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Nominees should be assigned (a) Occupational Series: 0400, 0800, and 1300; (b) Grade: GS-07 or above. Nominees should be familiar with Windows.
Is secularism really a threat to the Catholic Church? The answer is far from straightforward as “secular” hasn’t always been seen as such an antagonistic term by Catholics.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines secular as “concerned with the affairs of this world; not spiritual or sacred”.
By this measure, who would not be secular, at least in part?
Defining secularism is more problematic. It can mean anything from humanitarianism to ridding society of religious influence. As a political concept, it is best understood as the separation of church and state – and it is this definition that the bishops should concentrate on.
Why? Because secularism so conceived is not a threat to the church but the key to its survival. In his latest book Not in God’s Name, the distinguished inter-faith scholar Rabbi Jonathan Sacks highlights how secular societies provide the best protection for religions precisely because they lack “one sacred canopy”.
Pope Francis has implicitly acknowledged the importance of separating church and state in his condemnation of the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. But the penny has been slow to drop with the Catholic Church in Ireland, notably in relation to school patronage.
One calculation highlights the point. The average classroom teacher at primary level spends 2½ hours a week on faith formation (misleadingly described as religious education). Given the average teacher delivers 28 hours of instruction per week, and based on the fact that nine out of 10 primary schools are under Catholic patronage, the state funds Catholic faith formation in the primary sector to the tune of €90 million per year.
That’s a conservative estimate, based on the average teacher’s salary and excluding time spent by non-teaching principals on sacramental preparation. It also excludes the significant institutional funding that goes towards preparing teachers to instruct in faith formation; effectively a compulsory element of teacher training.
Irish citizens – Catholic and otherwise – are right to ask: “Is this a good use of taxpayers’ money?” Aside from cost, there is an issue of accountability. If the state is subsidising a church activity (in the form of faith formation) the money should be properly traced to source.
Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has made some overtures in this regard, speaking of the need to develop “a much greater degree of parish-based catechesis [religious instruction]”. There are also solid educational reasons for moving faith formation to the parish, chief among them plans for the introduction of the new Education about Religions and Beliefs (ERB) and Ethics primary school programme.
This has been condemned by Rev Prof Eamonn Conway, head of theology at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, on the grounds that it is “an inherently secularist approach to the study of faiths” which, he claimed, sought “to banish specific expressions of religious conviction”.
The first part of his critique is accurate – the programme doesn’t champion one faith above all others – but his claim that such secularism amounts to banishing faith is bogus.
The draft syllabus would complement existing faith formation programmes. And if the latter were moved to the parish, Catholic schools would still have scope to express their religious convictions through moral leadership and good works in the community.
Public consultation on the ERB and Ethics programme closes at the end of March (see ncca.ie), and one would hope the church responds not just constructively but rationally.
KCBS Radio recently interviewed Professor Taylor on the mechanization of field labor.
He discusses with media outlets the changes occurring in farm labor. Among the changes are aging farmworkers, a reduction of immigrant workers, and advances in technology.
Click to hear the KCBS interview.
Having given it a try myself, not only can I attest to the fact that it is as visually appealing as one might expect, but it offers information a touch of finger. Artist bio, similar artists, upcoming events, and more. And in addition to the standard Love/Ban/Stop/Next options, you’re even given the option to buy tracks directly through the iTunes mobile download store. Convenient? Definitely.
My few minutes of time with the application brought occasional errors to the screen, and it did crash once, but for the most part it was smooth listening over Wi-Fi. The application is free to download, so your only loss is drive space. Having tested Pandora briefly on my device, I can conclude that both applications have obvious strengths. And while I prefer Pandora for the simple fact that launching a quick mix of my preset stations is dead easy and that music playback can be paused, rather than just skipped or stopped, as with Last.fm, today’s release is definitely appreciable in its own right. Last.fm devotees will no doubt be pleased.
"...we are initially rolling this out in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and Spain. We’re looking at other locales but have to deal with licensing and a host of other issues. We assure you that we’re working on it."
Last.fm iPhone Demo from Toby on Vimeo.
The New Hampshire House Finance Committee is to be commended for its in-depth analysis of Senate Bill 193, which led it to warn that more study is needed before the state authorizes so-called �freedom savings accounts� for students.
After holding 13 work sessions and several public hearings on the bill, the Finance Committee voted 14-12 last week to recommend the bill be referred to interim study, where its many flaws can be addressed over the summer and fall to benefit a future Legislature.
As Finance Chairman Neal Kurk, R-Weare, told the Union Leader: �I was not elected to downshift costs on my constituents, so I cannot support this bill.� We expect most elected representatives share Kurk�s view that voters in their districts did not send them to Concord to increase their local property taxes.
Prior to the Finance Committee�s work, voters were confronted with dueling ideological arguments that offered conflicting facts to support their points of view.
So-called �freedom savings accounts� would allow parents and students to take state education adequacy funding now paid to public schools ($3,600 per student, plus, in some cases, $1,800 in differentiated aid) for home-schooling or toward tuition in private or parochial schools.
In its majority report, the Finance Committee acknowledged the difficulty of the legislation.
�This bill presents unusually complex challenges, including constitutional, historical, educational, organizational, public, private and financial issues,� wrote Rep. Robert Theberge, R-Berlin, for the majority.
To an objective observer, this constitutional directive seems crystal clear.
However, �freedom savings accounts� advocates argue that because the state is giving the money to a non-governmental administrative entity, which would then give parents the money for use in religious schools, it does not violate the constitution. Clearly, if passed, that constitutional issue would be litigated.
The Finance Committee majority, however, steered clear of the constitutional issues, instead focusing on the financial and educational aspects, highlighting seven major problems with the bill.
First, the majority wrote, the bill does not adequately address the needs of special education students. Second, a majority of the non-public schools receiving public dollars through �freedom� funds do not meet public or private academic oversight requirements. Third, oversight of home school education in New Hampshire is �minimal.� Fourth, there is confusion over how �differentiated aid� would be allocated to students. Fifth, the removal of adequacy funding from public schools with fixed costs would impose �a significant financial burden that increases over time. Ultimately, this burden will be borne by local property taxpayers.� Sixth, using a private non-governmental entity to run the program has �been demonstrated to be vulnerable to misuse and maladministration� in other states and the bill does not protect against such abuses. Seventh, as stated above, the program would gradually downshift $99 million onto local taxpayers.
For these clear and factual reasons, we urge the New Hampshire House to send SB 193 to interim study when it votes on May 2.
Marvel has hired Ned Benson (The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby) to rewrite the script for the Black Widow standalone movie that will star Scarlett Johansson, Collider has exclusively learned.
Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland (Lore) is directing the action movie, which like all MCU movies, will be produced by Kevin Feige. Jac Schaeffer (The Hustle) wrote the previous draft of the script.
Marvel made it a priority to hire a female director for Black Widow, meeting with more than 70 candidates before settling on Shortland, though the studio did, at one point, consider male filmmakers. The point is, Marvel ultimately just wants the best person for the job, regardless of gender, and was won over by Shortland’s vision for Johansson’s solo mission. Having said that, I hear there was a fairly specific reason that Marvel looked at Benson for the new draft of Black Widow.
Sources say that Marvel executives were impressed with Benson’s work on The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, which began life as a Black List script titled Him before producer-star Jessica Chastain pushed Benson to write a second script titled Her from Eleanor’s perspective — one they worked on together while the actress filmed The Tree of Life. Critics were also impressed, as Her has the highest Metacritic rating of the three Eleanor Rigby films — Him, Her and Them.
There may be another reason Marvel — and Johansson — hired Benson, one that has yet to be reported until now. Last summer, I’d heard that Benson had been hired to adapt the seven-part Dallas Morning News article My Aryan Princess for Amy Pascal‘s Pascal Pictures. Where’s the connection, you might ask? Well I’d heard that Princess — about a woman who risked her life to bring down the Aryan Brotherhood in Texas — was being developed as a starring vehicle for none other than Scarlett Johansson. Now, I was never able to confirm this information, so forgive the leap I’m about to take here, but it’s entirely possible that Johansson has seen Benson’s work on that project, liked it, and took the initiative to bring him onto Black Widow. Again, I’m not saying Johansson is even officially attached to the Princess project, just that she was rumored to be Pascal’s first choice for what is — and trust me when I say this, since I’ve read the full article — an incredible role. I’m just saying, Johansson clearly has a lot of sway when it comes to Black Widow, as it was she who pushed Marvel to hire Shortland in the first place.
The Black Widow spinoff is reportedly set before the events of the first Avengers movie and is slated to be Marvel’s second female-driven film following Captain Marvel, which is tracking to open to more than $100 million next month. Benson is represented by Wetdog Entertainment and UTA, which had no comment.
Autodesk working with Oculus Rift on manufacturing, medical, military, architecture and real estate development - VR goodness!
One of the more interesting companies working with Oculus VR's Rift headset, is Autodesk. The developer has held its Autodesk University in Vegas, where it showed off some impressive Rift projects to the crowd.
Autodesk noticed one thing about Rift: it "generates buzz, draws crowds around your booth, with people waiting in line just for the chance to look at your product or service. If your business does trade shows, Arch Virtual can definitely help build a Rift app for your next show." Better yet, when you actually want to show someone your product within Rift, it gets even better.
Autodesk teases: "We could even place the viewer on an animated path that shrinks them down to travel directly inside a massive version of your product. The opportunity to tell a story and show off the best features your product or service has to offer is a tremendous, unprecedented opportunity." This is a big selling point of the Rift, is that it creates the world for you - something you simply cannot do on a computer screen, or a TV.
Yes, it’s early to be thinking ahead to Christmas but this could be something you and your family don’t want to miss.
The De La Warr Pavilion has a special Christmas show on Sunday December 20, and there is an Early Bird offer this month, until August 30, with tickets at £20.
The prestigious BBC Singers, with chief conductor David Hill will be joining the Onyx Brass Band to recreate a semi-staged production of Dylan Thomas’s delightful prose poem A Child’s Christmas In Wales.
This magical evening of choral music and story-telling celebrates Christmas in style and is a nostalgic and humorous account of Christmases long ago, illustrated with seasonal music for choir and brass including: Oer yw’r gŵr sy’n methu caru (Deck the Halls), Arr Ralph Allwood: Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Trad arr Leontovych : Ukrainian Bell Carol, Ben Parry: Christmas Cards, Arr Andrew Carter: Twelve Days Of Christmas, Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire (Christmas Song), Suo Gân, I Saw Three Ships, Vaughan Williams: Wassail (from 5 folk song arrangements), Good King Wenceslas, Holl amrantau’r sêr ddywedant (All Through The Night).
A security officer holding a shield and baton guards a security post leading into a center believed to be used for re-education in Korla, Nov. 2, 2017.
Beginning in April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas have been jailed or detained in re-education camps throughout northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where members of the ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule. Sources say detainees routinely face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers in the camps and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities. China’s ambassador in Washington, Cui Tiankai, told National Public Radio in an interview broadcast Oct. 4 that the facilities represented “efforts to help people to learn skills, techniques to build up their economic capability.” An officer at a police station in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture recently told RFA’s Uyghur Service about the conditions at a camp where he worked as a guard for 10 months. In the first part of an interview, the officer—who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal—detailed the layout of the camp, the daily routine of the detainees, and the punishments they were subjected to if they did not obey the rules.
RFA: Can you describe the re-education camp you worked at?
Officer: It was comprised of three buildings when I was there, but I heard it has been extended to seven. All the buildings are the same height at five floors … The offices are all on the ground floor and detainees are housed on the remaining four floors.
RFA: How many detainees live on each floor?
Officer: When I was there, on the second floor [of my building] there were 16 dorm rooms [for detainees], four classrooms, two meeting halls, one dorm room for the police, and one for cadres [teachers]. There were approximately 10-14 detainees in each dorm room … [There were] two police officers and 10 security officers [on each floor].
RFA: You said there are 10-14 detainees in each dorm room, so that means there were around 200 detainees on each floor. In total, there were approximately 800 detainees, and more than 50 police officers in each building?
Officer: Yes. When I was there, there were 234 police officers working at the re-education camp.
RFA: How many hours of lessons do [the detainees] have each day?
Officer: Four hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon.
RFA: How long is the lunch break?
RFA: Do they have a break during their four-hour lesson?
RFA: Do the teachers change during the four-hour lesson?
Officer: Yes … every hour. In the morning [the detainees] study the official language (Mandarin), and civil law and regulations, while in the afternoon they discuss their own problems. “For such-and-such a reason, I am here receiving re-education.” Teachers then offer psychological correction.
RFA: So in the afternoon they confess what they have done?
RFA: When [the detainees] sit together, are they allowed to talk to one another?
Officer: No, they are not allowed to talk.
RFA: What about when they are in their dorm rooms?
Officer: They are under constant surveillance. We watch them via closed-circuit cameras, with two in each room.
RFA: So if they speak, what is the punishment they receive?
Officer: [Usually] we give them a warning first, but then order them to stand for between 15 minutes to half an hour … If two people speak with one another, we call them out to ask them separately what they said. Depending on what was said, we decide how to discipline them. If they were protesting against our rules, planning an escape, or considering suicide, we would report the incident to the higher authorities, who would take the necessary action. On camera we can’t hear what they say.
RFA: Are there any strict requirements regarding the positioning of detainees’ hands when in class or in the dorm rooms?
Officer: When they are in class, their hands must be placed on their desks. When in the dorm rooms, they must place their hands on their knees … or on their notebooks.
RFA: In the dorm rooms, do they have tables or desks to write on?
Officer: No. They have to place their notebooks on their knees to read or write.
RFA: What would happen if their hands are in their pockets or at their sides?
Officer: We give them a warning before ordering them to stand as punishment.
Reported by Shohret Hoshur and translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service.
To compare Ughurs to al-Qaeda terrorists sohe sort of misses the point. One group are suspected of terrorists, the other of being of an ethnicity different to the occupying power in an occupied country.
Both are wrong, but one is far more serious and widespread.
Anonymous Reader: I hardly think that is a valid comparison.
Brian, I forgot the Americans enjoy exceptionalism and no Americans can be tried in the ICC (International Criminal Court) according to Bolton. You happy now?
From the interview it sounds like the detainees were not treated too badly unlike those in Guantanamo. Well, at least they were not beaten but taught skills.
The ill treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo does not excuse the ill treatment of Uyghurs - Both are egregious crimes.
Connecticut's highest court will name a special master to redraw the state's congressional district boundaries after lawmakers failed to agree on a new map.
The Connecticut Supreme Court will choose its representative from two out-of-state professors recommended by state Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
Chief Justice Chase Rogers said during a hearing Friday that the name will be announced next week. That person will have until Jan. 27 to submit a congressional map to the court.
Lawmakers recommended Bernard Grofman, director of The Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, and Nathanial Persily, a political science professor at Columbia University in New York.
Rogers says she still hopes the legislative commission originally charged with redrawing the lines will reach a bipartisan deal in the meantime.
Joel McHale hosted last night’s Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Awards at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. It marked the first year that the annual show was produced by Harvey Weinstein and the Weinstein Company, and the ceremony featured film and TV names from Harvey’s world including Jennifer Hudson — who performed a Prince tribute — Jessica Chastain, Ana de Armas, Lena Dunham, Julianne Hough, Olivia Wilde, Kirsten Dunst, Tilda Swinton and more. Claire Danes, Alexander Skarsgard, Ansel Elgort, and Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson were among the presenters. TWC plans to shop the event for TV next year to scratch a midyear itch for a red-carpet event.
Check out McHale’s opening monologue above — does he get any style points?
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Aluminium Mill Finish: A Finish or Not?
Ever heard the expression 'We tend to receive what we expect'? Well this sentiment doesn't always apply when mill finish aluminium is being considered.
The Rambo® Micklem MultiBridle now available at Equitogs, is the first bridle that has been designed from the shape of the horses’ skull itself instead of just from the outside appearance of the head.
Used car dealers need financial help just like other small businesses in the United States. With the down turn in the economy many of the local used car lots have closed up and many others are in trouble.
Available now, Dr. Smoothie launches a new 8 oz. size bottles of the 100% Crushed® whole fruit puree, perfect for retail, gift baskets and fundraising.
Wholesale Affliction tshirts from mygoodsneaker shop，Cheap Affliction tees, Affliction tshirts from China , Affliction tshirts for men ,with low price .
Leading Vintage Clothing retailer Devoted 2 Vintage reveals five key indicators to tell a vintage garment from a modern reproduction.
Many musicians tend to buy their instruments more often because they don't know how to take care and maintain these properly.
Sometimes things just do not get any better and the girls of Vision-Strike-Wear.Com are perfect examples of that!

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