't care about the record for his grandkids. If Paterno ever wants to impress his grandchildren all he has to do is walk down Curtin Road just past the Forum on his way to Rec Hall. Stop right between the two and point to the building on the left where giant letters spell out "PATERNO LIBRARY". That's a legacy for an old football coach to be proud of."

Having walked past the Paterno Library myself, I completely agree with the sentiment.

Road Apples, #67

It's Hot...Damn its hot outside. I'm talking "jungles of 'Nam" hot out there. Just when I relish in the warm weather and wonder why I ever want winter to come, days like this arrive and I long for something colder. This my life, in a microcosm.

Scranton School Performance - The Scranton Times has something of a final report card on the performance of area school districts in its Sunday edition today. NEPArtisan has some reaction to it that is no doubt very well thought out, and I'm not going to add much, save for this: I think the single most important element in the education of children isn't schools, teachers, sports or buildings; no the single most important element is parental involvement. Now I can't claim an awful lot of temporal success in life, but one thing I have done well so far is to help my daughters value learning. As a result, they are all very good students. When that happens in a household...when parents do things like read to children, when children see their parents read, when children have help with homework, when children see their parents use math to solve problems, when parents talk to children about current events...then I think children can be successful even in just about the worst of schools. Am I saying that schools and teachers are unimportant? Hell no. Growing up I had teachers that were nothing short of inspirational, but I don't think that a great teacher alone can't undo a toxic home environment.

School Funding - In the "if I were a School Board Director" department, when faced with the tough economic times that abound, I would be looking at all of the non-instructional costs associated with public schools. The top two things on my list:

1. Administrators and administrative costs
2. Sports

How bloated are school district administrations? Well judge for yourself here. I know that there are rules a-plenty to follow in operating a public school, but there are rules to follow everywhere. My employer's business is regulated by no less than the IRS, SEC, DOL, FINRA, and the state insurance regulators from all 50 states. The difference is that we don't have the luxury of simply raising taxes when our expenses get too high. Bottom line: I think most school district administrations need a top-to-bottom review to eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies so that more money goes to teaching kids and less money goes to bureaucrats.

As for sports, well I think they are a "nice to have" in education. Yes, students can learn about discipline and they can grow as individuals by participating in sports, but that kind of participation doesn't have to come at the taxpayers expense. What's more, sports really only benefit a small, small fraction of the students in a district. I don't know that most sports programs need to be eliminated, but I do think that the costs of running these programs should be levied against the students that benefit from them. Start baking those cupcakes.

Eating - In the "now for something completely different" department, I had been doing pretty good eating-wise over the past two weeks, but I may...no make that "have" fallen back a bit over the past two days. As I've said before, weight loss is much more in your head than it is in your stomach, so I need to get my head screwed back on the right way so that I can get back on track.

Under-Rated Movies

Two of my favorite under-rated movies...Being There and Love and Death. Both are well worth catching if you ever get the opportunity.


Being There, staring Peter Sellers. I think this was his last major film. The film manages to be both very funny and profound at the same time.




Love and Death starring Woody Allen. Nothing profound about this...just tons and tons and tons of classic Woody Allen, back in the day when he was funny (as opposed to the "serious" actor and director he became later).

Who Mourns for Adonais?

This one is going to stay somewhat cryptic for reasons that I will not explain. However I am compelled to at least make a comment.

I know of a major employer in the region has outsourced some of its work to Asia, something that has become not uncommon these days. This employer has several locations in the United States and an office in another city was also impacted by this recent outsourcing. The numbers involved are not of Cinram size, but they also don't just impact a handful of folks either.

Was this news reported in any of the local newspapers? Not that I can tell, and I have been looking.

It was, however, reported in the newspaper of that other city impacted by the action.

Why wasn't it reported? I don't know for sure, but I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that the Scranton Times doesn't exactly have what I would call robust business reporting. I'd also suggest that the local newspaper tends to downplay news from certain areas and over-hype news from others. For example, had 25 jobs at Tobyhanna Army Depot been moved to Asia then this would have been big news. Hell, the mere threat of a janitor being laid off at TOAD gets a mention in the Scranton Times. 15 get impacted and the local Chamber of Commerce commences an all-out job-saving campaign. Now in this particular situation the employer is much smaller that TOAD, but the number out-sourced is greater than 25.

None of this matters all that much to the individuals who will be losing their jobs. That's the real story here...that this deeply human event is happening...and it's my hope that the local newspaper will actually make the choice to give this a mention.

Wall Street Regulation

Congress is actually on the cusp of actually passed sweeping regulatory reform that the President will no doubt sign into law. Have I read the final bill? No. I will read a summary of it at some point in time, and I'm sure my employers research department will have something created to note the important parts. That noted, three things are crystal clear about this:

1. It is imperfect, and that's okay - Regulation is a messy business. Regulation HAS TO BE a messy business, as it is predicated on the notion of trying to qualify the worst of human behavior and then devise mechanisms to prevent that behavior from happening (or punish it when it does) in the first place. If you are over the age of, say, 20 you probably already realize that people are pretty complex organisms, and trying to figure out what they may do in a particular situation is never easy or simply. However, something imperfect but timely is better than something perfect that never actually arrives.
2. It is long overdue - There hasn't really been sweeping reform of the financial services industry since the Securities Act of 1934, so this kind of legislation is long over due. Yes, there have been tweaks and changes to the regulatory framework of the financial services industry over the years, but nothing to bring it in line with the complex products that now exist in the industry's ecosystem.
3. The idiots on both extremes will bash it - Fantasy Island living conservatives will have you believe that this legislation is an over-reach and that it shackles "free enterprise". They somehow want you to forget that it was the unshackled "free enterprise" of (for just one example) mortgage securitization that was at least partially to blame for our current economic pickle*. Business-hating liberals will have you believe that it doesn't interfere enough, as if Wall Street doesn't have enough lawyers employed to interpret legislation already. If the knuckleheads on both ends cry really, really loud, then that usually means that the legislation probably strikes the right balance.
   

An ancient Chinese proverb says that "a journey of a thousand miles starts with a first step", and that's what this is, a first step. Being an optimist, I'm positive that this step will help in some fashion. Perfect? No, nothing created by humans is ever perfect, so let's acknowledge the imperfection and allow this to work. If it doesn't, then it can be changed.


(*) That and the insane social policy that everyone should be a homeowner. Newsflash: only people that can afford to own a home should own a home.

Government Regulation of the Internet

There have been numerous articles written over the past few months about the government and the Internet, including...

...FCC seeks regulatory control over the Internet

...Bill would give the President emergency control over the Internet


I take issue to both ideas, although I concede that the second point (emergency powers) is a foregone conclusion, at least in the event of a true national emergency.

Regarding the FCC, my personal view is that the agency has a long history of over-reaching and downright silliness and is incapable of effectively regulating anything. They are bureaucratic buffoons. This is the agency that was infamous for going after broadcasters for "foul" language (Howard Stern, Bono, Cher) while seemingly never having a problem with egregious violence on TV. Yup, you can't reference bodily fluids or accidentally drop an F-Bomb, but showing someone getting killed 16 ways to Sunday is okay. Oprah Winfrey? She can talk about female body parts all she wants on her talk show, but your average "morning zoo" DJ had better not go there. Let me see the ass of Dennis Franz on TV, but God-forbid I see part of Janet Jackson's breast. None of it makes any sense. For the record, the complaints against Howard Stern in the 1990's were basically the product of one individual writing to the FCC to complain. Millions of people listened to his show every morning and were not offended, but since one person was (a person who was fully capable of turning the show off but chose not to) it warranted repeated fines. Is that in any way, shape or form reasonable?

What do I want? I want as little government control over media as is practical and possible. I think Rush Limbaugh is a (and I quote) "chicken-hawk, drug-addict, hypocrite", but you know what? My personal standards shouldn't prevent someone who actually believes his spew from having access to it. I can simply choose not listen to Oxycontin's most well known addict. If the government shouldn't regulate political speech, then it shouldn't regulate most other forms of speech as well.

Should there be some standards? Yes, of course. I don't want to hear or see people torturing animals or raping children and I don't want porn broadcast over the public airwaves. But if I can see something in a museum...such as a female breast...then I'm thinking that it is probably okay to see on television. Let's also not forget that parents...not the government...should be exercising control over children. Don't want your 10 year old to repeat what he heard Don Imus say on the radio this morning? Then don't listen to the Imus on the Morning show with your children present.

The above rolls up into a singular point: the FCC is an case study in abject failure that should have no business regulating the Internet in whole or in part.

Regarding emergency power over the Internet, it's probably a forgone conclusion that the government has (or will have) the ability to control the Internet in the event of a national emergency. They key though is that what constitutes an emergency needs to be exceptionally well defined. I want the nation's data networks to be available to the government if it needs them in order to deal with a national disaster, invasion, etc. Some idiot wanting to watch Desperate Housewives on his Iphone should be inconvenienced if it helps to solve an immediate and pressing national problem. However those kinds of emergencies should be very, very, very rare and the reach of the government should be subject to strict time limits.

Look, the Internet is as close to a true artificial human community as mankind has ever produced. I've connected with old friends, made new friends and become a better person because I can interface with the world through a computer. And I am but one of hundreds of millions in this country and over a billion in the world. Let's not allow the government to screw this up in the name of somehow protecting us from ourselves.

From the Archives: Flying Cars

Note: I have reams of stuff that I've written over the years prior to starting this blog, so I thought it might be fun to resurrect a few every once in a while.

From March 14, 2006


"...the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades..."

As a child growing up in the 1970's, I feel cheated. How, you may ask? I want flying cars.

Yes, in the 1970's, it seemed that the future held some unlimited promise; there would be space stations and bases on the moon, everyone wearing Neru suits, laser pistols, and of course flying cars. Oh, and if there were going to be cars, they would all have cool gull-wing doors and would would be really sleek looking. It seemed that technology held so much promise. You have to wonder where it all went.

So now we live in 2005. There is a space station...a sort of creaky dysfunctional one...no bases on the moon, clothes are more likely to be skin tight or six sizes too big (forget classy Neru suits), you do have a laser...in your cd player...but not as a weapon, and some of the more popular cars (Honda Element and Scion Xb) are shaped like bricks. Oh, and there are no flying cars.

Where did it all go wrong? Or did it all go wrong? First and foremost, discount anything you think about future fashion. I think the word 'fashion' is probably French for 'fad'. So let's throw that right out the window. Relative to the technology stuff, what I see now, while not as flashy as what we were led to expect all those years ago, is remarkable in it's own right. While we clearly have mostly quit the game relative to space exploration, we have grown tremendously relative to information sharing. The Internet has created something that is utterly remarkable in its ability to share information across geographic, political and class levels. Oh, and it does it in real time. We don't have 'Hal' from 2001, we do have computers in our homes that are as powerful as room-sized computers from back in the 1970's. Computing technology and the rise of the Internet have, in my humble estimation, forever changed the world for the better. That change continues...and will continue...in ways that we can only imagine. Information may not be as slick as a laser pistol, but has far more power. See what it does to the Communist Chinese within ten years.

So maybe things aren't so bad relative to those lofty 1970's predictions. But I still want a flying car...