You could be asking whether the man who happens to be the current pope, Francis, is Catholic. You would then be asking about the occupant of an office at the apex of the Catholic organizational hierarchy. Or you could be asking about the office itself: Is the office of the papacy occupiable only by a Catholic?
The answer to the second question is easy: of course.
The answer to the first question is not so easy. Is Francis a loyal Catholic who upholds authentic Catholic teaching? Many in the know are skeptical. See here and here. I agree with them. Those links are to First Things articles. The Remnant takes a harsher line.
So there is a clear sense in which the pope is not Catholic.
This is a MUST-SEE video. White liberal Berkeley students express an extremely condescending attitude toward black folks, and some blacks reply. (HT and Merry Christmas to J.I.O.) The kids actually think that significant numbers of blacks don't possess ID, don't know how to secure it, and lack access to the Internet.
Malcolm Pollack goes Dennis Prager one better. BRIXISH is indeed superior to SIXHIRB for Malcolm's reasons below, but also because it is in the vicinity of BREXIT. After all, the BRIXISH would tend to support BREXIT. Here's Malcolm:
Saw an unfamiliar acronym over at Maverick Philosopher the the other day: “SIXHIRB”. I had to look it up. It’s a coinage of Dennis Prager’s, and it stands for Sexist, Intolerant, Xenophobic, Homophobic, Islamophobic, Racist, Bigoted: the “basket” of cudgels routinely applied to anyone to the right of the Vox editorial staff.
I’d have preferred “BRIXISH”: it sounds more like an adjective, and carries a faint echo of America’s founding people and culture (i.e., the usual target). But it’s still handy to have a linguistic shortcut for these reflexive and ubiquitous slurs, so here’s a nod to Mr. Prager.
I am slightly surprised that Malcolm did not instantly recognize the Pragerian provenience of SIXHIRB inasmuch as every other time I have used it I have credited Prager. I didn't this time to save keystrokes, figuring that everyone knew by now that it is Prager's coinage.
An acronym is a pronounceable word formed from either the initial letters of two or more words, or from contiguous letters of two or more words. For example, 'laser' is a pronounceable word formed from the initial letters of the following words: light, amplification, stimulated, emission, radiation. And Gestapo is a pronounceable word formed from contiguous letters of the following words: geheime, Staats, Polizei.
But what about BREXIT? It is not an initialism or a truncation as I define these terms:
An initialism is a string of contiguous letters, unpronounceable as a word or else not in use as a word, but pronounceable as a list of letters, formed from the initial letters of two or more words. For example, 'PBS' is an initialism that abbreviates 'Public Broadcasting System.' 'PBS' cannot be pronounced as a word, but it can be pronounced as a series of letters: Pee, Bee, Ess. 'IT' is an initialism that abbreviates "information technology.' In this case 'IT' is pronounceable as a word, but is not in use as a word. You can say, 'Mary works in Eye-Tee,' but not, 'Mary works in IT.' The same goes for 'ASU' which abbreviates 'Arizona State University.'
A truncation is a term formed from a single word by shortening it. 'App,' for example is a truncation of 'application,' and 'ho' is presumably a truncation of 'whore' (in black idiom). 'Auto' is a truncation of 'automobile,' and 'blog' (noun) of 'weblog.'
So I book BREXIT under acronym despite its difference from the other two. BREXIT fits my definition of 'acronym' inasmuch as it is a pronounceable word formed from contiguous letters of two or more words, in this case, 'Britain' and 'exit.' The fact that all of the letters of 'exit' are packed into BREXIT does not stop the latter from being an acronym.
. . . then it is perhaps understandable that leftists should lose their minds over the ascendancy of Trump. I pity the poor secularist who has nothing beyond this world.
One of the joys of philosophy is purely aesthetic in Kierkegaard's sense: the joy of exploring the highways and byways, the twists and turns of human thought. Included in this are the pleasures of books and quiet and warm lamp light early in the morning and late at night.
Should we judge the man by his tweets or his picks? By what he says or what he does? Judging by their content, his tweets are injudicious; his appointments so far are outstanding and show good judgment. Here are Trump's choices for cabinet and administrative slots.
