Why the Democrats are wrong and other meanderings

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Location: Metro Phoenix, Arizona, United States

I'm too lazy to type anything about me. Read my blog and I'm sure you'll eventually learn a few things.

Saturday, April 30, 2005

daylight savings disappointment

Indiana has decided to observe Daylight Saving Time. I'm quite disappointed. Oddly enough, the movement to put a stop to it took 33 years, from 1949 to 1972 when it was declared exempt from daylight savings, and it's been 33 years from then for them to put it back into effect. Only the portions in the Eastern time zone did not observe daylight savings; the portions in the Central time zone (in the northwest (by Chicago) and southwest corners of the state) had continued observing it (a few places along the borders of Ohio and Kentucky unofficially observed it, too). This leaves Arizona (except the Navajo reservation) and Hawaii as the only states not observing it.

Of interesting note, when arguing against daylight savings, one argument put forth by rural legislators was that it was "bad for the cows." Just seems like an amusing argument to me. (Cows need to be milked at regular intervals, and an hour switch throws that off.)

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Judges and filibusters

As you may or may not be aware, several of Bush's nominees on the Circuit Court level are being filibustered by the Democrats in the Senate. Several more have been delayed by other measures, but I'll focus on the filibustering for the moment.

Quick civics lesson for those who might be rusty: The Senate has 100 members (two for each state). Normally, a simple majority of those voting is all that is required to pass a bill, confirm a nominee, pass a resolution, pass an amendment to a bill, and the like. However, the Senate is allegedly a deliberative body, and, to that end, requires a three-fifths vote to break off debate and force a vote when some senator (or some group of them) essentially doesn't want to shut up and allow a vote (most senators don't want to shut their mouths, but they usually at least allow votes). That would be a filibuster; it once was the case that if you wanted to filibuster something, you'd actually have to talk the time away. This led to senators reading the phone book from the floor of the Senate and other shenanigans. However, in more recent times, the minority alerts the powers that be that they intend to filibuster, a vote is taken, and if a three-fifths majority is not attained, then they just put the issue aside.

There are two things I want to address here -- the filibuster of judicial nominees itself, and the Republican tactics opposing the filibusters.

As for the filibuster itself, I would say that it is unconstitutional. It creates the de-facto need for a supermajority to confirm judges. However, the Constitution explicitly states the requirement for a supermajority where it calls for one. Creating the need for a supermajority increases the power of the Senate to act as a check on the President's nominees.

Even putting all of that aside, claims by democrats that a rules change to remove the filibuster from judicial nominees would be unconstitutional are laughable at best. The Constitution says "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings" (Article I, Section 5, Clause 2). The filibuster did not exist at all in the earliest Congresses, and has been changed several times over the years. There are already 26 laws that curtail the filibuster (it can't be used on resolutions for the budget, those for use of force, or international trade agreements, for example). In 1995, 19 democrats wanted to end all filibusters (which includes Sens. Harkin, Lieberman, Kennedy, and Kerry -- some of those making the most noise against ending it now).

Furthermore, this filibustering of appeals court nominees is unprecedented. Some point to the nomination of Abe Fortas to Chief Justice (as I recall) and say that it was filibustered, but a) that's in dispute; and b) he didn't have majority support -- if it went to a vote, he would have been rejected. All of Bush's nominees have majority support. I believe Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) is willing to vote for all of them, too, and a few other dems have expressed a willingness to consider some of the nominees (John Breaux and Zell Miller were democratic supporters of Bush's nominees in the previous two Congresses, but neither sought reelection in 2004).

Some state that the rate of approval for Bush's nominees is similar to that of his predecessors. This distorts the scenario. When you look at just Circuit Court nominees, the rate of approval for Bush's nominees is abysmal is comparison. Professor Bainbridge has a nice graphic that was in the Economist, and Daily Thoughts takes a deeper look at the numbers (the data for the graphic from the former link are in the latter link, but, well, graphics are nice).

Now, as to Republican tactics:
  1. I think that they're fully justified in changing the rules to prevent filibusters and should do so. It sounds as though not all Republicans are on board at the moment, though. It looked like they did have the numbers to do it, but a couple of them got skittish. If any of you want to contact your Senator if he might be skittish, it would be a good idea -- offhand, I'd say McCain for Arizona, Hagel for Nebraska, Snowe and Collins for Maine, Voinovich for Ohio, Chafee for Rhode Island, possibly Specter for Pennsylvania (although, by other comments he's made, it sounds like he'd be on board; I'm just throwing his name out here) ... there are a couple more, I can't think of who at the moment.
  2. They should have been forcing genuine filibusters. This modern filibuster is just a cheap tactic to thwart the will of the majority. A classic filibuster would require effort on the part of those filibustering, plus provide some nice footage of senators reading from the phone book on the Senate floor and similar things. Once that started happening, I think more Americans would start getting fed up, and enough democrats in the Senate would grow skittish that it would end the filibusters. Bad move by Bill Frist here.
  3. When they tried to draw attention to the filibuster, they did it in a really cheap way. They basically had a 24-hour (straight) debate session; bringing cots into the Senate was enough to get some tv time, but it looked gimmicky and most people didn't give it much of a thought. It probably came off as much Republican showboating as anything else. Again, you gotta wonder what Bill Frist was thinking.
  4. There are rumors of a partial deal in the works whereby the democrats withdraw their filibusters of two nominees (from Michigan) for the Sixth Circuit in return for Bush nominating someone the two senators from Michigan (both Democrats) want on that court. Sounds like a bad deal to me; the president shouldn't be bargaining away his nomination power to the Senate.
  5. Bill Frist wants to run for president in 2008, according to the rumors. He's not going to get very far the way he's handled this issue.

Well, that just about wraps it up. I could start going into defences for each of the individual nominees, but this post is already long enough.

Monday, April 25, 2005

That wacky media

Well, the media is at it again. One of its favorite recurring headlines is back, this time in the Houston Chronicle: "Crime rate down, but prison population on the rise." My favorite rendition of the headline would be "Prison population on the rise despite drop in crime," or the like. They just can't seem to figure it out. Of course, I expect my readers to be able to solve that mystery.

This goes well with their shock that the new pope is actually Catholic. I believe it was Maureen Dowd who took the cake when seeming to be surprised that the pope opposed the anything-goes "morality" (usually, the quotation marks are around a different part of that phrase, but I think they're better served where I put them; don't you agree?).

Anyways, I notice that I just complained about the media in my last post (and further complained about its papal coverage prior to that), so I think I'll move on to another topic for awhile. Besides, problems in the media are something I can address in a post on just about any issue that gets much media attention.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

NYT and "choosing death"

Those wacky New York Times writers are at it again. Apparently, Zacarias Moussaoui has submitted a letter expressing his guilt and requesting the death penalty. For those who don't remember, he's been called the "20th hijacker" of the 9/11 attacks; he had been detained by law enforcement, so he was unable to physically partake in the hijackings (which also explains why there were five hijackers on three planes, but only four on the fourth). Those at the NYT are furious about this, and think that requesting the death penalty (or, in other cases, dropping your death penalty appeals) is, ipso facto, proof that they are mentally incompetent to stand trial. However, they were big supporters of the "choice to die"/"right to die" in the Schiavo case, and are supporters of euthanasia generally. I think Andy McCarthy sums it up best:

"So, follow the logic: Expression of the supposed choice to die, if purportedly made by an innocent but inconvenient person, based on “proof” of the most suspect nature, must at all costs be deferred to on the theory that it is a personal and thoughtful decision. To the contrary, expression of the choice to die by a guilty terrorist, proved indisputably in an unambiguous written assertion by the person himself, is actually evidence that the person is “mentally unfit” on the theory that, well, who in his right mind would make such a personal choice to die?"

Tom DeLay

As some of you know (and others of you are blissfully unaware), Tom DeLay is the Majority Leader in the House of Representatives. Lately, there have been assorted accusations of ethical violations committed by him, and calls for his resignation or removal from his leadership role (or from the House completely). However, these accusations tend not to hold water. In no particular order, I will address several of them.

First, he paid family members for campaign work. Now, whether you consider this unethical or not, it does not violate the Congressional ethics rules and is not uncommon among members of both parties (~30 members did it last election cycle, as I recall, about evenly split between the parties). The amount paid was not unreasonable compared to that paid by others to their family members, nor was it the highest salary amount. And as far as family ties go, much less attention is paid to those who have family members who are highly-paid lobbyists; for instance, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, has family members in almost all of the major sectors for lobbying in his homestate. Paying a family member (usually less than) what you'd pay a non-family-member for similar campaign work can be justifiable. Family members working for firms lobbying that Representative or Senator (and sometimes even ones only officially lobbying others) are certainly something that should be looked into, to verify that it's not something like one of Jesse Jackson's shakedowns (where he organizes or threatens to organize a boycott against a company unless they meet certain "minority representation" standards, and then, amazingly, one of his sons ends up with a dealership, distributorship, or whatever, and then he ends up praising the company -- an "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" deal).

Another charge against DeLay is that he accepted a paid trip from Korea-United States Exchange Council (KORUSEC) in 2001. That wouldn't have been a problem except that days before his trip, they changed their financial status and registered as a foreign agent (members of Congress can't accept paid trips from foreign agents). However, they did not inform him of this at the time, the change did happen just a few days before he left (presumably after he had already accepted the invitation for the trip), and accepting trips KORUSEC was legal before the change. What's especially surprising about the Democrats' feigned outrage over this is that trips continued to be provided to members of Congress and members of their staff. In fact, a member of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's staff accepted a paid trip from KORUSEC in 2003, well after the change in financial status. Not only that, but the staff member didn't file the necessary paperwork for that trip until after reporters started snooping around earlier this year, when the media and Democrats were playing up the charges against DeLay. Now, while accepting a paid trip from a foreign agent is wrong for a member of Congress, all evidence points to DeLay not knowing they were registered as such, and that they had not yet registered as such when he accepted the trip (though they were by the time he took it). Messy, yes. Grounds for removal, no.

There are several instances where DeLay is essentially accused of guilt by association. Several people that he has had contact with stand accused of illegal fundraising and the like. However, there is no evidence to tie DeLay to this fundraising. He might want to choose who he associates himself with better, but you can't really show any wrongdoing there.

Another problem for DeLay is that the district prosecutor where he lives is a fierce Democratic partisan who has not been afraid to use his position for personal vendettas. He indicted Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson right after her election, but the charges were thrown out on the first day of court. He's aggressively gone after various people close to DeLay in one way or another but has not yet been able to pin down DeLay. Because of him, Republicans looked into changing their party rules, which state that anyone who is indicted has to resign from any leadership post they have (though they don't have to resign from the House); they ended up leaving the rules as they were.

DeLay currently wants the accusations against him reviewed by the House Ethics Committee, so that he can be cleared. The committee has five members of each party on it, and the Democrats are currently blocking action. Interestingly, the recent (and now former) ranking Democrat on the committee (Jim McDermott of Washington, aka Baghdad Jim for his trip to Iraq before the U.S. invasion, kissing up to Saddam) is in line to go before the committee, as he was found guilty (by a court of law) of leaking illegally taped phone conversations to the New York Times of a Republican’s cell-phone conversations (how did this guy ever get on the ethics committee in the first place?).

On a note unrelated to the accusations against him, DeLay formerly ran an exterminating business. Democrats have taken to using "exterminator" as a perjorative for him. What is it with the Democrats and their elitist snobbery? The guy provided a useful service to many people -- certainly much more useful than the lawyers that most Democrats formerly were.

The Democrats absolutely loath Tom DeLay. He's probably their second-most hated Republican, behind George W. Bush. Just as they tried throwing all sorts of things at Bush in an effort to remove him from power (with some success in unfairly tarnishing him, but failing in their final goal), so they are attempting to throw all sorts of charges at him, hoping one will stick (they're trying the same with John Bolton, too). I predict them having the same amount of success as they had with Bush.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Pope Benedict XVI

I realize I'm making a lot of pope posts (relative to the total number of posts, anyways), but this should be the last one for awhile. I think.

As you all know by now, Cardinal Ratzinger was selected as the new pope and chose the name Benedict. Some of those close to him have said he chose that name out of respect for the Benedictine movement in Germany (he's German, remember). It was amusing watching some commentators trying to explain the name after they'd all built up the name selection and how it could signal what direction he wanted to move the Church in, or whatever.

However, the thing that really gets me is so many members of the media jumping on him as a "hardliner" or "arch-conservative" or the like. They're shocked that the new pope is -- get this -- Catholic! Though, as Jonah Goldberg writes:

Of course, if some of the modernizers had their way, a new pontiff would be announced with the declaration, "We got pope!" Or maybe "The pizzy is in the hizzy!" Then Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake would bump and grind a bit before His Holiness rolled out in a newly pimped-out Pope-mobile.


That, of course, is a joke, but it wouldn't surprise me if some of them actually thought that didn't sound like a bad idea. The media at large demonstrates a profound ignorance of the Catholic Church (most of Christianity, actually, but more on that another time). They presume that because Americans are split on some issue, that the Church must be, too (and I don't mean split 97-3, here). Those who dissent from the Church's teachings or positions are vastly overrepresented in the media. They think a new pope might "compromise" (read: give in) to these dissenters, but ignore that almost all the Cardinals were chosen by John Paul II himself, so they aren't likely to dissent much from his views (and the balance were given their position by Paul VI, so no huge difference there). Even if a "liberal" was chosen from among them, they'd still oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, and many of the other changes that many in the media want to see the Church make.

The former Cardinal Ratzinger has been very outspoken (in both his speaking and writing) against the kind of moral relativism that the Left (including the media) want to see the Church slide into. They say that the Church needs to "reach out" to the dissenters (read: give in) so that they can draw more people in, but they completely miss what's going on around them. Several of the denominations that have watered-down their teachings (or "reached-out" in media parlance), like the United Methodists or Episcopalians, are hemorrhaging members. Meanwhile, those who have stuck by the "traditional" teachings have seen their membership grow. The Church (used here for all Christianity, not the Catholic Church) doesn't exist to make people feel good about themselves. If you want a cheap, feel-good experience, go to some group therapy thing, or some other dispenser of balderdash. What do you get out of a church that just tells you to do whatever feels good, and that they won't judge you? Nothing! (Incidentally, the whole "don't judge others, lest ye be judged" thing is taken out of context quite often, but more on that another time.) The Church should exist to provide a rigid standard (moral values) that you can use for self-betterment (it should provide much more, of course, but this seems to be most at issue here). When looking for a guide for your moral behavior, is something firm and long-standing good, or a sliding scale that sinks as low as you want to go? Put another way, into an imperfect metaphor, suppose you are trying to lose weight. Do you use an objective standard (your weight, the size of your waistline) to judge your progress, or do you say "well, so-and-so consumed 3000 calories today, and I only had 2700, so I'm doing pretty good"? You use the objective standard, of course; and you might recognize the other form of rationalization as being what some people do on moral values (essentially, "Well, I may not have done that great, but look at that guy over there! He's way worse than me.").

Anyways, I think Ratzinger seems like a good guy. Oh, and for the Nazi stuff -- when he was in the Hitler Youth, it was mandatory to be in it, he was not a willing member. He deserted to German army (when deserters were shot for doing so), and was even a POW under the United States for a short while.

Next time, something not Catholic related. (For those who may not know, I am not now, nor have I ever been, Catholic, nor do I plan on ever becoming one.)

Monday, April 18, 2005

Papal Elections

The Cardinals are meeting at the Vatican to elect a new Pope. Based on recent elections, it's not likely they'll have one today, but they'll probably have one before too long. Sometime in the Wednesday to Friday time range seems likely.

There's some speculation that this next pope will be older upon election (in his 70's, most likely). Some people did not like the length of John Paul II's papacy, so, basically, they want someone who will die sooner. Though, as an aside, there are extremely few Cardinals as young as he was when he was elected. And I think there's only one who's as young as the three Cardinals who voted in the election (I'd prefer to make this sound less political, but I think you all know what I mean) of John Paul II and are voting on this next pope were during the previous election (note: Cardinals who have reached the age of 80 may not vote on the next Pope (Ecuador's Cardinal turned 80 in March, so he barely missed out), so all three of those Cardinals had been under 54).

There's lots of buzz around Ratzinger becoming the next pope. He was previously bishop of Munich, but has been working at the Vatican for around 20 years, I think. Quite awhile, anyways. He's currently Dean of the College of Cardinals, and he led John Paul II's funeral. I forget the title of his current position in the Church, but it has something to do with making sure all the Catholics are following the right theology.

There's also been speculation that the next pope would not be from Europe. Some contendors outside of Europe include Cardinal Arinze of Nigeria, Cardinals Bergoglio of Argentina, Cardinal Diaz of India, and Cardinal Pell of Australia. There's especially been buzz about an African (esp. Nigerian) pope.

Back in Europe, a few other contenders are Cardinal Scola of Venice (if they go back to an Italian pope), and Cardinal Schoenborn of Vienna. You know, the more names I list, the more likely it will be that I can point back and say "See, I told you that guy could be the next pope," but I think I'll leave it at that.

Currently, 77 votes are needed for election (115 are voting, so a two-thirds majority). However, on the twelfth (?) day of voting, they can switch to a bare majority. The vote-counters are saying Ratzinger has 60+ votes right now; should that be true, he has the majority, but not the super-majority. His supporters could just be sticks in the mud and keep with him until only a majority was needed, if it came to that (I doubt such a thing would happen). Vote counts vary, but most agree that he has at least 40 supporters (which would block anyone else from the first ballot, at least). Ratzinger even has his own
fan club.

Alright, that's it for now on the papal elections. Hopefully, they don't choose one in the next few minutes and make me look dumb for saying it wouldn't happen today.


Update: The Cardinals might not vote today, is what I've heard, which could push back the process a bit (though I still say there should be a new pope by Friday).

Friday, April 15, 2005

Tax time

April 15 reminds me of this classic bit from the Simpsons:

[the Simpson family is in front of the tv as a news report of people standing in line to pay their taxes is playing]

Homer: "Would you look at those morons, I paid my taxes over a year ago!"
Lisa: "Dad ..."
Homer: "What is it, sweety? Did you see a scary picture in your picture book?"
Lisa: "That was last year's taxes, you have to pay again this year."
Homer: "No, because you see, I went ahead and ... year-wise, I was counting forward from the last previous ... D'oh!"
Marge: "I put the tax forms on top of your to-do pile a month ago!"
Homer: "I have a to-do pile?" [camera pans to show huge stack of papers with a Duff beer can on top] "Marge, how many kids do we have? Oooooh, no time to count, I'll have to estimate -- nine."
Marge: "Homer, you know we don't have --"
Homer: "Shut up, shut up -- if I don't hear you, it's not illegal. Okay, I need some deductions, deductions, deductions -- ah, business gifts!" [takes down painting from behind couch and hands it to Marge] "Here you go, keep using nuclear power."
Marge: "Homer, I painted that for you."
Homer: "Okay, Marge, if anybody asks, you require 24-hour nursing care, Lisa is a clergyman, Maggie is seven people, and Bart was wounded in Vietnam."



From there, it gets complicated to describe, and is one of the better episodes. In fact, I think I'll watch it right now.

Quotes from Simpsons episode 5F14, "The Trouble with Trillions" Season 9, Episode 20, Original airdate: April 5, 1998; Written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, Directed by Swinton Scott. ©1998 Fox Broadcasting, a division of News Corp., primarily owned by Rupert Murdoch, billionaire tyrant. Copyright subsequently renewed. Please don't sue me.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

More on Social Security and the "Trust Fund"

It's not the latest, but in case any of you haven't heard yet, the "trust fund" is 225 pieces of paper in two folders in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet in a government building in West Virginia. For those who argue that the trust fund is secure, I will concede that the drawer is locked. However, it is essentially worthless. Yes, government bonds are worth something to an individual, but in this case, it's the government writing itself an IOU. If you don't see the problem with that yet, look at it this way: if the government did not have a trust fund, when the amount social security took in was less than it was paying out, what options would it have? It could a) raise taxes, b) cut benefits, or c) borrow money. Now, with the trust fund, what will the government have to do in about fifteen years when intake can't meet outtake? Well, to fund the payment of those IOU's, it will have to a) raise taxes, b) cut benefits, or c) borrow money. Not a whole lot of difference there, is there?

Of course, there's always Sen. Jon Corzine's (D-N.J.) idea: we could fund the defecit by printing more money! What a boneheaded thing for an American politician to say! That would create a little thing called inflation, which would act, in effect, as both a benefit cut and a tax hike. In addition, it would scare away foreign investors because it's a stupid economic policy, which would cause many more economic woes. Latin America has tried the same basic thing, and look where it is now (well, now it's rebounding from from all the problems that caused, I should say look where that got it). If that's not bad enough, he even highlights the quote on the front page of his website. [Right side, currently about a third of the way down. At this point, I was going to throw in a screenshot, but then I noticed that this doesn't have image hosting, and geocities gets mad when you store images on there to get referenced by other web pages. Contact me if you want the screenshot.]

There is so much rank stupidity in the social security debate. Actually, it's not even much of a debate, as only one side is actually seriously addressing the issue using facts and whatnot, while the other side is hyperventilating in its anti-Bush hysteria and can only manage a bunch of scaremongering.

Question: What ever happened to good faith debate?
Answer: The Democrats!

Currently, the Democrats' talking points are composed of lies about the Republican plan (although there isn't an exact plan out there yet, most of the allegations that the dems level have been completely ruled out by Republicans), lies about the financial state of Social Security (such as that the trust fund is reliable), and lies about market based retirement accounts vs. retirement "accounts" based solely on government bonds (and, in truth, not even on that).

I think I shall do another post on Social Security before long, try to fight a few more myths.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Baseball

Baseball season is back. Most teams have played one game so far, with a few teams (six, I think) having played two. First, a note on opening days: it really bugs me how Major League Baseball decides to put all this pomp into opening days and then not only goes with multiple opening days (to a degree, I can live with that), but will give teams a day off immediately after their opening day to make the schedule thinner the next day so more focus will be on the other teams' opening days. If you follow baseball, you can probably figure out what I meant there, and if you don't, it's probably almost indecipherable, but that's okay because you probably don't care.

Anyways, I'll make a few predictions for this baseball season. Let's say ten. At the end of the season, I'll look back and see how well I did (or didn't do, as the case may be). These predictions are over somewhat random topics, none of the highly focused predictions you'll see like in ESPN's expert predictions. Okay, here goes:

First, some division winners; not all, but just a few:
1. The Yankees will win the AL East division title.
2. The Cubs will win the NL Central division title.
3. The Giants will win the NL West division title.

Second, some player predictions:
1. Despite saying he'd miss half the season, if not more, Barry Bonds will be back by mid-May.
1a. Conditional on his return roughly following my prediction, he will hit at least 30 homeruns this year, and pass Hank Aaron next year (I just tossed in that last part; we'll consider this prediction fulfilled if he hits 30+, and I'll toss the Hank Aaron prediction into the mix for next spring)..
2. Pedro Martinez will be a bust for the Mets.
3. None of these new Diamondbacks will have very good seasons:
a. Troy Glaus
b. Javier Vazquez
c. Russ Ortiz
3d. At least one of the Vazquez/Ortiz duo will fail to have a winning record for the season.
4. Sammy Sosa will continue his decline (note: he may be healthy enough that he plays more games, so his homerun or other totals will be similar, or slightly better than, last year, when he played 126 games).
5. Craig Biggio will pass Don Baylor for the modern record for being beaned the most in a career (though he'll have to wait until next season to make a run at the all-time record).

And here's a prediction that doesn't focus on a player so much as a group of players:
Babe Ruth currently ranks 71st on the all-time list for most career strikeouts. By the end of the season, his rank will be in the 80's.

Okay, by my count, that comes out as a baker's dozen, which happens to be my favorite number, so it's a much better number of predictions than ten. Plus, the luckiness of the number should result in me getting a bunch right. I tried to make some predictions that were either not-mainstream, or at least contested; we'll see how it all turns out in about six months.

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Hurray for me

I decided to put a sitemeter on the blog to see if anyone was coming, and, surprisingly, I have readers! Not very many of them, mind you, but readers nonetheless. I even managed to figure out who a few were. A few others ... well, I'm not so certain about. However, the point remains -- several people have read the blog. Maybe I should have a celebration when my readership reaches a half-dozen or something. Anyways feel free to comment on improvements I can make or any topic I should address.

Friday, April 01, 2005

The Pope

Well, I was going to write about something else, but I decided to say a few things about the Pope in light of his worsening condition (as I type this, their are reports of him having suffered heart failure and currently being in "very serious" condition).

Amazingly, there's been only one pope in my lifetime (same goes for most readers of this). He's the third-longest serving pope in history; tradition saying that the Apostle Peter served longest (estimates of 34-37 years; though some debate this, which I won't get into here), and Pius IX served for over 31 years beginning in 1846. There have been only a baker's dozen of popes who have served twnety years or more (five of them since the American Revolution, all five being among the seven longest-serving). John Paul II was elected to the papacy on October 16, 1978, so about 26.5 years of being pope. The previous pope, John Paul I, served a mere 33 days (August 26 -- September 28, 1978; the twelfth-shortest reign if Stephen II (3 days) is counted). You'll note the gap between the death of John Paul I and the election of John Paul II -- so don't be expecting the naming of the new pope immediately.

John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years (he's Polish). It looks like the Italian stranglehold on the papacy has been broken -- there is much speculation that the next pope could be the first non-European in modern times (St. Peter, of course, was not European, and there have been three African popes: Victor I (186/9-197/201), Miltiades (310/1-314), and Gelasius I (492-496)). For those curious, it is quite unlikely that an American will be the next pope.

In choosing the next pope, all cardinals under the age of 80 have a vote (should the AARP protest the Catholic Church and its ageism?). While theoretically any male Catholic could be voted pope, the last non-cardinal to be elected was Urban VI (1378-1389, and his papacy was a huge mess), so it seems safe to assume the cardinals will elect one of their own. The cardinals meet in the Sistene Chapel to vote by ballot; a two-thirds majority is needed (or a simple majority after a deadlock of twelve days). If no pope is chosen, the ballots are burned with a chemical agent, causing black smoke to emerge from the chimney. If a pope is chosen, then the ballots are burned on their own, causing white smoke to emerge. The Dean of the College of Cardinals then asks the newly-elected if he freely accepts his election; after accepting, he is asked which name he will go by (for nearly 1500 years, popes have traditionally gone by names other than their birth names -- that's why we've had a Pope John XXIII but not a Pope Guido XXIII; they like to choose names to honor various persons, too, so a name can tell you something about which pope the new pope looks up to).

Oh, and if the "Prophecy of the Popes" is to be believed, only two popes remain after the current one. Just thought I'd toss in a bit of lore.

Karol Józef Wojtyła -- peace be with you.