Tag: Boston Globe

Politics & Economics

So what the blank could possibly go wrong?

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[Video] Quote of the Day for Friday, September 28, 2012. Illinois State Senate candidate Barbara Bellar putting some context around the Affordable Care Act: As funny as this is, Bellar is actually soft-balling the problem of the plan’s utter lack of attention to the need for doctors to provide the expanded government-mandated care, what with stories floating around like 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare. And it’s not just sheer numbers, but also the fact that ObamaCare doubles-down on the screw-turning inflicted upon general p...

Politics & Economics

Initial Thoughts on Reactions to Fast & Furious and Obamacare Developments

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Very interesting day in the political world, with the Supreme Court handing down its judgment on Obamacare, and Congress finding Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress for his evasive shenanigans trying to cover up the background to the “Fast & Furious” program – the first sitting US Attorney General to receive such an honor. How now to prosecute him becomes quite a conundrum, since the department he runs is responsible for such prosecutions, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Neither finding is very surprising to me (the first admittedly more...

Culture & Philosophy

“She had no free will’’

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Quote of the Day for Thursday, December 16th, 2010: Local man quoted in today’s Boston Globe, after he and his lawyers completed a successful $152M shakedown of tobacco company Lorillard, Inc., in a suit alleging the company was responsible for his mother’s smoking-related death at 54 in 2002: “She was addicted,’’ William Evans said today. “Obviously, had she had a choice, she would not have smoked, and the record was clear about that. She made over 50 attempts to try to stop smoking and she was addicted. She had no free will.’’ Had she had a choice? She...

Learning

Mandating Two More Years of Vapid Futility?

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Quote of the Day for Sunday, December 12th, 2010: Boston Globe staff writer James Vaznis reporting on the latest round of hand-wringing concerning the performance of urban public school districts in the state: Within Boston, the state identified 40 percent of eighth-graders at risk of not earning a high school diploma with their classmates in 2014. But that estimate may be low, Boston public school officials said. The district’s graduation-tracking system, which, unlike the state’s, examines several years of data and grades, indicated that just 19 percen...

Religion & Society

Benedict XVI on Condoms & Gigolos

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Benedict XVI, quoted on the possible justification of condom use in an upcoming book by German journalist Peter Seewald: "Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times," as excerpted in today’s L’Osservatore Romano: “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility.” Boy, is this likely to grow legs! The AP has the story, and the Boston Globe is spinning it with...

Religion & Society

Fraudulent? Does That Matter?

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Few things make me feel like I was born on the wrong planet as much as the blatant denial of the meaning and authority of reality – that is to say, the reality of objective truth. This is truly a malady of modern human reason, and it seems to be rampant – maybe even epidemic. There are days I’m sure I’ve seen everything, then there are days, and I think this is one of those days, when I’m almost afraid to look out the window at the world for fear of the lunacy I might encounter. I came across a startling statement in a Bosto...

Media & Culture

Celebrity Gossip and Moral Reasoning (part 2)

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Subjective Objectivity is the nonsense name I give to the nonsensical, widespread phenomenon in contemporary society of viewing the world through the narrow lens of one’s own experience, and assuming that such personal experience defines the norm for reality. This view is cut straight from the cloth of what Pope Benedict XVI has famously called a dictatorship of relativism. Typically, when pressed to defend the personalized opinions that emerge from such self-centered thinking, most believers of the doctrine will retreat into relativism, claiming t...

Media & Culture

Celebrity Gossip and Moral Reasoning (part 1)

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“If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” The preceding quote from Catherine Aird is always good for raising a laugh, and there’s a certain ring of truth to it. Having read the Bible, I’m well aware of the kind of role horrible warnings can play in human history. But any real estate agent will tell you that location is everything. Translation: context matters – a lot. Ty Burr wrote an Ideas piece published in the Boston Sunday Globe this past weekend that I found quite disturbing...