Pope as Head of State

The New Republic Online has an interesting article (subscribers only) about the impact the Roman Pontiff has as the Head of State for the Holy See (Vatican City). While I agree strongly with the premise that the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church have significant impacts on international issues, I think that perhaps the authors are off-base in presuming that the Holy See's treatment as a sovereign nation gives the Church clout:

Most troubling, however, is that the bizarre practice of treating the Roman Catholic Church as a country has serious political implications for women's equality, gay rights, and reproductive freedom. Of course, the Holy See unjustly bans women from holding key Church posts; but the Vatican's fictive statehood allows it to promote its retrograde gender values in multilateral forums as well. For example, during negotiations for the first follow-up conference to the International Conference on Populations and Development, the Holy See advocated for replacing the term "respect for women's rights" with "respect for women's status." Also during this conference the Holy See spoke out against the use of emergency contraception for women who were raped by Serbian forces in Kosovo and successfully blocked all mention of this important provision from the final conference document. When ratifying the children's rights convention, the Holy See claimed that the convention would "safeguard the rights of the child before as well as after birth." And during negotiations on the International Criminal Court, the Holy See pressed to exclude "forced pregnancy"--the practice of ethnic cleansing through rape--from the list of war crimes.

Nations don't just give other nations positions of power and respect within the international community just because they claim to be nations. Rather, could it be the fact that over 17% of the world's population is Roman Catholic? Perhaps the fact that the sole superpower left in the world has a population wherein 1 in every 4 citizens is Roman Catholic? See, the issue isn't the recognition of the Holy See as a nation. It is the fact that other nations recognize the power that exists in a well organized hierarchy which wields significant sway over the members of the Church.

Bush pledges to make Social Security benefits progressive?

President Bush actually piqued my interest when he dropped this one in his news conference last night, as reported by the New York Times today:

Mr. Bush, in his television news conference on Thursday night, proposed that benefits for affluent future retires be trimmed so that retirees who were less well off could be protected.

Wow! Admittedly, he had me hooked on this one. Perhaps, just perhaps, Bush has decided that he needed to make some moves to reach across the isle and get some bipartisan support for social security reforms. Afterall, support has been tepid at best. Then we get this mixed message:

Today, the president's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, said early news accounts had left the impression that cuts would apply "to everybody across the board."

When asked who would be defined as "affluent" under Mr. Bush's proposals, Mr. McClellan said, "Well, we're going to be working with Congress on those issues."

I suppose we'll see exactly what this means when Republicans present their draft proposal in the coming days.

Mainline Protestant Leaders Call Bush's Budget "Unjust"

The Episcopal Church USA, in conjunction with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ, and United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society issued a press release today decrying Bush's FY06 budget, stating that it reminded them of "the Gospel story of Lazarus and the rich man and noted that the 2006 budget had much for the rich man but little for Lazarus".

Particularly poignant was this paragraph:

As we view the FY '06 Federal Budget through our lens of faith this budget, on balance, continues to ask our nation's working poor to pay the cost of a prosperity in which they may never share. We believe this budget remains unjust. It does not adequately address the more than 36 million Americans living below the poverty line, 45 million without health insurance, or the 13 million hungry children. Worldwide it neither provides sufficient development assistance nor adequately addresses the Global AIDS pandemic. Therefore, we ask Congress to reject this budget and begin anew.

Amen.

Rockets collapse in the 4th Quarter

So much for showing maturity in what could have been a death blow to the Mavericks.

Although the Houston Rockets led by double digits early in the 4th quarter, they somehow managed to blow that lead and allow the Mavs to take a significant lead late in the game.

What ultimately killed the Rockets in this game was free throw shooting. The Rockets went to the charity stripe 23 times to the Mav's 33. Worse yet, the Rockets only hit 17 of their free throws for 73%, while the Mavs hit 28 free throws at a 84% clip. This of course, doesn't account for the Rockets purposefully fouling the Mavs with 24 seconds left in the game in a futile attempt to stop the clock and climb back into the game. The free throw scoring margin of 11 points easily put the Mavs over the top.

While I have all the confidence in the world that the Rockets will learn valuable lessons in this game and eventually win the series, I'm concerned about the Mavs building momentum and somehow tying this series going back to Dallas for game 5.

Van Gundy will surely have this team ready to come back on Saturday.

Rockets go for 3-0 tonight

It's times like these that I wish the NBA had not instituted the seven game series format for the first round of the playoffs.

With the Dallas Mavericks in town tonight for Game 3 of their series against the Houston Rockets, I think we'll really get to see what these Rockets are made of. Afterall, the Rockets have had tremendous success on the road (25-16 this season). The Rockets fared only slightly better at home with a 26-15 record. I wonder if this team will be able to keep their focus and get a crucial win at home. I'm not asking for a sweep - just get one at home so we can finish the Mavs quickly and get some rest before the next round.

In typical Van Gundy fashion, the coach has a nice take on home court:

The problem for too many players is they (think) ... 'We're going home now,' or, 'We're going to be playing in front of our fans,' like that's going to do it. 'We're going to be playing in front of our fans.' All right, that'll be a big help in playing against Nowitzki. That mind-set is so immature.

Tip-off is coming up soon - let's see if the Rockets can bury the Mavs in a hole from which they won't escape.

Let the blogging begin!

Although I've had this blog account through blogger.com for quite some time, I haven't really utilized it. After reading blogs on a daily basis for a couple of months now, I figured that it was time to finally subject the blogosphere to my ramblings.

I'm sure I'll use this space mostly as a soapbox for my opinions on politics, culture and other items of interest out there in the real world.