Cassette recordings for Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men and Little Miss Books

I decided to put something light-hearted up here to contrast with all the doom and gloom in the news.  When I was very young I really enjoyed the Mr. Men and Little Miss books by children’s author Roger Hargreaves.  These books each feature a character that is bright in color and in some vaguely geometric shape (i.e.: an oval or rectangle) and wears some sort of hat who has to overcome, or has to deal with, his or her primary character trait after which they are named.  So, for example, Mr. Tickle – a circular orange character with long arms and blue bowler hat – is about giving insight into how he is a tickle.  Mr. Chatterbox – a purple sort of blunt cone shape character in a blue bowler hat – has to overcome his overwhelming gift of gab.  Each story follows a similar pattern.  First, the character is introduced, then two or three examples of his idiosyncrasies based on his name are shown followed by showing how he resolves them or how he deals with them, and, finally, third, it ends with a quip of some sort.

By the early to mid 1980s the publisher – as was the trend back then – released some of the books on cassette.  I really enjoyed these recordings as a kid as the readers are funny and emotive.  After scouring Youtube many times – and finding many other recordings and videos of these books – I have never once found the cassette recordings.  So, during some down time while the corona virus pandemic was going on, I decided to right this wrong and uploaded the cassette recordings with photos of the corresponding books to my Youtube channel.  The links to each video is below.  Enjoy and have fun!

Mr. Men Books:

• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Mr. Mischief
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Mr. Noisy
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Mr. Nonsense
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Mr. Quiet
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Mr. Tickle
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Mr. Messy
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Mr. Chatterbox
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Mr. Funny
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Mr. Happy

Little Miss Books:

• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Little Miss Helpful
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Little Miss Naughty
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Little Miss Trouble
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Little Miss Bossy
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Little Miss Late
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Little Miss Scatterbrain
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Little Miss Shy
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Little Miss Sunshine

Songs:

• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Messy Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Noisy Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Chatterbox Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Funny Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men Books on Cassette: Happy Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Naughty Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Trouble Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Late Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Scatterbrain Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Shy Song
• Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Books on Cassette: Sunshine Song

Supreme Court Says Montana Cannot Exclude Religious Schools From Tax-Credit Program

This is from religionclause.blogspot.com which you can find here:

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, (US Sup. Ct., June 30, 2020), the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision held that Montana’s exclusion of religious schools from its scholarship tax credit program violates the Free Exercise clause of the U.S. Constitution.  The Montana Supreme Court had invalidated the entire scholarship program because it included religious schools, relying on the “no aid” provision of the Montana constitution.  Chief Justice Roberts majority opinion, joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, said in part:

This case also turns expressly on religious status and not religious use. The Montana Supreme Court applied the no-aid provision solely by reference to religious status. The Court repeatedly explained that the no-aid provision bars aid to “schools controlled in whole or in part by churches,” “sectarian schools,” and “religiously-affiliated schools.”… Applying this provision to the scholarship program, the Montana Supreme Court noted that most of the private schools that would benefit from the program were “religiously affiliated” and “controlled by churches,” and the Court ultimately concluded that the scholarship program ran afoul of the Montana Constitution by aiding “schools controlled by churches.”… The Montana Constitution discriminates based on religious status just like the Missouri policy in Trinity Lutheran, which excluded organizations “owned or controlled by a church, sect, or other religious entity.”…

…Status-based discrimination remains status based even if one of its goals or effects is preventing religious organizations from putting aid to religious uses.

Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion which was joined by Justice Gorsuch, saying in part:

I write separately to explain how this Court’s interpretation of the Establishment Clause continues to hamper free exercise rights. Until we correct course on that interpretation, individuals will continue to face needless obstacles in their attempts to vindicate their religious freedom.

Justice Alito filed a concurring opinion, saying in part:

Respondents argue that Montana’s no-aid provision merely reflects a state interest in “preserv[ing] funding for public schools,”… known as “common schools” during the Blaine era. Yet just as one cannot separate the Blaine Amendment from its context, “[o]ne cannot separate the founding of the American common school and the strong nativist movement.”  Spearheaded by Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education from 1837 to 1848, the common-school movement did not aim to establish a system that was scrupulously neutral on matters of religion. (In a country like ours, that would have been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.) Instead the aim was to establish a system that would inculcate a form of “least-common denominator Protestantism.”This was accomplished with daily reading from the King James Bible, a curriculum that, Mann said, let the book “speak for itself.” … Yet it was an affront to many Christians and especially Catholics, not to mention non-Christians.

Mann’s goal was to “Americanize” the incoming Catholic immigrants. In fact, he and other proponents of the common-school movement used language and made insinuations that today would be considered far more inflammatory.

Justice Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion, saying in part:

 I was not sure about characterizing the State’s discrimination in Trinity Lutheran as focused only on religious status, and I am even less sure about characterizing the State’s discrimination here that way….

Maybe it’s possible to describe what happened here as status-based discrimination. But it seems equally, and maybe more, natural to say that the State’s discrimination focused on what religious parents and schools do—teach religion….

Most importantly, though, it is not as if the First Amendment cares. The Constitution forbids laws that prohibit the free exercise of religion. That guarantee protects not just the right to be a religious person, holding beliefs inwardly and secretly; it also protects the right to act on those beliefs outwardly and publicly.

Justice Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Kagan, saying in part:

[T]he Montana court remedied the state constitutional violation by striking the scholarship program in its entirety. Under that decree, secular and sectarian schools alike are ineligible for benefits, so the decision cannot be said to entail differential treatment based on petitioners’ religion.

Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion, joined in part by Justice Kagan, saying in part:

It is true that Montana’s no-aid provision broadly bars state aid to schools based on their religious affiliation. But this case does not involve a claim of status-based discrimination. The schools do not apply or compete for scholarships, they are not parties to this litigation, and no one here purports to represent their interests. We are instead faced with a suit by parents who assert that their free exercise rights are violated by the application of the no-aid provision to prevent them from using taxpayer-supported scholarships to attend the schools of their choosing. In other words, the problem, as in Locke, is what petitioners “‘propos[e] to do—use the funds to’” obtain a religious education. ….

I agree with the majority that it is preferable in some areas of the law to develop generally applicable tests. The problem, as our precedents show, is that the interaction of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses makes it particularly difficult to design a test that vindicates the Clauses’ competing interests in all—or even most—cases.That is why, far from embracing mechanical formulas, our precedents repeatedly and frankly acknowledge the need for precisely the kind of “‘judgment-by-judgment analysis’” the majority rejects.

Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, saying in part:

Neither differential treatment nor coercion exists here because the Montana Supreme Court invalidated the tax-credit program entirely….

To be sure, petitioners may want to apply for scholarships and would prefer that Montana subsidize their children’s religious education. But this Court had never before held unconstitutional government action that merely failed to benefit religious exercise….

[T]he Montana Supreme Court remedied a state constitutional violation by invalidating a state program on state-law grounds, having expressly declined to reach any federal issue….

NPR reports on the decision.

You can learn more about this issue here.

Pa. Superior Court: Family Court Notice Must Be Meaningful

Although there are standard forms for various pleadings and motions for family matters, they should certainly not be considered formalities or merely boilerplates. In the matter of T.L.G. v. J.D.G., the Pennsylvania Superior Court drove home the importance of pleadings and motions in providing the opposing party notice of what is at issue when going to a family court hearing.

In T.L.G. the parents of two children were subject to a stipulated custody order. One of the two children subject to this order unfortunately suffers from various mental health issues. Her parents both agreed to enroll their daughter in a residential program in North Carolina. At the conclusion of her program in the residential facility, she had the option to enroll in a therapeutic boarding school (which was recommended by the professionals at the residential program), or, in the alternative, she had the option to enroll in a standard public school with in-school and out-of-school therapeutic services. The parents disagreed over where to enroll the child; the child’s mother wanted to follow the recommendations while her father wanted to send her to a public school with additional services.

As the parents were unable to overcome their impasse regarding where to enroll their daughter, the mother filed a petition for special relief requesting the court to enter an order requiring the parties to follow the recommendations of the mental health professionals at the residential program. Accordingly, the court entered a scheduling order that set a hearing date “in consideration of the within petition.”

At the day of the hearing, the judge before whom the hearing took place opened the hearing by announcing that the order he would enter would likely be one that awarded sole legal custody (in the areas of education and mental health issues only). The judge ultimately entered an order granting the father sole legal custody (limited to education and mental health issues), and the mother timely appealed this order to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

On appeal the mother argued that the trial court abused its discretion and violated her due process rights when it entered an order modifying the custody order (by changing legal custody) despite the fact that there was no petition to modify custody filed by either party.  Instead, the mother argued, her petition simply requested an order to resolve a single discreet issue of dispute between the parties, and the trial court’s order should have reflected that.

In ruling on the mother’s appeal, the Superior Court first noted that “notice and an opportunity to be heard are fundamental components of due process.” Furthermore, the court further noted that notice to a party must be provided within a meaningful time in a meaningful manner. Citing the Pennsylvania Superior Court case of Langendorfer v. Spearman, 797 A.2d 303 (Pa.Super.2002) (which in turn cited Choplosky v. Choplosky, 584 A.2d 340 (Pa.Super.1990)) the T.L.G. court also indicated that “if the parties do not receive proper notice that custody is at issue, a trial court cannot ‘assume that the parties had either sufficiently exposed the relevant facts or properly argued their significance.’”

While filing a petition to modify custody is typically the appropriate manner by which to request a custody modification, the court recognized that a trial court, under the right circumstances, may modify a custody order when it is in the best interests of the child, even if a petition to modify had not been filed. The court clarified, however, that such circumstances are only “if notice of the proceeding adequately advises a party that custody will be at issue, a court may entertain the request to permanently modify a custody order after hearing in that proceeding.”

When reviewing the facts of this matter, the court observed that mother’s petition for special relief does not request any modification of the custody order at all. It merely requests the trial court to adjudicate the discreet issue of where their daughter should be enrolled. Furthermore, the court also observed that the trial court’s scheduling order, quoted above, did not reference the potentiality of a modification of custody.

Based on the above, the Superior Court ruled that mother did not have proper notice that custody modification would be an issue at a petition for special relief hearing. In addition, the court did not believe the trial court judge’s opening statement at the hearing that legal custody may be modified constituted notice at a “meaningful time” or in a “meaningful manner.” In the court’s view, requiring the mother to make an objection on the record against the judge’s statement giving her last-minute notice that modification would likely be at issue (indeed, there was not even notice that it would definitely be an issue) is not sufficiently advanced notice to the mother to enable her to prepare or properly advocate. Indeed, the trial court did not even inform the parties that it would, in fact, modify legal custody until it issued its order after the hearing concluded.

In light of the above, the court ruled that the trial court abused its discretion and violated the mother’s due process rights when it awarded the father sole legal custody over educational and mental health matters despite the fact that neither party filed to modify the custody order. The court ruled that the mother did not receive proper notice that the custody order could be modified, vacated the trial court’s order, and remanded the matter. This decision makes it clear that court filings, and the court notices that follow from them, must be specific and provide adequate notice to the parties in order to ensure and protect a party’s basic due process rights.

James W. Cushing is senior associate at the Law Office of Faye Riva Cohen and managing attorney for Legal Research Inc., and sits on the executive committee of the family law section of the Philadelphia Bar Association.

 

Expand Your Business, Increase Your Income!

This article is part of my posts on the economic system of distributism.  This is from practicaldistributism.blogspot.com which you can find here:

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A slogan such as the title of this article seems simply common sense to probably most Americans. If sales are up, then certainly expanding your business is the natural thing to do, or at least to think of doing. If you own one restaurant and it is doing well, consider opening a second – and a third, and a fourth. Except that this logic is totally contrary to real common sense, to the purpose of economic activity, and to our hopes for eternal life.

Contrary to common sense? To the purpose of economic activity? How so? Because the reason why the human race engages in economic activity is to satisfy our need for external goods and services. It is contrary to reason to make the acquisition of such goods and services ends in themselves. So if someone is providing sufficiently for himself and his family with his present business, if he is able to satisfy his own and his family’s need for external goods, what need does he have to expand that business and try to increase his income? Why would he even wish to do so? Has he never reflected on what is the purpose of income and wealth? That they are merely so that we can obtain the goods and services we need for life on this earth? And that if we have enough of them, it is irrational to want more.

But can we say that this is even contrary to our hope for attaining eternal life? How? Holy Scripture is full of instruction and warnings about earthly goods and riches. For example,

…if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall in temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs. (I Tim. 6:8-10)

St. Paul is here connecting a desire to become rich with a “love of money” that he terms “the root of all evils.” The desire to become rich, that is, to have more earthly goods than one reasonably needs, indicates a disordered attitude toward one’s possessions. But it does more than that. It places the person who desires to become rich into a near occasion of sin. For it is the rare rich person who does not succumb to an inordinate attachment to his riches, and to an even more inordinate attachment to acquiring more and more of them. It is true that someone born into riches, through no fault of his own, may licitly retain that wealth – provided he remembers his duties of justice and charity toward the other members of the human race, which Pope Leo XIII expressed in Rerum Novarum in the following words:

Therefore, those whom fortune favors are warned that freedom from sorrow and abundance of earthly riches, are no guarantee of that beatitude that shall never end, but rather of the contrary; that the rich should tremble at the threatenings of Jesus Christ – threatenings so strange in the mouth of our Lord; and that a most strict account must be given to the Supreme Judge for all that we possess. (no. 22)

But those who are not rich, yet who are sufficiently providing for themselves and their families, they are those whom St. Paul warns, “who desire to be rich” and therefore “fall in temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.” If Catholics are serious about their faith, if we really believe that we will be judged after our death and our eternal destiny will be heaven or hell – then who could in good conscience seek to acquire more than is reasonably necessary in this life? Why would anyone risk eternal damnation not merely for transient earthly goods, but for transient earthly goods which are not even needed?

I am not of course denying the uncertainties of this life, of the need for reasonable savings or the high cost of such things as our children’s education. But at some point we surely can say, enough. Beyond that point there is no rational reason for increasing our income. Beyond that point riches are nothing more than a temptation and a snare.

Only if we recover the traditional Catholic understanding that the goods of this life have purposes, and thus are limited by those purposes, only then can we begin to live rightly. In fact, we can hardly understand what the Church teaches and why unless we come to see that the things of this life exist in a hierarchy, that economic activity and the acquisition of wealth do not stand alone but are subordinate to the overall ends of life. If we can do that, then, as Pius XI wrote in Quadragesimo Anno:

If [the moral law] be faithfully obeyed, the result will be that particular economic aims, whether of society as a body or of individuals, will be intimately linked with the universal teleological order, and as a consequence we shall be led by progressive stages to the final end of all, God Himself, our highest and lasting good. (no. 43)

You can learn more about this issue here.

Consumer Choice and Society

This article is part of my posts on the economic system of distributism.  This is from practicaldistributism.blogspot.com which you can find here:

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Those who like to celebrate the contemporary capitalist economy frequently do so in terms of choice. Some are quite open that it is consumer choice that excites them, the ability to pick and choose among an immense variety of products, according to one’s whims and desires. Others, more conscious of the shallowness implicit in reducing man to simply a consumer of goods, are wont to point out that even though our society itself may be preoccupied with material possessions, we ourselves as individuals are free to occupy ourselves with better things, with cultural or spiritual goods, for example.  While of course this is true, one might wonder why so few people seem to manifest much interest in these latter types of goods. But perhaps the real problem here is the attempt to reduce human choice solely to the individual level. It is true, of course, that individuals do have the freedom to choose. Our wills were created by God to desire goods, but we have the freedom to choose among goods, to choose appropriately or not, to make choices that do not interfere with the attainment of our eternal salvation, or that make this more difficult or even impossible to attain. This does not mean, of course, that we must always choose the highest goods; rather, as the collect for the Third Sunday after Pentecost in the traditional Roman rite puts it, in such a balanced way, that “we may make use of [transeamus] temporal goods so as not to loose eternal goods.”

But there is much more to say here than simply to exhort one another to make good choices. For we exist not merely as individual choice-making consumers – even when our choices might be of the most laudable kind – but as members of society, and as such, invariably influenced by that greater social whole. In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, St. John Paul II offered a penetrating discussion of the connection between individual choice and the society or culture around us. He wrote (in section 36)

The manner in which new needs arise and are defined is always marked by a more or less appropriate concept of the human person and of the person’s true good. A given culture reveals its overall understanding of life through the choices it makes in production and consumption. It is here that the phenomenon of consumerism arises. In singling out new needs and new means to meet them, one must be guided by a comprehensive picture of the person which respects all the dimensions of his being and which subordinates his material and instinctive dimensions to his interior and spiritual ones. If, on the contrary, a direct appeal is made to human instincts…then consumer attitudes and lifestyles can be created which are objectively improper and often damaging to the person’s physical and spiritual health. Of itself, an economic system does not possess criteria for correctly distinguishing new and higher forms of satisfying human needs from artificial new needs which hinder the formation of a mature personality. Thus a great deal of educational and cultural work is urgently needed, including the education of consumers in the responsible use of their power of choice, the formation of a strong sense of responsibility among producers and among people in the mass media in particular, as well as the necessary intervention by public authorities.

Here John Paul makes clear the connection between individual choice and the concept or picture of human good which a culture projects. Consumerism is not simply bad choices made by consuming individuals, for these bad choices do not occur in a vacuum. They presuppose the fundamental things that a society values, what it produces and what it teaches about human needs and goods. John Paul notes four matters that require attention, “the education of consumers in the responsible use of their power of choice, the formation of a strong sense of responsibility among producers and among people in the mass media in particular, as well as the necessary intervention by public authorities.” For now, let us focus on just one of these, “the formation of a strong sense of responsibility…among people in the mass media.”

Here advertising immediately comes to mind, and it is surely one of the most potent methods of teaching that any society makes use of. Advertising rarely teaches by precept, but more subtly creates illusions as to what is a good or satisfying or exciting life, and what products are necessary to share in such a life. It is not simply the promotion of a particular product, rather it is generally the promotion of “artificial new needs which hinder the formation of a mature personality,” for the sake of convincing the public to buy new products or new kinds of products.

It is true that the ability of advertising to influence consumer choice is not unlimited. There have been notable instances of marketing failures because of consumer resistance. But I do not think that anyone looking honestly at our economy today could fail to see that for the most part it is characterized by “artificial new needs which hinder the formation of a mature personality,” which convince people that happiness is to be found in the possession of more gadgets or of some particular gadget.

However, it is not simply by advertising that the mass media influence culture and public opinion. The media as a whole present an image of “consumer attitudes and lifestyles” that, more often than not, “are objectively improper and often damaging to the person’s physical and spiritual health.” They do this by the contents of their shows, certainly, but equally as much by the very images they offer, of apparently successful and happy people, and even by the news items they focus on and the way they analyze news events.

In response to this John Paul rightly highlights the need for “educational and cultural work,” the formation of a strong public recognition of man’s true good and, on the other hand, awareness of those false goods which directly appeal to human instincts and fail to subordinate our “material and instinctive dimensions to [our] interior and spiritual ones.” In this connection both the Church and educational institutions at all levels can play an important part. But he also notes “the formation of a strong sense of responsibility among producers…, as well as the necessary intervention by public authorities.” Here we can ask if the very structure of economic life can contribute to the correct formation or to the deformation of our understanding of the human person. In considering this, if we recall the definition of capitalism offered by Pope Pius XI in his 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, as “that economic system in which were provided by different people the capital and labor jointly needed for production” (sect. 100), we might begin to see why a society’s ordering of its economy has profound implications for its cultural, intellectual and spiritual health.

Under capitalism, when separation of ownership and work is the norm, there exists a class of persons, the owners of capital, for whom the economy is not so much a way of supplying mankind with truly necessary and useful products, with real means of satisfying genuine human needs, as it is of making and selling anything that people can be persuaded to buy, of working to create “artificial new needs” in order to promote sales of their products. Hilaire Belloc explained this in a striking passage.

But wealth obtained indirectly as profit out of other men’s work, or by process of exchange, becomes a thing abstracted from the process of production. As the interest of a man in things diminishes, his interest in abstract wealth – money – increases. The man who makes a table or grows a crop makes the success of the crop or the table a test of excellence. The intermediary who buys and sells the crop or the table is not concerned with the goodness of table or crop, but with the profit he makes between their purchase and sale. In a productive society the superiority of the things produced is the measure of success: in a Commercial society the amount of wealth accumulated by the dealer is the measure of success. [1]

The small producer is intimately connected with his product, and generally has some interest or pride in workmanship beyond simply how much money he can make. But necessarily those who are one or more steps removed from the productive process will tend to look at their product as simply something to be sold, and sold not necessarily because it is necessary or useful, but because advertising can persuade people to buy it. Under capitalism, “the formation of a strong sense of responsibility among producers” will be unusual, because the cultural climate will focus on “the amount of wealth accumulated,” not on the inherent quality of the product or service.

St. John Paul notes also “the necessary intervention by public authorities.” In many people’s minds, this raises the specter of a Soviet-style command economy. But this is a groundless fear. Any type of economy requires a legal system to support it. Capitalism, as much as any other, both shapes the legal environment and depends upon it for structure and support. For example, were it not for the unprecedented powers and rights given to corporations by courts and legislatures since the second half of the 19th century, advanced capitalism could hardly exist. None of this was inevitable, however, but rather the result of corporate influence over government and the general cultural attitudes endemic to a commercial or consumer society.

But a legal system could also work in favor of a distributist economy, an economy characterized, as much as is feasible, by a joining of ownership and work, private ownership for the most part, but private ownership of such a kind that producers are generally interested in more than how much money they can make. “The man who makes a table or grows a crop makes the success of the crop or the table a test of excellence.” Of course he needs and expects to make a sufficient return on his work to support himself and his family, but the ever-present connection with real work and real products tends in the opposite direction from the capitalist separation of ownership and work. Moreover, we should note that ownership in a distributist economy need not be individual proprietorships, but can be employee cooperatives. Such cooperatives will generally be necessary for production which requires large-scale machinery or large capital investment.

Of course, due to our First Parents fall into sin, distributist owners will also be affected by greed, by a temptation to cut corners, and so on. This is part of the human condition. But there is a huge difference between a system which facilitates greed, which promotes a desire to cut corners and defraud customers, and a system that does not encourage such evils. Capitalism promotes sin, distributism does not.

Right now the power of capitalists, particularly as embodied in corporations, is overwhelming. For the most part, distributism must manifest itself in nooks and crannies of the economy. We should seek these out and help them to grow. But there is another thing we can do: we can refuse to allow the culture of capitalism of colonize our minds. We can reject “new needs and new means to meet them” which are not “guided by a comprehensive picture of the person which respects all the dimensions of his being and which subordinates his material and instinctive dimensions to his interior and spiritual ones.” We can distinguish in our own thought and life “new and higher forms of satisfying human needs from artificial new needs which hinder the formation of a mature personality.” We can thus carry out, in our own minds, in our own families and among our own friends and acquaintances, some of the necessary “educational and cultural work” that John Paul calls for. In short, we can take small steps to break down the oppressive ideology of consumerism which surrounds us and live in the freedom of that truth which can set us free.

Printable version

Notes:
[1] An Essay on the Nature of Contemporary England (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1937) p. 67.

Practical Distributisim: The Cost of Comparative Advantage

This article is part of my posts on the economic system of distributism.  This is from practicaldistributism.blogspot.com which you can find here:

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The advocates of Free Trade deals between countries frequently cite the fact that more products are made available at a lower cost to consumers as proof that their idea makes economic sense. Their explanation of how this works rests on the idea of Comparative Advantage,[1] the idea that one country can produce a good at a lower opportunity cost than other countries. Based on this idea, if the industries in one country focus on those products where they have the lowest opportunity cost, and import products where they don’t, this provides an abundance of lower priced goods for everyone. For the advocates of Free Trade, price [2] appears to be the ultimate test of what is economically good. They scoff at opponents and critics of Free Trade as if their criticisms of it are completely without merit. Even some economists who have dared to question Free Trade, still try to uphold Comparative Advantage as a reasonable idea.[3] The reality is that the Free Trade ideology ultimately rests on Comparative Advantage. Therefore, it is prudent to examine the criticisms of it to see if they do, in fact, merit consideration. I believe that history has proven that they do.

The United States of America used to have a much more robust manufacturing industry. Critics will immediately respond that there is actually a growing manufacturing base in the U.S.,[4] but let me explain what I mean. It is true that certain types of manufacturing are growing in the U.S. However, these are not the same types of manufacturing jobs as in the past. Historically, U.S. manufacturing employed all levels of workers. High skilled and high educated workers developed and designed products, but our manufacturing industries also employed the low to average educated who worked on the assembly lines and did those aspects of manufacturing work that did not require higher levels of education. Over the last thirty to forty years, we have increased the jobs requiring high levels of education and outsourced jobs for those with an average education.

“The mantra that we’ve lost good-paying jobs to China is exactly wrong,” said Michael Hicks, an economics professor at Ball State University who has studied manufacturing in Indiana. “We’ve lost the bad-paying jobs to China and gained good-paying jobs.”[5]

These “bad paying” jobs supported large numbers of middle class families across the country. The “good paying” jobs were precisely ones that those displaced by this shift were unqualified to get. Essentially, the U.S. manufacturing industry has said that, unless you can get a degree in science or engineering, don’t bother applying to them for a job. The callous disregard of this large, middle class group of workers has caused economic and political tremors in the U.S. in recent years. Why were these hard working people turned out by their employers? The reason is Comparative Advantage. Our largest manufacturing employers are focusing only on those areas with the “lowest opportunity cost” to them. This is done without regard to what happens to their fellow citizens, and then they wonder why U.S. citizens don’t have much loyalty to domestic products.

Industrial heavy hitters who were able to develop and grow during an age of protectionist tariffs, now demand Free Trade on the basis of Comparative Advantage. Tariffs used to provide jobs in the U.S. as foreign manufacturers would open factories in the U.S. to avoid paying them.[6] As the threat of tariffs disappeared, so did the jobs.

… “industries where the threat of tariff hikes declines the most experience greater employment loss due to suppressed job creation, exaggerated job destruction and a substitution away from low-skill workers.”[7]

However, this issue goes beyond assembly line jobs. Comparative Advantage, and its necessary Free Trade deals have spread across all aspects of production in every country that has adopted this economic ideology. What happens, though, when the foreign supply lines are threatened? We have already written about how natural and economic disasters in other countries have impacted the availability of products of supposedly “American” manufacturers. The truth is that this is not as rare an occurrence as some may believe. It is easy to forget, though, when these amount to not much more than an inconvenience or an annoyance to us. For example, past flooding in China has resulted in shortages of computer parts for U.S. computer manufacturers. Because these types of events ended up being a temporary annoyance where people had to wait extra time for these parts, few seemed to really consider the greater implications of such a dependence. The fact that our supply chains have not significantly changed in the decades since those incidents shows that those who had enough foresight to raise an alarm were not taken seriously.

The reality is that the same warnings given about too much dependence on foreign manufacturer of critical technology apply to other critical areas. The same warnings have been raised about this type of dependence for things like medicines.[8] It does seem that a lot of these articles focus specifically on the dependence of Western countries on China. There are two reasons for this.

The first and most obvious reason is that China has become the biggest manufacturer of critical computer technology and medical supplies in the world. European and North American companies have outsourced the manufacture of these critical needs to China; a process that has been enabled by the cooperation of their governments. This is despite the fact that China is widely recognized by these governments as consistently violating basic human rights and having sub-standard working conditions that would not be accepted in their own countries, and these supposedly capitalist companies are moving their production to a socialist country. Some advocates of Free Trade say that China has moved to a more “corporatist” form of business model that is (by implication?) more compatible with capitalism. The reality is that corporatism is a socialist economic model that was adopted by the Fascist and Nazi regimes as part of their socialist economic plans.

However, the warnings against this type of dependence was ignored and, with the unfortunate outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, we are once again having to deal with the reality of this issue. The realities in this case are the same. There are both annoyances as our supplies of non-critical products are delayed.[9] There are also more serious consequences as this circumstance has raised the possibility of critical drugs and medical supplies might also be at risk.[10]

However, let’s consider another serious implication of what Comparative Advantage has done to us. It appears that even some of the manufacturing requiring high skilled and highly educated workers have also been outsourced. We seem to forget just how much of our society has become dependent on computer technology. This goes beyond our government offices, our communications networks, and the systems that run our economic industry. The advanced weapons systems used by the defense forces of Western countries are also completely dependent on this technology.

Even though our economic powerhouses have viewed China as an “economic partner” for several decades, I find it hard to believe that the military and intelligence departments of Western countries look at China as much of a partner. However, those departments rely on computer technology made by the companies that do. As a result, our most advanced weapons and defense systems, as well as our communications networks,[11] are all dependent on advanced computer parts made by a potential adversary.  Is this a real threat?

In 2011, it was reported that the “Government Accountability Office found that counterfeit routers with high failure rates had been sold to the Navy, and that counterfeit microprocessors had been purchased by the U.S. Air Force for use on F-15 flight control computers.”[12] A “scientist at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom claims to have developed a software program proving that China — and anyone else — can, and is, installing cyber backdoors on some of the world’s most secure, ‘military grade’ microchips.”[13]

You might think that this is a lot to blame on an idea like Comparative Advantage, but then you have to answer the question of why we no longer make these computer components for ourselves. The U.S. used computers designed and built in the U.S. to put men on the moon. This was not that long ago. Today our most advanced communications and defense systems are dependent on technology we might design, but no longer make. The same is true for medicines and medical supplies. We use computer components without even thinking about it, in our phones, in our cars, and in our home entertainment systems, and these components are all made by a foreign power that is philosophically opposed to the ideas that founded our societies. How did we get to such a place? We got there because our largest industries, and their partners in government, are believers in the theory of Comparative Advantage and have worked together to implement Free Trade agreements to make that theory a reality.

Printable version

Notes:
[1] https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/glossary/comparative-advantage/

[2] https://practicaldistributism.blogspot.com/2015/08/price.html

[3]  https://economistsview.typepad.com/timduy/2010/07/why-is-the-american-jobs-machine-broken.html

[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/america-is-still-making-things/512282/

[5] Ibid.

[6] https://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/05/the-rise-of-made-by-china-in-america.html

[7] Pierce, Justin R. and Schott, Peter K. “The Surprisingly Swift Decline of U.S. Manufacturing Employment”. National Bureau of Economic Research, American Economic Review, Vol 106(7), Dec. 2012, Revised Jan. 2014
https://www.nber.org/papers/w18655.pdf

[8] https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/exposing_the_risks_of_americas_dependence_on_china_for_medicine.html

[9] https://financemarkethouse.com/2020/02/18/apple-admits-the-coronavirus-will-cause-a-global-iphone-shortage/

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/coronavirus-outbreak-puts-chill-us-businesses-apple-starbucks/story?id=68639376

https://www.just-auto.com/hot-issues/coronavirus-hits-the-auto-industry_id636.aspx

[10] https://www.wired.com/story/the-coronavirus-is-a-threat-to-the-global-drug-supply/

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/pharmaceuticals/coronavirus-pandemic-threatens-to-cut-pharmaceutical-industrys-lifeline/articleshow/73753415.cms

[11] https://www.cnet.com/news/chinese-spy-chip-reportedly-found-in-server-at-major-us-telecom/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/04/china-planted-chips-on-apple-and-amazon-servers-report-claims

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

[12] http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/counterfeit-computer-chips-from-china-compromised-us-military-equipment?news=843552

[13] https://www.military.com/defensetech/2012/05/30/smoking-gun-proof-that-military-chips-from-china-are-infected

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk5oLLdTkq0

Title photograph by Thorsten Lindner.

Published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licens.

Posted by David W. Cooney  

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Labels: Business, Economics, Industry

Valentine’s Day is NOT Pagan

As seems to be common, there are a lot of misconceptions over the origin of the traditions that surround Christian holidays.

As shown here and here respectively, the traditions of Christmas and Easter are not derived from paganism, despite the apparent general popular beliefs to the contrary.

The same goes for St. Valentine’s Day as well.  To that end, here is a great video on this subject.  Check it out!

PA Superior Court Says QDRO’s Take Effect Upon Execution of Marital Agreement

Conway v. Conway v. City of Erie Police Relief and Pension Association, 209 A.3d 367 (PA Super. 2019)

Brief Summary of the Facts:

Michael Conway (“Husband”) and Julie Conway (“Wife”) were married on July 12, 1991 and separated in August 2007.  Husband was employed as a police officer and filed for divorce on July 28, 2009. The parties executed a Marital Settlement Agreement (“MSA”) on Aug. 19, 2016, that directed the parties to prepare, execute, and file a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (“QDRO”) to allow Wife to receive her marital share of Husband’s pension. At the time of the execution of the MSA, Husband’s pension plan stated, with regard to a QDRO, “a former spouse of a Participant shall be treated as the spouse or surviving spouse for all purposes under the Plan.” A divorce decree was entered on Aug. 22, 2016, that incorporated the MSA. On Aug. 23, 2016, the municipality for which Husband worked amended the pension plan to read “a former spouse of a Participant shall not be treated as the spouse or surviving spouse for any purposes under the Plan,” (emphasis added). Wife submitted the QDRO to the pension plan administrator on Aug. 29, 2016, which denied the QDRO on the basis that as it was filed after the Aug. 23, 2016 pension plan revision and is inconsistent with the same. Wife filed a Motion for Entry of QDRO, which was denied by the trial court, prompting Wife to appeal to Superior Court.

Issue:

Did the trial court err by failing to enter the QDRO submitted by Wife to secure her post-divorce rights to Husband’s pension when the MSA and Divorce Decree were both filed/entered and in effect prior to the revision to the pension plan? Holding A QDRO is an order “which creates or recognizes the rights of an alternate payee to receive all or a portion of the benefits payable to a participant under [a pension] plan.” A QDRO merely implements the terms of a preexisting MSA and does not in itself create new rights or terms. In the instant matter, the MSA was entered and incorporated into a Divorce Decree before the pension plan was revised; therefore, as the QDRO only serves to recognize and implement settled rights, it is enforceable as the underlying MSA predates the pension plan revisions. The denial of the QDRO amounts to an unlawful ex post facto application of the revised pension plan. Based on the above, the court directed the QDRO to be entered.

Comments/Impressions:

The court also pointed out that the objective of the Divorce Code “is to effectuate economic justice” for the parties to a divorce. In the court’s estimation, to rule against Wife “would deny [her] the benefit she bargained for and would cause an unfair and severe injustice concerning the parties’ settlement of their existing rights” and would be “contrary to the goal of achieving economic justice.”

Originally published in the Pennsylvania Family Lawyer in Volume 41, Issue number 3 (Autumn 2019)

Finding Attorneys in Contempt for Clients’ Actions in Divorce Case

No one wants to be held in contempt of court, and attorneys do their best to try and keep their clients from being held in contempt, but there are times when an attorney can be held in contempt of court for what his client does or does not do.

No one wants to be held in contempt of court, and attorneys do their best to try and keep their clients from being held in contempt, but there are times when an attorney can be held in contempt of court for what his client does or does not do. The recent Pennsylvania Superior Court case of Farrell v. Farrell, No. 1424 WDA 2018 (Pa. Super), should serve as a cautionary tale for all attorneys to keep in mind when discerning how much involvement their clients should have in the drafting and serving of legal documents.

Farrell is a divorce matter that involved two represented parties, the husband and the wife. The husband initiated the divorce action against his wife who, for the first two years of the case, elected to proceed on a pro se basis. When it was time for the case to be advanced to a divorce master, the wife hired an attorney. In the months leading up to the divorce master’s hearing, the husband issued the wife informal discovery requests. The wife ignored the requests, which led to the husband issuing follow-up correspondence, to which, again, the wife provided no response. As a result, the husband filed a motion to compel the responses to the discovery requests. The trial court granted the motion, and gave the wife 20 days to comply with the discovery requests.

Instead of taking an active role in helping her client respond to the discovery requests, the wife’s attorney simply allowed her client to type up the responses herself, which the attorney then forwarded to the husband’s attorney, unedited. In her responses, the wife refused to disclose some information, declared some requests “N/A,” and leveled personal attacks upon the husband in others.

The wife’s pro se responses provoked the husband’s attorney to file a motion to compel, for sanctions and for attorney fees. The court scheduled a hearing on the husband’s motion three days after the responses were filed, as the master’s hearing was scheduled for four days after the responses were filed. As a response to the husband’s aforesaid motion, the wife’s attorney immediately filed her own motion to compel and for attorney fees.

At the motion hearing, the husband admitted that more documents were produced by the wife, but her responses were still inadequate. Furthermore, the wife’s attorney indicated that she had not prepared the discovery responses for the husband, but simply allowed her client to type up the responses where provided on her own. The court took note of when the wife filed her above-mentioned motion and found that it was filed for the sole purpose of trying to “equalize” the motion filed by the husband, and not for any actual legally cognizable purpose.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court dismissed the wife’s motion and granted the husband’s motion, ordering that the wife may not produce any documentation not already produced in support of her own case. The court also found the wife’s attorney to be in contempt, ordering her to pay the husband’s attorney fees. The wife’s attorney filed for reconsideration and appealed this ruling to the Superior Court.

The wife’s attorney argued in both her motion for reconsideration and the appeal that she cannot be personally found in contempt as she was never actually ordered to do anything (only her client was) regarding discovery. To this end, she maintained that no evidence was ever produced demonstrating that she, personally, had any court order directing her to do anything, therefore there is no evidence that she disregarded a court’s order. She further argued that there was no evidence belonging to the wife that she had in her possession that was requested to be produced; therefore, she did not personally withhold anything from being produced in discovery.

As an initial matter, the Superior Court first noted that the wife’s attorney cited to no authority for the proposition that she cannot personally be held in contempt for her client’s actions or inactions. As a result, under established case law, her arguments, on that issue, were deemed waived as unsupported by authority.

Regardless, the court cited to Pa.R.C.P. 4019(g)(1) which states that “the court on a subsequent motion for sanctions may, if the motion is granted, require the … attorney advising such conduct … to pay the moving party the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees …”

Based on Pa.R.C.P. 4019(g)(1), the court determined that the wife’s attorney’s decisions to allow the wife to personally produce deficient and attacking discovery responses without the attorney offering any input or edits, did not comply with the trial court’s order to compel, and her filing of what appears to be a retaliatory motion to compel are all adequate grounds to hold the wife’s attorney in contempt of court.

So, while it is rare, practitioners should always be cognizant of the fact that they could be held in contempt of court for the actions of their clients, even if they were not personally directed by the attorney and there is no order directing the attorney to do anything.

James W. Cushing is a senior associate at the Law Office of Faye Riva Cohen and is a research attorney for Legal Research Inc.

Originally published in The Legal Intelligencer on December 16, 2019 and can be found here.

Family Law’s Alphabet Soup: To Spell It Out or Stick With Initials

Over the last several years it has been increasingly common for the captions of child custody cases when taken on appeal to be referred to by the initials of the parties, as opposed to using their full names.

Over the last several years it has been increasingly common for the captions of child custody cases when taken on appeal to be referred to by the initials of the parties, as opposed to using their full names. Contrary to what many assume, the trend to initialize is not due to some established procedural rule or directive from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but, rather, it is due to a provision in the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s internal operating procedures.

Although initialization has been the practice of the Superior Court for around 10 years at this point, many attorneys, especially those who are more senior in the practice, have not been supportive of initialization, as it makes it difficult to remember the names of the cases, and makes any discussion of case law rather difficult. Indeed, the term “alphabet soup” has been applied to this practice. Furthermore, some trial courts have adopted the practice of initializing independently, which has made referring to a custody order with a third party rather difficult. So, for example, when a party or child’s name is initialized in a custody court order, a third party (e.g., a school or a doctor) may not comply with its terms as it has no objective way of knowing whether the initials in the order actually refer to the party or child seeking its application at that doctor’s office or school.

In order to create a uniform practice and consistent direction about when and why to initialize, two revisions to the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure, R.C.P. 1915.10 and 1930.1 are currently bring proposed.

The revision to Rule 1915.10 definitively authorizes trial courts to initialize custody cases if the facts of the case are considered sufficiently “sensitive” in order to protect the privacy and reputation of the parties and children involved. As an additional layer of privacy protection, any initialized court order or opinion must also take steps to obscure the names of schools or activities and other specific references to things that could be used identify the child(ren) and parties in the case; instead, general terms should be used when possible. For example, instead of identifying a child’s soccer league, an order should simply state something like “soccer league,” and instead of using a child’s school’s name, it should merely refer to a “school.”

In addition to the above, the suggested revisions to Rule 1930.1 require the full names of the parties involved to be used in captions unless the case involves “sensitive facts” and with consideration of the child’s best interests or violates the above revisions to R.C.P. 1915.10 protecting the privacy of sensitive cases. It is in the estimation of the drafters of the revisions that the typical custody case does not involve such sensitive information, or shocking and outrageous facts, that would require taking the additional measure of initialization to protect the privacy of the children or parties involved.

So, family attorneys, particularly those who focus on custody law, need to monitor these developments to ensure they remain compliant with the rules and sufficiently respect the privacy of the parties and children involved in their custody cases.

Published on October 1, 2019 in The Legal Intelligencer and can be found here and reprinted in The Pennsylvania Family Lawyer in Volume 41, Issue No. 4 which you can see here.