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Source: http://www.phillyimc.org/en/tingout-new-worldwide-news-stream-social-media-citizen-journalism

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ABC's Michael Falcone reports:

The Ted Cruz headlines just won't stop.

"Sen. Ted Cruz says Obama wants immigration bill to fail to hurt GOP," wrote the Dallas Morning News last week. Another Texas paper, the Houston Chronicle, published a recent piece titled: "Ted Cruz: The next Reagan or the next Joe McCarthy?"

Politico carried this on their homepage: "Ted Cruz defends his blunt style." And Salon ominously foreshadowed, "The coming Rand Paul-Ted Cruz brawl."

In recent weeks the freshman senator from Texas has been the subject of a profile in The New York Times, which dubbed him "Washington's new bad boy," and in the New Yorker, which surfaced a speech he delivered in 2010 accusing a dozen members of the Harvard Law School faculty of being communists. (Cruz is a Harvard Law School graduate). Earlier this month, CNN's chief Congressional correspondent Dana Bash traveled to Texas to interview Cruz and so did the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody.

Without a doubt, Cruz has attracted more attention than any other freshman member of Congress from either party in the opening months of the 113th Congress. The Republican lawmaker made waves for his blunt questioning of Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel during his confirmation hearings, and he has been embraced by conservative leaders seeking a new hero.

He has been hailed by the Tea Party Express as a politician who is "shaking up Washington, D.C. just like he promised" and by another political action committee, the Senate Conservatives Fund, as someone who is "showing Washington what courage looks like."

And that is almost exactly how Cruz sees it too.

"I made promises to the people of Texas that I would come to Washington to shake up the status quo," Cruz recently wrote to The New York Times and Politico in response to a list of e-mailed questions. (The Texas Republican declined to grant interviews to either publication).

"Ted's always been ambitious, he's always been arrogant," said one Republican strategist who has known Cruz since before coming to Washington. "I think the honest truth is, he's doing exactly what he's said he was going to do when he campaigned."

But keeping his promise has also earned him his share of criticism - and not just from those on the other side of the aisle - from prominent fellow Republicans too.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called some of the questions Cruz posed to Hagel "out of bounds" and Sen. John McCain of Arizona told The Times' Jonathan Weisman in an interview that "the appropriate way to treat Senator Hagel is to be as tough as you want to be, but don't be disrespectful or malign his character" (implying that Cruz had fallen short of that standard). Democrats piled on too.

In an interview on Tuesday with the Texas Tribune, Cruz defended his conduct at the Hagel hearings, saying he "focused on substance and, in particular, Mr. Hagel's policy record."

"It has not focused on personal issues, and, indeed, the character attacks that have been raised have been leveled at me for asking questions that I think every senator should be concerned to know the answer," he told the Tribune's Emily Ramshaw.

Cruz has won prominent advocates for his take-no-prisoners style.

"Most politicians know what to say to get elected but then arrive in Washington with no real spine - or in many cases, no intention of ever doing what they promised," former Sen. Jim DeMint, a conservative icon who now heads the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a Politico Op-Ed. "Not Cruz. He's proved himself an effective advocate for the founding principles that made our nation great: personal freedom and responsibility, local control and adherence to the law as it is written, not the way some politicians wish it was written."

And the junior senator from Texas has already achieved a certain iconic status himself. A Texas Republican who filed paperwork to mount a primary challenge to incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn told the Daily Caller that Cruz is an inspiration to him.

"If I'm trying to describe somebody who I would best mimic, it would be Sen. Cruz," the challenger, Erick Wyatt, told The Daily Caller's Alexis Levinson. (Regardless of Wyatt's compliment, reports have suggested a close political alliance between Cruz and Cornyn).

Those who know him say Cruz has been more than happy to take full advantage of his time in the spotlight, but the freshman lawmaker who previously served as solicitor general of Texas, emphasized in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody that he is taking all of the new-found attention in stride.

"I try to pay, pay very little attention to the media," he said. "It is, as you know, a fickle creature."

Notably, Cruz's approach represents a marked contrast to that of another prominent Republican, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who started out his career in the U.S. Senate quietly. In 2011, Rubio spent his first months in Washington mostly out of the public eye. Since then, of course, he has become a major player in the Republican Party, emerging as a key voice in the immigration reform debate and stoking speculation about a potential 2016 presidential run.

With Cruz and Rubio's stars rising fast, one Texas GOP insider predicted that the U.S. Senate may eventually not be big enough for the both of them: "At some point the fire hydrant is going to get crowded, and we'll see who marks it."

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ted-cruz-hit-tipping-point-154206271--abc-news-politics.html

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VATICAN CITY (AP) ? On Monday, April 4, 2005, a priest walked up to the Renaissance palazzo housing the Vatican's doctrine department and asked the doorman to call the official in charge: It was the first day of business after Pope John Paul II had died, and the cleric wanted to get back to work.

The office's No. 2, Archbishop Angelo Amato, answered the phone and was stunned. This was no ordinary priest. It was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, his boss, who under the Vatican's arcane rules had technically lost his job when John Paul died.

"It tells me of the great humility of the man, the great sense of duty, but also the great awareness that we are here to do a job," said Bishop Charles Scicluna, who worked with Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI, inside the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In resigning, Scicluna said, Benedict is showing the same sense of humility, duty and service as he did after the Catholic Church lost its last pope.

"He has done his job."

___

When Benedict flies off into retirement by helicopter on Thursday, he will leave behind a church in crisis ? one beset by sex scandal, internal divisions and dwindling numbers.

But the 85-year-old pope can count on a solid legacy: While his very resignation was his most significant act, Benedict ? in a quieter way ? also set the church back on a conservative, tradition-minded path.

He was guided by the firm conviction that many of the ills afflicting the church could be traced to a misreading of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

He insisted that the 1962-65 meetings that brought the church into the modern era were not a radical break from the past, as portrayed by many liberals, but rather a continuation of the best traditions of the 2,000-year-old church.

Benedict was the teacher pope, a theology professor who turned his Wednesday general audiences into master classes about the Catholic faith and the history, saints and sinners that contributed to it.

In his teachings, he sought to boil Christianity down to its essential core. He didn't produce volumes of encyclicals like his predecessor, just three: on charity, hope and love. (He penned a fourth, on faith, but retired before finishing it.)

Considered by many to be the greatest living theologian, he authored more than 65 books, stretching from the classic "Introduction to Christianity" in 1968 to the final installment of his triptych on "Jesus of Nazareth" last year ? considered by some to be his most important contribution to the church. In between he produced the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" ? essentially a how-to guide to being a Catholic.

Benedict spent the bulk of his early career in the classroom, as a student and then professor of dogma and fundamental theology at universities in Bonn, Muenster, Tuebingen and Regensburg, Germany.

"His classrooms were crowded," recalled the Rev. Joseph Fessio, a theology student of Ratzinger's at the University of Regensburg from 1972-74, and now the English-language publisher of his books.

"I don't recall him having notes," Fessio said. "He would stand at the front of the class, and he wasn't looking at you, not with eye contact, but he was looking over you, almost meditating."

It's a style that he's kept for 40 years.

"If you hear him give a sermon, he's speaking not from notes, but you can write it down and print it," Fessio said. "Every comma is there. Every pause."

___

Benedict never wanted to be pope and he didn't take easily to the rigors of the job. Elected April 19, 2005, after one of the shortest conclaves in history, Benedict was, at 78, the oldest pope elected in 275 years and the first German in nearly a millennium.

At first he was stiff.

Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, recalled that in the early days Benedict used to greet crowds with an awkward victory gesture "as if he were an athlete."

"At some point someone told him that wasn't a very papal gesture," Vian said. Benedict changed course, opting for an open-armed embrace or an almost effeminate twinkling of his fingers on an outstretched hand as a way of connecting with the crowd.

"No one is born a pope," Vian said. "You have to learn to be a pope."

And slowly Benedict learned.

Crowds accustomed to a quarter-century of superstar John Paul II, grew to embrace the soft-spoken, scholarly Benedict, who had an uncanny knack for being able to absorb different points of view and pull them together in a coherent whole.

He traveled, though less extensively than John Paul, and presided over Masses that were heavy on Latin, Gregorian chant and the silk brocaded vestments of his pre-Vatican II predecessors.

Benedict seemed genuinely surprised by the warm reception he received ? as well as the harsh criticism when things went wrong, as they did when he lifted the excommunication of a bishop who turned out to be a Holocaust-denier.

For a theologian who for decades had worked toward reconciliation between Catholics and Jews, the outrage was fierce and painful.

Benedict was also burdened by what he called the "filth" of the church: the sins and crimes of its priests.

As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict saw first-hand the scope of sex abuse as early as the 1980s, when he tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Vatican legal department to let him remove abusive priests quickly.

But it was 2001 before he finally stepped in, ordering all abuse cases sent to his office for review.

"We used to discuss the cases on Fridays; he used to call it the Friday penance," recalled Scicluna, who was Ratzinger's sex crimes prosecutor from 2002-2012.

Still, to this day, Benedict hasn't sanctioned a single bishop for covering up abuse.

"Unfortunately, Pope Benedict's legacy in the abuse crisis is one of mistaken emphases, missed opportunities, and gestures at the margin, rather than changes at the center," said Terrence McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org, an online resource of abuse documentation.

He praised Benedict for meeting with victims, and acknowledged the strides the Vatican made under his leadership. But, he said Benedict ignored the problem for too long, "prioritizing concerns about dissent over the massive evidence of abuse that was pouring into his office."

"He acted as no other pope has done when pressed or forced, but his papacy has been reactive on this central issue," McKiernan said in an email.

Benedict also gets poor grades from liberal Catholics, who felt abandoned by a pope who seemed to roll back the clock on the modernizing reforms of Vatican II and launched a crackdown on American nuns, deemed to have strayed too far from his doctrinal orthodoxy.

Some priests are now living in open rebellion with church teaching, calling for a rethink on everything from homosexuality to women's ordination to priestly celibacy.

"As Roman Catholics worldwide prepare for the conclave, we are reminded that the current system remains an 'old boys club' and does not allow for women's voices to participate in the decision of the next leader of our church," said Erin Saiz Hanna, head of the Women's Ordination Conference, a group that ordains women in defiance of church teaching.

The group plans to raise pink smoke during the conclave "as a prayerful reminder of the voices of the church that go unheard."

___

But Benedict won't be around at the Vatican to see it. His work is done. "Mission Accomplished," Vian said.

And as the pope told 150,000 people in his final speech as pope: "To love the church is to have the courage to make difficult, painful choices, always keeping in mind the good of the church, not oneself."

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-legacy-teacher-returned-church-roots-191501542.html

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New study shows continued decline in the last remaining stronghold for leatherback sea turtles

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Critically endangered leatherback sea turtle populations in the western Pacific Ocean may be losing their last foothold of survival on the beaches of Indonesia, according to a paper published today in the scientific journal Ecosphere by an international group of scientists.

Researchers from the State University of Papua Indonesia, NOAA Fisheries Service, University of Alabama at Birmingham and World Wildlife Fund Indonesia released a report today documenting the continued decline of leatherback sea turtle nesting in the western Pacific Ocean.

"At least 75 percent of all Leatherback turtles in the western Pacific Ocean hatch from eggs laid on a few beaches in an area known as Bird's Head Peninsula in Papua Barat-Indonesia," said Peter Dutton of NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center and one of the researchers who co-authored the paper. "Our analysis indicates the number of leatherback turtle nests on this beach has declined 78 percent over the last 27 years."

Leatherbacks are the largest of all marine turtles and the largest living reptile in the world weighing up to 2000 pounds and over six feet in length. Female leatherbacks lay clutches of approximately 100 eggs and typically nest several times during a nesting season. After about two months, the hatchlings emerge from the nest and enter the ocean where they mature and may migrate as far away as California to feed on jellyfish; a distance of about 6,000 miles.

Scientists believe there are a number of reasons why the leatherback turtle populations have continued to decline over the past three decades. Extensive harvesting of eggs, predation of nests by feral pigs and other predators, and the accidental capture in commercial fisheries are the primary factors involved.

Ricardo Tapilatu, lead author on the Ecosphere paper, and co-authors Manjula Tiwari and Dutton, began assessing and developing a nesting beach census and management plan over a decade ago as part of an international partnership to halt the species decline.

"The turtles nesting at Papua Barat, Papua New Guinea, and other islands in our region depend on food resources in waters managed by many other nations for their survival," said Tapilatu. "It is important to protect leatherbacks in these foraging areas so that our nesting beach conservation efforts can be effective".

"The international effort has attempted to develop a science-based nesting beach management plan by evaluating and addressing the factors that affect hatching success such as high sand temperatures, erosion, feral pig predation, and relocating nests to maximize hatchling output," said Manjula Tiwari, a researcher at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center, in La Jolla, California.

The conservation value of nesting beach protection has also been recognized by groups like the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) that have raised funds from industry-affiliated members including tuna canners and processors, to help support UNIPA's nest protection program with the local communities on Bird's Head Peninsula.

"NOAA Fisheries Service is committed to doing our part in the international effort to recover the leatherback turtle through advancing science, implementing our recovery plans and management efforts such as the establishment of critical habitat off California," said Cisco Werner, Director of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center. "Reducing threats on the nesting beaches and at leatherback foraging areas will require continued international cooperation and action if we hope to save Pacific leatherbacks from extinction."

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NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov

Thanks to NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127039/New_study_shows_continued_decline_in_the_last_remaining_stronghold_for_leatherback_sea_turtles

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