Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 11:45pm

Various & Sundry, 9/2/13

On the Obligation to Fast 

Pope Francis has declared Saturday, September 7 to be a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria. Ed Peters tackles the question of whether we are canonically obligated to fast.

In short, a Catholic who does not observe a fast on Sept 7 does not violate canon law. What such disregard for the pope’s unusual request might indicate about one’s desire to act with the Successor of Peter is another question.

Bwahahahahahaha

Excuse me while I gather myself.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

No. Seriously. I’m cool.

In what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation’s largest private sector unions. The Longshoremen citied Obamacare and immigration reform as two important causes of their disaffiliation.

English Compositionism as Fraud and Failure

A senior lecturer at Santa Clara University takes a look at college level writing instruction and finds it wanting.

Compositionists today are laughingstocks on and off campus, notorious for babbling about “borderlands narratology” and “sustainable digitalized hyper-rhetoric” when students cannot write a coherent paragraph or even use an apostrophe correctly. I can think of no other field, academic or otherwise, in which the uninformed, “amateur” public has such a decisive advantage over guild-certified experts. A three-step program of professional reform follows: (1) dissociate composition teaching from literature teaching, (2) dissociate composition teaching from composition studies and composition theory, and (3) put writing instruction in the hands of practitioners—of whateveracademic training and political leaning—whose only job is to guide student-writers toward proficiency at the level traditionally associated with “higher” education.

And he’s just getting started.

Washington Post Writer Argues that Statutory Rape Ain’t So Bad

No. Really. That’s basically her argument.

To quote Bob Grant, “They’re sick and getting sicker.”

Prettiest Picture of the Day

Courtesy of Creative Minority Report, a wonderful image to close out the day.

 

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bearing
Monday, September 2, AD 2013 9:05pm

OH man, for a second there I thought your “Bwahahahaha” was aimed at Ed Peters.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, September 2, AD 2013 9:12pm

I take it college writing centers are now a disaster, just like the English department, the American history faculty, the constitutional law faculty, the Sociology department, and the divinity schools (and the student affairs apparat, while we are at it). I have an uncomplicated idea about how to fix academe: blow it up.

Pat
Pat
Monday, September 2, AD 2013 9:35pm

There is always the essential elimination of journal assignments from English Dept. teachers in all secondary school grades to be replaced with grammar book series. Quiz on Wednesdays, Test on Fridays. Rare allowance of the personal pronoun, “I” (except for fun, extra credit composition assignments). English teachers are neither sociologists nor psychologists.

Samuel L. Edwards
Tuesday, September 3, AD 2013 6:03am

In re: Bwahahahahahaha.

When I saw this, it struck me that here was the most novel side-effect of Obama(don’t)care yet: Union busting, which in the Demo(n)crat universe is a solely Republican(‘t) enterprise.

On second thought, though, it’s not all that surprising, since just about everything that ends with an “-ism” finally destroys what it claims to value most: In this case, “socialism” destroys “society,” both at large and in detail.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Tuesday, September 3, AD 2013 7:54am

Not an obligation under church law but a loving response. As Fr. Z said,

“And why not make it, voluntarily, a day of fasting and abstinence like to Good Friday?

So, no, I don’t think we would sin by not participating in this in a concrete way. However, when the Holy Father makes an appeal like this, then we should respond.

And I will add this: Those of you of the traditional stripe, by the first to take the initiative and help with whatever might be organized. Get out there.”

MikeS
MikeS
Tuesday, September 3, AD 2013 9:30am

Apparently, they’re leaving the AFL-CIO because the AFL-CIO isn’t liberal enough.
If you look at their statement, they want a single-payer healthcare system and shorter waiting periods for citizenship. I was a little less excited when I saw that.

old girl
old girl
Tuesday, September 3, AD 2013 7:19pm

A three-step program of professional reform follows: (1) dissociate composition teaching from literature teaching…

I hate the fact that writing is always taught in the service of literary analysis in high school. It is killing my teen boys who are required to analyze literature while struggling to form coherent paragraphs. I would rather they could take a journalism class for a year, or a speech/debate class for a year, to get English credits. But no dice.

Kurt
Kurt
Wednesday, September 4, AD 2013 12:40pm

The ILWU was kicked out of the CIO (prior to its merger with the AF of L) for being too left wing. Under Lane Kirkland’s policy of “all sinners belong in the church”, it was re-admitted the the AFL-CIO. The west coast longshoremen are the second most left wing union in the USA, the UE taking the prize.

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