British Teachers Tolerate The Other F-Word

Some f-words are nicer than others, according to one British school. While it is terrible to use the word failure because such a dirty word may sting youthful egos, damaging them irreparably, The Other F-Word is A-OK… unless you use it more than five times in a single class, that is. Perhaps tired of being disciplinarians, the instructors at this British school will themselves bite the soap and "tolerate (although not condone)" a "limited" use of the f-word that your mama would have, or should have, cleaned your clock for using in her presence:

"A secondary school is to allow pupils to swear at teachers — as long as they don’t do so more than five times in a lesson. A running tally of how many times the f-word has been used will be kept on the board. If a class goes over the limit, they will be ‘spoken’ to at the end of the lesson.

[…]

"’Within each lesson the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score,’ [assistant headmaster Richard White] wrote in the letter [explaining the policy].

"’Over this number the class will be spoken to by the teacher at the end of the lesson.’"

On the bright side, some Brits do see a problem with the policy:

"Tory MP Ann Widdecombe said the policy was based on ‘Alice in Wonderland reasoning.’

"’What next?’ she asked. ‘Do we allow people to speed five times or burgle five times? You don’t improve something by allowing it, you improve something by discouraging it.’"

GET THE STORY.

And the education establishment wonders why homeschooling is so popular.

The Magisterium

A reader writes:

Hello, I hate to be so ignorant, but what exactly is the magisterium?  I hear about it all the time and have run search engines on it, but the articles just refer to it, without an explanation.  Is it a group of writings?

First, no need to be embarrassed about the question. Asking questions is how we learn.

Second, the Magisterium is not a collecting of writings, but it’s quite understandable why you might think that. The Magisterium tends to express itself through writings much of the time, and that’s what you’re running into.

In actuality, the Magisterium is the teaching authority of the Church. It’s name comes from the Latin word magister, which means "teacher."

The Magisterium is composed of the bishops of the Church teaching in union with the pope. The pope can himself exercise the teaching authority of the Church, or the bishops can do it when they teach in union with him.

If a bishop goes rogue, though, and starts teaching contrary to the pope then he isn’t exercising the Church’s teaching authority. He’s speaking on his own and not in his capacity to represent the Magisterium.

Ordinary theologians (unless they are also bishops) are not members of the Magisterium.

Neither are apologists (again, unless they are also bishops).

Not even the ones who write blogs.

 

Double-X Marks THe Spot

A number of years ago I got a book called Revising Fiction. The book was about how to revise . . . well, fiction.

One of the author’s big points was that the revision process is very distinct from the writing process. (It had better be, or he’d have no reason to write his book.)

He therefore stressed to writers that they should not try to revise while they are writing. Write when you write; revise when you revise. Don’t mix the two or you’ll get into trouble.

And you will.

If you let your inner critic drive you to start editing what you’ve just written, you’ll fiddle with it forever. You’ll get bogged down–repeatedly–as you write, and you may never finish your manuscript.

Revision is incredibly important. It’s how you get all the bad stuff out of your writing. But it’s a separate process, and a very important one. This led the author to an interesting perspective: Why do writers write? Frequently, so they can have something to revise. That’s not true all the time (certainly, it’s not true of me when I’m writing an article or a special report on deadline), but at times in a writer’s experience–particularly in the beginning–it may well be true.

His overall point about keeping editing separate from writing is extremely important, however. When one writes, one frequently should get the words down as fast as one can, without worrying about how good they are. You can fix them later, but finishing that first draft is vitally important.

In my own writing, I try whenever possible to follow the advice, "Write in a fury!" Do whatever it takes to bang out that first draft. Fix it later.

One of the things that means is that I don’t stop to look up citations. If I stopped to look up every Bible verse I need to quote, or type in all the bibliographic info for a book I want to cite, it’d break the flow of my writing and I’d lose precious time by getting sidetracked to look stuff up. As a result, I don’t (when I can avoid it).

Instead, I drop unique strings into my writing at points I know I need to revisit. For example, if I know that I need to insert a Bible verse, I frequently will write "(xx)" for the citation. Then, after I’m done with the first draft and am in the revision stage, I’ll go back and do an electronic search for all the "xx"es and replace them with the missing citations.

If the needs of the manuscript are more complex and I need to mark different kinds of places to revisit in the revision process, I’ll use other unique strings. I don’t want a combination of letters that will likely appear in the text, though, so I’ll use something uncommon, like "jj" or "qq" or "xjxj." It’s then a snap to look these up electronically.

Using the word processor’s highlight feature also can help. I may put a yellow highlight on the whole first draft and then go through it, turning the yellow highlight off as I revise individual sections. (That way if I need to skip a section for some reason, it’ll still be yellow and thus obvious that I need to go back and finish fixing it.)

I understand that for some in the publishing industry, typing "00" has been an equivalent of my "xx." I don’t like that as much, though, because (a) "00" can look too much like "oo" or "OO" (making it hard if you’re visually scanning a secion) and (b) the zero keys require one to take one’s fingers off the letter-keys and hit the less-familiar number-keys. "xx" doesn’t require that.

So for me, any way, double-X marks the spot.

Fr. Flimflam

Imposter Now here’s a Catholic horror story, all the more horrible because it really happened: A con man forges documents to allow him to pose as a validly ordained priest and, in that capacity, conducts Masses, baptisms, and weddings at parishes in Arizona:

"Fred Brito believes that his true calling is as a Catholic priest. But he also makes quite a good psychiatrist. Most recently he has been earning £55,000 as a university fund-raiser.

"The only problem is that Brito, 50, an accomplished con artist, held none of these positions legitimately, having spent nearly 30 years bluffing his way into a string of white-collar jobs.

[…]

"One of his most stunning deceptions was as Father Federico B. Gomez de Esparza, a Norbertine priest ordained in Mexico, at a number of parishes in Arizona.

"He forged the necessary documents and studied liturgy, conducted weddings and baptisms and held mass up to four times a day until he was exposed.

"’By pretending to be a priest, Fred Brito played with the souls of people who trusted him,’ said Father Thomas Zurcher, vicar for priests in the diocese of Phoenix.

"’In doing so he compounded their hurt and shrivelled their spirit. He fakes being nice when in fact he is a mean-spirited person who lives without regard for others.’

"Brito disagreed. ‘I do feel bad because I was not actually a priest, but on the other hand no priest had ever connected to the Latino community there as I did. Yes, it was a mistake, but I also changed lives. I loved that work.’"

GET THE (HORROR) STORY.

Note Fr. Flimflam’s emphasis on how he "connected" to the Latino community and claims that he "changed" lives. But, objectively speaking, by his "celebration" of the sacraments, he has left a huge sacramental mess behind for the Diocese of Phoenix to clean up.

Why is it, that in the realm of religion, "feelings" and "connectedness" are all that matter? Mr. Brito won’t be able to easily dismiss charges of posing as a medical doctor with claims that he "connected" with those who believed him a doctor and "changed lives." If he practiced medicine without a license, he could be in for stiff legal penalties. Given the sacramental havoc he’s wrought in Arizona, I almost wish similar legal penalties were in place for impersonating a priest.

The Economics of Star Trek 2: Ferenginomics!

A piece back I reviewed the book Freakonomics, which is quite an enjoyable read. Today I’d like to talk about Ferengi-nomics, though–the economics that exist (or could exist) on the world of Ferenginar.

There’s an episode very late in DS9 (in fact, it’s the next to last episode, if memory serves) in which taxes have been introduced on Feriginar as part of Grand Nagus Zek’s left-leaning societal reforms.

Quark is horrified when he learns of this, saying that taxes run contrary to the spirit of the free market. “That’s why it’s called free,” he says.

Actually, that’s not why it’s called “free,” at least not on Earth, but it’s a good line, and you can’t expect the Hollywood lefties who write the show to understand economics.

What’s worse (from Quark’s perspective) is that not only have taxes been introduced, a progressive income tax has been created.

For those who may not be aware, a progressive income tax is one in which people who make more money are charged a higher tax rate. They not only pay more tax total, they pay taxes at a higher rate. Thus if a person in a lower income bracket pays 20% of his income in income tax, a person in a higher income range might pay 40% of his income.

The theory behind progressive income taxes is that the more money you have, the more you can afford to pay a higher percentage of your income in taxes.

The problem with progressive income taxes is that they serve as a dis-incentive to make more money. If you have to work harder for each new dollar of (after tax) take-home pay then that unmotivates you to do the work needed to get that dollar, and so at some point you say, “Eh. I’ve got enough. Why should I work harder to get more when the government will only take more of it.”

And thus economic development caps out. That means that there are fewer jobs that exist than would exist if the income tax rate weren’t progressive. The progressiveness of the tax rate serves as a drag on the economy that ends up keeping people jobless and harms them in bunches of different ways related to an absence of money in the economy that would otherwise be there.

What happens if you make the tax rate less progressive? People in the top tax bracket (i.e., the ones with the money) get more motivated to make money since they can now keep more of it. Economic growth is stimulated. Jobs are created. And, in many circumstances, the tax revenue that the government collects actually goes up since the economic stimulus provided by the lower rate more than offsets the fact that the rate has itself gone down.

Which raises a question.

Think for a minute about Ferenginar.

Assuming that they did have taxes there, and assuming that we set aside the Hollywood writers’ progressive income tax on Ferenginar idea, what kind of tax rate would they have there?

Ferengi place a value on economic development above all else. If having a highly progressive tax rate highly hampers the economy, and if a less progressive tax rate hampers the economy less, then I bet on Ferenginar they’d have a negatively progressive tax rate.

In other words, they wouldn’t have a progressive tax rate, they’d have a regressive one.

On this scheme, your tax rate would be higher if you make less money and lower if you make more money. Someone in a lower income range would be paying the 40% (or whatever) and someone in the higher range would be paying 20% (or whatever).

You can just imagine how they’d justify it, too. I can see Quark giving a speech in which he says, “This way it gives the poor an incentive to not be poor any more, to work hard and look for economic opportunities that will let them make enough money that they can get into that next tax bracket. That makes them richer. It makes society richer. It stimulates economic development. It’s better for everybody. Don’t give me your silly Federation ‘morality.’ A progressive income tax rate is positively immoral! How can you be so cruel to your poor as to subsidize their poverty and keep them trapped in it?”

It’s too bad that there aren’t any Trek TV-writing jobs available at the moment. I could probably work a pretty good episode out of that idea, or at least the B story of an episode.

SURPRISINGLY, SOME HU-MONS HAVE EXPERIMENTED WITH REGRESSIVE INCOME TAXES.

They apparently have one in Taiwan.

Covering My Tracks

Pearplum2_1I have an art dilemma.

Fortunately, my development as an artist over the last year or so has taken a positive turn. I have been blessed to get to know some professional artists whose work I admire, and who have been generous with time and advice. I have also found the style that I think suits me best (classical realism) and returned to the medium I have always had the most affection for, oils. Slowly, I am recovering from my Masters Degree, and I feel I am beginning to produce some art that I will not be embarrassed to leave behind when I die.

Here is the dilemma; I have too much old art. I have art that I have been dragging around with me from my earliest days in college. Lots of it. So much that I have been giving serious thought to burning most of it.

There are several good reasons to burn most of my old art, two of which are most relevant:

  1. It’s really awful
  2. It’s taking up lots of storage space and is deteriorating anyway.

Now, as soon as I thought of burning all this old art, I thought that a bonfire like this calls for inviting some friends over and hoisting a few brews. Kind of like a viking funeral, without the water.

So here is the dilemma; alot of my artist friends don’t think I should burn my old art at all. Some were SHOCKED that I would want to destroy evidencehistory in this way.

In deference to their concerns, I reassured them that I will be keeping enough old pieces to make plain to any future historian precisely how crappy my work was was at each stage of my early artistic development. I plan on keeping anything that I think is of genuine worth, along with one or two pieces typical of each period, no matter how horrendous.

Surely you writers out there have happily (with some relief?) round-filed old efforts, simply out of fear, that by some wicked twist of fate, they might end up associated with your name for all of history.

Do creative professionals have the freedom to put their name to what they like, and deep-six everything else? Isn’t that part of the creative process?

The Human Zoo

From the U.K. Yahoos Department:

Have you ever wandered through a zoo and wondered why only animals are caged there? Did you ever wonder why there were no human beings on display, since humans are animals, too? If so, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not unique after all. The London Zoo now has people on exhibit in an attempt to display homo sapiens as a "plague species":

"The ‘Human Zoo’ is intended to show the basic nature of human beings, reported Agence France-Presse.

"’We have set up this exhibit to highlight the spread of man as a plague species and to communicate the importance of man’s place in the planet’s ecosystem,’ a statement from London Zoo said.

"According to the report, the scantily clad volunteers will be treated as animals and kept amused at the central London zoo facility with games and music. They will go home each night after the zoo closes during Britain’s bank holiday weekend.

"Dozens of hopeful volunteers applied to be part of the eight-person team through an Internet competition."

GET THE STORY.

I don’t know who to pity more: The officials who dreamed up this idea; the volunteers who debased their human dignity by applying to become a zoo exhibit; or the British public who might well be funding this travesty, at least in part, through their tax dollars pounds.

The Lawrence Chickens Are Coming Home To Roost

You may remember the not-so-long-ago Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas, in which Darth Kennedy, leading a gang of fellow Sith lords, struck down a Texas anti-sodomy statue.

Lawrence v. Texas [is] the Supreme Court’s decision in 2003 that the Constitution protects the freedom of Americans to engage in ”the most private human conduct, sexual behavior," when it is part of a willing relationship between adults.

”The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in striking down the Texas law under which John Lawrence and Tyron Garner had been convicted of homosexual sodomy. ”The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government."

All of that is complete horse manure, of course. The Constitution does no such thing. Darth Kennedy and his co-conspirators are simply agenda-driven evilfolk out to impose their will on the American people by subverting the democratic process required to enact the laws that they’d like enacted.

At the time Lawrence was issued, people pointed out that its logic would allow all kinds of immoral sexual relationships.

And now the chickens are coming home to roost.

GET THE STORY. (Which is not actually about chickens.)

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

The Lawrence Chickens Are Coming Home To Roost

You may remember the not-so-long-ago Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas, in which Darth Kennedy, leading a gang of fellow Sith lords, struck down a Texas anti-sodomy statue.

Lawrence v. Texas [is] the Supreme Court’s decision in 2003 that the Constitution protects the freedom of Americans to engage in ”the most private human conduct, sexual behavior," when it is part of a willing relationship between adults.

”The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in striking down the Texas law under which John Lawrence and Tyron Garner had been convicted of homosexual sodomy. ”The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government."

All of that is complete horse manure, of course. The Constitution does no such thing. Darth Kennedy and his co-conspirators are simply agenda-driven evilfolk out to impose their will on the American people by subverting the democratic process required to enact the laws that they’d like enacted.

At the time Lawrence was issued, people pointed out that its logic would allow all kinds of immoral sexual relationships.

And now the chickens are coming home to roost.

GET THE STORY. (Which is not actually about chickens.)

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)