What’s the world coming to? Ask Jeeves is about to fire Jeeves the Butler
(BBC, “Ask Jeeves decides to axe Jeeves; Inquirer; “Butler gets the bullet,”
Sept. 23, 2005). And, just as I was going to suggest a possible late-life
priestly vocation for the unemployed manservant, I learn that the Vatican is
about to post a “No Gays Need Apply” sign on all of its seminaries. (see
BBC, “Vatican ‘to ban new gay priests’,” Sept. 23, 2005; Mirror of Justice,
Gay priests and the Vatican, with a lengthy excerpt by “Fr. Paul Michaels,”
from The Tablet; NYT, “Gay Men Ponder Impact of Proposal by Vatican.”)
According to TimesOnline:
“The Roman Catholic Church is about to ban men who are even
suspected of latent homosexual tendencies from training as priests.
“Vatican sources said that the Pope will recommend mobilising all
the resources of modern psychology to weed out those with homo-
sexual thoughts.”
The Guardian explains:
The proposed move, a clear shift away from earlier church policy
of condemning homosexual acts but not homosexual orientation,
is being seen as another example of the hardline approach of the
deeply conservative new Pope, Benedict XVI.
“JeevesG” Although I wish they’d keep the updated Jeeves search engine icon,
I have no idea whether that newly-purchased enterprise needs a fresher and
more expansive image to compete with Google and Yahoo!.
On the other hand, I’m almost certain that a ban on gay priests will greatly
hurt the Church’s image and its institutional soul. It will both worsen the drastic
shortage of priests and greatly burden gay men who have been serving their
Church faithfully and are now being told they really should never have been
ordained. (It has been estimated that between 20 and 30 pecent of American
priests are gay.) Branding all persons with a homosexual preference as unsuitable
for the priesthood is both unjust and unholy. I urge you to read the Tablet
column mentioned above, which was written by a celibate, homosexual priest
with an active ministry in the United States.
Just as Martin Grace recently wondered whether the American Catholic “JeevesN”
Church is getting good advice from its lawyers, I have to wonder whether the
Vatican is getting good advice from the Divine Counselor, who is purportedly
the source of the Church’s “Truth.” More accurately, I wonder whether any
one in the Vatican still has the ear of the Holy Spirit and whether they really
listen to the Divine message of love and compassion.
At my Jesuit high school some forty years
ago, the principal (a male priest) ran off with the female head of
our Parent-Teacher Association. Do you think we should check
out seminarians for heterosexual tendencies? What the Church
apparently needs is a whole lot of good eunuchs.
Meanwhile, Old Jeeves might have to look elsewhere for new employment.
Don’t Ask. Don’t tell. And watch those bad thoughts!
[Tom Toles “explains” it all in this editorial cartoon (Wash. Post., Sept. 23, 2005)]
he stows his fan
behind his neck…
little priest
quite remarkable
being born human…
autumn dusk
translated by David G. Lanoue
“JeevesLogo” don’t tell!
September 23, 2005
don’t ask, don’t tell — Jeeves’ aborted vocation
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no intro needed: hotham & ness
sun blocked by clouds
mile after mile
in silence
mourning –
a piece of birchbark
peels
Landing on the lintel
a pigeon and its shadow
become one
“sun blocked by clouds” The Heron’s Nest (Jan. 2002)
“mourning — ” The Heron’s Nest (Nov. 2002)
“landing on the lintel” – the haiku sequence “A Flutter of Wings” (2003)
under us —
water that roared
in the waterfall
on every step
dead cicadas —
a day’s list of things to do
home early –
your empty coathanger
in the closet
“under us” & “on every step“ – The Heron’s Nest (Sept. 2005)
“home early” – breathmarks: haiku to read in the dark
potluck
for two whole weeks now. Would someone please tell him that
preparing for and handling a trial is not a good enough excuse —
even in California.
What can a harried airline passenger say to a TSA agent? Not “oilcanHFs”
much, according to the 6th Circuit in Rendon v. TSA. Over at
Crime & Federalism, hoping for an en banc, Mike Cernovich offers
to do all the grunt work (drafting of pleadings) for any lawyer
willing and able to handle the oral argument pro bono. Also,
check out First Amendment at the Airport? at Appellate Law &
Practice.
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trivializing economics (Tabarrok and Helland)
Today’s ABA Journal eReport spotlights the recently-released study
Two Cheers for Contingent Fees (AEI, Aug. 2005), written by economic
professors Alexander Tabarrok and Eric Helland (eReport, by G.M.
Filisko,“Fee Caps Won’t Solve Liability Crisis, Study Says,” Sept. 23,
2005). Today’s article quotes GMU’s Tabarrok defending the Study from
the critiques of Walter Olson (of the Manhattan Institute and Point of Law),
Cardozo Law Professor Lester Brickman, and myself.
In our prior post, “fees of the assumption” (Aug. 26, 2005), I outlined my basic
problem with the T&H study: it’s based on two major premises that are belied
by the facts. Frist, T&H posit that contingency fee arrangements are “efficient”
because — well — contracting is efficient. My retort:
This assumption of efficiency has no basis in fact when
applied to the contingency fee arrangement between lawyer and client.
In the vast majority of cases, the lawyer presents the client with a contract
that reflects the standard or “prevailing” fee in their locality; the client
has no idea that he or she has the right to negotiate the percentage
level, and has no information that would allow for intelligent bargaining
— e.g., the likelihood of success, how much work is involved, or how
much the award is likely to be. [see our post “it’s not unusual (to
charge one-third)”]
Similarly, T&H assume as a matter of economic faith that p/i lawyers faced with
a cap on contingency fees would merely start charging by the hour and would
not lose income. As Olson and Brickman argue, there is no empirical evidence
supporting that claim and plenty of reasons to believe the switch to hourly fees
would never happen (including the historical fact that the lack of client funds were
the reason contingency arrangements arose and were allowed in the first place,
and the failure of p/i lawyers to offer hourly fee arrangements now to every client as
an alternative, even though ABA Formal Ethics Opinion 94-389 mandated over a
decade ago that they do exactly that.)
What is Tabarrok’s reply? He told the author of the eReport article that T&H’s
assumption is “trivial economics” and that “no economist would disagree with it.”
In other words “economic theory tells us this would happen or does happen” and
therefore we can base our conclusion on that assumption. I think Tabarrok is
trivializing economics by touting theory over reality — and even worse, by positing
simplistic theory that fails to take into account marketplace dynamics in a particular
and peculiar industry. Only fervent acolytes of T&H’s brand of economics will bow
down to their pronouncements and conclusions and accept them as the basis for
policymaking decisions. The rest of the us will conclude that economics has about
as much to with shaping public debate on topics such as tort reform and fee caps
as does theology.
Theories are guides; when they become blindfolds accepted on blind faith, they
rarely lead us to a useful destination.
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