Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.
2 Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Friday, July 24, 2009.
More on Benedict…
Neither side, however, seems ready to take Benedict’s theology — his own field of expertise — seriously. Part of this is a result of our habitual, liberal-democratic tendency to separate Church and State and not let theological arguments influence our politics. This tendency invariably blinds us to the pope’s combination of respect for life with the demands of social justice.
Such a synthesis is not easy nor is it likely to satisfy partisans. It’s hard enough to imagine an international authority that can command universal support – not even the pope has that within his own Church. In many ways our current systems of democratic governance are more modest because they do not assume any such unanimity, theological or otherwise. But the real question is whether a society built solely on competing interests will ultimately be worth the trouble. Will it reflect Benedict’s insistent demands for human dignity? Experience keeps telling us something more is clearly needed.
Our political categories of left and right originate from the French Revolution, which infamously saw the Catholic Church as its great enemy. Which makes it all the more remarkable that the modern social teachings of the papacy may provide the soundest moral defense of liberté, égalité, et fraternité in today’s world.
We often make utilitarian arguments in favor of freedom, especially in the area of economics. We support the market economy and the profit motive because they produce more goods and services and increase our standard of living. We criticize the same system when we see others or ourselves less well-off materially, such as in this time of crisis. The system is judged moral or immoral because of what it does for us.
This is not Benedict’s approach. Like his predecessors, he starts with a certain understanding of human nature. Human beings are free and equal in dignity because they are created in the image and likeness of God. And as children of God, they have a social nature that compels them to live and prosper together, despite their tendency to pride and selfishness. Human beings still have a “vocation” together. On this basis, Catholic social teaching developed a moral understanding of human freedom that rightly warns against utopian or overly idealistic schemes: The Church knows there is nothing more evident than human sin and weakness.
On past occasions, Benedict has avoided what he calls “cheap moralism” that takes no account of the technical side of economics and shows no willingness to integrate ethics into the everyday world of business — it remains on the outside looking in. Instead of partaking in simple, “prophetic” (in hindsight) calls against capitalism, Benedict has chosen to engage us with “an adult faith,” as he said on the eve of the encyclical’s publication.
via Benedict’s (Non-partisan) Truth – Kishore Jayabalan – The Corner on National Review Online.
My theology is reformed. I do not go as far as the great Swiss Frog and argue that all popes are antichrist. However some (such as Medici) are worse than this description of the Kennedys.
The Kennedy family has infected the American body politic for three generations. By and large it is composed of adulterers, fornicators, drunks, liars, socialists, traitors, rapists, parasites, habitués of rehab centers and other assorted riff-raff. They have prospered in only two professions, bootlegging and politics, proving Balzac’s rule that “behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
This nation would have been better off had the Kennedys never been born. Mary Joe Kopechne certainly would have been. The Kennedys are to a man an embarrassment, a scandal and an outrage. A decent people would have sent them all to the gibbet years ago. As it is an avenging fury has been occupied over the years in knocking them off one by one. Still so many to go, alas
The latest piece of flotsam to parade the Kennedy imbecility in public is Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. She most recently demonstrated her knowledge and wisdom by writing this piece of trash. Here is a catchy line:
Why Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the pope does.
One hardly knows where to begin to deconstruct such a tissue of illogic and stupidity.
Like all Kennedys, Townsend claims to be Catholic. Like all Kennedys, the Catholicism is just for pretense. Townsend neither practices it nor believes in it nor uses it to guide her life. Her Catholicism is a sham, nothing more than a dog and pony show to garner Catholic votes. She shares this use of Catholicism with John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi and Mario Cuomo. None of these believes what the Church teaches and has taught for 2000 years.
Scipio and I are on other sides of the Tiber. I agree with this analysis…
Catholicism is not Protestantism. There is only one Catholic Church. One either takes it all or refuses it all. Nothing else is allowed. Jesus Himself made this so. One cannot be a Catholic and be in favor of abortion, for example. If one claims to be a “Catholic for choice” one is either ignorant or a liar.
The Church cannot change its Dogma concerning Faith or Morals. It does not have the power to do so even if it wanted to. “Catholics” who yammer about contraception and sodomy and divorce and abortion and female priests are demanding things that can never be given. These complainers have really left the church though they pretend they are still in it.
via The Return Of Scipio.
…but I disagree with the conclusions. The only authorities I accept are reasoning upon scripture. You have to show it in the word. The antichrist is defined as (from I John 2, NAB)
I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth. Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist. No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.
Background
The short (s) allele of the serotonin transporter gene promoter (5-HTTLPR) may be associated with exposure to social adversities and the subsequent onset of depressive illness in adulthood.
Aims
To test in adolescents at high risk for depression whether the short ‘s’ allele is associated with levels of morning cortisol and the subsequent onset of a depressive episode.
Method
High-risk adolescents (n = 403) were genotyped for 5-HTTLPR. Salivary samples were obtained on four consecutive school days within 1 h of waking from 393 (97.5%) individuals and 367 (91%) underwent a mental state reassessment at 12 months.
Results
Multilevel analysis revealed higher levels of salivary cortisol in short allele carriers (s/s>s/l>l/l). A subsequent episode of depression was increased in those with higher cortisol and the ‘s’ allele, and independently by depressive symptoms at entry, in both genders.
Conclusions
The short allele of 5-HTTLPR may moderate the association between morning cortisol and the subsequent onset of a depressive episode.
The summary says district health boards, mostly struggling to employ sufficient permanent RMOs, are increasingly dependent on what they call “expensive professional locums”.
“Submitters noted that…a shortage of RMOs makes employers seeking locum cover reluctant to ask how many hours a potential locum has worked that day or week.
“Submitters reported unsafe practices where RMOs work in excess of 80 hours a week, locuming on top of regular hours.”
“Locums are generally regarded as being poorly supported and supervised with tenuous ties to any training they may nominally be involved in.”
The commission says some blamed the collective agreement between the DHBs and the Resident Doctors Association for the long locum hours because compliance meant RMOs were rostered to work no more than 55 hours a week on average.
This “creates shortfalls” of permanent RMOs, “which are then filled by locum agencies”, the commission was told by an unnamed submitter.
The Resident Doctors Association says the worst shortages of RMOs remain in Auckland.
The Waitemata District Health Board continues to suffer “extremely challenging” shortages in its general medical service, papers for a committee meeting this week say.
Vacancy rates have hit 42 per cent for house officers and 33 per cent for registrars.
Association secretary Deborah Powell said the main cause of the resident doctor shortage was that DHBs could not retain enough because they did not pay pay enough
This is not a new problem. We have had a RMO shortage fro at least the last 10 years. Various reasons.
The trouble is that there is no way around this. What junior doctors are now doing is locuming for the experience (and to pay of the 60 -110K debt they have accumulated), but they are not getting the supervision and experience they need after hours.
If we returned to the older awared — where you work a night on call a week and are with a team during the day — things would work better (I hated working night shift. When you become a senior medical officer, you are on call overnight and then work the next day). One needs to make sure that the call is not onerous — every 5th night and weekend is sustainable — and that junior doctors have support to attend training.
Not disappear into the last tribe of locums.
McCain, good on ya.
Our appreciation for what happened on a hot summer day in Philadelphia all these years ago is often limited to a fleeting, warm feeling about an ancient generation of Americans who, against great odds, stood up to a powerful oppressor, and claimed their natural right to liberty. This is an accurate but incomplete understanding of the revolution begun that day. For written on that piece of yellowed parchment is not only the bold assertion that thirteen former British colonies were and forever would remain free and independent states, but also the once radical idea that history has a right side and a wrong side, and that Americans stood and would always stand on the right side.
The signers put their names and ransomed their lives to a universal, not just a national ideal; that all human beings everywhere, not just Americans, not just the mostly well-off white men gathered in Philadelphia for the occasion, ‘are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’
We’ve not always been true to that ideal, and the rights guaranteed by our Constitution. Slavery, Jim Crow, the disenfranchisement of women were betrayals of the principles enshrined in our founding documents, and had to be conquered before we could claim without qualification to be firmly on the right side of history. But we overcame our faults, corrected our mistakes and in the unfinished story of our Republic, we continue our progress toward ‘a more perfect union.’ And, in the struggle to do so, we have achieved greatness.
Our wealth and power, unequaled by any nation before or since, are not the cause of our greatness. Our ideals have made us great. We are strong and prosperous because we are free, not the other way around. We have marched, in fits and starts, toward the right side of history and have ascended to a most exalted station in the affairs of mankind – ‘leader of the free world.’ It’s a great tribute to us, but also a great responsibility.
We share a kinship of ideals with every man and woman on earth who struggles for their God-given rights. The world must never doubt where we stand in the liberation struggles of our time. We stand with those who risk the anger of tyrants and their lives for the proposition that just government is derived from the consent of the governed; that all people are entitled to equal justice under the law.
via John McCain on Independence Day and the Iranian protests.
Hat tip here. And the Borg for pushing your political agenda on such a day, shame.
Oh I forgot. You had that removed.
The Cactus can’t understand Palin. The right wing (US) conservatives are arguing that she can align herself with the TEA parties. I’m not sure.
I think the cactus does understand how much any parent would hate the attacks that have been thrown at her family. I would be embarrassed to find my employer paying 2.5 million for frivelous suits — Oh, I forgot, we have the greens, which means we have to employ people to answer their stupid questions in 21 District Health Boards.
Ann Coulter’s comments are what I think Palin is thinking about
She’ll be much bigger now and can play on the national stage without constantly setting off state ethics investigations by loons, parasites and liberals. None of this applied to McCain or Kerry – both of whom went back to the Senate – because their national campaigns diminished them. Palin’s national campaign made her a major star. As she said, she’s not retreating, she’s advancing in another direction.
Some Alaskans don’t mind wasting public dollars and state time. I do. I cannot stand here as your Governor and allow millions upon millions of our dollars go to waste just so I can hold the title of Governor. And my children won’t allow it either. ? Some will question the timing. ? Let’s just say, this decision has been in the works for awhile…
In fact, this decision comes after much consideration, and finally polling the most important people in my life – my children (where the count was unanimous… well, in response to asking: “Want me to make a positive difference and fight for ALL our children’s future from OUTSIDE the Governor’s office?” It was four “yes’s” and one “hell yeah!” The “hell yeah” sealed it – and someday I’ll talk about the details of that… I think much of it had to do with the kids seeing their baby brother Trig mocked by some pretty mean-spirited adults recently.) Um, by the way, sure wish folks could ever, ever understand that we ALL could learn so much from someone like Trig – I know he needs me, but I need him even more… what a child can offer to set priorities RIGHT – that time is precious… the world needs more “Trigs”, not fewer.
My decision was also fortified during this most recent trip to Kosovo and Landstuhl, to visit our wounded soldiers overseas, those who sacrifice themselves in war for OUR freedom and security… we can ALL learn from our selfless Troops… they’re bold, they don’t give up, they take a stand and know that LIFE is short so they choose to NOT waste time. They choose to be productive and to serve something greater than SELF… and to build up their families, their states, our country. These Troops and their important missions – those are truly the worthy causes in this world and should be the public priority with time and resources and NOT this local / superficial wasteful political bloodsport.
May we ALL learn from them!
*((Gotta put First Things First))*
First things first: as Governor, I love my job and I love Alaska. It hurts to make this choice but I am doing what’s best for Alaska. I’ve explained why… though I think of the saying on my parents’ refrigerator that says “Don’t explain: your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.”
But I have given my reasons… no more “politics as usual” and I am taking my fight for what’s right – for Alaska – in a new direction.
Now, despite this, I don’t want any Alaskan dissuaded from entering politics after seeing this REAL “climate change” that began in August… no, we NEED hardworking, average Americans fighting for what’s right! And I will support you because we need YOU and YOU can effect change, and I can too on the outside.
We need those who will respect our Constitution where government’s supposed to serve from the BOTTOM UP, not move toward this TOP DOWN big government take-over… but rather, will be protectors of individual rights – who also have enough common sense to acknowledge when conditions have drastically changed and are willing to call an audible and pass the ball when it’s time so the team can win! And that is what I’m doing!
Remember Alaska… America is now, more than ever, looking North to the Future. It’ll be good. So God bless you, and from me and my family – to ALL Alaska – you have my heart.