John Boehner, Commencement Speaker at Catholic U., Draws Fire From Catholic Academics

Catholic or non-Catholic – I wouldn’t want to listen to him.

It is about time for the Catholic Church to pay attention to its broader teachings, and stop having celibate men devoting all their energies to encouraging procreation.

I have been a committed and practising RC for all of my 72 years. I must confess the notion that Boehner is not committed to the “core teachings” does not much move me since by and large the reactionaries have captured my church. Mostly I blush when I hear those who supposedly represent the official party line of my church. I do think we have to get serious about reigning in the budgetary deficits (much caused by the Bush tax cuts to the rich and the necessary deficit spending to get out of a terrible recession – caused by reckless speculation by financial institutions that should have known better) but the ideas the Republicans have laid on the table are not the answer. We need to move more in the direction of the deficit commission that reported last summer and in the direction the “Gang of Six” is going to bring forward (they need to hurry up while there is still a possible window of opportunity). In short, I think Boehner’s positions are, in large part, despicable. But as a professor for 49 years, I don’t think the idea of not giving people honorary degrees because you hate their political views is a good one. We are citizens of a still excellent republic with universal suffrage. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, however abhorrent his views, is an honorable magistrate of the republic. It is good to honor people of such rank, and to listen politely to what they have to say. Boehner at least is helping to tame down the really crazy people in his party who are very scary. Peter H Baker Marymount Manhattan

Teach me: What has Speaker Boehner done “to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted, etc”.

I have not heard any priest encourage procreation in his homily/sermon at Mass. Have you heard them encourage this or are you just making this up?

Did you attend a Catholic elementary, or secondary school as well as a Catholic college? Well I did, and I can firmly attest that procreation was stressed and stressed and stressed over and over, not only by priests but by nuns as well. So there is your origin – and it is not made up. It was a real life experience.

Despite most of the sanctimony registered in response to this newsbrief, it might be reasonably and fairly argued that perpetuation of the welfare state by liberals is ultimately the greatest disservice to the poor.

Lots of stats and no cites. Interesting. Where do you get the 87 cents on the dollar figure? And, what does it include? I don’t think Medicare or Social Security spend 87 cents on the dollar for administration. Pardon my skepticism and lack of trust. I am just wondering if this number is like the data on Planned Parenthood abortion services.

Those on the conservative side just seem to say things using numbers that are not intended to be facutal statements. Some of us (like me) have not yet caught on to this new way of public advocacy where numbers are invented out of thin air as a way to make a point.

Yes, panthernation, conservatives have long been making stuff up — “creating their own reality” I think Rove calls it. Social Security’s administrative expenses have never topped 3% of the program’s total expenditures and are now less than 1% (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/admin.html). Medicare comes in only a bit higher. Conservatives give more to charities for things like slapping their names on snobbish art galleries. Their “charities” are generally the kind that help their social standing, while leftists tend to support the much more effective government programs to alleviate poverty.

If President Obama can invite Common to give a “poetry reading” praising cop killers at the White House, then I have no problem with John Boehner as the commencement speaker at Catholic University. This is, after all, America.

I don’t know why 9 people have expressed a “like” to the above comment, you have said nothing to like or dislike. If “it might be reasonably and fairly argued” whatever nonsense you are proposing then give the reasonable argument. Do you actually have one? Are we supposed to guess?

Ummm…you may want to watch John Stewart’s riff on this one. It is pretty devastating. (Oh…maybe watching a little less of the GOP talking points without using critical thinking as well.)

_perplexed_, the very tone of your reply seems to indicate that you judge someone entirely by the public policy stances that they take, rather than any private acts that they might perform. Brushing up on 6 Matthew might do you some good, though I get the sense you would rather sit in the back of the room and throw spitballs than really debate the issue of what our public obligations are versus our private ones.

I have a feeling that you are one of those progressives who really belives that paying a 27% rate on income taxes rather than a 25% rate somehow counts as fulfilling your obligation to the less fortunate. Better yet, we can get the rich to up thier contribution from 36% to 39%, and we can leave our tax rate where it currently stands. That way we don’t have to be bothered with it at all. It’s a shame that modern progressivism seems to have devolved to this.

Just a quick follow.  The woman praised by Common is still wanted by the FBI. http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/dt/joanne-deborah-chesimard

One of Common’s “poems” gives moral support for Wesley Cook, AKA, Mumia Abu Jamal.  The President and First Lady invite whomever they want to the People’s House.As a young man, I was appalled when Reagan invited Frank Sinatra and I am Italian American.  But c’mon man.  Sinatra could, at least, sing and entertain. I don’t think he did any songs praising convicted cop killers that night.  I think there was a PR screw up at the White House but it wasn’t enough of a big deal to piss off Michelle Obama by asking her to cancel Common’s invite.   

Thanks for the coverage of this important issue.  Our institutions are enthusiastic about this initiative to provide lawful access to digitized copies of in-copyright works held in print by our institutions.  The headline (“… to publish orphan books online”) unfortunately implies something different from what HathiTrust partners are doing.  While “publishing” books generally implies selling works or making a work generally available, the books in question were all published and purchased by the partner libraries many years ago.  Each use will be made by an authenticated user of a partner institution that purchased a given work and added that work to its collection.  Both the nature of the use and the means by which we make the works available are important attributes of this careful effort.  Making fair uses of books in our collections?  Most certainly.  Publishing them?  Absolutely not.
John Wilkin, Executive Director, HathiTrust

Congress needs to take legislative action to resolve the orphan works problem.  Then everyone can stop arguing about what is legal and illegal.

Expecting the majority of men and women in this present Congress to Legislate equitably with liberty and justice for all is the same as expecting the fox in the henhouse not to kill and eat the chickens. Today’s ambitious politician is more of a political animal than a human being.

To hoard is worse than to steal.

Actually, the libraries must simply show that they have made a ‘good faith effort’ to locate copyright holders.  What a good faith effort is has been subject to question, and sometimes people have felt that a good faith effort was not made, but if the libraries can point to letters and records of inquiries or attempts to trace what happened to original publishers that might have held the copyright, they would probably be safe.  If copyright holders turn up, the libraries would have to take down the work or license it appropriately.

Perhaps this will move us all closer to a resolution of the orphan works problem while also making important scholarship accessible.  

Pundits should not lose sight of the fact that Steve Jobs, along with thousands of some of the best developers and marketers on earth have created a CULTURE at Apple. Education, creative agency work (film, audio, desktop publishing, etc.), convenience, ease-of-use, first-rate hardware, etc. are embedded in Apple’s DNA. It’s fun to speculate, and certainly some things will change with Mr. Jobs stepping down from the helm, but Apple will continue to grow – and grow successfully – because of the very specific culture of end-used value that has been part of Apple’s DNA, since the beginning.

There was a time when Mr. Jobs was not with the company, and it went astray under leadership that was not able to forge a culture. Apple, at that time, was still in its formative years, groping for a sustainable identity. When Steve Jobs returned, he set about specifically crafting a corporate culture that could sustain itself. This may be perhaps his largest accomplishment.

Much to its competitor’s chagrin, we have only seen the beginning of what Apple is capable of; it’s a world-changing company, on a par with the greatest in that particular class, worldwide.

“Mr. Jobs has long sought the advice of higher-education officials and
encouraged colleges to use the company’s technology in new ways for
teaching and research.”

It’s called knowing your market. Unless Apple has experienced widespread brain-death at the top, it will continue market research, because the most convenient way to move product is to produce what customers want.

Apple has been successful by, among other strategies, not trying to sell things nobody wants. This is neither idealistic nor sinister. It’s the way entrepreneurial capitalism works, when it works.

Sort of like the TV news reporter who says “We called for a comment, but they were unavailable.”  Right.

My “issue” is that illicit copies of my work were produced by the University of Wisconsin/Google commercial partnership and distributed to the HathiTrust.  Just because they are going through their booty to sort high risk items from low does not change the manor in which they obtained those works.

tporges—you understand engineering, it is clear, and the subculture it is and that limit its practices.  Jobs had that rare exposure to artistic design (fonts) and never let that perspective go in the face of contempt for it among normal engineers.   He inserted BEAUTY in a world of mere FUNCTION.  Engineering departments, today, worldwide, are contemplating this but LACK faculty able to do this transition.  Perhaps Steve can fund an initial program or two somewhere that puts engineers through the every two weeks every course design competitions publicly graded by profs in front of all class members—that places like Fabrika, St. Martins, Parsons, RISD do as matter of course.