, - The Telegraph (U.K.)/Reuters
Stephan: This is potentially a very significant development in the Church, and good news, particularly for Italy. But the proof will be in the actions that follow. The Church has been intertwined with the Mafia for a long long time, as an endless stream of journalism has reported.
Pope Francis has taken on one of Italy’s most dangerous organised crime groups, calling the ‘Ndrangheta crime group an example of ‘the adoration of evil” and saying Mafiosi ‘are excommunicated”.
The pope, speaking during a mass in the southern Italy, issued the strongest attacks on organised crime since the late Pope John Paul lambasted the Sicilian Mafia in 1993.
‘Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated,” Pope Francis said in impromptu comments at a mass before tens of thousands of people.
He told the crowd: ‘This evil must be fought against, it must be pushed aside. We must say no to it.”
He branded the ‘Ndrangheta as the ‘adoration of evil and contempt of the common good” and said the Church would exert its full force in efforts to combat organised crime.
‘Our children are asking for it, our young people are asking for it. They are in need of hope and faith can help respond to this need,” he said.
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Stephan: This is excellent news. Late, of course, but finally someone in authority at the Federal level is taking the bee crisis seriously. Bravo Obama. We will see whether his budget request is accepted by the Republicans.
The White House created a new task force Friday to study and combat the recent precipitous decline in the number of bees in the United States.
The Pollinator Health Task Force will also undertake efforts to increase public awareness of the issue and boost conservation partnerships between the public and private sectors. ‘Given the breadth, severity, and persistence of pollinator losses, it is critical to expand Federal efforts and take new steps to reverse pollinator losses and help restore populations to healthy levels,” President Barack Obama wrote in a presidential memorandum.
The President’s announcement comes in response to a problem with grave implications for farmers and consumers. At least 90 commercial crops harvested in North America rely on honey bees including nuts, fruits, and vegetables, according to a White House fact sheet. Pollinators also have a profound economic impact: They contribute more than $24 billion dollars to the U.S. economy.
The plan announced on Friday, which includes measures to research the issue and develop pollinator habitats, marks the latest step in the White House’s attempt to address the the decline. The President requested $50 million to combat the program in his 2015 budget proposal.
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JACK JENKINS, - Think Progress
Stephan: This is a significant bit of good news. The Theocratic Right sucks all the oxygen out of the room when we think or talk about Christianity. It is hard to remember that the Fundamentalists are actually a fragmented minority. Angry, fearful, and loud, but a small fraction of the Christian faith. And the same is true in Islam and Judaism. Similarly the rest of the faith, in each religion, are decent hardworking people who see their faith as a path to becoming a better person. Here is a shining example.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or PC(USA), took two major strides to embrace same-sex couples Thursday afternoon. While convening at their denominational convention in Detroit, Michigan, the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination voted to allow its pastors to officiate same-sex weddings in states where it is legal, and passed another overture that could change official church documents to include a more inclusive definition of marriage.
The two pieces of church legislation embrace marriage equality in different ways. The first is an ‘Authoritative Interpretation,” or AI, which allows PC(USA) pastors to officiate same-sex marriages in places where it is legal. The AI, which passed with 61 percent of the vote, allows Presbyterian pastors to decide on their own whether or not to perform same-sex weddings, and takes effect immediately.
The second overture, which passed with 71 percent of the vote, initiated a process of changing the denomination’s official language on marriage. The old language defined marriage as ‘a civil contract between a woman and a man,” but the overture moves to replace it with language that includes the sentence ‘marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives.” […]
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Stephan: In the Red value states we are witnessing the castration of public education. The anti-science forces are in full throat and the state legislators due their bidding. This is usually seen by social progressives in a negative light, and I would agree. But there is a deeper lesson: the ascendency of the Theocratic Right, and the imposition of its theology in schools is an example of citizen power.
If Social Progressives, would bring the same fervor to their political involvement we would have a very different world. Why isn't this happening seems to me a very urgent question. Meanwhile in the U.K. what should have happened here, actually happened. Here is the prediction: the children of Red states are already notably deficient in every school subject, compared to U.K. students, and a host of other countries' students as well. That difference is going to increase as the Red value children fall further and further behind. The Red states, by almost any measure one cares to choose, are actually creating second world societies. From an historical perspective it is an extraordinary thing to witness.
LONDON — The United Kingdom has banned the teaching of creationism as scientifically valid in all schools receiving public funding.
The government released a new set of funding agreements last week including clauses which specifically prohibit pseudoscience.
“The parties acknowledge that clauses 2.43 and 2.44 of the Funding Agreement [which preclude the teaching of pseudoscience and require the teaching of evolution] apply to all academies. They explicitly require that pupils are taught about the theory of evolution, and prevent academy trusts from teaching ‘creationism’ as scientific fact,” one clause reads.
The funding agreement defines creationism as “any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution,” and goes on to note that this idea is rejected not only by the scientific community but most mainstream churches as well.
“It does not accord with the scientific consensus or the very large body of established scientific evidence; nor does it accurately and consistently employ the scientific method, and as such it should not be presented to pupils at the Academy as a scientific theory,” the agreement states.
The funding agreement notes that the discussion of beliefs […]
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JESSICA LAHEY, Correspondent - The Atlantic
Stephan: I visited friends not long ago, and their child had a phone, and spent some time attempting to set up a play date. I realized how different a child's life in the U.S. is now from when I was growing up. Then, as soon as school was out, we woke up went out, got together with our friends in the area, spent a lot of time in the woods, near a creek, or just in the street, coming in for lunch, often with two or three friends -- unless we made a sandwich and took it with us -- going back out as soon as we were finished. When the street lights came on, or we heard a whistle, we came in. Where did you go? Parents would ask. Out, we would reply. What did you do? Nothing, we would say. By which we meant nothing a big person would understand. It turns out that's a pretty good way for a kid to live. Although it isn't mentioned in this article, the pedagogy that really understands the importance of unscripted play is the Waldorf system.
Most schools across the nation have marked the end of another academic year, and it’s time for summer. Time for kids to bolt for the schoolhouse doors for two long months of play, to explore their neighborhoods and discover the mysteries, treasures, and dramas they have to offer. This childhood idyll will hold true for some children, but for many kids, the coming of summer signals little more than a seasonal shift from one set of scheduled, adult-supervised lessons and activities to another.
Unscheduled, unsupervised, playtime is one of the most valuable educational opportunities we give our children. It is fertile ground; the place where children strengthen social bonds, build emotional maturity, develop cognitive skills, and shore up their physical health. The value of free play, daydreaming, risk-taking, and independent discovery have been much in the news this year, and a new study by psychologists at the University of Colorado reveals just how important these activities are in the development of children’s executive functioning.
Executive function is a broad term for cognitive skills such as organization, long-term planning, self-regulation, task initiation, and the ability to switch between activities. It is a vital part of school preparedness and has long been accepted […]
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