There is no Catholic voting bloc.

It irks me to no end that non-Catholics people of all political stripes continue to comment on what Catholics believe and how they vote in behave based on old tired stereotypes that do not much anything I have ever experienced. Now I don't find much useful information on CNN.com these days, but this piece is a must read for non-Catholics of any political persuasion about the non-existence of any monolithic Catholic voting bloc or culture:

.... the idea of a Catholic bloc is patently ridiculous. As voters, American Catholics mirror the electorate as a whole, divided into Democrats, independents, and Republicans at about the same percentages as all Americans. And it’s hard to trace such political complexity to religious allegiance.

The article goes on to make a distinction between "Latino" "intentional" and "cultural" Catholics that I do find to have some basis in reality:

Unlike the Italians, Poles, Irish and similar white ethnics, Latino Catholics have retained their distinctive identity as Catholics. Their voting behavior reflects that.
This is particularly true when considered from the perspective of the famous social teachings of the church, which emphasize social and familial solidarity, the common good, preference for the poor, tradition, and welcoming of the immigrant.
Latino American Catholics (excluding Cubans) strongly associated with the Democratic Party in 2008, with 67% of Latino Catholic voters supporting Obama. But the bloc includes swing voters, and turnout can be volatile. This vote can be critical in swing states like Colorado, Florida and New Mexico, and perhaps soon in states like Arizona and Texas.

An important social phenomenon for understanding intentional Catholics is what’s sometimes referred to as distillation. A study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life last year found that one-third of those raised Catholic have left the church. Fully 10% of the American electorate is formerly Catholic....
But as a result of disaffiliation, many Catholics who remain with the church are “distilled.”  More and more of those who remain are those who actively choose to embrace the church and its teachings...
Largely white, with impressive education levels, mostly suburban and with moderate to high income levels, such Catholics are in evidence in weekly Mass attendance and parish activities. Politically active, intentional Catholic voters lean toward the Republican Party (with some youthful swing voters) and are motivated by economic issues and increasingly by opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and illegal immigration.

“Cultural Catholics” make up the third important group of Catholic voters. They are a complicated mix of mostly white Americans with lower levels of Mass attendance and higher levels of ambivalence toward Church authority.
These assimilated voters have varying education and income levels, often hail from urban and suburban communities, are more female than male – often with blue-collar roots – and are not intentionally but culturally oriented toward the church.

Many culturally Catholic voters are at odds with both conservatives and liberals on many issues. They are more socially conservative than the majority of Americans, but many are put off by the more intense social conservatism of intentional Catholics and evangelicals.
They are more economically populist than most Americans but are uncomfortable with the libertarian zeal of the tea party.  They are alienated from the lifestyle liberalism of many progressives but remain supportive of unions and governmental programs for the middle class.
The bishops may have little role in these voters’ personal faith, but cultural Catholics look to the church for the sacraments that mark the turnings of their lives and for the traditions that connect generations. Their religious sensibility might almost be described as ethnic.

Even many supposedly culturally aware academics miss these characteristics of such a large portion of the American population and cling to 19th century stereotypes.  This is why any comments from conservative or liberal pundits on the contraception nontroversey and supposed monolithic Catholic reaction are nothing more than hot air.

The Rickster Riseth - updated

Who would thought the subject of the Saturday Santorum posts a while back has risen to the status of GOP frontrunner?  So much has been said about him, so let's just hear it from the asses...er horses mouth:

Reuters 2/15/12

"Let's mandate that every insurance policy covers toothpaste. Deodorant. That might be a good idea, right? Have everyone cover deodorant, right? Soap. I mean, where do you stop?"

Piers Morgan via Mediaite

Morgan then left the topic of contraception to ask Santorum about a subject no one else likely would have asked Rick Santorum: Whitney Houston. “Celebrities are the aristocracy of America,” Santorum replied, adding that he considered her death “disturbing,” especially since “you see, in a sense, the royalty of America setting such a poor example.”

Video interview from Oct. '11 via Newser

One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, “Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.”
It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative.

Ricky thinks health care reform is bad for marriage:

Do you realize that if you are married under Obamacare, you pay a lot more than if you are living together under Obamacare? A lot more," Santorum told 500 voters packed into Froehlich's Classic Corner restaurant. "Thousands of dollars more for the average American family you paid if you are married."

 "Coal miner" Frothy claims he's not the one who's anti-science:

"Ladies and gentlemen, we need someone who understands, who comes from the coal fields, who comes from the steel mills, who understands what average working people in America need to be able to provide for themselves and their families," Santorum said to a crowd of about 500 people in the Democratic-leaning eastern edge of the state.


Santorum's claim to have come "from the coal fields" is a stretch - by two generations. He has never worked in a coal mine. His parents' professions were psychologist and nurse, and Santorum is a lawyer who has spent all of his adult life in politics.

 His views are not "anti-science" as Democrats claim, Santorum said. "When it comes to the management of the Earth, they are the anti-science ones. We are the ones who stand for science, and technology, and using the resources we have to be able to make sure that we have a quality of life in this country and (that we) maintain a good and stable environment," he said

The Rickster blames the media for people not liking what he says, instead of because of, you know, what he says:

On Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, Santorum told a Tea Party crowd, "It's not about you. It's not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your job. It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology. " But in front of a crowd of more than 500 people here on Monday, he said the comments were not meant to question the president's religious beliefs, rather a critique of what he called the "extreme" environmental regulations of the Obama administration.

Change in focus

If you look carefully you'll see that the sub header on this here blog has changed, reflecting the new focus.  I'll still be making comments on the converging challenges, but also life in general.  The Marcellus news and information will be in a new blog, which will start on blogspot for convenience.

Right now the Marcellus news will appear only on twitter until the new site is up and running. Once that happens the twitter updates to the right will disappear.

The Catholic contraception nontroversy

According to the media and the right-wing, the so-called culture wars are back due to the federal healthcare guideline that Catholic affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities pay for contraception. Supposedly Catholics (which implies the laity as well as the clergy) are enraged at this attack on their religious freedom. Ironically, the ones other than the bishops and Republican-catholic pundits that make this charge are fundamentalists Protestants that historically have been extremely hostile to Catholicism and Catholics.

Such articles and comments that follow talk about Catholic attitudes rather than listen to commentators who actually are Catholics. How about asking Catholics, we're not hard to find as we make up a large portion of the country. The idea that most Catholics are up in arms about this is ludicrous. I don't know a single Catholic couple not practicing birth control and the biggest issue for most is the hierarchy's obstinance in failing to take real responsibility for the abuse cases.

The people who claimed to be outraged can be put in the following groups:
1) Certain blue-collar ethnic Catholics who will never vote for Obama. I know a number of these types around Boston: they only show up in Church on Christmas and Easter, are bigoted against anyone not of their ethnicity, and pretty much ignore any church teaching. They'll claim this as an excuse not to vote for Obama, but they never were going to. This would be the largest group of the "outraged."
2) Wealthy suburban Catholic Republicans who will never vote for Obama. May be outwardly more observant than type 1, but it's mainly for show. Know a lot of these in SE PA/Northern Delaware. They definitely ignore every social teaching of the Church and ignore the admonition against birth control. Again they'll claim this as an excuse not to vote for Obama, but they never were going to in the first place.
3) Santorum type social conservatives who seem to be more theologically fundamentalist Protestant than Catholic. They may indeed not practice birth control but are a small group.
4) The church hierarchy, which has sold its soul to American Social Conservatives as a mechanism to deflect questioning of their authority because of the abuse issue. Many Catholics see through this protection of their temporal institution over spiritual matters and are appalled. They know their flocks ignore the contraception prohibition and this case may give them a sense of control.
4) Talking heads who have no real influence but whose opinions are taken as the sentiment of Catholics as a whole but a lazy media eager to create a culture war.  It makes could copy, gets lots of hits and comments.  It is definitely a case of sound and fury signifying less than nothing.

So this is a nontroversy. In the end all it will do more to drive the wedge between clergy and flock further than it will hurt Obama.  It also demonstrates that the GOP has 'nuthin and is falling back on what supposedly worked 18 years ago.  It's not even a Hail Mary pass, pardon the pun. It's trying to start a brawl when they see the game slipping away.


One more thing. Stewart and Colbert were off this week (again, must be nice). Once they weigh in the media will back off and this will be then end of the "issue".

Random Observations

Which is what this blog is turning into.


This is weird, an unusual southern migration of Snowy Owls from the Arctic is occuring:

A certain number of the iconic owls fly south from their Arctic breeding grounds each winter but rarely do so many venture so far away even amid large-scale, periodic southern migrations known as irruptions.

"What we're seeing now -- it's unbelievable," said Denver Holt, head of the Owl Research Institute in Montana.

"This is the most significant wildlife event in decades," added Holt, who has studied snowy owls in their Arctic tundra ecosystem for two decades.

Based on the uniforms, the first Star Trek movie should be called Disco Trek. That's the type of things I learn  from an HBO free preview weekend showing movies from the late 70s.

Sure it's been a warm January in the lower 48, but not the warmest.  That was way back in 2006.

Occupy Oakland jumped the shark. Kiss the union money goodbye. Meanwhile the number of private-sector union members has increased, so labor may be regaining some strength.

News USGS report, Severe Declines in Everglades Mammals Linked to Pythons. So I guess USGS no longer stands for US Geological Survey, kinda like the TLC no longer means The Learning Channel.

The Fox-Muppet battle continues to rage: 

At a London press conference to promote The Muppets‘ UK release, Kermit D. Frog, himself a former TV news personality, defended the film against the charge, but it was Miss Piggy who delivered the coup de grace, calling the accusation “laughable as accusing Fox News as being News.”

Other Pursuits Have Kept Me Busy

I know, no new posts in a while and the rumored Marcellus blog has yet to materialize.  It all has to do with how my days go right now.  Up in the morning, take care of the dog.  Little Joe now rarely goes back to sleep when Mama leaves and since he's now very active and curious he wants out and I have to put in either a safe crawling area or his exersaucer.  Then breakfast. Bottles were simple, now I have to plop him in the high chair and get him some finger foods, juice, and usually mash some banana.  Then I get some on-line time and maybe some time to contact contractors etc. Then off to the park, lunch, naps etc. Finally in the evening I can do some work myslef on the house. Big developments this week, finally got all the joists resting properly on support beams, just have one area left to expose that has some movement. This time next year it should be pretty cool. Then there is the outside part of the property.

So that's what I've been up to. Maybe at some point I will try to get something going with my so-called advanced degrees.

The cracks in the Ivory Tower

I've refrained from airing my dirty laundry about academia, but have hinted I some day may do just that. Suffice to say I support higher education and the need for it but I have no illusions about its current state and the reasons for it. Although buffeted and attacked by outside factors many of the problems in the Ivory Tower, much like my house, are the result of decades of poor planning and self-serving decisions by administration, terrible ethics and outright corruption.

A number of stories before and after the new year caught my attentionbecause they shien a narrow spotlight on some of the compromised structure of American Higher Ed.

In California it has been found that the Los Angeles Community Colleges building program is a mess because of poor management:

“An independent panel looking into the Los Angeles Community College District's troubled rebuilding program found that the nearly $6-billion effort was hampered by a lack of leadership and accountability and that lax controls allowed large numbers of costly changes midway through projects.
The district, for example, spent $39 million to design and start construction on four major buildings at West Los Angeles College, only to cancel the projects for lack of sufficient funds to finish them, The Times found.”

Doug Lederman on InsideHigherEd explores why reform on college athletics is unlikely:

“In a set of interviews with nearly a dozen longtime observers and leaders of big-time college athletics, consensus emerged that given the political, financial and other forces that support and benefit from the current system of big-time college sports, it would take an external “asteroid” of major proportions to bring about truly transformative change (though it was difficult to find consensus on the likelihood of any one such thunderbolt actually happening).
But does anything differentiate the current spate of rule breaking and scandal from previous ones, in a way that might prompt a more dramatic response or suggest that more transformative change might result this time around?
No, argues Murray Sperber, a visiting professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California at Berkeley and author of such books at Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education. While the rash of recent scandals may seem more widespread or serious than others, “what’s really changed is the Internet, which gives the illusion that there are more scandals,” he says. “The spotlight has gotten a lot more intense. Schools can’t turn it off like they could for generations and generations.”

A report (albeit from another academic institution-UPenn) has found that the State of Washington’s system is “adrift” due to management failures at the top:

In the second installment of a five-state, two-year study, the researchers determined that Washington lags behind most other states in the total number of bachelor’s degrees produced per capita; only 40 of every 100 students who start ninth grade enter college on time; and one-fourth of adults ages 18-64 range have not earned even a high school diploma.
“Performance and Policy in Washington Higher Education” reports that college is becoming less affordable in Washington. From 1999 to 2009, median family incomes declined by 1.9 percent, but tuition increased by 42 percent at public two- year colleges and by 39.5 percent at public four-year colleges and universities.

The University of Illinois System presidential chief of staff has resigned amid an inquiry into whether she sent anonymous e-mails to faculty members with the goal of influencing  them  on policy matters.  The Chicago Tribune reported:

“The university's ethics and information technology offices are looking into whether Troyer, one of the president's chief advisers, was behind two anonymous emails sent in December by "About UIIntegrity." The emails — with the subject line "call for reason and honesty" — tried to influence the University Senates Conference, the primary faculty advisory group to the president, which was debating the contentious issue of enrollment management changes.
The incident comes as the university's leadership has been emphasizing the importance of ethics and positioning itself as the reform administration following an admissions scandal that rocked the state's flagship campus.”

 I tweeted about this, they’re building a new mansion for the UMd president amdist massive budget slashing:

Construction crews are poised to demolish the president’s house at the University of Maryland this week and to pour the foundation for a new 14,000-square-foot on-campus mansion that carries a $7.2 million price tag.
But some question why the school would build such an elaborate house at a time when the flagship university is asking donors to support students who might drop out because they can’t afford tuition. And construction will begin just weeks after President Wallace D. Loh announced that he will cut eight varsity sports teams in June to save an estimated $29 million over the next eight years.” 

The standard line of defense form career academics is that this happens in all institutions.  I call this the GOP defense, because just like the current Republican Party that holds itself out as the protector of "family values" many academics (particularly boomers) crow about how they are above profits and politics and are involved in a nobler pursuit than the rest of society.  In both cases when the truth is revealed we see rank hypocrisy and self-righteousness instead.

Housework

This is the time when I can get work done on the old school house.  The previous two owners and an incompetent contractor made  a mess of things.  Load bearing walls changed, joists compromised, bad plumbing changes. and on the addition just shoddy workmanship. The new metal roof had problems too. So that and watching a 10 month old are where I'm at right now.

Plans for the Future

Taking care of little Joe and trying to plan out both house and career renovations have taken up most of my time so far this new year.  I've also done an evaluation for this here blog and found that the most views have been on the Marcellus posts. So I've decided to spinoff another blog dedicated to the latest news for developments in shale gas world in Pennsylvania.  This blog will go on, but there will likely be more activity on the new one.

Stayed tuned for details.

Don't sweat the methane, the ongoing change is bad enough

Prior to the New Year, the NYT's Dot Earth dissected alarming reports of increasing methane being released from thawing permafrost. As the December 14th installment relates

But read this summary of the paper from the American Geophysical Union, which publishes the journal, and see if you feel reassured that the “methane time bomb” there is safe for a long time to come:
[T]he authors found that roughly 1 meter of the subsurface permafrost thawed in the past  25 years, adding to the 25 meters of already thawed soil. Forecasting the expected future permafrost thaw, the authors found that even under the most extreme climatic scenario tested this thawed soil growth will not exceed 10 meters by 2100 or 50 meters by the turn of the next millennium. The authors note that the bulk of the methane stores in the east Siberian shelf are   trapped roughly 200 meters below the seafloor…

To me this is another case were we are facing a real  problem but the atteention gets focused on the more dire, but less supported by data scenario.  And going by the temperature anomalies from GISTEMP for September, October and November 2011 the warming we have is significant without any methane induced doomsday.