So much news, so little time. Breaking it down:

• File this under ethics: A PBS news team is in a spat with an Academy Award-winning filmmaker over rights to footage shot by PBS and, Learning Matters’ John Merrow argues, essentially stolen by Davis Guggenheim, he of “An Inconvenient Truth.” Guggenheim’s documentary on shool reform – which includes the footage from PBS’s work on a similar piece – has been picked up by Paramount Vantage and word on the street is that its a great picture for those of us interested in schools. But do we want to support something that appears to include ill-gotten footage from PBS? Merrow gives all the background at the link above. He’s been warned not to criticize Guggenheim, but PBS lawyers have apparently said phooey to that. That may be Guggenheim’s inconvenient truth.
• File this under education: National standards for math and English have been drafted and could be coming soon to a school near you. Disturbing for a teacher-in-training is the thought that Big Brains have decided that teaching second graders to add and subtract triple-digit numbers will improve education. Or that moving fractions from the end of fourth grade (or the beginning of fifth) to third grade will do likewise. We need comprehensive, universal standards, yes. But we need them written by people who have a clue about the cognitive development of the very young (K-third). As researcher/educator Cathy Seeley points out, “It’s not that (students) are learning (a subject) well but too late. It’s that they’re not learning it well.” If you want to know why students might not be learning things well, check out this ganga read about building better teachers and make sure to watch this video.
• File this under religion: We’ve got ourselves a home-grown alleged terrorist in Colleen R. LaRose, who has been nicknamed (by whom, I’m not sure) “Jihad Jane.” This goes to prove what a columnist said a number of months ago: If we racially profile, terrorists will decide to find someone outside that profile to conduct their dirty work in the name of their religion (or interpretation of that religion). Exhibit A is the blonde, blue-eyed, middle-aged woman who is a convert to Islam. (Note: Adult converts to any religion tend to be very pious in their first monthsU-to-two years after conversion, so this just isn’t an Islam thing. Although, yes, I admit, you don’t see Methodists hunting down artists in Sweden.)
• File this under crazy: Israel announced it had approved building 1,600 new apartments in East Jerusalem. Israel officials chose to do this when U.S. VP Joe Biden was over there trying to jump-start peace agreements which are being held up in part because of Israel’s continued settlement building. One of the officials apologized for the “poor timing” of the announcement. Poor timing – ya think? What he needs to apologize for is continuing to build settlements in violation of international law then blaming Palestinians for getting angry and violent. If you had someone encroaching on your land after they promised (fingers crossed behind back) that they would stop – and you had no political power or rights to stop them – wouldn’t you get a tad upset?
• Finally – if you want to know what’s happening as it is happening tomorrow at the tuition-setting ABOR meeting at UA, follow me or the Desert Lamp on Twitter, since I think one or both of us will be tweeting the meeting.

Pope Benedict XVI

On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI offered a new command to the world’s priests: Thou Shalt Blog. It was in the Pope’s message for the 44th World Communications Day that priests and others read B16′s take on preaching the gospel in the digital age:

Responding adequately to this challenge amid today’s cultural shifts, to which young people are especially sensitive, necessarily involves using new communications technologies. The world of digital communication, with its almost limitless expressive capacity, makes us appreciate all the more Saint Paul’s exclamation: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16)

Keep in mind that the almost 83-year-old pontiff is the man of Pope2you and his own YouTube channel. As Mashable mused a few days ago, the pope “gets it” more than many of his younger clergy when it comes to reaching Catholic youth. It isn’t enough to have a parish web site; the pastor should be blogging, and tweeting and preaching the Good News out there on the Internet to combat the less positive messages infecting cyberspace. But, as Faith and Reason pointed out, they need to remember it isn’t their tech prowess they are showing off but rather, faith in JC.

The two priests at my parish are both on Facebook, although each uses it differently. One tends to write brief movie reviews and the other promotes events such as the Walk for Life. But both have a presence. One tried blogging last summer, but his posts were very long, something that most bloggers will tell you is a cardinal sin. Neither of them use Twitter, but that’s OK because so far, neither does the Pope.

There are a number of priests and nuns out in the blogosphere, including him, him and her, as well as plenty of non-ordained Christians, Jews and Muslims sharing faith, inspiration, commentary and all manner of takes on the world. As someone once said, “Here comes everybody.” I love it.

You have to wait until minute 13 of this 18 minute video to hear it, but President Barack Obama, in a Dec. 21 visit to the Washington D.C. Boys and Girls Club, does a little evangelizing about the “reason we celebrate Christmas” after reading the Polar Express to the kids and listening to a litany of multimedia acronyms on their wish lists. He does a good job, and when one child talks about giving gifts instead of just receiving them, Obama delivers a little Three Wise Men theology. Anyone who still clings to the “he’s a Muslim in hiding” conspiracy theory would do well to check it out.

I love Christmas, and it isn’t because of the presents. It’s because of the story. (GodBlogging warning: If you’re not into Christmas, are a non-believer, or just Grinch, stop reading here.) Christmas is the theology of God loving us, nothing else. We didn’t (we don’t) have to do anything except accept that love and grace and love back. It is very hard to describe. I mean, I could tell you the story, connecting the verses in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, bringing the annunciation of Gabriel and the tax-registration in the City of David and the shepherds and the wise men and Joseph’s dream and the manger birth and the Wise Men’s visit as done in popular media, but I cannot express what happens deep within me when hearing the Biblical recitation or when setting up my family’s Nativity scene.

So, I offer you this article about having a Merry Christmas and, for clergy who might be wondering how they can make their Christmas eve and Christmas day sermons great, you could do far worse that take a page from this guy’s message.

In other news, the Vatican’s official paper gave props to The Simpsons on Tuesday, (more…)