Tag: United States

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Politics

Confession Under Pressure

priest

Is the seal of confession above the law? It’s a question that’s been asked over and over again, in one crappy TV movie after another. The answer – if any final answer there can be – is no of course not, don’t be stupid.

Characterizing this as some sort of revolutionary break with church domination is the sort of nonsense we can leave to others. A priest who, to take a fiction-friendly example, knows that a murder has been committed cannot escape criminal charges by saying he was told about it in confession. He escapes criminal charges because failing to volunteer information is not a crime. It’s up to his own sense of right and wrong. That’s why you can get a good hour and a half out of it.

So this measure is revolutionary, but its effect on the lives of priests is of trifling importance compared to how it affects all of us. It creates a new crime of not telling what you know – something that does not fit at all well with basic ideas of a free society. To commit a crime you have to actually do something wrong. It is not a crime merely to know something, and it is not a crime not to do something. Exceptions are specific – you can commit a crime by omission only if you have a specific duty of care. If you don’t feed your horse it’s a crime. It’s not a crime if I don’t feed it.

Professionals have specific duties of care that come with the job. A doctor has to act if they believe someone is endangered for example. Under common law principles, the rest of us don’t. You would think that a priest or bishop could be said to have a professional duty of care over the children of their parish or diocese, and I don’t know why this legal route was not taken. Perhaps it would involve the state in the professional regulation of clerics, something it feels it’s better well out of.

Instead, this proposed law would seem to create a universal duty of care towards children, incumbent on all adults. Your kids actually will be my responsibility. I think this is actually civilizing and might be a good idea anyway, but I can see big objections and big potential problems.

It may simply be unworkable. If it is a crime to not report suspected sexual abuse of children, how can you ever convict someone? You’ve got to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, that they had reason to suspect abuse which was specifically sexual. What’s more, in the one situation that everyone is assuming this applies to – the sacrament of confession – you will never get a conviction anyway because it will always be one person’s word against another’s.

So if a law is both useless in practice, and breaches a fundamental principle of the common law tradition, I’m very much afraid it will either never happen, or actually be worse than nothing. We will need to think hard about this.

Wouldn’t it be simpler to just ban priests?

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Politics

The End Of The Euro Crisis?

The economic growth of Portugal, Italy, Irelan...
Economic Growth - Or Lack Thereof

I hate the silly term double-dip recession. It makes it sound like there is some sort of mathematical explanation for this graph, a predictability about it. What we have is false recovery, the kind that only happens because markets work on the assumption that recessions will come to an end out of some sort of natural pattern. Would-be investors wait for the whole boom-bust cycle to start all over again so they can get in at the bottom. The brief spurts of growth we see are like sprinters waiting too long for a race to start. They dash off alone, only slowing to a halt when they realise no one’s joining in.

We are not recovering yet because, simplistically put, we have not yet reached the bottom. More accurately though, we can’t rebuild an economy when there is so much non-existent money in the way.

We need to face up to the fact that the western economy is still stuffed to the ears with bad debt. We are treating bad investments that will never yield a damn thing as real money that somehow must be paid back to the investor – even if the taxpayer has to be made to do it. But it’s not real money. These are failed investments. The money has been lost. It no longer exists.

This blog post is highly speculative, but it argues that the sudden willingness of European banks to take a loss on Greece is because they foresee things getting much worse, soon. One of Italy’s largest banks is stuffed with bad debt, and it seems more than likely that if it goes, the Italian economy will go with it. The Eurozone cannot afford to bail out a country that large.

But this is actually a good thing. We will finally have to stop pretending this can be fixed with bandages, and do the major surgery necessary. It will hurt, but not as much as treating innocent taxpayers like reckless debtors hurts.

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Politics

Beginning Of The End Of An Empire?

Detail from photographic portrait of Charles D...

Like many others, I bought the News Of The World for the last time today. Like many others, I also bought it for the first time today. Morbid curiosity. Of course this issue is hardly representative. It’s devoted to showing what a loss it is to the news publishing world.

To this end they reprint their very first front page from 1843. It sets out the paper’s stall in prose which, if you didn’t know was the real thing, you’d take for a parody of long-winded Victorian pomposity:

The general utility of all classes is the idea with which this paper originated. To give to the poorer classes of society a paper which would suit their means, and to the middle, as well as the rich, a journal, which from its immense circulation, should command their attention, have been the influencing motives that have caused the appearance of “NEWS OF THE WORLD”. We shall make no apologies for these motives, because, we conceive, that in their accomplishment we shall attain an end, that in the present state of England is not only desirable, but absolutely necessary. Journalism for the rich man, and journalism for the poor, has up to this time, been so broadly and distinctly marked, as the manners, the dress, and the habitations of the rich, are from the customs, the squalor, and the dens of the poor.

Can’t seem to decide there whether the poor are objects of pity or their market. Maybe the adverts said “Read it in the comfort of your own hovel!” And what was, with all of those, freaking, commas?

It carries on in this vein for – Christ – over three thousand constipated words. You couldn’t make it up. Hell, Dickens would have had trouble making it up. All reprinting this seems to establish is that the News Of the World was every bit as much a piece of unbearable crap 168 years ago as it was, for the last time, today.

Though presumably it was at least less criminal.

Speaking of which, Murdoch may be in even more trouble than previously thought. As the Telegraph points out, his News International is a US-based corporation, and the US has a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) outlawing bribery payments abroad. If found guilty of making payments to British police, News International may be facing fines of hundreds of millions of dollars.

It will be interesting to see how that gets reported on Fox News.

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Cosmography Politics Technology

The Last Bus Has Gone

Come Home Safe

A friend opened the discussion with “Space Shuttle, RIP or good riddance?” Both, I said. It’s sad to see it go, it’s been the workhorse of American space science for decades. But it really should have been gone long, long before this.

As I said in the paper, it was obvious ever since the Columbia disaster that the design was a horrible mess of compromises. NASA had wanted to get people into space for the sake of scientific research, but they couldn’t afford a vehicle. The Defense Department were willing to contribute, but they wanted to put large payloads into orbit. Anyone putting safety first would have said those are two different missions that require two utterly different machines; one big dumb heavy-lifter to fling stuff into orbit, which no person in their right mind would even stand near never mind sit on top of, and one uncompromisingly designed to get people into and back from space safely. But thanks to budgetary pressure, they cobbled it together as one thing. The Space Shuttle was really the first SUV, an overpowered truck with added passenger seats.

If the right decisions had been made after Challenger there need never have been a Columbia disaster. If they had been taken after Columbia, there might be new vehicles in place by now – vehicles that would be both safer and cheaper to run. The original error may have been made by the Reagan administration, but it was compounded by every subsequent one. To the point now that, really for the first time since the Space Age began, Americans can no longer go into orbit – not without the help of the Russians at least.

The Chinese can.

It may be perfectly true that the lunar missions were done for prestige and bragging rights rather than any scientific or economic reason, but they helped the US win a propaganda war. The lack of  a leading role in space exploration makes America look exactly like what it fears itself to be – a power on the wane.

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Humour Politics

Independence Is Overrated Anyway

It would also be a unique opportunity to design the busiest flag in world history

Today the USA celebrates the anniversary of independence from Britain. Though I wonder would they have bothered if they’d known that, 235 years later, Britain would be pretty much dependent on them. It’s funny to watch that pair, singing together at the UN, fighting their wars hand-in-hand. You know I think those two should make up. They’re obviously right for each other.

Just one or two tricky details to sort out. The UK couldn’t just become the 51st state. It may be small in area, but at 62 million it would make up one sixth of the combined population. As the House of Representatives allocates seats proportionally it would inevitably form a huge voting bloc there, while at the same time being ludicrously under-represented in the Senate.

It would be far better for the constituent countries of the UK to join individually, with England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland becoming the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th states of the USA respectively. This still leaves England as the largest state by far though – 52 million people as opposed to California’s 37 – so perhaps it could be further divided. North and South England maybe, like the Dakotas and Carolinas. Or separate it into Greater London, and Little England.

But then there’s another issue – the United States is a republic, whereas the United Kingdom is anything but. This is a rather fundamental constitutional difference; it’s not a Union unless the whole thing is governed by a single Head of State. Let’s begin though by ruling out the option of Americans voting to become a monarchy. Not because they wouldn’t consider it, but because I’m worried they might. For the UK to finally be converted into a full democracy, its royal family will need to be deposed. That doesn’t mean they have to be rounded up and executed of course. Though it does seem like the ideal opportunity.

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Humour

Pause For Thought

So it is no more. From today forth, the editors of the Oxford University Press will no longer insist that you should put a comma before the conjunction when you’re listing things, for example: First, second, and third. We say a fond farewell to this venerable institution, a noble oddity now consigned to history’s scrapheap. Except in the US of course, where they will amused to find that the rule they use every day has been declared incorrect by some committee in England.

Alas, the story was apocryphal; the OUP has not changed its editorial rule. The misunderstanding arose because they have chosen not to use their own ‘Oxford comma’ in press releases. These conform instead to the usual rule in the UK, which is to use no comma there. They’ll keep using it in their books.

So no panic. Not that there should have been one anyway, but bad teaching can leave people stressed and anxious when they’re not sure if they’re being ‘correct’ or not.

What is correct? It’s simple. Use a comma when it feels right.

Yes that is a clear, disciplined rule. Note that I say “feels right”, not “at random”. Punctuation is used to convey the pacing of speech, the delivery, the emphasis. Punctuate just as you would pause in spoken language – to express feeling and to clarify meaning. Put in a comma when it helps avoid confusion. There is a notable difference between “I’d like you to meet my wife, my lover and my best friend” and “I’d like you to meet my wife, my lover, and my best friend”.

It must be admitted that the ‘Oxford’ comma is a tricky case – simply because some readers expect one there while others don’t. In Ireland, the UK, Australia, Canada, or just about anywhere else they speak English, putting one in seems like pausing before the last item for emphasis. Readers in America however expect it so its presence conveys nothing special and leaving it out just makes the list read oddly. So bear your audience in mind – as always.

With online media of course you have no idea where your audience is, so you might as well relax. If you really want a loose general rule, using a comma here is probably confusing less often than not using one. But whatever you do, don’t follow any rule to the point where it becomes madness – like this example which, I am assured, is actually from the Canadian Press Stylebook:

“Put commas between elements of a series but not before the final and, or or nor unless that avoids confusion.”

Seriously, someone did that for a bet.

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Cosmography Humour

Catholic Koan

BaptizedRosita Boland wrote about this picture in the Irish Times the other day. It’s from a schoolbook she had as a child.

The article is well worth reading. I just wanted to add that the image has gone viral. I’d missed the story in the Times but was alerted to it by Laughing Squid, an “online resource for interesting art, culture & technology”. Shortly thereafter, a friend in the States posted it to Facebook.

People around the world are intrigued and somewhat horrified at God’s strictly hierarchical love. Myself though, I think most are missing the philosophical depth of this little puzzle. To the uninitiated it might seem obvious that the Church wants you to select the baptised baby, but the baby is not there to be encircled! Clearly Catholicism is a lot more Zen than I thought.

I think as a child I would have resolved the conundrum by drawing in the baby. Maybe that’s too linear, but I liked drawing.

I don’t know in fact if I had this actual book in school. My brain is telling me I’ve seen it before, but I don’t trust my brain. I reckon I’m older than Rosita Boland though, but much, much younger than that drawing style, so it’s theoretically possible. In my recent trawlings through the attic I did find books from the same series, one of which I now have in my hand. And here’s something interesting – they’re not from Ireland.

They were reprinted here by Fallons and, according to the flyleaf of this one at least, “edited and revised by a panel of Irish Catechists”, but they were actually written by American nuns – mainly a Sister Maria De La Cruz of an order called the Helpers of the Holy Souls – and originally published by W.H. Sadler in New York in 1969. Look at the spelling of “baptized”.

The One Cent Catechism? My world is rocked.

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Humour

Coke Ads, Life

The Two Infallible Powers - The Pope Bovril
God I love this mad old advert

Imagine that. The 125th anniversary of Coca Cola. We tend to think of that brand as symbolic of the modern world. It’s strange to remember that it’s a weird holdout from the Victorian era, like Bovril or Beecham‘s Powders. Perhaps this means it actually is an excellent product. We’ll never really know – how can you possibly separate the actual drink from its image and its history?

Hmm. Maybe there is a way. Apparently Osama bin Laden and his cohorts were fond of the stuff. If someone so vehemently opposed to everything the product is associated with still enjoys it, then surely the only explanation is that it is an objectively good beverage.

Well OK, it might also mean that Bin Laden was deeply conflicted and/or hypocritical. But still, you can’t help feeling that Coca Cola missed an opportunity for the most amazing celebrity endorsement ever.

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Humour Politics

Here Are The News

Artist's Impression of a Queen
Artist's Impression of a Queen

 

While we in Ireland were trying to take a day off, the world elsewhere got on with things. Action on Libya, which apparently is having some effect. This morning the Gaddafi faction claimed they were calling a ceasefire. I trust them about as far as I can throw grenades at them, but it’s a start.

Signs of hope too from Fukushima. Having discussed this with engineers I’m a little more sanguine now that the pool of molten fuel rods isn’t necessarily doomed to burn its way through the Earth’s crust. Still not entirely clear what they can do with it, but at least they don’t consider it to be their most pressing problem.

Er, I think that’s a good thing.

And of course, not unrelated to the day that was in it, President Obama made a date to visit Ireland next year because, like all American Presidents, he is part Irish. In his case, 1/32nd part. It amazes me how successful Ireland has been at creating this image of being a place where people come from. Just about every single US President had some English ancestry, usually a lot, but I’ve yet to see one of them stand outside 10 Downing Street and say “You know, I’m always glad to come here because there’s a little English in me too”.

One perhaps unfortunate element is that the visits by the US President and the Queen of England will be within a week of each other. So if you have any sort of even slight association with a Muslim political organisation, and don’t want searchlights poked up your every orifice, that might be a very good week to take a holiday.

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Cosmography Humour

Ireland’s Olympus

Pretty pretty petrol pump

Wow. I’m not sure what kind of weekend you had here, but I don’t know when I’ve been hotter. No actually I do. It was at the Hoover Dam. I’ve just been in the warmest place I’ve ever known, with the sole exception of the Nevada-Arizona border. Seriously, I’ve been to colder parts of Africa.

Yet this was Carlingford, County Louth. I can’t quite explain how but I ended up at a festival of Celtic culture there, helping to keep a three-year-old from wandering about. When you consider that we were watching Highland Games, with such events as hammer throwing, caber tossing and hurling weights backwards over your shoulders, you can appreciate how important it is to keep your three-year-olds from wandering about. The sports might be odd but the athletes were spectacular; some of them were so broad they’d be taller lying on their sides. And of course, all in skirts. Yet it was one of the smaller – I believe his name was Ray O’Dwyer from Tipperary – who threw a hammer one hundred feet that day, a new Irish record. Though when I say smaller, you have to remember that’s relative. He would be about four times the size of me.

Huge dudes in frocks

Apart from the Highland Games there was some Scottish dancing and a local pipe band. If it wasn’t for a bit of Breton dance it would’ve been a Gaels-only affair. Alongside all the culture there were – thank God – some of the usual funfair kid-distractors, including a “Safari Train” decorated with some really quite astonishing caricatures.

Fun for all the family, if your family is racist

When it finally cooled we went to PJ’s, a lovely old pub that has survived being extended without completely losing its character, and applied after-sun cream in lavish quantities. Later we went to a concert of Breton music in a converted church, most of which I spent outside attempting to talk the aforementioned small child out of screaming. So if you were passing through Carlingford and happened to see a man holding a struggling, yelling child in a graveyard, there was no need to be worried. He shut up eventually.

Noon the following day I was sitting out drinking beer, not so much burning in the sun now as catching light, when one of those things happened – I met an old friend I’d lost touch with six or seven years before. We went for dinner to celebrate in Magee’s Bistro, which was really good and not expensive. I had the frogs’ legs because I’d never tried them before, and my love of nature compels me to taste it all. Frogs legs, it turns out, have a flavour just like snake.

Oh all right, between very tender chicken and good squid. Nice, but I don’t think I’ll eat them again. There was something too sad about the way they came in little pairs.

My friend's front wall

Turned out my friend owned a cottage not far from the village, so we stayed the night there. What I didn’t realise until the morning is that it was right on the sea. I mean, like other houses are on the street. When I awoke it was high tide – and the sea was up to her front wall.

Her garden shed

Which was low and white, like a wall in Greece. And the sun was like Greece. And the sea. When my other friends – and the small child – arrived the tide was out again, and we walked across Dundalk bay chasing crabs and picking mussels. I’m cooking those mussels for dinner now. Sometimes the world is perfect.

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