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A juvenile judge at the Jefferson County Justice Center ruling there was probable cause for rape charges to continue against two Steubenville High School students and athletes topped the news in October.
Visiting Judge Tom Lipps on Oct. 12 did dismiss kidnapping charges against Trent Mays, 16, of Bloomingdale and Malik Richmond, 16, of Steubenville. The judge also ruled a charge against Mays of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material will continue.
Mays and Richmond were charged in connection with a sexual assault that witnesses said occurred on the night of Aug. 11 into the morning of Aug. 12. The victim's parents came to City Police on Aug. 14 to make a report.
Lipps said there was eyewitness testimony that sexual conduct occurred. The judge said there was probable cause the victim was drunk and impaired and the juveniles charged knew it.
A hearing then was scheduled for Nov. 1 to determine whether Mays and Richmond would be bound over to adult court or will remain in the juvenile system.
Mays and Richmond at the time were ordered to be held in the Jefferson County Juvenile Detention Center.
Later in the month, the family of a Steubenville High School student filed a lawsuit in Jefferson County Common Pleas Court against the the operator of an Internet blog site claiming their son has been defamed in connection with a rape investigation.
Cody Saltsman and his parents, James and Johna Saltsman, filed the lawsuit through their attorney, Shawn Blake, seeking an injunction to force Alexandria Goddard of Columbus, who runs the blog site prinniefied.com, to remove alleged false and defamatory statements from the blog site. The Saltsmans also are seeking monetary damages in excess of $25,000.
The lawsuit claimed Goddard created several blogs on her Internet site regarding the sexual assault. The lawsuit also names 15 people as defendants by the fictitious names they created and registered on the blog.
The lawsuit contained postings that Blake claimed were false and defamatory to the Saltsmans, including that Cody Saltsman was the "mastermind" and "orchestrator" of the sexual assault and also participated.
The lawsuit stated the false and defamatory statements were published with the intent to harm the Saltsmans' good names and reputations by falsely accusing them of criminal acts.
On Thursday, Blake asked the court to dismiss the case. He said only that they were "pleased to have reached a resolution in the case."
In other news in October:
Hundreds of Tri-State Area residents on Oct. 18 waited outside Indian Creek High School to catch a glimpse of former President Bill Clinton as well as support President Barack Obama's bid for re-election in November.
Hundreds of area residents waited for hours for a chance to hear Clinton talk presidential politics.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich hinted in October that Esmark Steel's plans to reopen an idled cold-rolling mill in Yorkville could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Esmark Chairman and CEO Jim Bouchard said the Kasich administration was instrumental in closing the $6.5 million deal for the Yorkville mill, working with his company and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop a remediation plan that addresses unresolved chemical spills that former owner RG Steel neglected to correct two years ago.
In addition to the Yorkville mill, now known as Ohio Cold Rolling Co., Bouchard also acquired a 50 percent ownership stake in the nearby Ohio Coatings Co. tin plating facility, partnering with South Korea's TCC Steel.
Both mills were acquired from bankrupt RG Steel, which also sold its property in Steubenville to River Rail Development, a division of Wheeling-based Strauss Industries, and its Mingo Junction plant to New York-based salvage company, Frontier Industrial.
Also in October, Steelworkers in Weirton and at 13 other ArcelorMittal locations across the country ratified a new, three-year labor agreement giving them a 4.5 percent pay raise spread over the life of the contract plus guarantees the company will reinvestment in its mills.
The deal also cements health care coverage for retirees and improves coverage for active workers.
United Steelworkers union Local 2911 leaders said 94 percent of ArcelorMittal's hourly work force nationwide voted to ratify the agreement. In Weirton, the percentage was even more overwhelming - 99 percent.
Negotiations took almost 13 weeks, with the company initially demanding a $28-per-hour reduction in wages and benefits, most of it in health care cuts. The company also had demanded a different pay scale for new hires, something the union adamantly opposed.
Under the agreement, workers were to receive a $2,000 lump sum payment within 30 days and another $500 payment in May 2014. They'll also see a 2.5 percent pay raise on Sept. 1, 2013, and a 2 percent jump on Jan. 1, 2015.
The United Steelworkers union said bankrupt RG Steel's efforts to get bankruptcy court approval to pay 21 "key employees" nearly $800,000 to stay on the job for the balance of 2012 was a "slap in the face" for thousands of workers who've lost their jobs and benefits.
"Specifically, the company wants to pay a $2,000 monthly stipend for each individual to allow them to purchase health insurance, along with bonus payments of three months' salary if the individual stays through Dec. 31," the USW told members. "Hiding behind the curtain of confidentiality, RG has refused to name these 21 people, but said these employees perform 'essential functions' relating to sales, accounting, treasury, IT and other unidentified 'administrative' functions."
A meeting was held Oct. 30 between federal, state and local officials at the Jefferson County Airpark to discuss the runway expansion project.
But local officials already are looking forward to the next improvement - a GPS instrument approach - that they believe will open the airport for even more development.
The Ohio Department of Transportation and Ohio Department of Development have each contributed a $750,000 grant, with the Jefferson County commissioners kicking in $500,000, to expand the runway.
The meeting was to discuss how to proceed with the project, from selecting an engineer to contractors.
County Commissioner Tom Gentile said a committee of county and airport officials met prior to the meeting to go over qualifications submitted by prospective engineers. Gentile said six firms submitted qualifications and three were eliminated at the meeting.
Gentile credited U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, with going to the Federal Aviation Administration to get the federal agency to certify the approaches for the expanded runway.
Gentile added the runway use has increased in the past year with the oil and gas industry development.
The runway will be expanded from 4,400 feet to 6,000 feet long and from 60 feet wide to 75 feet.
Some corporate jets can't use the existing runway because of insurance requirements for a longer runway.
A unique public-private partnership in October raised the nearly $40,000 needed to save a rail spur in Wellsburg serving Graphic Packaging and Eagle Manufacturing.
The spur was in danger of being classified inoperable by Norfolk Southern Railroad until the West Virginia Public Port Authority, Business Development Corp. of the Northern Panhandle and city of Wellsburg teamed with the two companies to underwrite the repairs, which included new crossties, a relay single shoulder tie plate, new track spikes, reinstalling existing anchors from removed ties and hand-tamping new cross ties.
The port authority and BDC each pitched in $5,000 for the project, with the city of Wellsburg contributing $1,000. Graphic Packaging anted up $18,000 and Eagle, $9,000.
The Jefferson County grand jury on Oct. 3 indicted a city man who was caught with a large amount of crack and powder cocaine and faces about 70 years in prison if convicted.
Geary L. Harper Jr., 25, of 514 S. Labelle Court was indicted on three counts of having a weapon as a convicted felon, carrying a concealed weapon and five counts of possession of drugs. Two of the drug possession charges contain specifications of being a major drug offender, which could result in additional 10-year sentences.
Harper previously was indicted by the grand jury on an escape charge for failing to report to his parole officer. City Police saw Harper and arrested him on Sept. 10. Jefferson County Prosecutor Jane Hanlin said Harper had a backpack with 70 grams of cocaine, 8 grams of heroin and six and one-half oxycondone pills, cash and a firearm. Harper was taken to the county jail.
Harper called his girlfriend from the county jail and told her where a stash of drugs and guns were located at a house. Hanlin said the calls from the jail are recorded. She said prisoners are warned about the recordings.
The case against Harper is pending in court.
Toronto's water distribution system was discussed during the Oct. 8 council meeting.
At the time, Mayor John Geddis told council the city was preparing the groundwork for an estimated $1.9 million in water infrastructure upgrades throughout the city, including replacement of water lines and new hydrants. Geddis said funding for the project could conceivably come from a variety of grant sources as well as a low-interest, long-term loan from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
"The EPA is going to give us 30 percent forgiveness (on any loans)," said Geddis.
Geddis also cited several sources for grant funds he's pursuing for the project. The mayor also said he's applying for up to $600,000 for the project from the state's Community Development Block Grant funds to possibly fund the proposed project.
Two state grants were accepted by the city during the Oct. 1 New Cumberland Council meeting.
State Sen. Jack Yost, D-Wellsburg, and state Sen. Orphy Klempa, D-Wheeling, presented council with two state grants -a $6,333 grant from the Governor's Community Participation Grant for improvements at the city's water and sewage systems; and a $5,000 grant from the state senate's discretionary fund, which will be used for a curtain for the City Municipal Building's multi-purpose room.
The Business Development Corp. of the Northern Panhandle parlayed funding from local government into big gains for the community, Executive Director Pat Ford said in October.
BDC gets $25,000 annually from the city of Weirton, $30,000 each from Brooke and Hancock counties, and $5,000 from Beech Bottom, as well as contributions by business and industry in its service area.
Ford told Weirton Council that since the BDC board reorganized and redefined its goals in 2009, they'd been able to assist the private sector in creating 139 new jobs with a combined annual payroll of $3.9 million and helped preserve 453 jobs with a combined annual payroll of $11.8 million, all of it in the two-county area.
The BDC's total investment in the two counties has been $38.7 million - almost evenly split between public dollars ($19.5 million) and private investment ($19.2 million).
The grand jury also returned a misdemeanor assault indictment against a former Tiltonsville police officer.
Benjie Coblentz, 27, of Senecaville was indicted on the assault charge.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation was contacted to investigate the assault, which took place on April 16.
Tiltonsville Police Chief Jerry Davis said on-duty officers responded to an alarm call at Buckeye SouthWest Middle School on Walden Avenue, when they were approached by a man who said he was just assaulted. Davis said the man had head and upper body injuries.
The victim told the officers that five people were in a vehicle, with four wearing masks. One jumped out of the vehicle and started to beat him. Davis said the man gave a description of the vehicle and then told the officers they were talking to people in the same vehicle just prior to the beating. The police chief said the officers recognized the vehicle belonged to an off-duty officer.
The case is pending in Dillonvale county court.
New Cumberland officials unveiled a consultant's recommendations in October for making the Station Hill sidewalk safer for pedestrians.
The preliminary engineering report, prepared by KCI Technologies of Morgantown, calls for relocating the sidewalk, placing it on the current embankment with a fence and grade separation that would keep vehicular traffic particularly heavy trucks safely away from pedestrians.
KCI's Eric Lord, senior landscape architect and project manager, said there'd be two well-defined, handicap accessible crosswalks one at the railroad tracks, the other at North Court Street. The idea, he said, would be to funnel foot traffic to either of the crosswalks.
The Ohio Valley Fair Housing Center agreed to a one-year contract with the Jefferson County commissioners on Oct. 15 to provide fair housing services for the county.
The Ohio Valley Fair Housing Center was created in early 2011 by the Steubenville Fair Housing Practices Commission because of anticipated cuts in Community Development Block Grant funds.
"The city's Fair Housing Practices Commission will continue to exist for housing discrimination issues in the city. But the Ohio Valley Fair Housing Center will be able to work in different communities," Urban Projects Director Chris Petrossi explained at a March 2011 meeting.
The contract called for the county to pay the Ohio Valley Fair Housing Center $3,000 to act as the county's representative on all matters related to fair housing efforts.
Steubenville Mayor Domenick Mucci said a growing number of investments in the city indicate the city is moving forward.
Mucci delivered his second-annual state of the city address to a sparse crowd on Oct. 23 at Eastern Gateway Community College.
Former Progress Alliance Executive Director Ed Looman called Mucci's remarks "encouraging."
Mucci reviewed each city department, including the city health department where, Mucci said, a community health assessment was conducted in 2011.
Steubenville Council listened during an Oct. 30 sunshine meeting to an educational tutorial on fiscal status for communities facing financial problems.
Council heard a nearly one-hour presentation by Bob Burlenski of the Ohio Auditor's office who discussed fiscal caution, fiscal watch and fiscal emergency rules for communities.
"I am not here to sound any extreme alarms. This is just a general educational session because there have been some changes in the state law. I am explaining tools that any community can use to avoid fiscal problems," stated Burlenski.
On Oct. 2, Bob Sadler, a Beech Bottom councilman and superintendent of the Hammond Public Service District, told fellow council members funds were secured to establish a backup water supply for more than 13,000 customers in Beech Bottom, Wellsburg and the Hammond district.
Sadler said Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin was the latest to allocate funds for the estimated $170,000 project, which will establish links between the water suppliers. He said the links may be opened temporarily when each supplier's water source is disrupted by line breaks or other mechanical failures, power outages, floods and other problems.
Visitors to the Wellsburg Applefest, Oct. 5-7, got a sneak peak at the new Brooke County Museum and Cultural Center. While there was still work to be done, museum board members and other volunteers had created displays depicting an 1890s kitchen, dining room and bedroom, 1920s kitchen, one-room schoolhouse and many other aspects of the county's history.
They continue to renovate the former G.C. Murphy Store at 704 Charles St., which was purchased using a $90,000 grant from the West Virginia Division of History and Culture.
On Oct. 22 members of Brooke Hills Free Methodist Church near Wellsburg celebrated the completion of a $1.9 million addition with a special service and luncheon.
Under the leadership of the Rev. Bryce Grieco, the church's pastor, a committee of church members secured nearly $1 million in pledges, of which about $650,000 had been paid, for the 16,900 square foot addition.
The addition included a new, 440-seat sanctuary to accommodate the church's growing congregation.


text: Well, I wanted to do a tut that people actually need and use, so I looked on Google Images for a model pic and got to work. Uh, I suppose there's not too much to say besides tht, so I hope you have fun learning "How to Draw a Chibi Model" step by step. Please rate comment, favorite, and post the results!

subset: commoncrawl


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ROCK HILL, S.C. – After posting a perfect 4-0 record in singles and a 3-1 mark in doubles last week, freshman Rebecca Bruning of Anderson University women's tennis has been named co-South Atlantic Conference Player of the Week for matches played between March 31-April 6, announced by the conference office on Monday.
Bruning began her week teaming up with junior Lindsay Gregory and notching an 8-2 win over Lincoln Memorial's pair of Roksolana Prudyvus and Alexandra Granger at the No. 2 position. Later in the match, Bruning followed with a straight-set win over Priscilla Bulandres (6-1, 6-2) at the No. 3 spot, leading AU to the 8-1 win over the Lady Railsplitters.
A day later, Bruning continued her winning trend, teaming up with Gregory once again to post an 8-0 shutout over Lenoir-Rhyne's pair of Nateesha Hurtt and Meaghan Liner at No. 2. In singles, Bruning knocked off Lela Sparks Thompson at the No. 3 slot, 6-0, 6-3, as the Trojans defeated the Bears, 7-2.
On Friday, the Bruning and Gregory duo defeated Catawba's team of Maddy Henderson and Lauren Sledd 8-3 at the No. 2 position. In singles, Bruning met Henderson once again and grabbed her third singles win of the week with a 6-1, 6-2 decision at the No. 3 spot. With the triumph, the Trojans eventually grabbed a narrow 5-4 victory over the Indians.
Closing the week on Saturday, Bruning and Gregory suffered their first setback in doubles, falling to Wingate's Tiffany Williams and Sierra Parsons, 8-6. Despite the loss, Bruning got the Trojans on the scoreboard with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Bulldog Becca Thomas to close out her undefeated mark for the week.
For the season, Bruning holds the best singles record on the team at 11-1 to go along with a 7-5 mark in doubles. The Athens, Ga. native currently holds a nine-match winning streak in her first collegiate season.
Bruning shares the weekly honor with Queens' Christina Rutscheff who posted a 6-0 singles record for the week, playing at the No. 1 position.
Bruning and the Trojans return to the courts on Thursday when they square off against archrival Erskine. First serve is scheduled for 3 p.m.


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Hope you can help a WP newbie :)
It is my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong!) that I cannot use the same subcategory slug in multiple parent categories, i.e. this structure is impossible with WP's category functionality:
example.com/design/exotic/my-post/ example.com/travel/exotic/another-post/
My question is a two-parter:
Are there any plugins or code I can use to coax WP into structuring URLs this way?
Is there a way to tweak the category archive page template to generate
example.com/exotic/, which would include posts from
If this is way more trouble than it is worth, please let me know. If so, I'm willing to sacrifice the subcategory in the URL structure. #2 is the most important to me: being able to have a
mysite.com/exotic/ page that draws from multiple categories.


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Top Summer Games and Activities for Kids
3 of 11
Bubble Contest
Nothing to do on a summer afternoon? Organize a bubble blowing contest! Mix up some bubble solution, assemble some tools for blowing, and you're set. Read the instructions for the Bubble Contest.
Next: Stupendous Sand Castles
More on: Summer Vacation


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Snowed in.
Last weekend, Winter Storm Franck dislodged an avalanche of verbiage onto the sleepy hamlet of First Thoughts. Over the past few days, residents have been laboring to uncover the contours of an argument that engages the moral tradition many of them hold dear. Better fire up the snowblower.
Matthew Franck and I do not agree about several features of the Obama administration's latest revision of its contraception mandate. Where he sees government intrusion and moral thuggery, I see an imperfect but serious attempt to grapple with the concerns of religiously affiliated employers. He rejects my argument that Catholic employers may, according to their own moral tradition, licitly abide by HHS's proposals. But now Franck goes further, claiming that I have unwittingly undermined my own position by admitting that the premiums paid by a Catholic employer might be used to cover contraception for an employee of another company. You see, two weeks ago I wrote that the "accommodation" would not "oblige a Catholic institution to fund contraception coverage." And then the following week I tried to help Franck understand how insurance works -- by explaining that insurers pool premium payments from all their customers and distribute the funds as they see fit. Aha!
When Gallicho writes that such an employer may be one of the funding sources, he gives the game away. He is one inch away from understanding the point he himself is trying to make, about the fungibility of money. All the employers paying premiums to one insurance provider are paying, in common, for the contraception coverage of all their employees. Another way to say it that is equally true is that each and every one of them is paying for contraception coverage, in a common risk pool (if that term applies accurately to a choice that has very little to do with risk), from which all their employees contraception is funded. All are paying; each is paying; if EWTN is one of the all, it is one of the each. It will be paying for contraception.
Is it true? Have the hurricane-force gusts of Winter Storm Franck blown my argument apart? Not really, because there's paying for something and then there's paying for something. When you buy a banana, you indicate your interest by presenting it at your grocer's cash register. The clerk tells you how much it costs, you hand him the money, and off you go with your proof-of-God fruit. But what will that grocer do with your money? Will he use it to pay his divorce lawyer? To bust the cashiers union? To bring in the store's next shipment of condoms? If so, can it be said that you have funded those activities? Remotely, yes. But did you ask for those things when you brought that banana to the cashier? Of course not. Would those events have transpired if you had gotten the banana from another vendor? In all likelihood, yes. So even though your money may have facilitated the grocer's immoral actions, you're not culpable. You didn't patronize that grocer because you wanted to support those actions. You couldn't say for sure whether he'd use your money to further his immoral aims. You patronized him because you were hungry. No harm, no foul.
So it goes with the contraception mandate. (Refresher: According to the latest proposal, religiously affiliated employers like hospitals, colleges, and charities, will be able to contract for employee insurance policies that exclude contraception coverage. Their employees will, in turn, receive an offer of free contraception coverage from the insurer.) Franck asserts that these "accommodated" religious employers will still be contracting for contraception coverage. Not so. He says the accommodation amounts to a contract by default, because insurers will offer free contraception coverage only to people they already cover (otherwise they would have no financial incentive to do so). But that's a dodge. At this point, who could doubt the intent of the religiously objecting employer? The HHS proposal will not require religious employers to endorse the use of contraception, nor will it bar such employers from informing their workers about Catholic teaching on the subject. (Indeed, that is precisely what the bishop of Madison did when he chose to comply with Wisconsin law and include contraceptive coverage in his employee health plan.)
Intent still matters in Catholic moral reasoning. You aren't engaging in Catholic moral analysis until you answer three questions: What was the intent of the moral agent? What was the effect of his action? Could those effects have been brought about without his action? Franck is all over the second question. But the first and third barely feature in his analysis. Nevertheless, he manages to bump up against the third in his most recent post, if only by accident.
In pointing out that pooled resources complicate the culpability of those who fund them, I noted that paying taxes is not immoral even though tax dollars fund illicit acts (including contraception, thanks to Title X). And Franck agrees with me. But...
does he really mean to assimilate the business of contracting for insurance coverage--a free market transaction between employers and insurance providers--to the situation that obtains between taxpayers and the state? I know that many conservatives have observed that ObamaCare converts health insurance providers into public utilities. Gallicho would go further, seeing them as public agencies, or the moral equivalent thereof.
The business of purchasing health insurance is a lot of things, but a free-market transaction is not one of them. The health-insurance market is tightly controlled by state and federal regulations. They determine what we can and cannot buy. They control whom insurers can -- and, in some cases, must -- sell to. They even tell us where we can buy it -- you can purchase a car across state lines, but not health insurance. The Affordable Care Act increases regulation in several important areas (sayonara, preexisting conditions). It also turns health-care coverage into a requirement of citizenship -- the implications of which seem lost on Franck. He writes:
When we pay taxes, we do so as a civic duty, and we do so under coercion. If we are liable for taxes, we have a duty to pay them as members of the community. Because the state must be able to compel payment, we are subject to coercion if we dont pay. But we share responsibility for the good or evil our government does, and we owe one another our best persuasive efforts, and the action of our votes, to see to it that the government does good and avoids evil.
Our duly elected representatives crafted and passed a bill, signed into law by our democratically elected president, that compels -- you might even say it coerces -- Americans to have health insurance. Franck laments that the government did not decide to provide contraceptives directly (indeed, that would have saved all of us a lot of headaches). In that case, "the state -- meaning all of us whom it represents, collectively -- would be right back 'on the hook,' and we could struggle democratically over whether this coverage is a good to be funded by taxpayers or an evil to remain unfunded by the federal budget." That, Franck opines, "would be a fight in the open, at least. But the HHS mandate is something else again, entailing layer on layer of coercion, deception, and moral thuggery."
Nonsense. The Affordable Care Act was produced by a democratically elected government. The Department of Health and Human Services has issued three sets of proposals responding to the concerns of certain religious employers. It has asked for public comment. If the voters decide that the law does evil, they can throw those responsible out of office. In the meantime, if you can obtain health insurance and you choose not to, you'll have to pay a fine. The Supreme Court declared the individual mandate constitutional as an extension of congressional taxing power.
Back to Franck:
The reason we are not on the hook individually for any evils on which our tax dollars are spent is...that the state acts as the representative of all of us citizens in common (this is true in every state, and literally so in a democracy), and the evils (if any) that it commits are our collective (not individual) responsibility whether we pay any taxes or not.
He's right. That's how you run the argument. Now let's apply it to the contraception mandate. If an accommodated religious employer decides not to provide health coverage to its employees, what's likely to happen? Employees will go to the state exchanges and purchase health plans that include contraception coverage -- worse, they might even contract for a plan that covers abortion (the Affordable Care Act explicitly allows states to bar exchanges from offering plans that cover abortions). That fact diminishes the culpability of accommodated religious employers who choose to provide health coverage to their workers. Add to that the fact that they contract for coverage that excludes contraception, along with the fact that providing health care outweighs the risk that employees might or might not use the separate contraception coverage, and what you have is licit remote material cooperation with evil under duress.
But Franck isn't going for it. At least he has come to understand that one group purchaser can't be held accountable for coverage used by another.
If I run Carolina Catholic College and sign a contract with Blue Cross, it may trouble me that Blue Cross is providing birth control pills to Duke employees, but in its contract with my college, it better not provide those pills to our employees. I am not culpable for the arrangement BC has with Duke. I am directing premiums to a common BC pool out of which funds pay for Duke employees birth control pills, but at least I have not created a triadic relationship in which BC, by virtue of its contract with us, provides those pills to Carolina Catholic employees.
Ah, yes, the triadic relationship -- famous in Catholic moral theological circles for being completely made up by Matthew Franck. He admits that there's nothing wrong with paying an insurer that covers abortions so long as you're not contracting for that coverage. Your money goes into the pool. The insurer then decides how to spend it. You aren't culpable because you didn't contract for such coverage. But here comes the HHS accommodation, "which preserves exactly that triadic relationship, under a deception that the link is severed between employer's actions and employees' access to contraception."
One might be forgiven for detecting in this passage just a touch of obscurantism. Is a triadic relationship one that involves inevitable outcomes by virtue of one's relationship with two other parties? What's the outcome? Franck tells us: employees of accommodated religious institutions will receive "illicit coverage." There it is again -- that fake moral category: the illicit thing. Remember, the Catholic moral tradition does not recognize things in themselves as licit or illicit. Only acts can be so. Until an employee uses that coverage for illicit purposes, there's been no violation of Catholic teaching. (That's why the issue of alleged "automatic coverage" is a red herring.)
Critics of the mandate would rather pretend that the employees' role in the moral question is incidental, or at least not as important as the employers' decision to provide coverage. In fact it is essential -- not only because the decision to behave illicitly is theirs, but also because they receive health-care coverage as compensation for their labor. In the United States, health benefits are considered part of a worker's wages. When diocesan employees buy condoms with their wages, is it their bishop's fault? When they don't, does their bishop get credit? Of course not. An employer is never responsible for his employees' consumption choices. Why should it be any different in the case of third-party-provided contraception coverage? (Note, too, that Franck doesn't have a lot to say about HHS's proposals for "self-insured" religious employers -- that's because HHS will essentially pay a third party to provide contraception coverage. There's almost no cooperation with evil to speak of.)
The mandate's critics twist Catholic moral reasoning into impossible knots: Does Franck really believe it's possible to "sever" all links between human choices and evil outcomes? I doubt it. So why suggest such a thing? Could it be that critics of the mandate contort themselves so because they're loath say what they're really thinking: that no one has a right to opt in to contraception coverage, and no employees have a moral right to use contraception -- Catholic or not? If so, they should say so. But, of course, that would be giving away the game.
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He and Lori appear to be drinking the same Kool-Aide.
I see progress. Franck has discovered the word "fungible." If he keeps at it, he will eventually arrive at what the word means. Then, when he applies "fungible" to "insurance pool," the light may dawn. Or not.
My favorite part of his analysis is this: "In addition to the moral problem of scandal, and damage to the witness of the institution, there is still real cooperation and agency in the transaction that brings about the access to contraception." What scandal? He's begging the question: only if you accept his main assertion that "there is still real cooperation and agency" that amounts to intolerably direct cooperation with evil could you consider the arrangement cause for scandal. Damage to the witness of the institution? Their employees will each receive written notification that the institution has a religious objection to providing them with coverage for birth control, and that they will therefore have to receive that coverage under a separate arrangement with the insurance company. Seems like pretty overt witness to me.I think "scandal" and "witness" really are the motivating factors here, though, in a twisted sort of way. The bishops, and those like Franck who are so dedicated to backfilling some kind of consistent logic for the bishops' shifting objections, seem to think that their obligation to uphold the faith (or their need to be its authoritative interpreters) requires them to hold firm against any attempt to accomodate their objections. They really do seem to think they can't take yes for an answer. I see the risk of scandal running pretty strong in the opposite direction, myself. They no longer even seem to be trying to get this right. But they sure are firm.
I sympathize with Franck about fungibility and agency. Both notions are metaphysically extremely hard to describe and explain, When you have a pool of money, such as a betting pool, just what do you have? What *kind* of parts make up the pool? Can you dice and slice the pool into parts like a hunk of cheese or a cake? Most important, just how can you *identify* which owner owns which parts? Or can you say that any particular owner owns a particular part? I say the answer is that each owner owns a *portion* of the pool, but the portion is not identifiable. In the case of the mandate, we don't even agree as to who owns the pool -- the insurance company or the people who put the money into it. That's the crux question in the HHS matter. I say that when the bishops put their money in the ins. co. became the owner. If the bishops still owned it, they could withdraw it at will, but they can't because it's not theirs anymore. Even if we say that the bishops' still own a part of the pool, I say that because the parts are not distinguishable, they are not identifiable. So when the ins. co. pays out money from the pool there's just no way to tell whether it's the bishops' part or somebody else's that is being used. The whole issue becomes moot, it *can't* be settled.What a sink hole of questions.
Perhaps Grant is onto something important. I wondered why the Bishops' latest communication kept putting so much stress on the evil of the new insurance arrangement's making free contraception available to minors under their parents' policies. If keeping contraception as unavailable as they can make it is a major aim of their campaign, it might explain the desperate to convince parents that having the insurance policy as written would not only be sinful, but a threat to their parental authority and their children's innocence.(Never mind the contrary implications of Catholic moral theology when they are inconvenient).
When HHS was first acted upon last year, I found out my Kaiser Heath insurance covered contraception all during my 60 years of coverage. When we worked for the Archdiocese and oped out of the diocesan Health insurance because we were already covered by my previous employers insurance, The Archdiocese loved the savings we presented. . The sin of 'fungiblity' was never on the table. Are some bishops unaware of Jesus asking 'whose image is on this coin"?
I don't think the bishops (or other Catholic stakeholders such as business owners) are out of line to wish to insulate their institutions to the extent possible from any cooperation in the distribution or use of contraception. Even remote material cooperation is not the same as no cooperation whatever. If the latter is reasonably possible, it may be worth pursuing.(To suggest an analogous situation: I am not happy that my tax dollars fund an arsenal of gratuitous weapons of mass destruction. I believe that my cooperation in their assembly and maintenance is remote. But that doesn't relieve me of my responsibility to speak out against them.)I agree wholeheartedly with Grant and others that intent is an essential factor factor in determining culpability, and people who have followed the plot closely in this controversy can't mistake the bishops' intent on behalf of their people in this matter. But a lot of folks presumably haven't followed the plot very closely. And there are people and entities with ideologies or vested interests that run counter to the church's on culture-war issues like contraception who may try to exploit even the appearance of church acquiescence, approval or cooperation to injure the church's reputation. (And the institutional church isn't noted for the nimbleness of its public-relations efforts). I don't think the possibility of scandal is all that far-fetched. The church opposes contraception. The church should speak against what it opposes. And it should appear to oppose what it opposes. That's the reality of religious witness in the 21st century.But it seems likely enough that the latest proposed accommodation is the last, best deal for the church, at least in the short run.
There is no freedom from cooperation with evil. You either get licitly far from or or you don't.And Jim, all the bishops who took point on this issue couldn't stop asserting that this is not about contraception. Seems to me that's what it's been about from the get-go.
I have been following this discussion for more than a week. It seems to me that all reasonable people who understand our moral tradition must be satisfied by the great lengths to which HHS has gone. Any objections that remain are not from principle, but partisanship. Even in the face of facts, when one cannot change one's mind and won't change the subject, we know what to call him.I think at this point we should note the schismatic implications of the proof-of-God banana video. As everyone knows, the monkeys God created open a banana differently (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inzk2fTUe1w), according to nature. Is the use of the so-called 'pop tab' in fact a signal of heretical leanings? Is it a sign that our place in the order of being has been inverted? Should not the pop tab be reserved for the use only of angels?I agree with all that Grant has written. Further explanations will be of no help to those who have not seen already. I would direct them to the schismatic banana thread as a more fit object for their obsessively picayune attentions.
Grant, I think there are two issues here that are getting confused. In your original post, among other things you were claiming that as a result of the accommodation, Catholic institutions do not face immoral cooperation with evil. This is as a result of both the distance ("remoteness") from the actual evil act (use of contraception) and because the institution is not paying for it (since through the accommodation, supposedly the insurance company pays for it itself). But by getting you to admit that even with the accommodation, the institution is still paying for the insurance coverage through pooling, Franck was successful in showing that the accommodation in fact makes no practical difference. If an accommodated Catholic institution is not "really" paying for contraception because the costs of the contraception are pooled, then the exact same thing could be said of a secular employer without an accommodation. So the accommodation is in fact a "deception," intended to assuage consciences without changing anything.There is the same problem in this most recent post. As far as I can tell, nothing you argue here concerning the accommodation would not also be true for a non-accommodated employer. Your point is about the moral distance of insurance in general. The accommodation doesn't really make a difference (which I think you already implicitly conceded). So the issue is not really the accommodation but the mandate itself. If one already believed that the mandate was an unjust violation of conscience, the accommodation changes nothing, and if you believed that the mandate was acceptable, then the accommodation is pointless. I think there are plausible arguments that the mandate itself does not involve the cooperation with evil its critics claim, but that is the real question, not the accommodation.
Matthew,It may be true that in one sense the accommodated Catholic employer is still "paying for" contraceptive services no less than the unaccommodated Catholic employer. But in this same sense the exempt Catholic employers are also "paying for" contraceptive services, since the premiums they pay to insurance providers are not segregated from the money the providers use to cover contraceptive services, as well as abortions, for some of their other policyholders. So this cannot be the kind of forced cooperation with evil the bishops object to, since they accept the exemption and wish to see it expanded (and have never told Catholic employers that it is illicit to buy group insurance plans from a provider that offers coverage for contraception or abortion to anyone).The accommodation puts one more degree of distance between the Catholic employer and the illicit act. Without it, an employer who disapproves of artificial contraception must buy a plan that includes coverage for contraceptives (or pay a penalty). With it, the employer must buy a plan that makes it possible for an insurance company to offer separate coverage for contraceptives to the women who work for the accommodated employer. Whether this one extra degree of distance is a sufficient difference is an interesting question. But, contrary to a lot of right-wing analysis of this issue, the church does teach that degrees of separation between those who unintentionally facilitate an evil act and the evil act itself can be morally significanthence the term "remote material cooperation."
"And Jim, all the bishops who took point on this issue couldnt stop asserting that this is not about contraception. Seems to me thats what its been about from the get-go."If the government simply imposed a new entitlement by which HHS would directly reimburse pharmacists for contraceptive prescriptions, do you think the bishops and others would have risen up and whipped up this brouhaha? I don't.The element that is so objectionable is the religious-liberty violation.
If an accommodated religious employer decides not to provide health coverage to its employees, whats likely to happen? Employees will go to the state exchanges and purchase health plans that include contraception coverage worse, they might even contract for a plan that covers abortion (the Affordable Care Act explicitly allows states to bar exchanges from offering plans that cover abortions).I dont find this to be a compelling moral argument at all. Its akin to the Church saying, You may as well do the wrong thing, because if you dont, someone else will, to the same effect, so whats the point?Is that what we would teach our children, well?
So the accommodation is in fact a deception, intended to assuage consciences without changing anything.Thank you Matthew Shadle for getting down to the crux of the issue.
I think it is a mistake to talk of pooling as something that purchasers of insurance do. When I buy fire insurance for my house I am a "customer" of the insurance company in the same way that I am a customer of an auto dealer when I buy a car. The insurance company tells me that if I give it $5000, it will pay to rebuild my house if it burns down wihin the next year. Pooling of risks is the economic principle that makes insurance companies possible but it is something that happens only inside the insurance company.The company's customers are not involved in pooling. If I pay the $5,000, my house gets rebuilt at the company's expense regardless of how many other houses burn that year. I do not pay more because more houses than expected burn nor do I get money back if fewer houses than expected burn. It is their money, not mine, as soon as I pay them. It is a fixed payment for their promise to pay in the future if my house burns.Now, if you want to argue that I shouldn't buy insurance from a company.that sells policies covering contraception to other people, that is a different argument and also doesn't involve pooling risks.
I should have written:I think it is incorrect to talk of pooling as something that purchasers of insurance do.
The bishops have patently shifted from claiming the issue was their own freedom not to pay for other people's contraceptives to their employees' right to restrict their minor children's sexual activities. Hmph. Methinks I smell a rat. What do these do claims have in common? They're both anti-the Democratic administration. It's politics, guys, politics, or maybe the bishops can't stand Obama because they can't brow-beat him.
Ann - or is it because he tries to live and implement the gospel values; he cares for the disenfranchised, the poor, the sick, etc.That he lives and works as the US *community organizer* motivated by gospel values rather than power.Wonder, if at heart, they are just embarrassed when contemplating Barack Obama.
" ... bishops intent on behalf of their people ..."Is this the latest version of in loco parentis: Bishops are going to step in for parents so under-aged girls don't get their hands on the pill or boys on condoms? What about wives who get sterilized without their husband's knowledge? Or the husbands who get secret vasectomies? Or couples who decided on IVF? Or that old bugaboo, abortion?I think that people are perfectly capable of making medical decisions based on how they understand their lives, their faith and how both intersect.Bishops are free ... nay, obligated ... to explicate the teachings of the church as they understand them. But they are NOT free to control how their fellow Catholics choose to live out their lives, including how they choose to use the health insurance provided by their employers.
Matthew et al: If a Catholic employer provides health insurance without contraception coverage, but still pays its employees a salary or wage, then any portion of that salary or wage that is spent on contraception is effectively paying for contraception by the Catholic employer. It's not a case of the "what," but the "how." Either way the employer is making it possible for the employee to purchase or access contraception as (s)he sees fit.
Bill deH --I don't fault the bishops generally for not helping the poor. In fact, of all of us Americans they probably organize more help for the poor than any other group. I also remember when the Catholic bishops started to take Archbishop Rummell seriously and started to speak out against segregation and for civil rights when it wasn't at all popular anywhere in the country, and now they are speaking out for the immigrants.But they seem pretty much unaffected by the women's rights movement. But that movement has never been as unified as the racial civil rights movement because women have different ideas about just what our basic rights are. Still, the bishops don't seem to have the empathey with women that they had for black people and now for the Latinos. So I guess I have to conclude that there really is some misogyny in some of them anyway.As to Obama personally, unfortunately, some of them, probably many of them, can't seem to realize that a person can be an honest, virtuous person and think that contraception and abortion are often morally permissible. This, I fear, is part of the old Catholic triumphalism that has affected most of us that makes us think if someone disagrees with us then he must be sinfully rejecting the truth. It's that sort of extremely insulting attitude that will condemn the New Evangelization to failure. True, probably not all of them are like that, but the USCCB seems to elect people like that, and they then represent the group. My main complaints against the American bishops are the cover-ups and their unwillingness to assert their own proper role in the Church against the Curia. That has been devastating for the Church as a whole. No, I don't think they're intrinsically evil men. Just flawed badly in some ways, and that is at least partly due to their hierarchical culture.
The original post says "And then the following week I tried to help Franck understand how insurance works by explaining that insurers pool premium payments from all their customers and distribute the funds as they see fit. Aha!"That is literally true but "pool" lends itself to the misinterpretation that premiums paid are still the customer's money.If you were describing a gas station, you might say:"by explaining that the gas station owner deposits payments from his/her customers in the station bank account and spends it as she/he sees fit - to buy more gas, pay rent, pay attendents, etc and, hopefully, make a profit. It's not likely that many people imagine that if the gas station has a condom vending machine in the men's room that the money the customer paid for gas is still theirs and they are doing evil because condoms to stock the machine are being bought with their money.
Excellent analogy, John Hayes.
by explaining that insurers pool premium payments from all their customers and distribute the funds as they see fit. Again, what is the relevance of this observation? Do you mean to argue that any insurance company can cover anything (euthanasia, abortion, etc.) and zero of its customers bear any moral responsibility for the coverage that they or their employees have?
Which insurance companies cover euthanasia?
Mr.Wasting Time, your're quoting Paul Gallicho, not me so i'll leave it to him to respond, if he wishes.For me, you have now switched to the "fungibilty of funds" argument rather than the "pooling of funds argument" Fungibility argues that I am doing evil if I:- have my prescriptions filled at a drugstore that also sells contraceptives- buy my individual health insurance from a company that also sells policies covering abortion.- buy my coffee at Starbucks even though they give money to support same-sex marriage legislationFor me, those are matters of prudential judgement which different people will decide differently. I do all of them
Consider an insurance policy that only covers maternity services and neo-natal care for which the insurance company charges the employer $500. The insurance company then determines that contraception coverage would only cost $100, and would eliminate the need (and cost to the insurer) for maternity services. So the insurance company says to the Church, Have I got a deal for you! Im going to throw in free contraception coverage to you and your employees, no additional charge! You can thank me later. The insurance company takes the $500, spends $100 on contraception, and pockets the remaining $400 as profit.Can we all agree that the Church is funding this free contraception coverage? Ok, now lets add a wrinkle. The insurance company says its policy with the Church wont cover the contraception. The contraception coverage is provided by some other entity, lets call it HHS/Exchange, which provides the coverage free, out of the kindness of its heart, to the Churchs employees. However, the insurance company still keeps the $500 paid by the Church and uses the money to pay for contraception for the Churchs employees (and pockets the additional profit).Can we all agree that the Church is still funding the free contraception coverage, and that the HHS/Exchange laundering is simply a lame attempt, er...accommodation...to obscure that reality?
No.In your first case the Catholic institution is agreeing to allow contraception to be provided under its insurance contract. That's not what the HHS regulations require.In your second case the Catholic institution does't agree to anything. The only way it could prevent its employees from getting free contraception from HHS/Exchange would be to not provide any employee health insurance at all. Now it is in the "fungibility of funds" argument that I discussed in my last comment. It's situation is the same as mine when I buy individual insurance from a company that sells policies to other people that include contraception. It makes a pudential judgement.
JohnI take you find the first case unacceptable. Thats good, some common ground has been established. And we didnt even use the word fungible!In your second case the Catholic institution doest agree to anything.Right, thats part of the figleaf/obfuscation. But its not relevant if the Church has formally agreed to anything. Its not relevant i f the insurance policy specifically says contraception is coveredthe reality is, as I described: The Church is funding contraception for its employees. The only way it could prevent its employees from getting free contraception from HHS/Exchange would be to not provide any employee health insurance at all.This repeats the exceedingly weak rationale Grant had given previously. See my comment of 4:22 pm. The obvious response is that if the mandate is not forced on the Church, its not backed into the corner you describe.
Mark,Your argument is crudely consequentialist; Catholic moral theology is not. You seem to think that as long as the final effect is the same, it doesn't matter who agrees to what: intentionality is irrelevant. According to the line of argument you're pursuing here, much of the church's moral theology is as much of an "obfuscation" as the accommodation you contemn.I still find it strange that you don't think it matters that most Catholic employers are already "funding" contraception and abortion by buying their health insurance from companies that cover those things for some of their policyholders. You seem totally unbothered that most Catholic employers already choose to do what they were free not to do, but you're completely horrified that they might do the same thing, or something similar, under duress.
You seem totally unbothered that most Catholic employers already choose to do what they were free not to do, but youre completely horrified that they might do the same thing, or something similar, under duress.Freedom or duress. I guess they must be the same...
Mark, I'm sorry, since you and I agree on a number of important issues, but in this instance, I agree with Matthew, Grant and (presumably) the rest of the Commonweal editorial board. Under the proposed accommodation, the subset of Catholic employers who are eligible for it will not be direct parties to the distribution and subsidization of contraceptives. Legally and, probably, morally (inasmuch as these employers have a moral obligation to provide decent health care to their employees), they have no realistic alternative in the short run except to be indirect parties, against their will, to the subsidized distribution of contraception. That they are indirect parties to an evil does not mean that they have to like it, and in fact, faithful Catholic employers will do this against their will and will work to change or eliminate the HHS mandate, while reluctantly doing the wishes of the government that is putting a gun to their heads.
"I take you find the first case unacceptable. Thats good, some common ground has been established. And we didnt even use the word fungiblePlaces like Fordham and other Catholic organizations don't find providing contraception unacceptable. Their student health insurance has included contraception coverage for years because it is required by state law. Franciscan Univerity went through a recent episode of discovering it had contraception coverage in its existing employee health insurance, announcing it would delete it ,and then announcing that it wouldn't delete it. Many Catholic organizations have been able to avoid state mandates by self-insuring, which puts them under the protection of federal ERISA. Bishop Morlino caused a stir some years ago when he announced that it would be too expensive for his diocese to self-insure - so it would include contraception in its health insurance.Permissible remote material cooperation in evil is not unacceptable.
Interesting bluster about firing employees who make use of the contraception coverage. This is from Bishop Morlino's diocese:"The diocese's commercial insurance policy now will offer birth-control coverage, but employees will be expected to employ their consciences in not using it, King said. "If someone were to misuse that freedom in this regard, it could be grounds for termination," he said.Such a step would be taken only if the employee, after being counseled, refused to get in line with Catholic teaching, King said. "It wouldn't be the first thing we do," he said.The Catholic Church teaches that contraception is immoral because it diminishes God's role as the giver of life and interferes with the full giving of each spouse to the other.All diocesan employees sign a morals clause in their job offers saying they will abide by Catholic teaching, so the diocese expects them to follow the prohibition against prescription contraception, King said. He acknowledged that the diocese has no way to police the issue - an employee would have to offer it up, he said.St. Mary's Hospital, a Catholic-based institution, became self-insured eight months ago to avoid the law. But in a July 27 memo to employees, President Frank Byrne said the switch is proving too costly. Also, many hospital employees are having problems accessing specialty medical care, he said.Beginning Jan. 1, St. Mary's will return to commercial policies provided by Dean Health Plan and Group Health Cooperative, said Steve Van Dinter, a hospital spokesman. Hospital employees do not sign moral clauses, he said.Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/madison-diocese-offers-birth-control-...
"Places like Fordham and other Catholic organizations dont find providing contraception unacceptable. Their student health insurance has included contraception coverage for years because it is required by state law."Not to pick on you John Hayes, but this statement is a perfect demonstration of why the Church needs to stand up to the HHS on the contraception mandate. Here Catholic organizations are assumed to be ok with providing contraception, in direct contravention of the Catechism, because its required by state law. So much for living and witnessing the faith.
"Here Catholic organizations are assumed to be ok with providing contraception, in direct contravention of the Catechism"Where does it say that in the Catechism? They do not promote or provide contraception. They provide insurance that pays for contraception. You cannot get a prescription for contraception from the on-campus health clinic. You must go off-campus and find a private doctor. They do what they do because the state requires them to do it - not because they endorse the use of contraceptives.
Matthew Boudway says: I still find it strange that you dont think it matters that most Catholic employers are already funding contraception and abortion by buying their health insurance from companies that cover those things for some of their policyholders.Why would he think it matters? No opponent of the contraceptive mandate has made any argument (not that I've seen) that would imply such a thing.
Bruce wrote, Here Catholic organizations are assumed to be ok with providing contraception, in direct contravention of the Catechism"John H replied, ""Where does it say that in the Catechism?"Does this definition comport with the facts of the situation? http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2284.htm(The ensuing three paragraphs are worth a read as well.)
Jim Pauwels, the proposed regulations provide:"Furthermore, nothing in these proposed rules would preclude employers or others from expressing their opposition, if any, to the use of contraceptives; require anyone to use contraceptives; or require health care providers to prescribe contraceptives if doing so is against their religious beliefs."They can do and publicize all the same things I mentioned about Fordham in my 6:22 post - plus they have the advantage over Fordham that their health inurance excludes contraception.It doesn't seem to me that they are doing anything to create scandal.
Mathew--First, is it your contention that just because I dont agree in writing to do something wrong, its ok if my actions bring about the same result? Is it your contention that the bad thing would happen anyway, so it is okeven advisable-- to put the Church under duress deliberately, to relieve it of moral culpability?I still find it strange that you dont think it matters that most Catholic employers are already funding contraception and abortion by buying their health insurance from companies that cover those things for some of their policyholders. You seem totally unbothered that most Catholic employers already choose to do what they were free not to do, but youre completely horrified that they might do the same thing, or something similar, under duress.Can you direct me to where I said I believe Catholic employers are already funding contraception or abortion?Can you direct to where I said I dont think that it matters?Can you direct me to where you ever even asked my opinion on these questions?I have found that people often try to put words in other peoples mouths when they are not confident in their own position, feel like they are on the losing side of an argument, or both.
JimMy guess is that anyone who could say this:...faithful Catholic employers will do this against their will and will work to change or eliminate the HHS mandate, while reluctantly doing the wishes of the government that is putting a gun to their heads.is much, much closer to agreeing with me than agreeing with the Commonweal editorial board, some of whom I understand have worked with the administration. Of course, they are free to enlighten us on that. Regardless, Im pleased that we are in agreement on other important issues.
Mark Proska,This year St. Ann's hospital provides its employees health insurance that excludes coverage for ontraceptionNext year St. Ann's hospital provides its employees health insurance that excludes coverage for ontraceptionAnd hHS
Mark,Just stop. No Commonweal editor has worked with this administration. Your trolling campaign on my thread stops now.
Sorry, hit the button by accidentMark Proska,This year St. Anns hospital provides its employees health insurance that excludes coverage for contraceptionNext year St. Anns hospital provides its employees health insurance that excludes coverage for contraceptionAnd, starting in that year,HHS provides free contraception to those employees without any action or involvement by the hospitalWhat has the hospital done wrong?
GrantThanks for the correction, glad to hear it. Hope I didnt offend. Actually, I was more interested in whether the Board agreed with Jims comment that I excerpted. Trolling campaign?
JohnIf you dont mind, Im going to answer the question you didnt ask, because I think its more pertinent. Your point seems to have shifted (maybe I just misinterpreted it from the start) from defending the mandate, to defending the Church, which the mandate strives to put in a no win situation.You, and the Commonweal editorial board, cant think its right for the administration to hold a gun to the Churchs head, so that, by choosing the lesser evil, the Church cant be held morally culpable, can you?
Mark,Your problem is not just with me, but with Catholic moral teaching. You seem to think that as long as "one's actions bring about the same result," nothing else matters. So intentionally running someone down with your car is morally no different from accidentally running someone over. And paying one's employees money they use to buy contraception is no different from providing it to them directlysame result! You ask, "Can you direct me to where I said I believe Catholic employers are already 'funding' contraception or abortion?"Whether you believe it or not, it is the case. According to your own rigoristic definition of what it means for someone to fund something, any Catholic employer that buys group health insurance from any of the major insurance providers is "funding" contraception and abortion, since these providers cover abortion and contraception for some of their policyholders. If I have been presumptuous in any wayif you were in fact writing to Catholic employers around the country warning them that they were endangering their immortal souls by doing business with health insurance companies long before the HHS mandate was first proposedI apologize.
"Whether you believe it or not, it is the case. According to your own rigoristic definition of what it means for someone to fund something, any Catholic employer that buys group health insurance from any of the major insurance providers is funding contraception and abortion, since these providers cover abortion and contraception for some of their policyholders."This is the "fungibility of money" argument. It was put forward by the USCCB during the debates before the adoption of the healthcare act - in connection with people buying individual policies from state exchanges. In different threads here it has often been confused with the "pooling of risks" argument as to whose money is being used to buy contraceptives.
Mark Proska.The employer's choices are:1. I will continue to provide my employees with the same insurance I have provided until now - which excludes coverage for contraception.Or.2. I will stop providing any health insurance to my employees because that will prevent them from qualifying to receive free contraception under the HHS program.Neither of those choices involves intrinsic evil. That's important because Catholic morality does't allow us to do intrinsic evil so that good may come of it. We don't do the "lesser of two evils"The employer can consider which choice will accomplish the greater good. My guess is that most will choose the first.
Your problem is not just with me, but with Catholic moral teaching. You seem to think that as long as ones actions bring about the same result, nothing else matters. So running someone down with your car is morally no different from accidentally running someone over. And paying ones employees money they use to buy contraception is no different from providing it to them directlysame result! You continue to attribute to me straw men arguments that I have not made.You ask, Can you direct me to where I said I believe Catholic employers are already funding contraception or abortion?So the answer is, no, you cannot.Whether you believe it or not, it is the case. According to your own rigoristic definition of what it means for someone to fund something, any Catholic employer that buys group health insurance from any of the major insurance providers is funding contraception and abortion, since these providers cover abortion and contraception for some of their policyholders.Again, this is not my argumentperhaps you wish it were. Let me try to clarify for you. If an insurance company charges a Church $500 for a health insurance policy that does not cover abortion services, and charges another entity that has the exact same risk profile an extra $200 ($700 in total) for a policy that does cover abortion services, and puts the combined $1200 into the same checking account, I do not feel in any way the Church is funding abortion services. Presumably you agree. On the other hand, if the insurance company takes the money from the Church and, after laundering it through the HHS mechanism, uses the Churchs premium dollars to pay a drug company to provide free contraception, rather than paying an OBGYN to deliver a baby then, yes, I do believe the Church is funding contraception services. Presumably, you dont agree.If I have been presumptuous in any wayif you were in fact writing to Catholic employers around the country warning them that they were endangering their immortal souls by doing business with health insurance companies long before the HHS mandate was first proposedI apologize.If you are sincerely apologizing, I sincerely accept it.
Mark,It is not the fact that the money all ends up in the same account that matters morallyor, rather, it is not that fact alone. It is the fact that the money used to cover contraceptive services is drawn from that account. And this is the case in both of your examples. The only difference between the two cases you describe is that in the one case the money the Catholic employer sends the insurance company pays for the contraception used by some one else's employees, while in the other case the money the employer sends the insurance company may pay for the contraception used by its own employees. That distinction is not morally important, however much you try to make it sound as if it were by using words like "laundering." Insofar as there is any "laundering" going on in the second case, there is also "laundering" going on in the first. What you describe as the "straw man" is my attempt to make your argument coherent, but apparently it isn't.(Likewise, you cannot accept my sincere but conditional apology if you do not object to Catholic employers buying health insurance from providers that cover contraception and abortion, and now you've made it very clear that you don't.)There are many reasons one could oppose the contraception mandate. I oppose it myself. But if you are going to claim it violates religious liberty, you will have to show that it either prevents members of a religious community from doing what their religion requires them to do or forces them to do what their own religion forbids. The Church does not forbid remote material cooperation with evil.
"There are many reasons one could oppose the contraception mandate. I oppose it myself. "Matthew - have you written here, or publicly anywhere else, explaining your opposition? I'd certainly like to know your reasoning.
It is not the fact that the money all ends up in the same account that matters morallyor, rather, it is not that fact alone. It is the fact that the money used to cover contraceptive services is drawn from that account. And this is the case in both of your examples.You are missing the point entirely.Imagine two scenarios, if you will: 1. I check out from Barnes & Noble; B&N says, "Oh, since you're here, we're automatically giving you a free copy of Penthouse with your purchase. But don't worry, it's totally free to you; sure, we're paying Penthouse out of our general funds, but that money is fungible; all that you need to know is that it comes totally free with your purchase."2. I check out from Barnes & Noble and some other customer somewhere else is buying a copy of Penthouse. My bag doesn't have a free Penthouse in it at all.Do you not see a difference between those two scenarios? It's very odd, all these people who claim not to be able to tell the difference between "buying A and then having the morally objectionable B automatically attached to the purchase of A," vs. "buying A from a company that happens to sell B to someone completely unrelated to me."
JohnYour most recent comment simply restates your position, it doesnt address the reasons Ive put forth to explain why the first option you mention does not fully comprehend or describe what the employer is actually doing. I get the feeling we have played out the string, at least on this thread (ha, I crack myself up). Nevertheless, I appreciate the civility with which you express your opinion.Matthew--I think Mr. Time has clearly shown that your comment indicates that youve not yet really grasped the argument. Like Jim, I would like to hear the many reasons you believe the mandate could be opposed, assuming you are free to do so on this blog.And if you insist that I not accept your apology, I will comply with your wishes.
"Assuming you are free to do so on this blog." You want to know what trolling is? That's trolling. You are done doing that on this thread, Mark. You're all out of punches on your troll card.
You'd better stop spending money, Mr. Time, because you've just ruled out most financial relationships in a complex economy.
No, I haven't. I think the two scenarios I described above are very different. And they are. And the first scenario does not describe most financial relationships.
GrantI gather from your comment you though I was making a veiled accusation of censorship, but that was not my intent. In a team environment, it is often the case that differences of opinion are hashed out behind closed doors but once the team breaks the huddle, everyone is expected to speak with one voice, for the good for of the team. That happens when charities decide where to allocate donations, football coaches devise a game plan, parents decide what is best for their children, etc. I simply thought that might be the case here. I am sorry it came across as trolling.
Jim,Let me answer your question first. I'm opposed to the contraception mandate because contraceptives are a regular, predictable expense incurred as the result of a behavioral choice. They are therefore not the sort of thing that health insurance ought to cover; they are certainly not the sort of thing that all health insurance ought to be required to cover. Nor do I believe the federal government has a compelling interest in making contraceptives free to everyone who wants them (especially when it does not use its regulatory powers to make inhalers and insulin shots free to anyone who needs those things).The government may have a compelling interest in making contraceptives affordable to everyone who wants them, but it could do this by subsidizing contraceptives directly, or by allowing the pill to be sold over the counter, thereby allowing the market to force down the price. (And, yes, I know: there's more than one birth-control pill, and many birth-control pills are also used for purposes other than birth control. When the pills are used for those other purposes they should obviously be covered by health insurance.) Birth control is not covered by Canada's single-payer health insurance system, but it's much cheaper there because the government is not beholden to the pharmaceutical industry. One could also argue that the U.S. government already provides contraception to those who couldn't otherwise afford it through Medicaid, which the Affordable Care Acts expands considerably.Now, to the well-named Wasting Time:Your analogy fails in several ways, but let's play along. The Catholic employer is much more like someone who gives a friend a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble, even though he or she knows that Barnes & Noble offers a free copy of Penthouse to all its customers. The giver of the gift certificate may regret this fact but not worry too much about it because he or she expects, or hopes, that the friend will simply decline the offer.Or the giver of the certificate may refuse to do any kind of business with Barnes & Noble because he or she disapproves of the store's free-Penthouse policy, and/or because he or she worries that some of the money from the gift certificate is going to pay for those complimentary copies of Penthouse, which presumably some customers choose to accept. In this case, the giver of the gift certificate could simply buy a card from a bookseller with a different policyor he or she could simply give her friend something else. Books and DVDs are nice, but not necessary.Health care is necessary. Everyone needs it. The importance of making sure everyone has access to it may outweigh many other considerations in a way that the gift certificate to Barnes & Noble does not. And, unlike the Barnes & Noble example, there is not an alternative, precisely because the HHS mandate requires all insurance providers to cover contraceptives.
Matthew -- your arguments are all very compelling, except the ones in response to me. :) That is, you still haven't given me a reason to think that the moral objections to the following are exactly the same:1. I buy product X from a company that sells objectionable product Y to completely different people. Mr. Gallicho is right insofar as he suggests that if I object to this, I'm objecting to most expenditures of money on anything whatever.2. I buy product X from a company that automatically makes product Y available for "free" along with my purchase (although we all know that Y actually costs money and that the cost is somehow being built into the price I pay for X, or else the company would be losing money on selling me X). I thus object to having my purchase made part of increasing the availability of Y, and to increasing the demand for Y (and the profitability of the company that made Y in the first instance). Again, perhaps the situation would be easier to understand if one imagined a product that one actually found morally offensive (I'm getting the feeling that many Commonweal readers think that objecting to contraception is silly, and therefore they are inclined to ignore or slight the claims of conscience here.). So let's say that we're talking about a racist caricature of Obama as a monkey. That's evil, right? Imagine if such a a caricature were, by law, automatically attached to any of your purchases as a "free" accompaniment. Even if it truly were free and/or optional at the option of some third party, would you be happy about having your purchases in any way 1) associated with such racist caricatures, 2 used to make them more widespread throughout society, and 3) used to increase the profitability of the company that made them?(Please, no objections that such a scenario is unrealistic. Much of moral theorizing consists of imagining admittedly unrealistic scenarios, such as runaway trolleys or kidnapped violinists, so as to shed light on whether you really believe in the principles that you claim to neutrally resolve the moral question.)
My insurance company reimburses $150 of my health club duesThey figure they will save more than $150 if I exercise and stay healthy.Because they took a fixed amount of money to pay for my health care, whatever it costs them. It's their money.
My insurance company charges me $500 for a policy. It realizes that the cost of a gym membership (contraception) is only $150, and will lower their costs to $300. So they take $150 of the premium I pay them and use it to buy me a free gym membership (contraception), lowering their cost to $300, and increasing their profit by $50.Who can deny Im funding the free gym membership (contraception)?
Contrary to your example, the employer and the employee are not the same person. The Employer did not authorize the insurer to provide the contraception. The cost of the contraception was paid from the insurance company's money. Its money comes from many different sources - not just that one employer.
Its money comes from many different sources not just that one employer.So Employer (Archdiocese) A not only funds contraception for its own employees, it funds contraception for Employer (Archdiocese) B? Even in a world where that could happen, I would think Archdiocese A would rightfully conclude that its religious freedom has been violated.
"So Employer (Archdiocese) A not only funds contraception for its own employees, it funds contraception for Employer (Archdiocese) B? "No. It bought gas from a gas station that has a condom vending machine in its men's room (see my earlier post)
Mr. Hayes -- you're describing a situation where Person X buys gas, and the gas station has a condom machine there, and then Person Y might buy a condom in a transaction that really and truly is separate (Person Y doesn't work for Person X, didn't participate in or contribute to X's purchase, and rather than X's purchase having been used as the precondition for making the condom available at all, Y is able to get the condom with no reference to X's purchase). That situation, however, has no resemblance whatsoever to the contraceptive mandate. Point is, there's a difference between 1) transactions that really are separate, and 2) transactions that are intricately tied together from start to finish. Merely saying that the latter are "separate" doesn't make them so. Wishful thinking.
Mr. Wasting Time, I take it that your remaining concern is not money but that by providing non-contraception insurance for the employee the employer allows the employee to meet the requirement for free contraception from the insurance companyI discussed that in my 3:05pm post on the 23d, so I won't repeat it here.
Wasting time proposes this analogy: "I check out from Barnes & Noble; B&N says, Oh, since youre here, were automatically giving you a free copy of Penthouse with your purchase. But dont worry, its totally free to you; sure, were paying Penthouse out of our general funds, but that money is fungible; all that you need to know is that it comes totally free with your purchase."... and then Matthew improves it: "The Catholic employer is much more like someone who gives a friend a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble, even though he or she knows that Barnes & Noble offers a free copy of Penthouse to all its customers. The giver of the gift certificate may regret this fact but not worry too much about it because he or she expects, or hopes, that the friend will simply decline the offer."... and now I will attempt to improve it even more: the gift-giver goes to barnesandnoble.com and arranges to have a book shipped to the friend as a Christmas gift. Barnesandnoble.com requires the friend's email address as a condition of completing the transaction; and will email the friend a URL making all Penthouse content available for free. The gift giver objects to being the "trigger" for making pornography so easily accessible and affordable, and so looks to switch her patronage to amazon.com - only to discover that amazon.com has exactly the same requirement. Every single online bookseller has the same requirement. Even more amazingly, if the gift giver decides not to give a gift - the federal government will levy a very large fine.Matthew, thanks for sharing your reasoning on the contraception mandate. Cogent and interesting stuff.
It bought gas from a gas station that has a condom vending machine in its mens room (see my earlier post)No, the insurance company took the money the Church had been paying for maternity services, used those funds to buy a condom machine, and set up the machine for free in the back of the Church.
The insurance company took money from its bank account and used those funds to buy a condom machine and set it up "for free" someplace where it was accessible to the employees, but not on the employer's property. We could go on trading these back and forth indefinitely, so I'll stop here.
And the condom fairy deposited the money in the insurance companys bank account? That why the greedy insurer decided to provide the coverage for free?
I see that Franck has responded again at First Things, so the beat goes on. His point about intention deserves some thought, istm.
He says "But I had not previously thought that intention can be adequately translated as what I really subjectively want to accomplish by this act that has its own objective meaning I choose to ignore.I think what he's pointing out is that, in your last example, you can't ignore that sending your friend a gift book will result in his receiving free access to Penthouse.Then you weigh the advantages of sending or not sending the gift book. It is a prudential judgement so you might decide you should still send the book. If you knew that the consequence of sending a particular book were that secret police would be sent to the house to assassinate your friend, that would be a different situation. I think he is right that good intentions don't justify ignoring the consequences of what you do. But I don't recall Paul arguing that they do.
For some reason, the Stanford URL is not working for me (even though, when I searched Google for "Stanford Plato Double Effect" the very same link was returned to me), but the Wikipedia article on Double Effect distinguishes between intention and foresight. FWIW, I have thought for some time that a Catholic institution could make use of the accommodation according to the principle of double effect: the intended good of providing a health care benefit (health care for one's employees) could be construed as outweighing the unintended but foreseen bad effect (increased sinful contraception usage). I suspect that this is how Bishop Morlino thought through his prior decision to abide by the Wisconsin state contraception mandate.
Try this link: http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/double-effect/That's the Australian mirror. In 2010, Bishop Morlino's diocesan newspaper said:"The Diocese of Madison had looked into self-insurance options but found them too costly. The diocese felt it was a matter of justice to provide affordable access to quality health care for those who work for the Church."http://www.madisoncatholicherald.org/opinion/editorial/1595-2010-08-19-e... recall a letter from the bishop himself going into more detail - but I couldn't find it just now. In that case, the diocese and hospital had to buy insurance that covered contraception. There was no accomodation of the HHS kind. They could have avoided this by self-insuring but the cost would have been more than they felt they cold afford. It was. Prudential judgement.


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- Jena Economic Resea...
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electoral systems
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Power indices are mappings that quantify the influence of the members of a voting body on collective decisions a priori. Their nonlinearity and discontinuity makes it difficult to compute inverse images, i.e., to determine a voting system which induces a power distribution as close as possible to a desired one. The paper considers approximations to this inverse problem for the Penrose-Banzhaf index by hill-climbing algorithms and exact solutions which are obtained by enumeration and integer linear programming techniques. They are compared to the results of three simple solution heuristics. The heuristics perform well in absolute terms but can be improved upon very considerably in relative terms. The findings complement known asymptotic results for large voting bodies and may improve termination criteria for local search algorithms.
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Graco Avalon Glider & Ottoman Combo - Sandstone/ Classic Cherry for $124.99 + free shipping
12/31/11 only.
Solid hardwood construction
Generous seat area
Padded arms have a side pocket for storage needs
Designed for easy nursing or for rocking your baby to sleep
Assembly required
Frame Material: Hardwood
Wood Finish: Dark Cherry
Textile Material: 100 % Microfiber
Accessories Included: Chair Pads
Maximum Weight Capacity: 500.0 Lb.
Care and Cleaning: Spot Clean Only
Dimensions: 37.35 " H x 26.88 " W x 29.25 " D
Weight: 42.0 Lb.
Chair Dimensions: 38.13 " H x 25.75 " W ; x 27.0 " D
Chair Weight: 30.0 Lb.
Ottoman Dimensions: 19.75 " H x 15.0 " W x 15.25 " D
Ottoman Weight: 12.0 Lb.
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We were given one of these as a gift when our first kid was born. The quality of the parts was atrocious. They company will ship you new parts if you're not happy with the quality of the pieces you get, but the parts are shipped from Canada and take about 3 weeks to be delivered. The replacement parts are shipped in thin cardboard boxes with nothing more that bubble wrap to protect them.
In the original chair we got from Sears, the seat base and seat back were both badly beat up. Normally, I'm a "Hey we paid $100 for it, what do you expect," kind of person, but it took us 3 calls to the company for replacements on the back and 5 on the base, just to get a usable chair. All in all, it took us close to 8 months to finally get a chair that could be used.
We were also given 2 Graco cribs as gifts. One of which had a backboard that wasn't glued together well enough and stated to fall apart. Both of which we recall cribs because of the drop side in them.
I recommend new parents avoid Graco's furniture altogether now. Seriously injuring your newbie isn't worth saving $100. Both the backboard issue and the drop side issue resulted in several deaths each. It wasn't until my kids were out of the cribs that recalls were issued and the crib was subsequently discontinued.


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Do Si Do was designed by Lori Wardian & Becky Stefanoff with their first fabric line called "In My Own Backyard" by Fabri-Quilt. Measuring 66" square, the quilt features an 18" center panel of a scarecrow & his feathered friend as well as 6" panels of smaller scarecrows, leaves & acorns. The rest of the coordinate fabrics are from the same fabric line. Check with your local quilt shops for "In My Own Backyard" by Fabri-Quilt for help in locating their fabrics. Matching pillow or wall hanging pattern is available (BAMT1041). So who is watching over your garden? Designed by Becky Stefanoff
Item : BAM1036


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This apartment is currently off the market. Go to the building page to see availabilities.
$3,3001 Bedroom, 1 Bath
702 sqft.
Available immediately
One Year, Market Rate Lease
64 Bayard Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222
Brooklyn, NY 11222
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Building Features & Amenities
- Elevator
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- Units: 55
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Pet policy: Pets OK
Brand New Olympic sized studios, 1 bedroom and 2 bedroom rental homes with stunning finishes and amenities that matter. Bikes and cards are also welcome. Most master bedrooms feature a large walk-in closets & laundry closets featuring a Bosch washer and dryer.
Spacious studio, 1- and 2-bedroom rental residences on McCarren Park
Apartment Features
Laundry closet with Bosch washer and dryer
Triple paned, floor to ceiling windows by Pioneer
Central heating and air conditioning
White oak hardwood flooring throughout apartments
Additional consideration to flooring assembly for acoustical privacy
An abundance of light and open views to McCarren Park and Manhattan from many homes
9' to 10'ceiling heights in living areas
Kitchen Features
Custom oak upper cabinetry paired with matte black lower cabinetry
London Grey Ceasarstone countertop and backsplash
Stainless steel appliance package:
Fisher & Paykel refrigerator
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Spacious bathrooms
Custom vanity
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Kohler fixtures
Walk in shower or tub with wand
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Indoor parking available
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Communal rooftops in both buildings offering panoramic City views
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Xbox One Twitch streaming will be more feature rich than PS4 at launchWritten by: / / 1 Comment
The ability to livestream the game you're playing and show the world what you're up to has been available on PlayStation 4 since launch, but Xbox One owners have noticeably not been able to take advantage of such a feature, with the availability of a Twitch broadcasting service on Microsoft's console pushed back by "a few more months" at the beginning of 2014.
Twitch and Microsoft have today revealed that the service will launch alongside the release of Titanfall in mid-March, with Twitch CEO Emmett Shear claiming this service will be more feature-rich on Xbox One than any other console.
Shear told the Associated Press:
"It's complete integration. It's exciting because we've never had the ability to broadcast from a console like this with such a deep level of integration. The concept of being able to join a broadcasters' party is really cool, and it's another step in the direction of interacting more closely with broadcasters."
The Twitch service on PlayStation 4, on the other hand, doesn't include the ability to join up on a party but simply broadcast your stream to an audience. Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi commented on the limitations of PS4 Twitch streaming:
"That's a very certain type of experience. For us, we thought that was too limiting for what our fans would want. Our fans really want the full next-gen service, so that's why we decided to take our time, do it right and have it come out in this fashion."
Additional features of Twitch on Xbox One include using voice commands to create broadcasts, the ability to archive your game clips and watch those clips on other devices at a later time.
Is Twitch streaming important to you, and would you use the ability to let others join in on a party to chat with you while you play?
Source: ABCNews / Associated Press


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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House has passed a bill to give 800,000 furloughed federal workers retroactive pay once the government reopens.
The House passed the bill in a rare Saturday session. The vote was 407-0. The House will now be out of session until Monday.
The Senate was expected to OK it as well, but the timing is unclear.
The White House backs the legislation.
The federal government been partially shut down since Tuesday, the start of the new budget year.
The House has passed several bills to reopen selected parts of the federal government. Democrats are rejecting the piecemeal approach, saying the entire government should be reopened.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama says he doesn't expect Congress to breach the deadline to increase the nation's borrowing limit.
He says he's willing to negotiate changes to his signature health care law and to find ways to reduce spending, but stresses he will not bargain until after Congress reopens the government and passed a new debt ceiling.
Obama says there's a majority of lawmakers in the House who would vote to end the partial government shutdown and raise the credit limit without conditions.
Obama spoke during an interview with The Associated Press.
The government is expected to hits its $16.7 trillion debt ceiling in mid-October. Failure to raise it could lead to a first-ever default. Republicans want cuts in federal benefit programs and future deficits in exchange for their votes.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon is ordering most of its approximately 400,000 furloughed civilian employees back to work.
The decision by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is based on a Pentagon legal interpretation of a law called the Pay Our Military Act.
That measure was passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama shortly before the partial government shutdown began Tuesday.
The Pentagon did not immediately say on Saturday exactly how many workers will return to work. The Defense Department said "most" were being brought back.