Father Cutié can't come back married

Tom Gallagher of NCRToday wonders if Father Cutié, the priest that recently defected from the Catholic Church (and who is most likely ipso facto excommunicated because of the defection) could come back to the Catholic Church as a married priest:

The interesting question now becomes whether Fr. Cutie actually joins the Episcopal church, gets married, then some time later asks to become a Roman Catholic priest again, which Pope John Paul II allowed as a legitimate pathway. Now that would be rounding the bases, so to say.

The situation he describes, though, is not possible canonically, because Father Cutié cannot validly marry anyone right now (at least in the Church's eyes). He cannot validly marry because he is still bound by canon law and because, as a cleric, he is impeded from the valid celebration of marriage.

Canon law still applies to Father Cutie despite his defection from the Church because he was baptized a Catholic. Once a person is baptized a Catholic or received into the Catholic Church after non-Catholic (but valid) baptism, the person remains subject to Catholic canon law. See CIC Canon 11. Excommunication does not create an exception to this rule. Canon 1331 (the canon listing the effects of excommunication) gives severe consequences to those who are excommunicated, but exemption from the Church's law is not one of those consequences. Other situations create exceptions, but the exceptions only create a partial exemption from the law, and anyway they do not apply to clerical celibacy.

Because canon law still applies to Father Cutié, the diriment impediment of orders applies to him. Canon 1087. Diriment impediments render a person incapable of validly marrying in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Canon 1073. Thus, if Father Cutie were to become an Episcopal priest and marry in an Episcopal or civil ceremony (the order doesn’t matter) and then "swim back," the Church would treat him as unmarried, his invalid attempts notwithstanding. Even if he were to formally defect (which would exempt him from having to be married in front of a cleric and two witnesses for the sake of validity, Canon 1117), the formal defection would not save him from the impediment of orders.

EDIT: I forgot to mention two things:

1. I posted a lot of this already as a comment to Paul Moses' post on Father Cutié's situation at dotCommonweal.
2. Father Cutié could come back married if he asked for a dispensation from the impediment of orders, which only the Pope can grant, and married before returning. It would be interesting if the Holy See would grant such a dispensation while the petitioner remains a schismatic and probable excommunicate.

Propers

Today during Mass I was reminded of an idea I had several months ago: Mass music really needs to start using the propers again.

This idea does not necessarily mean going back to the music from the Graduale Romanum. I had suggested using the texts of the propers before on a forum somewhere several months ago when I first had this idea, and almost all the responses thought I was advocating a return to exclusive reliance on Gregorian chant. Admittedly, I am a big chant fan (and you would be too if you access to biannual concerts from an excellent chant choir for six years), but I realize that chant does not necessarily work for most churchgoers presently. Additionally, I'm not the biggest fan of jazzy Mass music. I do like music that inspires the sacred, though, and in my opinion there's plenty of room in the spectrum between Gregorian chant and organum on one side and jazz + rock 'n roll on the other that includes music that inspires the sacred.

Anyway, I digress. The varying musical tastes of modern churchgoers is exactly why I suggest using the texts of the propers with the composers figuring out the other details. This does not mean falling back to Latin text either. Propers are almost exclusively excerpts from scriptural texts, and there are vernacular translations of scripture approved for liturgical use. All that is needed are good composers who, instead of coming up with their own lyrics, would be willing to use words that had been in the liturgy for centuries and should be back again. These composers would be doing a great service to the liturgy by keeping the liturgy scripturally anchored.

24 and the Supreme Court, part 2

It has been several months since I addressed this topic, but since I've got this draft sitting among my posts, I probably should just finish it and get it out there.

This part of the inquiry depends on the nature of the remedy sought in the Supreme Court. There's two possibilities regarding what Daniels was asking the Supreme Court to do when he brought suit: (1) to vacate the decision of the cabinet because Karen Hayes vote was invalid or (2) to ask for a judgment declaring whether Daniels can act as President. Because it's been a while since I saw that episode, I honestly do not remember what remedy Daniels was seeking. (Note: if anyone does, leave a comment and I'll change this). The bottom line is that option 1 is potentially a valid exercise of appellate jurisdiction; it asks a supposedly higher court to modify a decision of some other judicial or quasi-judicial body. Option 2, however, asks the court to do something other than an appeal or and something that is not auxiliary to an appeal. In other words, option 2 is an original proceeding, and it falls victim to the problems I've already addressed below. So, in order to keep this post going, let's assume that Daniels selected option 1.

Because we are in 24's version of the United States, we need to make a few more assumptions. Currently, in the real world, the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States is limited by statute to the following cases: appeals as of right from a district court composed of three judges granting or denying an injunction, 28 U.S.C. § 1253 (2000), and discretionary appeals from final judgments of the federal courts of appeals, id. § 1256, and from the highest state court that a party could reach, id. § 1257. The cabinet is neither a district court of three judges, a court of appeals, or the highest court of a state, so, at least under current statutory authority, the Supreme Court would not have appellate jurisdiction over a decision of the cabinet regarding the President's suitability.

Statutes could be different in Jack Bauer's universe, however. Let's assume then, for the moment, that the 24 Congress enacted another statute granting the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over the cabinet when it decides whether a President is fit to discharge the office or not.

Given all these assumptions, it is still hard to determine with certainty exactly what is going on here. Is the cabinet like an administrative agency? If so, this would help. The courts of appeals exercise direct review over the decisions of some of the administrative agencies (i.e. without it being first handled by a district court). So, if the cabinet can be treated like an administrative agency (and I think it could), then the Supreme Court, like the courts of appeals, could directly review its decisions if statute so authorized.

Unfortunately, we are back to the original/appellate problem. What is the nature of the courts of appeals' review powers over administrative agencies? What if it is not appellate jurisdiction but instead original jurisdiction? If that were the case, then the Supreme Court would not be able to hear the case, as it would again fall victim to the problems enumerated below.

So, in the courts of appeals, are direct reviews of administrative agencies original or appellate matters? I have no idea, and I haven't been able to find any case dealing with this question (yet). I guess I'll have to stop here for now. Final answer: maybe?

Getting harder to write

Evidently, blogs are starting to expire. As you may have noticed (if anyone reads this thing anyways), I have done my part in contributing to this phenomenon, though, honestly, most of my friends have stopped or gone on an indefinite hiatus as well.

The main problem for me is not a lack of writing but a lack of completion: I can't seem to finish any of the umpteen draft blog posts that I have stocked up in my account. I start a post, then I run out of time and realize I should be studying Admiralty and Maritime Law. As I tend to write on legal themes, which by nature need to be thorough both in reason and in research, it is tough to replicate this effort consistently for a blog to which I can only devote maybe thirty minutes of my time a day due to law school, TROL, and the other assorted goodies.

Maybe I just need to write in smaller chunks. If the topic I select is long, I could just split it up over several days. The problem with splitting up the writing is that I'd also have to split up the research, and instead of a blog wherein each set of posts is semi-coherent with a premise and a conclusion, the blog becomes a research log where each post in a set has a conclusion based on what I've discovered up to that point. That's not really what I want, but maybe I have to take what I can get.

Another option would be to crank out a post every so often on a non-legal topic when I realize the churning of material is not going to be completed in the block of time I've allotted to blogging. Then the blog becomes more of a personal journal than legal writing practice. Any writing practice is still writing practice.

Well, let's see what I end up doing these next few weeks. I might try a combo until I get back into the swing of blogging.

Stinky trees

UPDATE. Turns out that I'm quite wrong about this. After asking a friend who knows a lot more about botany than I do (nil) and discovering that she did not recall any of the Mod Quad trees being dogwoods, I did further research. Turns out they're hawthorns. Several hawthorns smell disgusting in May. Some, however, don't smell so bad, which explains the similar looking but better smelling trees around the guard box. Looks like this case is closed.

I know I have not written in a long time. Unfortunately things are busy with summer class, internships, and all that, but while studying for tomorrow's class I discovered something that I have been wanting to figure out for a while. I thought I'd take a small break and share it.

Late spring and summer at Notre Dame was generally a pleasant time. Notre Dame had a lot of very beautiful trees, and I particularly enjoyed it when they began to flower, not only because of the pleasant view but also (in general) the pleasant odor, especially regarding the flowering dogwood trees, which I enjoyed not only because they're rather beautiful but also because they're the state flower of Missouri, my native state.

This general enjoyment, however, had no application to the region students called "North Quad" because those trees reeked. Every time I would walk to Pasquerilla East to visit my girlfriend, I would have to endure the rotting-fish stench of the what seemed to be flowering dogwood trees. The only difference I could notice since I did not want to spend any appreciable time in ammonia-town was black centers in the flowers instead of red. Because I was and still am not a botanist and at the time I did not have much time to be researching such questions, I put off the resolution of that issue.

Today, unexpectedly, I stumbled upon Wikipedia's article on the Pagoda Dogwood, which supposedly stinks to high heaven. I bet that's the stinky tree.

Though it's unfortunate that there was so much tree damage at the university due to a tornado that landed during commencement week, perhaps this will give the university the opportunity to replace those horrid trees with some flowering dogwoods, retaining the beauty of the scene and improving its smell at the same time.

24 and the Supreme Court, part 1

Did anybody who watched 24 on April 2nd catch the legal snafu regarding Palmer & Daniels' lawsuit?

Throughout the episode the Attorney General and Palmer's helpers kept referring to a suit filed before the Supreme Court. A suit comes before a court in one of two ways: it is filed directly before the court for a decision without being decided first by some other court (original jurisdiction) or it is appealed to the court from the decision of some lower court (appellate jurisdiction). The United States Constitution describes the Supreme Court's original and appellate jurisdiction. Let's look at the original first.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.

U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 2.

The Supreme Court has already held that Congress cannot alter its original jurisdiction, either by extending or restricting it. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 139 (1803). The Court has also held that Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls referred to foreign ambassadors, ministers, and consuls, not U. S. Ambassadors, U. S. public ministers, or U. S. consuls. See Ex parte Gruber, 269 U.S. 302 (1925). Thus, the only way for a case to come for a first judgment before the Supreme Court is if it involves foreign ambassadors, foreign public ministers, foreign consuls, or states. Daniels and Palmer, though, are obviously not states and obviously both U.S. citizens. Thus, the case could not be brought before the Supreme Court originally. It would have to have been appealed to it.

An appeal to the supreme court seems (to me at least) highly unlikely given the circumstances and perhaps even the nature of the situation articulated in the show. Of course, whether my initial assessment is correct will depend on an examination of the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction. I'll look at that later.

Bainbridge and Cardinal Mahoney

A recent post on the blog of Professor Bainbridge of UCLA law has called for Cardinal Mahoney to resign his see of Los Angeles. He calls for a resignation because he mistakenly thought that there are no express provisions for a diocesan bishop to lose his office outside of resignation in canon law. Professor Edward Peters corrected him, aptly demonstrating that there are indeed express provisions in canon law indicating the Pope's ability to remove a bishop through privation, which is a penalty removing someone from office due to the commission of an ecclesiastical crime.

Here are a few more words on the scenario.

Canon 387 is not a penal canon

It should be noted that Professor Bainbridge's post does not indicate, at least at the first glance, the commission of an ecclesiastical crime. Bainbridge cites an ecclesiastical law that lists some of the duties that the diocesan bishop is to follow while in office, very important duties I might add. Codex Iuris Canonici [CIC] c. 387. However, this canon establishes no penalty if the diocesan bishop fails in these duties. Neither do any subsequent ones.

Now, I do know there are appropriate penal canons which do deal with Cardinal Mahoney's scenario—Professor Peters expressly omitted them in his discussion for brevity's sake and I will too—so I'm pretty sure privation should indeed apply here. I'd like to continue the discussion for a second though. Let's assume that violation of this canon was all that one had to go on and that privation actually does not work. What then?

Simple removal

There are other ways to lose ecclesiastical office besides resignation and privation: age limit, time limit, and most importantly removal. Id. c. 184 § 1. A later canon specifies exactly how someone is removed from office:

One is removed from office either by a decree of the competent authority lawfully issued, observing of course the rights possibly acquired from a contract, or by virtue of the law in accordance with Can. 194.

CIC c. 192 (Ab officio quis amovetur sive decreto ab auctoritate competenti legitime edito, servatis quidem iuribus forte ex contractu quaesitis, sive ipso iure ad normam can. 194.), translated in The Canon Law Letter & Spirit: A Practical Guide to the Code of Canon Law 107 (1995) [hereinafter Letter & Spirit]. Unfortunately competent authority is not defined in this canon or anywhere else in the section on removal. In the case of a diocesan bishop, there are many higher authorities. The Pope is an obvious one, as is the College of Bishops. The episcopal conference, for those cases mentioned in law, is another higher authority, as is the Congregation for Bishops or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The metropolitan is a less obvious one, since his authority over a suffragan is really limited to oversight and judicial appeals. Most Catholics should be able to realize that at least one of the persons I just listed is a competent authority for removal of bishops. Are there others? Are all the persons on the preceding list competent authorities? How are we to know?

To figure this question out, we need to turn to the preliminary canons on interpreting ecclesiastical laws:

Ecclesiastical laws are to be understood according to the proper meaning of the words considered in their text and context. If the meaning remains doubtful or obscure, there must be recourse to parallel places, if there be any, to the purpose and circumstances of the law, and to the mind of the legislator.

Id. c. 17 (Leges ecclesiasticae intellegendae sunt secundum propriam verborum significationem in textu et contextu consideratam; quae si dubia et obscura manserit, ad locos parallelos, si qui sint, ad legis finem ac circumstantias et ad mentem legislatoris est recurrendum.), translated in Letter & Spirit 17. The context here would be similar phrases used within the same chapter or title of the code. New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law 73 (John P. Beal, James A. Coriden & Thomas J. Green eds., Paulist Press 2000). When we look at the canons on provision of ecclesiastical office which appear earlier in the same title as removal from office, the phrase competent authority is used again. It is this authority that freely confers ecclesiastical office, installs someone presented to office, or confirms someone elected to office. CIC c. 147. It turns out that this competent authority, unless the law establishes otherwise, is whoever can establish, change, or suppress the office. Id. c. 148. Using the principle of canon 17, we can infer that a competent authority for removal would be whoever can establish the office of diocesan bishop. The law tells us that the supreme authority of the church establishes particular churches. Id. c. 373. Of course, establishing a particular church automatically establishes its head officer, the diocesan bishop.

Thus, since the supreme ecclesiastical authority can establish the office of diocesan bishop, that same authority can remove diocesan bishops. That supreme authority is the Pope and the College of Bishops. Id. cc. 331, 336. Since the other guys listed lack the canonical authority to establish the office of diocesan bishop, they too lack the authority to remove him.

This result also jives with the situation of Bishop Galliot, the former Bishop of Evreux, who, from what I understand, did many things that, while not ecclesiastical crimes, were sufficient in the mind of the supreme ecclesiastical authority to warrant his removal.

More on Salzburg

It turns out that, despite media reports to the contrary, Bishop Laun did not excommunicate anybody. The story actually comes from a German-language interview on Kath.net (English translation provided by The Cafeteria is Closed) in which Bishop Laun's opinion was asked as to whether the landlord in question has excommunicated himself. This statement is a far cry from the legal process by which ordinaries can impose/declare penalties. See 1983 CIC cann. 1341–1353.

Thus, it seems it is a purely academic discussion and not a formal process to penalize anyone. Well, how about we take the academic discussion slightly further.

Could the landlord be considered an accomplice within the meaning of can. 1329, and thus incur the same penalty?

Maybe. The requirement for whether he would be considered an accomplice would be whether he conspired together with those who procure abortions to commit an offense. Id. can. 1329 § 1. It sounds like this would apply here. Since the penalty for procuring an abortion is an automatic censure though, id. can. 1398, the only way the landlord would be liable for the same automatic penalty if he were an accomplice would be if without [his] assistance, the crime would not have been committed, and if the penalty is of such a nature as to be able to affect [him], id. can. 1329 § 2. I am not sure as to whether this would be applicable. The second part of this criterion is easy: as a Catholic, he can receive an excommunication, so the penalty is able to affect him. The first part is trickier. On first look it would seem that without the landlord's help abortions would not be procured. However, penal laws require strict interpretation, and Jimmy Akin, applying strict interpretation, argues that the landlord is not an essential accomplice.

Regardless of whether the landlord is an essential acccomplice, he would still only be liable for the automatic excommunication once the actual delict (procuring an abortion) actually occurs. This is just a matter of time, though, once the clinic opens. Even if Jimmy Akin is right (as I suspect he is) and it turns out that the landlord is not essential in the procurement of the abortions at this clinic and thus is not liable for the automatic censure, he can definitely receive imposed censures if he were actually a non-essential accomplice. Id. § 1. This is, of course, assuming that he is indeed an accomplice under the law, because he might not be.

How about Bishop Laun imposing a penal precept on the landlord?

Assuming that Bishop Laun has ordinary executive power in this case (my previous post went over the necessary conditions), he should also be able to impose penal precepts. He has already argued that the divine law is the law in question here (citing the Catechism), and precepts can be used to enforce divine law that does not already have a penalty prescribed by ecclesiastical law. He still probably could not prescribe an automatic penalty for a precept of this kind since the presence of malice is questionable, but he definitely could prescribe a normal penalty, including a censure.

Salzburg excommunication

Professor Peters' blog yesterday analyzed the recent questionable Salzburg excommunication of a landlord who leased space to an abortion clinic. He pointed out very thoroughly why the action of Bishop Laun is illegal, and I agree with his analysis. I'm not going to repeat it here, but a couple more things need to be said for completeness sake.

First, a penal law could come from other sources besides the Latin Rite code and Papal general decrees. In the case in Salzburg, there are at least four other legislators: an Austrian plenary council, a Salzburg provincial council, the Archbishop of Salzburg, or, with the approval of the Holy See, the Austrian episcopal conference. However, it is highly unlikely that any of these legislators has instituted a penalty for this act, and even if one of them did, Bishop Laun did not use any of them in imposing/declaring the excommunication, instead citing a canon that dealt with ordination irregularities and had nothing to do with penalties.

Second, while allowing auxiliary bishops to initiate the penal process may not be the best of ideas, is certainly not in and of itself illegal. Diocesan bishops are supposed to appoint auxiliaries either vicars general or episcopal vicars. Canon L. Socy. Gr. Brit. & Ir., The Canon Law Letter & Spirit: A Practical Guide to the Code of Canon Law can. 406 § 2 (Gerard Sheehy et. al. eds, Liturgical Press 1995). Vicars general and episcopal vicars are included in the definition of ordinaries, id. at can. 134 § 1, and ordinaries can initiate a penal process in the Latin Rite code, id. at can. 1341.

Assuming that a diocesan bishop has fulfilled his obligation under canon 406, his auxiliary would then be a vicar general or an episcopal vicar, which would additionally make him an ordinary for canonical purposes, including initiating a judicial or administrative procedure for the imposition/declaration of penalties via canon 1341. Note: I unfortunately do not understand the ambiguity that exists in this canon. Perhaps Professor Peters is relying on drafting history in seeing the ambiguity. I could imagine that an older draft of this canon used ordinary and his vicars instead of just ordinary for handling a penal process. If that were the case, the removal of vicar in the final draft could indicate that vicars, despite their general classification as ordinaries in the code, may be excluded from the term ordinary in the specific context of the penal process. Since I do not have access to those materials, I'm going to assume for now though that no such history exists to suggest that ordinary in can. 1341 means anything but the definition in can. 134.

Third, even if an auxiliary is a vicar general/episcopal vicar, he may not be able to initiate the penal process for other reasons. For instance, if he was an episcopal vicar, he might only have jurisdiction over a particular area of the diocese or over certain subject matter (like a vicar for religious, who only has authority in matters concerning members of religious orders). Id. at can. 479 § 2. In addition, even if the auxiliary is a vicar general, the diocesan bishop can decide to reserve certain matters to himself, like initiating or deciding penal cases (which I think is a very good idea, especially for excommunications). Id. at can. 479 §§ 1–2. Both of these provisions, if in place, could restrict the ability for diocesan officials other than the diocesan bishop to apply penalties.

So, to determine whether this decree of Bishop Laun, an auxiliary bishop, actually has any real canonical effect, we need to ask three questions:

1. Is Bishop Laun a vicar general of Salzburg?
2. If not, is he an episcopal vicar with jurisdiction over this particular area of the archdiocese or over this subject matter?
3. If yes to 1 or 2, has the Archishop of Salzburg reserved administrative imposition/declaration of excommunications to himself?

If the answer to 1 and 2 are no or if the answer to 3 is yes, then this excommunication is completely absurd and has absolutely no effect simply because Bishop Laun would have no executive power in the matter and his declaration would have no canonical effect. If the answer either 1 or 2 is yes and the answer to 3 is no, then the imposition is both an absurdity and an injustice, because despite the illegal exercise of executive power, the excommunication would still oblige. Unfortunately, this latter situation is probably the case.

As much as the action of the landlord might be unacceptable for the Catholic community, not all immoral actions deserve the most severe penalty the Church can impose. Besides, those who judge whether certain actions deserve a penalty (legislators) have decided that this act does not get one. This presents a delicate situation where it seems a Church administrator is exercising completely arbitrary power, on which the media has already capitalized. Bishop Laun should modify his decree as soon as possible, not just for the interests of individual justice but also for the sake of the reputation of his fellow administrators of the Church.

More Microsoft stupidity

I just found out that Microsoft IE does not support HTML quote tags. Here is an example:

• "This should have plain quotation marks around it."
• This should have plain or cool quotation marks around it (except in IE).

I just found this out, and since I use quotation tags extensively in my blogging, anyone coming to this site will find a whole lot of unquoted stuff. Quote tags really are not a hard thing to implement; they've been around since HTML 4. Honestly, though, I'm not that surprised. Since Microsoft Word practically forces fancy quotes down users' throats, it is consistent with Microsoft's corporate personality to force only one kind of quoting style on the Internet community, though one would think that a corporation would at least try to issue consistent edicts.

Well, this is just another reason to switch to Firefox.

Trials

During freshman orientation, I took the opportunity (like several other nerdier members of the incoming class) to sit in on a book discussion led by a faculty member. There were a lot of interesting ones to choose from, but in the interest of keeping up with my girlfriend's profession, I ended up picking Plato's Apology. It was a good choice though. Not only did I get to check it off my list but also I was able to participate in a good discussion on the goals of a justice system.

One particular question that the professor put to us through me off guard. Why have trials? What is the purpose of having a trial? It seemed pretty obvious to me: see if the claims of the parties match up to real world facts. Trial is the truth-seeking phase of the dispute resolution process. That's the answer I gave to the question, which she didn't like very much: I should hope that during your time in law school that you realize your conceptions are wrong.

This was initially an unsatisfactory response. Now, I'm not as naive as to think that legal systems are perfect; however, even legal systems that don't care very much about justice have a figure out if the claims are factual phase or make up the facts phase. Either way, facts need to be determined at some point. The purpose of a process is, roughly, what the process is intended to accomplish, which is attainable given a well-formed process and ideal conditions. Even in a just system with a just (though not omniscient) magistrate, there would need to be pre-trial and trial phases of the process. Because the magistrate is a normal human being and does not posess omniscience, it is still a requirement that an aggrieved party come forward with a petition for addressing her grievance. The magistrate then summons the respondent, hears his answer, and then determines what facts need to be discovered. At this point, the magistrate, lacking omniscience, must necessarily discover the facts in order to adjudicate the dispute. This is a trial.

After I raised these objections later in the conversation, she conceded most, but focused her attention on these questions: (1) whether there can ever be both a just and efficient trial and (2) why patently unjust systems find the need to justify their actions by making up facts. I agreed that (1) was an impossibility, so the focus shifted to (2). Those systems could just pronounce on the dispute without coming up with any facts. Does producing evidence for the unjust act add legitimacy to the regime, thus allowing it to perpetuate? Is that the only reason? Are there systems out there that don't care at all, and how have they fared in not justifying their actions?

Those final questions are hard to answer in an hour and a half, so we ended without finishing. Still, I thought that the discussion brought up good questions and provided a nice introduction for the year.

Finally In Austin

Here's a quick post. I am finally in Austin and am officially moved in (i.e. all stuff from cars/storage is now in the apartment). Unpacking is now underway but is mostly done. I am so glad I got here several weeks early; if I instead came the weekend before classes, it would be a hellacious first weekend.

Moving down to Austin took two whole days. I drove Danielle's van (which she has named Bessie) the whole 850 miles/15.5 hours. With the exception of a stop to sleep (and swim) just inside Texas, only gas breaks were tolerated. We still made pretty good time, but it was a really long drive. I'm glad to be done. Soren is too.

Business cooperatives

As of late I've become really interested in cooperatives, probably due to my very soon move to Austin and the fact that cooperatives seem to be normal in the city. I've always (with a six month exception) banked at a credit union, so I've always been down with exploring the cooperative concept. My interest of late though does not concern cooperatives that will provide me with services but instead revolves around worker's cooperatives.

The worker's cooperative seems to me like a great idea. Workers own the business and have a say in how the business operates. Great. While there are a few successful workers cooperatives (Mondragón, for instance), one area that there would be a significant hardship would be the raising of capital. If only workers own the company, then there can be no investment except through workers. The whole reason the incorporated joint-stock company model has been so successful (besides the incorporation part) is its ability to quickly raise capital by selling shares.

If such a model were introduced into workers cooperatives (what I would then call business cooperatives), what would be the result? Obviously, investors can't have the same sort of control in the cooperative as in a joint-stock company, but shouldn't they have some sort of control? Would each group elect half of the board? How would this dynamic affect the corporation's governance? Would this overly politicize the board?

Anyway, just some late night speculation.

In other news

A few cool things happened this week:

1. I can finally check off get to Ganon in The Legend of Zelda without picking up a sword from my list of things to do.
2. I found out that a female praying mantis, in natural undisturbed conditions, will not eat the male (at least according to the Wikipedia mantis article). Isn't that crazy?

Kal-Haven

My brother and I decided to ride the Kal-Haven trail on Sunday, a thirty-three mile crushed limestone trail between Kalamazoo and South Haven, Michigan. Danielle and I had originally planned a similar trip last year in the summer, where we would leisurely bike the trail and then spend a day in South Haven, biking back to Kalamazoo the next day. Unfortunately for us her bicycle was stolen the Wednesday before the trip. This trip evolved from that original idea, with these exceptions:

1. Since we both had class the next day, we had to go back the same day.
2. Since we hit the trail late (noon), we had to cut time in South Haven short.

We did get to take a dip in Lake Michigan. Unfortunately that dip lasted for 45 minutes max since we needed to get back on the trail so that we could return before darkness hit. I realized on the way to South Haven that it was probably a bad idea to try to do the whole sixty-eight miles (the lake was a mile from the trail) in a day, but by then it was too late to turn back. I'm glad I didn't; although it sucked because I was not in enough shape, I survived and it ended up being really fun. We even got back just after sunset and forty minutes before the trail closed. All in all, I think the trip was rather successful. It was cool seeing the Michigan countryside too.

We encountered a doe standing on the trail right at the beginning of the return trip. Here's a picture I took.

Ninjas and Mutants

So, evidently, I'm Nightcrawler on this quiz. Awesome.

And I'm Donatelo on this quiz. Since all the technical questions naturally implied Donatelo, I'm not surprised at the result.

Return from Austin

Man, Austin is hot! Still, it was an enjoyable experience and a successful mission. Danielle and I found an apartment: three bedrooms for her, Joey, and me, and it's only going to be slightly more expensive than what I'm paying right now in South Bend. Plus, it's right next to the campus shuttle stop. Definitely more than adequate. Also, Amelie (the accupuncturist who graciously offered Danielle and me lodging for the weekend) introduced us to Barton Springs, which helped us stave off the 100° heat with its room temperature water. All in all, I had a fun time.

I'm back in South Bend now preparing for the summer session, which starts Monday. One of my classes was cancelled, so now I'm trying to determine if I will replace it with something else. I'm also going through all of my belongings. The goal is to reduce my belongings to my computers, a suitcase of clothes, and one (1) box of stuff. Stay tuned for news of a yard sale.

So...I know I was supposed to post some stuff regarding the Catholic character/academic freedom thingamahoozit. I seriously doubt the existence of any anxiety on the part of this weblog's readers to see this information. I'm going to pretend that there is some, though, so I can get it up by the weekend.

Falcon

So here's a falcon icon. I'm gonna add it as the icon for my weblog due to the domain name. Like it?

Update

Well, it's finals week. It's the first finals week in six years where I have not had a single exam. It feels pretty good, actually. Unfortunately, though, it does not mean that I'm not doing anything. There's a whole bunch of stuff left to be done, and I haven't even been able to touch most of it due to various commitments. This was supposed to be my get stuff done week. Oh well. Maybe senior week will work.

The Jenkins Hullabaloo

So there has been a lot of recent wailing and gnashing of teeth in regards to Father Jenkins' closing statement on academic freedom and Catholic character. A lot of unsatisfied faculty members have voiced their dissatisfaction to what turned out to be a much more liberal policy than they expected. It turns out that Professor Sayre was right regarding how he predicted this all would turn out.

Now, however, the local church as entered into the discussion. Bishop D'Arcy just released a statement on the policy. I'll be reading it and giving a final assessment on Father Jenkins' policy within the next few days. The question that I'm going to address is whether Father Jenkins' policy would stand up legally given His Excellency's doctrinal assessment.

Almost there

Since Danielle already did the same on her weblog, here's a picture of where I'll be next year. Granted, it doesn't look as cool as Waggener, but it still is pretty nice. I'm getting rather excited. Thankfully, I took care of major business today. Hurrah. Only a few things left to do and then I'll be done.

Blogger experience so far

So Blogger seems to be pretty cool. I almost have tailored the template to produce proper XHTML. The Blogger search bar is the only thing that seems to not be conforming. I wonder if the Blogger folks are aware of it. Anyway, the Minima style works for now, as I really don't want anything too flashy and it looks nice anyways.

While, technically, there isn't any native category support, I found a workaround here from Taher Baderkhan. He uses the search engine for Blogger to index the categories and adds underscores to the category names so that they're distinct from post text. He has JavaScript code for those who don't want to copy the URL into each category link on the sidebar, but I'm not doing that for the sake of those who don't have/don't want to use JavaScript.

Second post in as many days. I'm on a roll. Too bad I still have computer abbreviations in the post. They'll go away eventually, Danielle.

Paying for CGI is not worth it

I unfortunately had to leave my previous blog due to Tejas charging me for CGI use. This is what happens when you move from a medium-sized Catholic university with money to burn on IT to the largest public university in the nation. Oh well.

I've got a lot of stuff to do in the next two weeks. Let's see how often I post in the new place.